скачать книгу бесплатно
And, prominently displayed, a picture of a grinning Highland terrier that read simply, “Rob Roy ran away again. If you see him, call me. Theo.”
Apparently everyone knew who Theo was. Everyone but Matthew.
He felt strangely paralyzed, standing at the high end of Main Street, gazing down at the row of quaint, expensive shops. Red-white-and-blue flags flew. Yellow flowers bloomed. Windows sparkled in the summer sun.
It suddenly looked like a stage set, as if it had been painted on cardboard and could be rolled away at will, revealing the familiar dirty, weed-ridden prison yard behind.
He wondered if he had been kidding himself. Could he really ever fit into a place like this again? He had picked this destination three years ago, during his first month in prison. He’d spent long, sleepless hours looking at a map of New York State, imagining where he would go when he was free again.
He hadn’t even noticed Firefly Glen the first few times. It was that small. But once he’d seen it, it had become a kind of obsession. A symbol. You couldn’t imagine anything ugly happening in a place called Firefly Glen. You just knew there would be clean air, warm smiles, wholesome food, simple pleasures—all those decent things they made you empty out of your pockets when they processed you into prison.
But now that he was here—now that it was not just a symbol, but a reality—he felt as out of place as a lump of coal in a cabbage patch, as his grandfather used to say. Maybe prison had changed him too much. Maybe he didn’t believe in Norman Rockwell anymore.
“Hi, there. You look lost. Can I help?”
The voice was friendly, but, when Matthew looked up, he saw that the pleasant brown eyes of the stranger in front of him were careful and wary.
“I’m Harry Dunbar,” the man said. And then he added, pointing his thumb toward his shiny gold star with a smile, “I’m the sheriff of Firefly Glen.”
Suddenly Harry lurched, as another man came up behind, bumping into him rudely.
“Sorry, Harry,” the second man said, grinning. He seemed to be holding a third man up by the collar. “Boxer here is having a little trouble with a straight line this morning.”
“Of course he is,” the sheriff grumbled. “It’s Saturday, isn’t it?”
The second man noticed Matthew, and looked over, smiling. “Hi,” he said, putting out his free hand, briefly letting go of the bleary-eyed fellow he’d been guiding. “I’m Parker Tremaine.”
Was everyone in this town so compulsively friendly? Matthew, who had lived in New York City all his life, hadn’t really expected this. He wondered if this Parker guy was a sheriff’s deputy. Maybe he and the sheriff were both just trying to size Matthew up, trying to decide if he was a desirable or a threat to their idyllic little Rockwell paradise.
But as Matthew shook Parker’s hand, he caught more details, and he realized Parker was no public servant. He was a vastly different type. He wore a very expensive business suit. The suit was a statement. Elegant, understated, educated.
Yes, he knew Parker’s type. He had even been Parker’s type, once upon a time. Just three years ago, he’d worn suits like that, walked like that, smiled out on his world with comfortable confidence like that. Three short years. But it might as well have been a million.
“Are you trying to ticket this poor guy for leaving his car in a no-parking space?” The man smiled over at Matthew. “Harry takes his job very seriously. But don’t worry. I can get you off.”
Matthew flinched and his gaze flicked to the curb instinctively. He hadn’t noticed any signs. He didn’t break the smallest of laws anymore. He didn’t speed, didn’t change lanes without signaling. He didn’t even jaywalk.
But the sheriff was smiling crookedly. “Parker’s being funny,” he said to Matthew. “The restrictive paint’s been worn off that space for years. Can’t get maintenance to repaint, can’t get the town council to cough up money for a sign.” He turned back to the man in the suit. “Why don’t you take Boxer on home, Parker? He could use a shower. He’s getting a little ripe in this hot sun.”
Parker frowned and turned. “Oh, hell. Where is Boxer?” He scanned the area quickly, and then his gaze settled on the ground near the door to the sheriff’s department. “Great. He’s passed out again.”
He sighed, then turned back and smiled at Matthew. “Welcome to Firefly Glen. Never a dull moment. I’m the local lawyer, and that guy on the ground over there is just one of our many beloved eccentric millionaires.”
Matthew glanced at the heap of rumpled clothes propped up against the wall of the building. “Boxer” had begun to hum softly, leading an imaginary band with one finger. The guy sure didn’t look like a millionaire. He had a black eye, a bad haircut, and he did, indeed, stink.
“Well, get him out of here, or I’m going to lock him up again.” Sheriff Harry swiveled back to Matthew and his guarded look returned. “So, was I right? Are you lost? Anything I can help you with?”
Matthew considered asking him for directions to Blue Pine Trail, but at the last minute he decided against it. The two men seemed friendly enough, but in prison you didn’t tell anyone anything, just on principle. Apparently the habit was going to cling to him, the same way the odor of cheap stew and strong prison bleach seemed to cling to the inside of his nose.
“No, thanks,” he said, forcing himself to look Harry Dunbar straight in the eye. If he was going to stay here for the summer, he might as well make friends with the locals.
And then it hit him—his decision had been made. He was going to stay, assuming he could get a job. This wasn’t some imaginary Oz with streets of gold, some enchanted Eden from which people like him had been forever banished. It was just a rather ordinary small town. It had grumpy sheriffs, Friday night drunks, inefficient elected officials, slick lawyers and lost dogs, just like hundreds of small towns across New York State.
And its houses needed repair. Matthew knew how to do that. He’d spent every summer during college with a hammer in his hands, and he could spend this one the same way.
“I was just having a look around.” He steadied his gaze. “I’m here for the summer.”
The sheriff frowned, as if the explanation didn’t quite satisfy him, but suddenly Parker Tremaine let out a low curse.
“Harry, look at this,” Parker said, staring at the bulletin board. “I warned Natalie not to post her address on these ads, and she’s done it anyway.”
Matthew wondered what the lawyer would say if he knew one of those address slips was even now tucked away in Matthew’s pocket.
“She did?” The sheriff stalked over and read the notice. Then, with a grumble, he ripped it off the board and crumpled it in his fist. “Hell, now I’ll have to go all over town tearing the darn things down. I tell you, Parker, Granvilles have always been too naive to live, and Natalie Granville is the worst of the lot.”
A sudden commotion erupted from the direction of Boxer’s corner. “Natalie Granville is a hell of a sweet woman, and I’ll kick the ass of anyone who says she’s not,” the old man said, struggling to his feet. He glared at the sheriff. “In fact, I think I’ll kick your ass anyhow, Dunbar, just for saying her name in that tone of voice.”
“Parker—” the sheriff began tightly.
“I know, I know. I’ll get him out of here. Just give me a hand.”
And while the two civilized young professionals were wrestling the crusty old drunk to his feet, Matthew seized his chance.
No one saw him climb into his car and drive away. No one asked where he was going, and he wouldn’t have told them if they had.
Because he was going to find Natalie Granville. He was going to tell her the truth about himself, and he was going to ask her for a job. Maybe she was just naive enough to believe in things like fair play and second chances—concepts he was pretty sure the suspicious sheriff would consider foolish.
Matthew pressed harder on the gas, overcome by a sudden urgency. Maybe this was why he had chosen Firefly Glen. Silver haired and sweet, the despair of cynical sheriffs yet beloved by pugilistic drunks, Natalie Granville just might be the answer to prayers Matthew hadn’t even realized he was praying.
CHAPTER TWO
SUMMER HOUSE, the understated brass plaque embedded in the tall stone pillar said. But the plaque lied.
Summer House wasn’t a house. It was an Italian villa, a sumptuous estate fit for a decadent prince. A baroque fantasy of pink marble and red terra-cotta and gray pietra serena stone. An orgy of arches and ornamentation, loggias and sculptures and formal staircases descending into shadowy gardens.
Matthew left his car by the gate and walked up the long driveway, stunned. Summer House didn’t belong in Upstate New York, tucked into the dense birch and hemlock woods of the Adirondack Mountains. It belonged in the rolling hills of seventeenth century Italy, where lemon trees grew in huge clay pots, and silvery olive trees twinkled in the Tuscan sun.
And yet here it stood.
It was slightly crazy.
It was extremely beautiful.
And it was, quite literally, falling apart.
Matthew, who had finally reached the front door, was hardly an expert, but decay cried out even to the untrained eye. Half a dozen windows on both floors were cracked and taped. The stone walls were pitted in places, crumbling away to dust in others. Many of the statues had lost noses and fingers and other protruding body parts.
And Nature, which obviously had once been banished from these formal Italian gardens by an army of landscapers, was marching boldly back, reclaiming its territory inch by inch.
No one answered the bell. In fact, Matthew couldn’t be sure the bell even worked. He reached up to use the ornate brass knocker, but as he touched it the thing swung free at one end, a loose screw rattling to the ground.
Good Lord. He found the screw and managed to reattach it temporarily, although the threads were nearly stripped. He backed up, and his foot landed on a small sliver of broken glass. As he bent to retrieve the pieces, he balanced himself on a terra-cotta finial, which rocked on its base, threatening to topple.
He caught it somehow and righted it, but he glanced around with a deepening doubt. This place was a minefield of disrepair, and it was way out of his league.
Natalie Granville might be the answer to his prayers, but he definitely wasn’t the answer to hers. She didn’t need a handyman. She needed a miracle.
He moved back down the steps, ready to leave, almost glad that no one had answered the door. He’d just get back in his car and—
But suddenly he heard a sound. A soft, fairylike singing that came from around the east side of the house. The sweet, elderly spinster, the naive Natalie, perhaps?
Curious in spite of himself, he followed the sound, crunching across broken stones with thick weeds growing in the cracks, ignoring the staring eyes of a dozen armless statues that lined the path like wounded soldiers in the war against decay.
As he approached the corner of the house, he caught a glimpse of something soft and white fluttering in the breeze. What was it? It looked like a long, white gauzy stream of lace. He squinted, confused. It looked like a ghostly wedding veil.
He moved closer. It was a wedding veil. A woman stood at the end of a wide back terrace, and she wore a long white wedding dress, her head crowned with the beautiful, flowing, fluttering lace.
But she wasn’t a living, breathing woman. She was a stiffly silent, white marble statue.
Matthew blinked. And as he watched, the soft singing began again. Something weird and disbelieving skimmed across his nerve endings. He was the last man on earth to entertain nonsensical notions. Still, he couldn’t have stopped himself then if a Minotaur had barred the way.
His gaze fixed on the marble bride, he rounded the corner.
And then, finally, he saw the other woman. The young, blond, bikini-clad beauty who was walking the balustrade like a tightrope, singing merrily to herself as she put one bare foot in front of the other.
Now that he was close enough, he could tell she had a lovely voice, but her words were badly slurred, and he noticed that she clutched a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in one hand, holding it out as if for balance.
The balustrade was wide—at least eighteen inches—but it was slick in spots with mildew. And besides, the woman was clearly drunk. He saw her weave slightly, and he began to move fast. She held on for a few wobbling seconds, just long enough for him to reach the balcony.
The bottle fell first, crashing to the terrace and smashing into a hundred pieces. But, two seconds later, the woman fell the other way, and landed neatly in Matthew’s arms.
For a couple of seconds she was utterly silent, her mouth open as she stared, wide-eyed, in shock and breathless disbelief. She instinctively wrapped her arms around his neck, and her face was so close to his that he could count the tiny, pale freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose.
Six.
She was ridiculously light in his arms. She probably wasn’t more than five-four, maybe one-ten? She had a mass of untamed blond hair that fell in soft curls over his arm. Her skin was slippery and warm, and it smelled of coconut oil.
After a couple of seconds, he began to register just how very little she was wearing. He decided he ought to set her down, but her arms were still wrapped around his neck, so it was awkward.
Finally she recovered her breath.
“Gosh,” she said. “It’s a good thing you caught me, isn’t it?”
He smiled. “Yes.”
“I could have broken something. A leg. An arm.” Her eyes widened even more. “I could have broken my neck, just the way my grandfather always used to say I would.”
“Yes,” he agreed, though privately he doubted it. The fall was only a couple of feet, and she was so drunk she probably would have landed limply and safely on the grass.
“So I guess it’s a very good thing you were here.”
“I guess so.”
She nodded sagely, as if they’d solved something important. With a soft sigh, she dropped her head comfortably against his chest.
And jerked it right back up.
“Hey, wait a minute,” she said, concentrating so hard her brow wrinkled. “Why were you here?”
He debated with himself. Since he’d changed his mind about applying for the handyman job, he probably shouldn’t even mention it. On the other hand, he’d hate for her to think he was just some weirdo prowling around.
He looked into her slightly unfocused eyes. They had swirls of gold in the brown, like melted butterscotch being stirred into chocolate syrup. She was very young, very gorgeous, and he was suddenly aware of the warm thrust of her breasts against his chest.
He cleared his throat. “Do you think you’re steady enough to stand up on your own?”
“Oh. Sure.” She helped extricate herself, and she did pretty well, except that she had to take two steps before she found her balance. She frowned, as if trying to hang on to her train of thought. “You were going to tell me—”
“Someone put up an ad for a handyman,” he said, deciding that honesty was his best course. The grandfather she’d mentioned probably took a dim view of trespassers. “I was thinking of applying.”
“Really?” She tilted her head. “You don’t look like a handyman,” she said. Then she flushed and placed her palm against her forehead. “Oh, that was dumb, wasn’t it? I mean, there isn’t any particular way handymen look, is there? It’s just that you’re so…”
She bit her lower lip as she studied him, apparently searching for the telling detail. “I know. It’s because you smell so good. Darryl smelled like when you open the refrigerator, and you can just tell you’ve left the hamburger in there way too long.” She wrinkled her nose. “You know that smell?”
He couldn’t help chuckling. “Darryl was a handyman, I take it?”
“The last one. I had to let him go. I couldn’t bear to tell him about the hamburger smell, so I told him I was going to finish the work myself.” She sighed, her gaze taking in the mess around her. “I don’t think he believed me.”
Matthew’s mind suddenly skidded, trying to accept the implications of her pronoun choices. “I” had to let him go, she’d said. “I” was going to finish the work. Good God. Was it possible that this young, beautiful woman was Natalie Granville? Could this fragile slip of femininity really be the owner of this weird mansion, custodian of all this decrepit glory?
Surely not. She didn’t look much older than a coed, a completely normal twenty-something, celebrating summer break by sunbathing and getting looped.
“Is this your house?”
She nodded. “Unfortunately, yes. I’m Natalie Granville, the last of the Granvilles, and the proud owner of every crumbling stone you see. Sorry about falling into your arms.” She grinned. “But you certainly proved that you’re a very handy man. Thanks.”
“My pleasure.” He held out his hand. “I’m Matthew Quinn.”
“Hello, Matthew Quinn. You’re hired.”
His first thought was that the sheriff had been right. Natalie Granville was too naive to live. Hired? She didn’t have any idea who Matthew was. She hadn’t asked a single question, requested a single reference. She didn’t even know if he could tell a pair of needle-nose pliers from a monkey wrench. For all she knew he could be jack-of-no-trades. Or even Jack the Ripper.
But his second thought was that, absurdly, he wished he could say yes. There was something inexplicably appealing about her, and it wasn’t just how great she looked in that bikini.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I had already decided not to apply for the job. I’m afraid it’s a little out of my league.”
She frowned. “Oh, no, don’t say that! You’re perfect for it.”
“No, really. I couldn’t tell, from the flyer, how extensive your needs were. I’m okay at the little stuff—painting, patching drywall, replacing gutters, fixing a leaky drain, stuff like that. But this—”
