The Guest House (10 page)

Harrisport, Massachusetts

July 1966

T
ucker should have suspected something was wrong when Jim didn’t appear at breakfast. In their four years at Duke, he’d never known his roommate to miss out on a plate of biscuits and white gravy.

“I’m calling it Lobster’s Revenge,” Jim announced from his bed when Tucker stepped into the guest room and found his best friend’s face as gray as a clam flat. “The little bastards curse your intestines for eatin’ ’em.”

“Oh, Jimbo . . .” Tucker shook his head. “What a lousy break.”

“Don’t pretend you’re not just a little bit thrilled. You’ll have her all to yourself now.”

Tucker frowned. “I’m not going,” he said. “I can’t leave you here alone.”

“What did you plan to do? Sit by my bed all day like a nurse? No offense, but I don’t want a sponge bath from you.”

“None taken,” said Tucker with a chuckle. “Lucky for you, Miss Dorrie makes a mean get-well soup.”

Jim groaned. “I’ll bet.”

Tucker gave his friend’s shoulder a gentle pat as he rose. “I’ll have her fix you something.”

“Just make sure it didn’t come up in a net or a trap,” Jim said. “They’re all in on this. It’s a seafood conspiracy; mark my words.” Jim paused, his teasing smile wilting. “You tell Edie about Florence yet?” he asked gently.

The question sobered Tucker too. He shrugged lamely.

“I don’t blame you one bit, you know,” said Jim. “She’s a real firecracker.”

Who could set my whole world aflame
, thought Tucker.

“It’s just a ride up the coast, Jimbo.”

“Sure it is.” Jim nodded, but Tucker could see his best friend knew the excuse was as weak as his stomach.

•   •   •

T
hey’d agreed to meet by the town clock at eleven. Tucker had offered to pick Edie up at her house, but she had declined, suggesting a neutral location instead, a place neither in his world nor hers, as if the point of origin for their trip might somehow lessen any sense of wrongdoing. While she waited, Edie did her best to turn away from the busy foot traffic that lined the sidewalk on the other side of the street, just in case any familiar faces might catch a glimpse of Adam Worthington’s daughter, though she suspected few would recognize her out of her usual dungarees and dressed now in a sleeveless floral shift and woven flats. She worried she had made a mistake wearing something so fancy; she didn’t want Tucker Moss to think she was taking his invitation too seriously. She worried she’d come too early; she worried she’d come too late. With every minute that passed, a new concern arrived with it.

Then, as soon as she saw the flash of red come around the corner, her heart soared with relief. But there was only Tucker—where was Jim?

“Food poisoning,” Tucker explained as he came around to open the door for her. “He wanted me to tell you he’s sorry he couldn’t come.”

“How awful for him,” said Edie. “You didn’t have to leave him on my account.”

“I tried to stay. He practically kicked me out.”

Edie nodded, thinking what she suspected Tucker had already considered: Without Jim there, their plans took on an undeniable significance, an unspoken weight. Just the two of them made this a date, didn’t it?

If the equation concerned Tucker, he didn’t show it. Edie let his smile settle the nervous flutters in her own stomach as he pulled the car away from the sidewalk. She glimpsed a basket on the floor of the backseat. Tucker smiled. “Since it was such a nice day, I had Miss Dorrie pack us a picnic. I hope you’re hungry.”

She was—starving.

“P-town’s a half hour away. We could find somewhere closer,” she suggested.

“Sure. Where did you have in mind?”

“You still want to see one of my favorite places?”

He smiled. “More than anything.”

She smiled too. “Then take a right at the light.”

Edie leaned back into the smooth leather seat and felt her whole body relax as the convertible sent them speeding down the road.

•   •   •

T
he Grange Hall had been abandoned for only seven years, but with the harsh seaside climate, it looked more like seventy. Double doors balanced its unadorned facade like attentive eyes.

A pair of No Trespassing signs hung, crooked, off a nearby tree.

“What is this place?” Tucker asked, pulling them gently into a shady spot beneath a massive oak.

“It’s the old Grange Hall,” Edie explained. “They used to have meetings and dances here.”

“What’s with the two doors?”

“One for men, one for women.”

Tucker laughed. “You’re kiddin’.”

“Nope,” said Edie. “It’s a wreck now. No one uses it. I think the town hopes every winter it’ll just collapse in on itself and they won’t have to figure out what to do with it.”

Tucker squinted to read the faded stenciled letters that curled above the peeling double doors, a rusted but formidable-looking padlock gripping each one shut. “Seems a shame,” he said.

“It is,” said Edie. “I keep asking my dad to fix it up, but he could never afford to do it.”

“Someone should,” said Tucker firmly. They made a trail through the tall weedy grass. “You come here a lot?”

“More often than the folks who put up those No Trespassing signs would like,” she admitted as they rounded the building. They climbed a pair of granite blocks to the back door, and Tucker watched in amazement as she turned the knob and, with a small shudder, the door gave way.

“Why bother with that big ol’ lock in the front if they keep the back open?” he asked.

“You’d be surprised how few people come around and look.”

Tucker followed her inside, the hot, musty smell of mildewed wood choking. He pressed his knuckles under his nose and winced. “You really like this place?”

“I love it,” she announced, clearly unoffended by the stench. “I love to come in here and imagine how I’d fix it up. How I’d make it a house.” Tucker watched, entranced, as she flitted around the open space, gesturing wildly as she mapped out the floor plan of her fantasy. “I’d put a kitchen here and a little breakfast booth right here; then I’d put up maybe a half wall over here for a—” She stopped, catching his admiring gaze. “What?” she asked.

He shrugged. “You’re not like anyone I know, that’s what. You’re amazing.”

“And you’re full of it,” she said, resuming her planning while Tucker continued to take her in. For fifteen more minutes, he followed her around the space, lost in her imagined home, so transported he no longer minded the sour smell. All he wanted to do was be near her, to be part of her waking dream.

•   •   •

W
hile Tucker went back to the car for the picnic basket, Edie found them a soft patch of grass and they unpacked everything on a taupe spread, one corner of which bore an embroidered M. “Hope you like egg salad,” said Tucker, handing Edie a wrapped sandwich.

She peeled back the waxed paper eagerly, but a pang of guilt came with her first bite, as she thought of her mother’s good friend working to make the sandwich for her, knowing her mother would have a fit if she found out. Edie took a small dose of comfort thinking that Doreen didn’t know the recipient of her hard work. Surely Tucker hadn’t used her name in his request.

She looked up and found him smiling at her expectantly.

“How is it?” he asked.

“Delicious.”

“And there’s plenty more too,” he said, pointing to the basket. “Brownies and fruit salad.”

The guilt returned; Edie swallowed.

“So besides hammering nails out of boards and getting run off the road by bad drivers,” Tucker began, “what else do you like to do for fun, Edie Worthington?”

She smiled. “I just showed you.”

“Ah. So you break into abandoned buildings regularly, do you?”

“Every chance I can,” she said. “What about you?”

“Oh, I try not to break into too many if I can help it.” She tilted her head knowingly; he grinned. “Nah. I pretty much follow Jim around. He’s sure to find fun.”

“And you’re not?”

Tucker shook his head. “It eludes me most of the time, I’m afraid.”

“I thought college was supposed to be fun,” said Edie.

“Me too.”

“So what did you study?” she asked.

“Law.”

“Good for you. Now what?”

“Now . . .” Tucker paused to take in a deep breath, as if he needed fortification to answer. “Now I pray I pass the bar and join my father’s law firm. It’s agony.”

“Oh, yeah, I’ll bet,” Edie teased. “It must be horrible to know you don’t have to worry about getting some big job right out of college.”

“As a matter of fact, it is.” Tucker frowned up at the Grange; Edie watched him, seeing now that his trepidation was genuine.

He turned to her. “Can you keep a secret?”

She nodded.

“I’d sooner sell Cokes out of my trunk than be a lawyer at my father’s firm,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper. “At
any
firm.”

“Then why did you go to law school?”

“I didn’t have a choice. I mean, I guess I did, but . . .” Tucker sighed. “I’m his son, his only child. If I don’t join the firm and keep the Moss name on that letterhead, who will?”

“But why is that your responsibility?”

“Lately I’ve been thinking of making a break for it,” he said. “Waiting until everyone’s there—my father, the partners, everyone—and just announcing that I’m not doing it. That if anyone wants to find me, I’ll be on Fiji, selling coconuts on the beach.” He looked at Edie and found her gaze skeptical. “You don’t think I can do it, huh?”

She smiled, sighed. “I only wish I had your problem,” she said. “My father wants to see Hank take the reins of the business. He doesn’t think I could handle it.”

“Hank or your dad?”

She gave Tucker a woeful look. “Both.”

“Well, then.” Tucker drew up his knees and hooked his arms around them. “Looks like we’re both going to have to fight to get what we want, doesn’t it?”

“Damn straight,” Edie said firmly. “I plan to have a crew of my own one day. All women. All of us good enough to make the men envious. So if my dad and Hank think I’m going to sit back and needlepoint pillow covers, they’re out of their goddamn minds.”

Tucker chuckled.

“What’s so funny?”

“You,” he said. “Do you always cuss this much?”

“Cuss?”

“You know, swear.”

“I know what it means,” said Edie, reaching across him for the fruit salad and plucking a fat strawberry off the top. “What’s the big deal? Everybody swears.”

“I don’t,” he said.

“Why not?”

“It’s disrespectful.”

“To who?”

“To God, for starters. Everyone knows that.”

She rolled her eyes and bit into the berry.

“Heck, I don’t know why I’m bothering explaining it to you,” Tucker said, grinning as he watched a thread of juice cling to her bottom lip. “Everyone knows y’all are a bunch of heathens up here.”

“We are not,” Edie defended. “We have religion.”

He snickered. “Oh, right.
Baseball
. And maybe if you start prayin’,” he teased, “your beloved Sox will actually win the series in your lifetime.”

“Very funny.” Edie considered him a long moment. “You’re not what I expected.”

Tucker leaned back on his elbows. “What did you expect?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“No, really, I do.”

“A jerk,” she said plainly.

“Yeah, well.” He looked up, considering the roof of leafy branches above them. “My dad always says I’m not living up to my potential. Might could be that’s what he means.”

Edie noticed a spot of egg salad on his chin. She reached out and gently brushed it off. His face radiated appreciation, or maybe it was pleasure.

“I happen to like you this way,” she said. “I bet most people do.”

Did she mean most girls? Tucker wanted to ask but he was too busy savoring her first statement:
I happen to like you this way
. And how good her fingers had felt on his skin.

“I like you this way too,” he said.

A faint blush bloomed on her cheeks. “Except when I’m
cussin’
, right?”

He grinned. “Nope,” he admitted quietly. “Even then I like you.”

The air between them grew soft with suggestion.

Did you tell Edie about Florence?

Tucker looked down, remorse flooding him. Maybe anger too, though he wasn’t quite sure at whom it was directed. When he glanced back at Edie, she was watching him expectantly. It seemed she wasn’t sure what to say either. And yet, a flood of questions and wants waited at the back of his throat. If he let them loose, he and Edie might have been there for weeks.

They shared a brownie in the quiet, taking turns picking from the frosted block of cakey chocolate.

“My dad wants me and Jim to go with him to Boston next week for a few days,” Tucker said. “But my mom’s throwing one of her big parties when we get back. I’d love it if you’d come.”

Edie gave Tucker a wary look. He knew what she was thinking; he’d thought the same too. Riding around in his convertible was one thing; stepping inside the cottage together in plain view was quite another.

Somehow he didn’t care, and he didn’t want her caring either.

He smiled, two perfect dimples creasing his jaw. “Say you’ll think about it.”

E
die Wright steered the pickup past the old gatehouse shortly after three, her fingers clenched over the wheel, and she forced herself to loosen them. Was this a good idea? She didn’t know. When Owen had balked at her acceptance of the job, she’d been so certain he was wrong to be concerned, to be angry. But as soon as she’d slid into her truck, notebook and smart phone beside her, doubt had crept in.

Now, as she pulled down into the driveway and saw the cottage appear through the trees, another cold panic climbed her limbs. What if she was wrong? What if she couldn’t be back here after all?

She scolded herself. Enough. This was about her employees, her crew. She needed this job badly—and sure, it wasn’t ideal that it would be here, but so be it.

She parked the truck beside the carriage house, grateful that Lexi was off-site today, not wanting to complicate her already frazzled state trying to hide her mood from her daughter. She climbed out of the cab, drew in a fortifying breath of soft evening air, and marched toward the house.

•   •   •

I
t was not James Masterson but Cooper Moss who met her at the door, recently showered and smelling of warm soap, and looking so much like Tucker that Edie’s head nearly snapped back on her shoulders. It had never occurred to her that he might be the spitting image of his father. Never once. The same light brown eyes, the same narrow face.

“You must be Mrs. Wright.” Cooper pressed the screen open with one hand and extended the other to Edie. She took it carefully, hesitant to step inside.

“I’m here to look at the guest house,” she said, unable to resist a glance past Cooper into the kitchen, the space so unfamiliar to her now, what little of it she could see in the distance.

“Yes, ma’am. Jim told me you’d be coming.” He stepped back to encourage her inside. “Can I offer you something to drink? Sweet tea? Coffee? A beer?”

“No,” she said, politely but firmly. “I’d really just like to see the building.”

Cooper smiled, the expression causing her another burst of startling recognition. Those were Tucker’s dimples.

“Yes, ma’am,” Cooper said, already on the move. “Just let me get my shoes.”

•   •   •

W
here
was
Jim then? Edie glanced around the property as she followed Cooper down the lawn. Hadn’t he been the one to suggest the time?

“I should warn you,” Cooper said, giving the guest house door a shove to loosen it. “It’s been badly damaged.”

Edie winced as she stepped inside. The thick smell of mold clung to the back of her throat, strong enough to cause her eyes to water. There were gashes in the roof, revealing slivers of blue sky. Why had no one laid down a damn tarp? Ribbons of water stains curled down the walls. A startling swath of the once-polished wood floor was warped and dull, too swollen to maintain its snug joints—joints Hank had toiled over.

“I understand you and Alexandra’s father helped build this,” said Cooper. “I feel like I should apologize for the way it’s fallen apart.”

“Don’t. With water, it doesn’t take much to lose a lot of ground,” said Edie, training her smart phone on several points in the room and snapping pictures for reference. She’d quote him high, she decided. Not out of malice, just survival. This could be the only job her crew would see all summer. And while that wasn’t Cooper Moss’s fault, Edie didn’t see the harm in it.

“I’ll need to see how bad it is up there,” she said, pointing to the roof. “Do you have a ladder?”

Cooper nodded. “There’s one in the garage. I’ll be right back.”

When he’d gone, Edie took a moment to scan the space in its entirety, the smell not so terrible now. All the years between its erection and this day, all the furnishings that had filled it in the interim, not to mention the laughter, the sleep, and, certainly, the lovemaking. And here she was, seeing it in its infancy of sorts again. The two of them equally aged, equally needing repairs, reunited after so long. An unexpected flush of nostalgia came over her, but on its heels came a rush of doubt as she recalled Owen’s warning that she’d be biting off more than she and her crew could chew with this job. Pride reared up, swallowing everything else; she’d had a hand in building this place, hadn’t she? Surely she could oversee its repair.

Yes, this was right, she decided firmly. She was meant to be here, to return this little house to what it had once been. Tears rose, clogging her throat. Hank would want that.

She wiped impatiently at her eyes, her gaze landing on the doorway that led to the cottage’s small bedroom. She could still picture the framing underneath, the jagged words she’d found carved into the header that damp July dawn. How her heart had seized up with trepidation to see them. Surely time had softened those marks. She suspected they’d be indistinguishable now. Hoped, anyway.

She stepped back out into the sunlight to wait for Cooper, the brightness startling at first after the dankness of the guest house. She blinked to readjust her eyes.

“All you’re missin’ is the hat!”

Edie squinted into the glare to find Jim Masterson strolling down the lawn toward her, hands in his pockets, curly white hair caught in the breeze, tumbling like clouds. She smiled.

“And the braid, of course,” he added, reaching her.

“I think I might still have the hat somewhere,” she said. “But you’re out of luck with the braid.”

“So I am.” He smiled. “Sorry to be late. I was upstairs on the phone with the firm. Looks like I’ve got to go to Boston and put out a few fires tomorrow. Cooper took care of you, I see.”

“He did. He’s getting me a ladder so I can find out just how grim it is up there.”

“I did warn you, young lady.”

She sighed. “Yes, you did.”

“Funny thing, isn’t it?” Jim tilted his head, considering the guest house. “It seems this place has sucked us all back to it.”

Now you’re both back down there
.

Edie raised her chin defiantly, determined to shove aside Owen’s concern.

Jim swept his gaze to her. “I take it this means you’ve decided to accept the job?”

“I wasn’t aware I was the one who needed convincing.” She gave him a wary look; wasn’t he at all curious why she might have an available crew when none of the other Cape companies did?

“There are plenty of other crews around here if you’re willing to wait till fall, James.”

“Maybe. But none led by the woman who built the place.”

“
Helped
build it,” she clarified. “You were here. You know I spent most of that summer moving supplies and picking up lunch for those jackasses.”

“There was no shortage of those then, was there?” He smiled sheepishly. “Present company wholeheartedly included.”

“That was another lifetime ago,” she said, turning back to the cottage.

“Several, possibly. Come have dinner with me and we’ll do the math on a cocktail napkin. My treat.”

“James. I don’t think it’s a good idea. . . .”

“Why not?” he demanded gently. “Two old friends breaking bread. What’s the harm in it?”

None. Plenty. She squinted up at him, considering her answer.

“Before you say no,” Jim continued, “let me assure you I won’t have to remove any dentures, and I don’t make unfortunate noises when I eat. . . .”

Edie laughed in spite of her determination to decline.

Jim smiled. “It’s just that Cooper has been such a sport about me showing up here unannounced. I thought the poor boy might appreciate having the kitchen to himself tonight. And frankly, I’ve been craving a basket of fried clams ever since I got here. I remember the ones I got all those years ago, and I swear, not a day has gone by I haven’t thought of ’em.”

Edie gave him a dubious look. Oh, he was laying it on thick, all right. A flicker of possibility teased her thoughts. She’d been shameless herself in securing this opportunity; why not seal it up with a bow by accepting his invitation?

She folded her arms and drew in a resigned breath. “All right.”

“Wonderful,” said Jim, gleefully rubbing his hands together. “But you’d better pick the restaurant. I don’t know my way around here.”

“Flannigan’s is good. Nothing fancy. It’s just outside of the village. It shouldn’t be too busy if we get there by six.”

“And they have fried clams?”

“Some of the best on the Cape.”

“Flannigan’s it is,” he said with a decisive nod. “I’ll call us in a reservation.”

“Oh, shit, you don’t need to do that. Bob knows me.”

“Then I’ll be dining with a celebrity.”

“Not quite. His wife, Connie, and I have been friends forever. Trust me; they’ll make room.”