“It’s just that your brother has arms like a spider monkey.”
“Liam has feet like a monkey, too,” I said. “He can pick up things with his toes.” There was only a month between my brother—who was technically my stepbrother—and me. We had been alternately torturing each other and covering for each other from the day his father married my mother. And Liam and Nick had been fast friends from the moment they met when they were seven years old.
“Well, as far as I know, he was using his abnormally long arms when he put the cereal at the back of the very top cupboard in my kitchen—which isn’t where it goes, by the way.”
“And you did that thing he does when things are out of reach of his monkey arms. You kept jumping until you got a couple of fingers on the edge of the box.”
“And it kind of fell on my head,” Nick finished, looking a little shamefaced.
I tipped my head back to look up at him. “Why can’t either one of you ever just get something to stand on?”
“We’re guys,” he said with a grin. “We like a challenge.”
“I think you just like making a mess.” I reached up to straighten his collar.
He caught my hand and gave it a squeeze. “Seriously, Sarah, just please be careful,” he said. “You don’t know that much about Mac’s past. You didn’t know he had a wife, did you?”
I pulled my hand away. “My conversations with Mac are private. And you can’t think Mac had anything to do with what happened to Erin Fellowes. C’mon, Nick, you know him.”
“All I’m saying is—” He stopped abruptly and shook his head. “No. I’m not doing this.”
“Doing what?” I countered.
“Apologizing for caring about you.”
“How about apologizing for jumping to conclusions about Mac without any basis for them? How many times has Mac been on your side?”
“I’m not jumping to any conclusions about Mac, Sarah, so I don’t need to apologize. I will say that it does feel that I keep saying the same thing to you because it doesn’t seem to get through. I care about you. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
I struggled to keep my frustration in check and my voice down. “Why can’t you just have faith in people and support them without treating them like they’re stupid?”
He pressed his lips together for a moment before he answered, and when he did speak his voice was tight. “I don’t think you’re stupid and I have never treated you that way. Why do you have a different standard of behavior when it comes to me?”
“I don’t,” I snapped, anger sharpening my voice.
His dark eyes narrowed. “Really? Why is it, then, that when my mother or Rose worries about you or Liam, it’s because they care, but when I do it’s because I’m pigheaded and condescending?”
Before I could answer, a stern voice said, “Stop it!”
Nick and I both turned toward the door. Rose was standing there all five-foot-maybe in sensible shoes. She looked at Nick. “It would be best for now if you left.”
He started to object but she held up one hand. “Now is not the time, Nicolas.” She made her way over to him, a tiny woman with short, white hair, warm gray eyes and a stubborn streak that made a mule look easygoing. She reached up and poked his shoulder with one finger. “Get,” she said.
Nick shot a quick look in my direction, mouthed the word “later” and left.
Rose smiled at me. “I know it’s not my morning to work, dear,” she said. “But I have some things to take care of in the office so I’m going to ride in with you if that’s all right.” She reached over and gave Elvis a scratch on the top of his head. “I just need to get my bag and change my shoes and I’m ready.” She started for the door. “Don’t forget to turn off the coffeepot,” she added over her shoulder.
I put my dishes in the dishwasher, turned off the coffeepot and went to brush my teeth. When I came out with my briefcase Elvis was waiting by the front door. Rose came out of her apartment as I was locking my front door.
We walked out to the car. It was another beautiful late August day. Winters in Maine could be challenging but the summer weather more than made up for the dark, snowy January days.
North Harbor sits on the midcoast of Maine, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the south up to the Swift Hills in the north. “Where the hills touch the sea” is the way the town’s been described for the past 250 years. It’s full of beautiful, old buildings, acclaimed restaurants and intriguing little shops. North Harbor was settled by Alexander Swift back in the late 1760s. It has a year-round population of about thirteen thousand but that number can more than triple in the summer with tourists and summer residents.
I opened the passenger door and Elvis jumped up on the seat. Rose got in beside him.
“Are we picking up Mr. P.?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Thank you, dear, but no. Alfred has to take his glasses to be adjusted. One of the arms is a bit too high. It makes him look a little cockeyed.”
I backed out onto the street. I was still waiting for Rose to ask why Nick and I had been arguing. “You missed a very thought-provoking discussion after the movie last night,” she said.
Okay, so apparently we weren’t going to talk about Nick.
“Ann asked if anyone thought Mr. Hitchcock was sexist. Alfred said yes.”
I shot a quick glance in her direction. “And you didn’t?”
She folded her hands primly in her lap. “I said if anything, he had mother issues. Look how he portrayed them in his movies. That led to a discussion with a young man with green hair about the causes of an Oedipus complex and what kind of a relationship Hitchcock had with his own mother. It was fascinating.”
“Sounds like it,” I said. Elvis murped his agreement.
“How do you feel about a man bun?” Rose asked.
Talking to Rose often led to things veering off into the conversational bushes. “Is Mr. P. thinking about a new hairstyle?” I asked.
She started to laugh. “Oh my word, I just got a mental picture of that.” She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth for a moment, shoulders shaking. “Please don’t tell Alfred I laughed.”
“Your secret’s safe with me,” I said with a smile.
“The young man with the green hair had a man bun. I’m still trying to decide how I feel about them.”
Out of the corner of my eye I could see she was frowning. “I’ve never really thought much about them,” I said. Or talked about them, for that matter, although it was better than arguing with Nick. “I guess I don’t really have an opinion.”
I stopped at the corner, put on my blinker and turned left. Elvis scanned the road the way he always did.
“Well, on the one hand they’re very tidy,” Rose said.
I nodded. “That’s true.”
“But on the other hand they’re not exactly sexy. Speaking just for myself, they don’t make me think, Hmmm, I’d like to get some of that.”
I tried to stop the laugh that bubbled up and failed, so I turned it into a cough instead.
“Are you all right, dear?” Rose said.
“Just something in the back of my throat,” I managed to choke out.
She reached over and patted my arm. “I think the ragweed is early this year. We should get you a neti pot.”
I had no idea what a neti pot was but I had a feeling I was probably going to find out.
When we got to Second Chance I parked and turned to get my briefcase from the backseat. Rose had already gotten out and was reaching for Elvis. “He can walk, Rose,” I said.
“The pavement is too hot for his feet.” She picked the cat up and Elvis meowed and wrinkled his whiskers at me, cat for “nyah, nyah, nyah.”
We found Mac inside at the workbench with the mechanism of a wooden music box spread out in front of him. There was a mug of coffee at his elbow and I wondered how much sleep he’d gotten last night.
“Good morning,” he said.