He sounded sulky now, and sulky she could deal with. “See, this is the problem with having so many character flaws. I assume everybody else does, too.”
That chipped a bit of ice from his offended British dignity. “You don’t have that many character flaws. But you are an idiot.” He pronounced it like an American so she’d get the point.
“Does this mean you’ll show me your attic?”
“There’s nothing up there. Winnie cleaned everything out before I moved in. She might have put some of it in storage. I’m not certain.”
“Maybe you don’t know where to look. For example . . . there’s a hidden cupboard.” She could see that he wasn’t entirely mollified, but she also detected the first hint of curiosity. She pushed her bottom lip forward, going for a pouty, adorable look. “I really am sorry I offended your honor.”
He saw right through her, but he didn’t call her on it. She held her breath.
“All right,” he said begrudgingly. “Let me get cleaned up, and we’ll have a go at it. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
She wanted to tell him not to get cleaned up, that his grungy self was perfectly fine with her—more than fine—but she held her tongue.
Half an hour later, the sweaty stonemason had traded in his jeans for Dolce & Gabbana. He led her down the hallway to the upstairs study. “The door to the attic had to be moved for the renovation. But I didn’t want to lose wall space, so the architect got creative.” He headed for the built-in bookcases.
She’d already noticed that the center unit stuck out farther than its mates, but she’d assumed it had been built that way to accommodate ductwork. As Colin pushed on the edge of a shelf, however, the whole thing came forward a few inches, then slid to the side. Behind it, a narrow flight of stairs led to the attic.
“I’d never have found this.”
“Prepare to be disappointed.”
She followed him up the new set of stairs, then came to a stop at the top.
The attic was empty. The last time she’d been up here, her family’s dusty relics had filled the place, but now Colin’s footsteps echoed off the bare wooden floor and bounced against the faded green beadboard walls. The odds and ends of three generations of Careys had been wiped out. The Christmas boxes were gone, along with her grandmother’s steamer trunk and her grandfather’s golf clubs. Diddie’s ugly wedding china and the zippered plastic bags holding her old evening gowns had been swept away. A nail still protruded from the old paneling, but Griffin’s fraternity paddle no longer hung from it, and the basket holding Sugar Beth’s precious Care Bears collection was nowhere in sight. Everything erased. Winnie Davis had thrown away all the pieces of Sugar Beth’s history.
Dust motes swam in the shafts of sunlight coming through the small windows, and the floorboards creaked as Colin wandered toward the middle of the attic, the place where a Rubbermaid bin had once overflowed with her old dance recital costumes. “Nothing here.”
He had his back to her, which made it imperative to find her voice. “Yes, I see.” As he turned, she somehow managed to pull herself together. “The old house has a few secrets, though.”
The attic was filled with nooks and crannies from chimneys and dormers. She headed for a corner just to the left of the main chimney where she and Leeann had built tents from two broken chairs and an old stadium blanket.
Diddie had shown her how to open the cupboard long ago, but also made sure Sugar Beth wasn’t tempted to do it herself. “See, precious. Nothing’s in there except great big bugs and hairy spiders.”
Sugar Beth knelt in front of a two-foot-wide section of the old bead-board paneling and felt along the base. “My grandfather lived in terror of a return to Prohibition. He said that knowing this was here let him sleep at night.” She felt for the concealed latch and released it. “There’s another latch above the ledge at the top.”
The expensive fabric of Colin’s trousers brushed her shoulder as he moved closer. “I have it.”
The paneling had warped over the years, and she pushed hard on the sides to loosen it. Colin stepped in front of her and lifted it away.
The cupboard was too small to hold one of Ash’s larger, mounted canvases—she’d known that all along—but he might have left Tallulah a smaller work. Or a larger one could have been rolled up. She’d dreamed of the moment for weeks, but now that it had come, she was afraid to look. “You do it.”
He peered inside. “It seems to be empty, but it’s hard to see.” He turned his shoulders and crouched so he could reach along the floor. “There’s something here.”
Her mouth went dry, and her palms felt clammy.
He withdrew a dusty old liquor bottle. “My God, this is fifty-year-old Macallan scotch.”
Her spirits crashed. “It’s yours. See what else is there.”
“Be careful with that,” he exclaimed as she jerked the bottle away from him and set it on the floor with a hard thud. He reached into the cupboard again. “This definitely isn’t scotch.”
She gave a soft cry as he pulled out a fat tube about three feet long wrapped in ancient brown paper tied with string.
He straightened. “This doesn’t feel like—”
“Oh, God . . .” She pulled it from his hands and rushed toward one of the windows.
“Sugar Beth, it doesn’t seem heavy enough.”
“I knew it was here! I knew it.”
The string broke easily, and the brittle craft paper fell apart in her fingers as she peeled it away. But underneath, she found only a fat roll of paper. Not canvas at all. Paper.
She slumped against the window frame.
“Let me look,” he said softly.
“It’s not the painting.”
He squeezed her shoulder, then opened the roll. When he finally spoke, his voice held even more awe than he’d shown toward the scotch. “These are the original blueprints for the window factory. They were drawn in the 1920s. This is quite a find.”
To him, maybe. She hurried back to the cupboard, crouched down, and reached inside. It had to be here. There was no place else to look. She felt along the floorboards and into the corners.
Nothing but cobwebs.
She sank back on her heels. Paper rustled as he set the blueprints aside. He knelt next to her, bringing with him the smell of cologne and sympathy. He pushed a lock of hair behind her ear, ran his thumb along her cheekbone. “Sugar Beth, you don’t need the painting. You’re perfectly capable of supporting yourself. Maybe not in the first lap of luxury, but—”
“I have to find it.”
He sighed. “All right, then. We’ll search the carriage house and depot together. Maybe I’ll see something you overlooked.”
“Maybe.” She wanted to lean against him so badly that she pushed herself away. “I’d better get back to work.”
“I’m giving you the rest of the day off.”
That unbearable sympathy again. She rose to her feet. “I have too much to do. And I don’t need coddling.”
He’d only been trying to be kind, and she’d snapped at him, but she couldn’t manage another apology, and as she made her way to the stairs, she felt as blue as a person could get.
He stayed in his office the rest of the afternoon. Whenever she passed the door, she heard the muffled clatter of the keyboard. As evening approached, she put one of the mystery casseroles from the freezer into the oven, set the timer, and left him a note saying she’d see him in the morning. She felt too fragile to risk having him showing up at the carriage house later, so she added a P.S. I have cramps, and I intend to do some serious self-medicating. Do not disturb!
By the time she left Frenchman’s Bride, she still hadn’t told him she was quitting to take a job with Jewel, hadn’t thanked him for his kindness in the attic, hadn’t said anything to him she should have.
It had begun to drizzle again, and Gordon shot ahead. She let him in the house but didn’t enter herself. Instead, she made her way to the studio. As she opened the lock and stepped inside, she tried to convince herself that what had happened today hadn’t marked the end of her search. Colin had said he’d help. Maybe fresh eyes would see something her own had missed.