"Yes." "If I were you, I'd burn the diary." She smiled. "Yes, you would." He rose, taking his scotch. At the door, he turned and faced her again. "You believe it was Ike in the carriage house cellar, don't you?" "I know it was."
Twenty-Three
Tess had headed north prepared to stay the night. The carriage house was out, and she'd assumed An-drew's guest room was out, too, or at least not a good idea. One of Beacon-by-the-Sea's inns had seemed more sensible, but here she was, unpacking in the guest room, with a milk-glass vase of violets and dandelions on her bedside stand. Dolly had picked them.
"Harl says dandelions are weeds," she said at Tess's side. "I think they're pretty."
Tess laughed. "So do I."
"Will you read to me?"
"Sure, why don't you go pick out a book?"
"Two books," she said, and ran out of the room.
Tess sank onto the bed. She was wrung-out. Mopping floors had helped anchor her mind and keep her thoughts from spinning out of control. Dinner with Andrew, Harl and Dolly hadn't helped at all. They were a family, and no matter how comfortable she felt with them, she was the new neighbor.
Andrew slouched in her doorway, the shadows darkening his eyes and bringing out the angles in his face. "What are you thinking about?"
"That you, Dolly and Harl make a nice family." But she quickly shifted the subject. "Did anyone actually like Ike?"
"Did you?"
"In a way. I know he was self-absorbed, arrogant and totally narcissistic, but we got along. Then again, he was a client, not a brother, a friend or a neighbor. I didn't have to live with him." She winced, sighing. "I'm talking about him in the past tense. I can't help it."
"Ike's a strange case. His relationship with peo-ple-even his sister-was always on his terms, never theirs. He only was interested in helping Joanna because it made him feel good. What she wanted was irrelevant."
"He steamrolls people," Tess said. "One minute, I'm tallying up what he owes me, next minute I have the deed to a nineteenth-century carriage house he was positive I wanted."
"Tess!" Dolly shoved herself between her father and the door frame. "I'm ready. I picked out two books."
Andrew placed the palm of his hand on her head and squeezed playfully. "Tess is tired. She can read you two short books, but that's it."
Tess brushed against him on her way out with Dolly. Even the brief contact gave her a jolt of awareness. He seemed to know it, feel it himself. But Dolly grabbed her by the hand and dragged her into her room.
Before they could settle in and read, Tess had to help her dress up one of the stuffed animals and have pretend tea.
"Do you think Snowflake or Snowball is a better name for the white kitten?" Dolly asked, carefully sipping thin air from her china tea set. "She's not all white. She's got some gray parts."
"Snowflake," Tess said decisively. "Snowball would be better for a furrier cat."
Dolly frowned in thought, then nodded. "That's what I was thinking."
Tess smiled. Dolly had been thinking no such thing, but she was trying to seem very grown-up, as Tess had when Davey Ahearn would come over and she'd show him how she'd stopped the kitchen-sink faucet from dripping. She wondered what might have been different if she'd had a woman in her life. Davey's two wives had never taken much interest in her, and her father kept any romantic interests he'd had after her mother's death completely private.
Mercifully, Dolly had picked out two Madeleine books for Tess to read. They were very short, and their intrepid heroine was a good reminder for her, too. She could feel Dolly's warm, sturdy little body snuggled in next to her, as if Tess had been reading books to her forever.
She couldn't resist. She reached down and picked up The Hobbit off the floor, opened it to the Winnie-the-Pooh bookmark and read softly, until Dolly fell asleep on her arm. Tess extricated herself and tiptoed out of the room.
Andrew was standing in the hall, ghostlike. He caught her by the hand and pulled her into the guest room, quietly kicking the door shut. He captured her against it, raised one arm to run his fingertips over her mouth. His lips followed, brushing lightly. "I thought you'd never finish reading."
"The Hobbit does go on."
"Tess." He still had one hand flat against the door, his forearm straightened at shoulder level. With his free hand, he snaked his fingers into her hair. "Why do I want you so much?"
She tried to smile. "Deprivation."
"Is that a knock on me or you?"
"Neither. It was a joke."
But she was having difficulty talking, and he pressed in closer, letting his fingers trail down her neck, over the curve of her shoulder, down her arm. Their mouths met again, hungrily this time, neither holding back. Tess felt desire, deep and full, well inside her until she thought she'd burst just from their kisses.
"I've thought about you," she whispered, barely able to get the words out, "all day."
His fingertips skimmed across her breasts, and she sank a bit on the door. He didn't relent. They kissed again, his control ragged. He spoke near her mouth, his eyes searching hers. "What about at night?"
"All night, too. When I wasn't thinking about-"
"Hell."
She knew she'd broken the spell. Perhaps she'd done it deliberately, if not consciously. But he didn't draw back. Instead he put his free hand against the door, trapping her between both his arms. There was no threat. If there had been, she knew what to do. Davey had taught her. But there was simply determination, strength and a tenderness that made her heart stop.
"When I make love to you, there won't be any talk of goddamn skeletons in the cellar." His voice was low and intense, a mix of intelligence, discipline and experience. He was reticent by nature, she realized, only because he chose his words well and expected people to listen. His eyes, darkened now to a midnight blue, held her in place as surely as his arms. "And my six-year-old daughter won't be down the hall."
"But Dolly lives here-"
"She has aunts, uncles, grandparents and Harl. But she's not the problem. She'll never be a problem."
"Not for me," Tess said quietly. She leaned against one of his outstretched, muscular arms. "It's Ike."
"It's not just Ike."
"It's the skeleton in general, too, whatever, whoever it is or was."
"Tess."
She frowned at him, with his eyes narrowed, his jaw set in that serious, uncompromising way that reminded her of Jedidiah Thorne. They were a rough lot, the Thornes, and had made their mark on the unpredictable North Atlantic over the centuries. Andrew was one of them. She had to remember that, father of a six-year-old though he was. "You have something else in mind?"
"It's Davey Ahearn, too," he said. "And Jim Haviland."
She scowled. "That's ridiculous."
"Is it?"
She saw he was serious. She had to laugh. "Andrew, Davey and my father are what they are. Get used to it. I have."
"You're sure?"
"Positive. They're a part of my life, and as much as I bitch and moan at times, I wouldn't have it any other way. But the men in my life might, because of crazy ideas-"
"Not so crazy," Andrew muttered.
"Fast-forward yourself thirty years. What kind of relationship do you think you'll have with Dolly?"
He didn't hesitate. "Whatever kind of relationship I want."
"Exactly. I rest my case." She ducked under his arm and went over and plopped down on the bed, noticing that Dolly's dandelions had already wilted. The violets were still in good shape. She smiled, and looked up at Andrew. He was aroused, clearly frustrated. "But point well taken about skeletons and Ike. And Dolly."
"Forget it. We can lock the damn door-"
But she shook her head, knowing what he wanted and thought was right. Knowing what she wanted. She licked her lips, deliberately sensual. "No, our first time…I don't want to hold back."