Carolina Mist (22 page)

“Thomas who?” Al
ex’s forehead creased into a frown.

“Thomas Cassidy.”

“I don’t recall that he and Leila had children.”

“Leila was not my grandmother.” Drew addressed Alex directly.

“Drew’s grandmother was a woman Thomas met before he met Leila.”

“And did not marry,” Drew added.

“I see.”

“I hope I’m not intruding on anything.” Drew turned to Abby. “I just thought I’d stop by and see if you’d had any luck in locating any more of Thomas’s stories.”

“Actually, I found three more. Come on into the study, and I’ll show you.” She motioned for him to follow her.

Alex remained in the driveway and watched, hands on his hips, as Abby and Drew approached the back of the house. As she reached the steps, Abby turned and asked, “Would you like to see Thomas’s books?”

“I have work to do,” Alex snapped.

“Suit yourself.” She shrugged and led Drew into the kitchen, unaware that the man she’d left standing in the middle of her driveway was muttering curses and clenching his fists.

Dinner proved to be an unexpectedly somber event.

Once having invited Drew to look through the additional books she had found in Thomas’s library, Abby could not very well have asked him to leave when it came time to sit down at the dinner table. Abby’s guest could not have been less popular with the Matthews clan. Alex addressed Drew in short, clipped monosyllables, and Belle ignored his presence entirely. Immediately after dessert, Belle excused herself and retired to her room, claiming a headache. Alex, pleading exhaustion, followed at her heels, throwing one last barb—“I’m sure Drew will be more than happy to help you with the dishes”—over his shoulder as he left.

“Was it something I said?” a faintly amused Drew asked after Belle and Alex had made their exits.

“I doubt it.” Abby looked to offer a plausible explanation. “I think Alex is just tired, and I think we both know how Belle feels. I do apologize for them both.”

“No apology is necessary,” he replied, the very essence of
understanding. “But I do have the distinct feeling that somehow my being here has put Kane’s nose out of joint.”

Abby stared blankly at him from across the table.

“
Your relationship with Alex…?”

“Oh. We’re old friends.”

“That’s it? Friends?” Drew raised a questioning eyebrow.

“That’s it,” Abby assured him. “He’s helping me to fix up the house in exchange for me taking care of Belle. Our relationship is strictly platonic.”
All too.

“Then why do I have the feeling that I stepped on his toes just by showing up?”

“I have no idea,” she told him, turning her head as she reached for the coffee pot, “but there are no toes to step on.”

Abby heard the slight creak of the old bed in Alex’s room as he flopped onto the mattress in the room over their heads.

Unfortunately, no toes at all.

26

“
W
ell, Mr. Personality.” Abby greeted Alex as she strolled into the kitchen for her morning coffee. “Did we sleep away last night’s grumpies?”

He turned from the bowl of eggs he was beating for the French toast and glowered at her with brown eyes dark with malice.

“Ooh, I guess not.” Abby’s eyebrows rose slightly, and her mouth stretched into a grim line as she reached past him for her coffee mug.

“There is nothing I hate more than coming into a messy kitchen first thing in the morning,” he said pointedly. “It puts me in a foul frame of mind if I have to wash dishes and clear counters before I can start making breakfast.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, Alex.” She tried to look contrite for having committed a major infraction of the cook’s rules. “I meant to do the dishes last night. I really did, but, you see, Drew wanted to see if we could find some of the notes Thomas would have used to write the
Treasure Seekers
stories, and we just lost all track of time
. See, we were going through…”

“Treasure Seekers.
How apropos,” Alex muttered dryly as he slid butter into a frying pan and turned the flame on low.

“Just what is that supposed to mean?”

“Gee, what a coincidence that Thomas Cassidy’s hitherto unknown
grandson
shows up out of the blue so shortly after the
widow
Cassidy passes away and leaves all to her grand-niece. Who happens to be single, beautiful, and bright. Not to mention gullible.”

“You sound just like Belle.”

“Well, maybe Gran’s not quite as dotty as I thought.”

“Alex, there is nothing dotty about your grandmother. She has as much of her faculties as you or I have.”

“You’re half right,” he mumbled, slipping several pieces of bread, drippy with egg and milk, into the sizzling butter in the frying pan.

“What does that mean?” Abby challenged him.

“It means that at least
I
have enough sense to know a phony when I see one.” Alex gestured at her with the long-handled spatula.

“What is wrong with you? I can understand Belle not wanting to accept Drew—I think she sees this as a stigma against her best friend’s name. But you don’t know Drew. You don’t know what it means to him to find family. Alex, he’s had
no one
for so many years. You didn’t see his face when he was going through Thomas’s papers. He was totally overwhelmed by the experience.”

“Overwhelmed by the possibility of finding a fortune, is more likely.”

“You are really infuriating, you know that? You have absolutely no reason to believe that Drew is not exactly who he says he is.”

“And you have absolutely no reason to believe that he is.”

“Why would he say he is if he isn’t?”

“Abby, people do a lot of things when they think there is money at stake.”

“What money? There is no money here, Alex. Trust me, if there was money lying around here, I’d have found it and spent it by now. Someone other than yours truly would be scraping and painting.”

“Have you been looking?”

“Looking for what? Or where?” she chided.

He shooed her away from the front of the stove. “Well, I can’t believe you would just open up your house—not to mention Thomas’s desk, his
notes,
for cripes’s sake—to a stranger.”

“Alex, we are talking about notes that a man used fifty years ago to write a series of children’s books, not detailed instructions on locating the Holy Grail. We are talking about bits and pieces of papers with little half-sentences or whatever. I think it is enormously touching that Drew is so interested in his grandfather’s stories.”

“Abby, there was a big magazine article a
few years back about Thomas…
”

She waved him aside with a sweep of one hand. “I know, I know. Some people think maybe Thomas gave clues to finding real treasures in his books. I’ve heard it before. And I think it’s nonsense. Now, it makes sense that if he located something he could not get to—like that sunken ship he found back in the thirties but which was only raised a few years ago—he would have had to leave it. But if you read the books, which I have done, incidentally, you’d know that accessibility was not a problem in ninety percent of the places and things he wrote about. Most of the ‘adventures’ led to places that were, in fact, accessible—though not without some danger. I mean, otherwise, they wouldn’t have been adventures, right?”

“So what are you trying to say?”

“Only that if Thomas knew how to find these so-called treasures, don’t you think
he
would have done it? I mean, do you really think he went to all the trouble of tracking down
these treasures for the sole purpose of leaving clues for
other
people to follow, instead of doing it himself?”

“How do you know he didn’t find the things he wrote about?”

“Where are they, then?” Her fists sought her hips with an air of defiance. “Where are these wonderful things he wrote about, these fabled antiquities you are so certain Drew is plotting to find?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they’re in your basement. Or your attic. Thomas could have buried it all under the front porch for all I know.”

“Why would he do something like that? Why would anybody risk his life to go find something only so that he could take it home and bury it, like a dog buries a bone?”

“Abby, I don’t know. But neither do you. And my guess is that Drew is betting that the stories are true. If he can get his hands on Thomas’s notes and those notes are legitimate, his little masquerade would be worth every minute he puts into it, wouldn’t you say?”

“Alex, this interrogation is starting to get on my nerves. I don’t know what your problem is with Drew, and why you are so intent upon finding some nefarious motive where none exists, but I have no problem with him, and, quite frankly, that’s all that matters, isn’t it?”

“In other words, ‘Butt out, Kane, this is none of your business.’ Well, Miz Abigail, do forgive me if I seem to have forgotten my place.” He tossed the eggshells into the trash with a vicious and well-aimed pitch. “And I do thank you for that well-needed reminder that I am, after all, just the handyman, I promise not to interfere with
your
business again.”

“Alex, you are being ridiculous. It’s not necessary to
…
”

“Umm, something smells just lovely, Alexander.” Belle opened the door just enough to poke her diminutive nose in the directio
n of the morning’s offerings. “I
do adore French toast. Alexander, do you remember how your grandfather always made French toast on Sunday mornings? But of course you do, dear. Is the water ready for tea?”

“Almost, Gran. Why don’t you go sit at the table and chat
with Abby while I fix it for you? It’ll only be a minute.” A
lex glared meaningfully at Abby.

“Fine. I will go sit with your grandmother while you
…”

“While I prepare your breakfast, Miz Abigail. After all, that was the deal.”

“Alex, you are being an absolute jerk.”

He prepared Belle’s tea to the proper degree of amber, then, without another word, pushed past Abby to deliver the cup to his grandmother, who was already seated in the morning room awaiting her breakfast.

Now, if that doesn't beat all.
Abby shook her head angrily.
What difference could it possibly make to Alex if Drew is or isn’t a Cassidy?

And just what,
she wondered,
is eating Alex Kane?

“
I
do not recall that you are color-blind,” Naomi said pointedly on Monday afternoon after listening to Abby’s recitation of the weekend’s events. She leaned against the wooden frame of Abby’s front door, her dark green vinyl poncho glistening with the large drops of water that ran in rapid streams to puddle at her feet. She had braved the sudden storm to bring Abby the book that had kept her up reading till the early hours of the morning, a “yummy romantic suspense that I guarantee you will not be able to put down.”

“I’m not.”

“Abby, that man is turning green right under your nose, and you don’t even see it.” Naomi flinched as yet another crack of thunder bellowed from the heavens.

“Alex?”

“Absolutely.”

“You think he’s
…
”

“Green as new grass, honey.”

“Why would Alex be jealous?”

“Maybe he doesn’t like the thought of Drew hanging around here.” Naomi attempted to squeeze some excess water from her tangled hair, which was beginning to look more and more like Brillo.

“Drew doesn’t hang around here. Saturday was only the second time he was here.”

“Does Alex know that? And you greeted Drew like he was the dearest of friends. I saw you from my front lawn, Abby. You looked like you were mighty glad to see him.”

“Well, I was. I was happy that he felt comfortable enough here to take me up on my invitation to come back. I know what it’s like to feel disjointed, to feel like you have no one. I have been where Drew is, Naomi.
I
want him to know that he doesn’t have to feel that way anymore. That
he has family…”

“Girl, you may be moving way too fast.”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t know anything about this man.”

“Good grief, you sound just like Alex. He thinks Drew is an impostor.”

“Maybe he is, and maybe he’s not. Let’s assume that he is Thomas’s grandson. That alone doesn’t automatically make him a good person.” She raised a hand to silence Abby’s protest. “You hear me out. He may be a good guy, he may not. The fact is that neither you nor I nor Alex nor Belle knows one way or another. Time will tell what’s what. In the meantime, certainly, be pleasant to him, leave the welcome mat out. But don’t start handing over any of the Cassidy family silver, you know what I mean?”

Abby nodded.
“Naomi, do you realize you’re the first person who
’s
had anything to say
on the subject who has made sen
se? Belle cannot be objective, and Alex is being positively obnoxious.”

“Jealousy will do that.” Naomi nodded, a satisfied grin crossing her face.

“You really think that’s it?”

“There is not a doubt in my mind. Abby, those two were circling each other like a couple of suspicious old dogs. I mean, it was all I could do not to stand at the end of my driveway and yell, ‘Why don’t you two just sniff each other’s butt and get it over with?’ ” Naomi grinned.

“But, Naomi,” Abby said when she had stopped laughing
at the image Naomi had conjured up, “why would it matter to Alex? He has Melissa.”

“Umm, well, we don’t know what he’s got going with her, now, do we? He’s been spending a lot of time in Primrose these past few weeks, and Melissa has been nowhere in
sight.”

“Alex said she’s busy with the preparations for her sister’s wedding.”

“And just when is that little event to take place, do you know?”

“In two weeks.”

“Well, I guess after that, we should get a pretty good idea of just where Miss Melissa stands.”

“What do you mean?”

Naomi grinned over her shoulder as she opened her umbrella and started down the steps. “She’ll either be here with him in three weeks, or she won’t.”