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“It does, doesn’t it?” She put her hands on her hips, surveying her work. The streak of green paint along her jaw curled up at one end, as smug as her smile. “Though I still say red would have worked, the green looks great. Refreshing.”
She’d brought me some paint chips to choose from that morning. I’d held out for a lighter, warmer shade than she wanted, being more familiar with translating the way a color looked on a tiny chip to an entire room. “You were right about the room needing color.”
“Well!” Her eyebrows rose. “A man who can admit he was wrong. Color me amazed.”
“You have brothers,” I muttered. “Or used to. You probably murdered them and buried the bodies.”
She let out a peal of laughter. “Watch it, or you’ll end up with a green nose.”
“To match yours?”
She lifted a hand to her nose. The bracelet she never removed slid down her arm. “It isn’t…”
“It is now.”
“I must look like a little girl who’s been finger painting.”
“No,” I said slowly. “You look like an uncommonly beautiful woman. Only slightly green.”
The smile she turned on me was different. Hesitant.
“Why have you never married, Seely?”
Her smile faded, as if it were on a dimmer switch and I’d just turned it down. “You’re changing the rules on me. Feeling safe, are you, over there on the couch?”
My heart began to pound. I didn’t have to figure out what she meant. “Not safe at all. You?”
She shook her head and bent to get the narrow brush I’d told her to use around the baseboards. She took the brush and the paint tray over to the window and settled on the floor, giving me plenty of time to wonder why I’d suddenly taken us both into the deep end.
Because I wanted her to know, I decided. I didn’t want her to have any doubts that I was interested, even if I couldn’t do anything about it yet. I wanted her aware of me the way I was aware of her.
I wanted an answer to my question, too.
For a while, it didn’t look as though I was going to get it. She seemed totally focused on the strip of wall she was painting next to the baseboard. At last, not looking up, she said, “I lived with a man for several years. His name was Steven. Steven Francis Blois.”
I chewed over that for a moment, then offered, “There was a king of England named Stephen Blois. William the Conqueror’s grandson.”
She snorted. “Oh, yes. Every time Steven was introduced to someone he’d say, ‘no relation.’ When they looked confused or asked what he meant, he’d grin and add, ‘to the former king of England, that is.’”
She bent and dipped her brush in the paint. “It was cute the first dozen or so times I heard it.”
Sounded like she wasn’t hung up on the man anymore. Encouraged, I said, “Stephen wasn’t much of a king. Weak. The country was torn apart during his reign—barons chewing on other barons, eventually civil war.”
“I don’t think Steven knew or cared what kind of a king his namesake had been. He wasn’t interested in history.” She chuckled. “Actually, he was an accountant.”
“An accountant.” That sounded safe and dull. Of course, a builder might sound pretty dull, too. “Doesn’t seem like your type.”
“Do we have types?” She studied her handiwork, then shifted to touch up another section. “I thought he had an open, inquiring mind. He was very New Age, you see. Into meditation, drumming, psychic stuff.”
Had he given her that chakra bracelet? I frowned. “Doesn’t sound like any accountants I know.”
“But he was still looking for rules, you see. Pigeonholes instead of answers. He didn’t think outside the box—he just used a different set of boxes.”
“So you’re not still stuck on him?”
Now she looked up. “I told you about Steven because you asked why I’m not married. While we were together, I took that commitment very seriously. We were involved for six years, and lived together for five. But it ended with a fizzle, not a bang. That was over two years ago.”
Steven Francis Blois must be a fool, to have had this woman for six years without marrying her. But maybe he’d wanted to get married. Maybe, for all her talk about taking the commitment seriously, she hadn’t been interested in taking that last step. “So, was it you or him who thought living together was a good idea?”
Her lips twitched. “Something tells me you don’t think much of living together without marriage.”
“It isn’t a moral thing for me. I just, ah…” Couldn’t think of a tactful way to put it. Well, I’d warned her I was blunt. “It’s always struck me as half-assed.”
She didn’t seem offended. “I take it you’ve never lived with anyone. What about marriage? Why have you never taken the plunge?”
“Uh…”
Her eyes lit with amusement. “Ben. You did open the subject for discussion, you know.”
I guess I had, though that hadn’t occurred to me when I blurted out my question. “I was serious about someone in college. Didn’t work out. After that…well, for several years I was too blasted busy. Felt as if I had to set a good example—couldn’t very well tell Charlie and Duncan how to act if I wasn’t being responsible myself. And Annie. Lord.” I shook my head. “I don’t know how single parents do it. I didn’t have time for much of a social life. Or the energy.”
She made a listening sort of sound, and resumed painting. “Annie’s the youngest, right? She’s been an adult for a while now.”
“I wasn’t in a hurry to get tied down right away, once Annie went off to college. I guess I got out of the habit of thinking about marriage. It seemed like there was plenty of time.”
“I imagine you were due a spell of blissful freedom. You’d been shortchanged on that when you were younger.”
“By the time I started looking around…” I shrugged my good shoulder. “It’s been suggested that I’m too picky.”
She paused in her painting. Her eyes were serious when they met mine. The blue seemed darker, subdued, like a pond shadowed by trees, hiding what lay at the bottom. I wondered if she was thinking about Gwen and the child we shared. “And are you looking now? Is marriage what you want, Ben?”
“I’m forty years old.”
She waited, letting her silence point out that I hadn’t really answered the question.
I grimaced. I had opened the subject. “I want marriage, yeah. Kids to fill this old house with noise, skateboards, dolls, friends. Younger brothers or sisters to give their big brother a hard time. And a woman to share those kids with me.” Someone who’d clutter the bathroom with female paraphernalia, and sleep beside me at night. Someone who would stay.
Her smile flashed, but somehow it seemed off. “Those skateboarding kids will turn into teenagers, you know. Your experience with your brothers and sisters didn’t put you off?”
“It wasn’t so bad. And maybe I learned a few things.” I’d had about all the serious talk I could take. “What kind of teenager were you? Wild or studious? Not shy,” I said definitely.
She chuckled and dipped her brush again. “Not studious, either. Though I wouldn’t say I was wild, exactly—I couldn’t bear to worry Daisy, so I didn’t go too far. But I didn’t have much sense. Is there anyone in the world as sure of themselves as eighteen-year-olds?”
We traded stories of our teenage days for a while. It looked as if she’d be able to finish up today, which wasn’t bad for someone who’d never painted a room before. Of course, I’d helped a little. It didn’t hurt my shoulder or my knee for me to sit on the floor and paint the strip next to the baseboards. Seely had argued some about that, but eventually she’d seen reason.
She was on the stepladder tackling the section next to the crown moldings by the time I figured out what was nagging at me.
Seely seemed open and outgoing. She swapped funny stories about growing up and spoke cheerfully about her eccentric mother. She’d told me about Steven, who I guess had been the one big love of her life.
But she’d never said which of them had preferred living together to marriage. She hadn’t said anything about why she’d moved out, either, just that it happened two years ago. Yesterday she’d admitted to being angry with her father, but hadn’t told me the man’s name, or anything else about him. And she’d implied that anything weird I’d seen that night on the mountain must have been the product of shock.
Slippery.
Seely Jones was a much more private woman than she seemed. I could respect that, and yet…I glanced uneasily at the unopened box beside the couch.
Last year I’d gone wireless when I got a new laptop. It didn’t have to be hooked up to anything to connect to the Internet. So, on my first night home from the hospital I’d ordered several books on-line, paying to have them overnighted. I probably could have gotten them, or something similar, from the bookstore on Fremont Street. Susannah would have boxed up my order and dropped them off, if I’d asked.
Or I could have gotten books from the library for nothing. I’d known the head librarian since I was five. Muriel would have looked up my card number, checked the books out to me and brought them by.
But anyone who knew me would have been startled by my current choice of reading material. I didn’t want to explain. I didn’t want anyone speculating about my sanity, either. I was doing enough of that.
Finding myself in the company of Harold Meckle, M.D., was a nasty shock, but like I said, he wasn’t really an idiot. Just a jerk. Some of the things that happened on that mountain didn’t add up, not using any of the normal ways of calculating reality.
“That bracelet you wear,” I mentioned as I finished the last bit I could reach. “Did Blois give it to you?”
She didn’t turn around. “Why do you ask?”
“You said the little stones were for, uh, chakras. And that Blois was into New Age stuff.”
“Daisy gave it to me—her version of a ‘sweet sixteen’ present.”
“She’s into chakras?”
“Among other things.”
I decided not to press for more. Not now. I’d gotten one solid answer—Blois hadn’t given her the bracelet she never seemed to remove. That was something. Far from all I needed to know, though. Maybe I’m too stubborn for my own good. I’ve been told that more than once.
I wondered what Duncan would say about the request I planned to make the next time I saw him.
Seven
“Look, if you don’t want to do it, just say so.”
“I don’t want to do it.”
I sighed.
Duncan and I were sitting at the kitchen table with some of Seely’s excellent coffee. She was upstairs getting ready.
Not that she needed to. We were just going to drop by the office—though I hadn’t mentioned that part yet—then head to the building-supply center. And she already looked great. She always did.
But women have rules for that sort of thing. Not the same rules, mind—they vary from one woman to the next in some sort of changeable code. It seems to make sense to other women.
Setting has something to do with it. When Annie was doing handyman work, she’d run all over town in paint-splattered jeans or coveralls, her face bare of makeup and her hair tucked up in a cap. Dealing with clients or stopping at the gas station dressed that way was okay; going to the grocery store was not. I know this because she used to kick up a fuss if I asked her to pick up something while she was out. “I can’t go to the grocery store looking like this!” she’d say, even though plenty of people had seen her looking like that already.
Apparently, building-supply centers belonged in the “get fixed up first” category for Seely. I didn’t try to understand it.
I collected my walking stick and mug and lifted my left foot off the extra chair. My knee was a lot better, but I still kept that leg propped up much of the time. I limped over to the coffeepot. “Want some more?”
Duncan shook his head. He was looking tired, I thought. Night shifts didn’t agree with him. Then, too, he’d pulled a double in order to free up time for the camping trip with Zach—a trip the weather had cut short. We’d had our first good freeze Saturday night, accompanied by a light dusting of snow.
Duncan’s gaze held steady on me as I refilled my mug. “Maybe you should tell me why you asked. If you suspect Seely has a criminal background—”
“Nothing like that,” I said quickly. “There’s something she’s not telling me, that’s all.”
His mouth crooked up. “More than one thing, probably. Women have been failing to tell men everything for a few thousand years. Police departments don’t generally consider that a good reason to run a background check.”
He made my curiosity sound like a man-woman thing, not employer-employee. Which was accurate but annoying. “I didn’t want you to do it as a cop.”
“Well, as your brother I’m advising you to drop the idea.” He put the mug down. “Nosing around will just get you in trouble. Though if you really have to know something, you could hire a P.I.”
No way. I’d thought maybe Duncan could find out a few things discreetly. Her father’s name, for example. Some hint of why she was working at jobs way below her skill level. But I didn’t want some stranger snooping around in her life. “Never mind.”
“You know, this is weird.”
“What?”
“You. You’re acting different.” He nodded toward the front of the house. “The living room. It’s always been white.”
“You don’t like it green?”
“It looks fine. Felt weird when I walked in and saw it, though.” One corner of his mouth kicked up, as if he were reluctantly amused. “Sort of like a kid who goes away to college, comes home and finds out mom and dad redecorated without telling him.”
Dammit, I should have thought about how he’d feel. Charlie and Annie, too. This house was their heritage every bit as much as it was mine. “I ought to have said something. It’s your house, too, and you—”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Of course it is. Mom and Dad left it to all of us.”
“Twenty years ago, yes. But you’re the one who has lived here all these years, taken care of the place. This is your home.” He took a deep breath. “Gwen and I have talked about this. We want to deed my share of the house over to you.”
I slammed my mug down, ignoring the coffee that slopped over the rim. “Forget it.”
“There might be some tax liability for you, but she thinks we can minimize that.”
“Aren’t you listening?” I demanded. “Just because your wife could buy and sell this house ten times over doesn’t oblige me to accept a handout.”
Duncan shoved to his feet. “This has nothing to do with Gwen’s money! Dammit, you hard-headed son of a bitch, will you listen a minute?”
“I’m not hearing anything worth listening to. If you don’t—”
“Whoa!”
That came from Seely. Startled, I looked at the doorway.
She stood there, shaking her head. “Good grief. I can’t be accused of eavesdropping with Ben bellowing like a wounded moose. I heard him from the stairs. Ben.” She fixed me with a firm stare. “Do you really think Duncan offered to give you his share of this house because he enjoys flinging Gwen’s money around?”
I flushed. “No. But—”
