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Authors: Antoinette Stockenberg

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BOOK: Embers
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All in all, he wasn't impressed. Shifting his wounded, aching leg into a more comfortable position, he reflected on how thoroughly he'd failed to follow his surgeon's advice.  He'd plunked down good money to spend at least half a summer in a place that wasn't cool, wasn't quiet, and as far as he could tell

judging from the number of gun shops he'd passed along the way

where every hunter-citizen was armed up to his goddamned teeth.

****

"Unseasonable, ain't it, de-ah?" The mailman handed Meg a bundle of mail, pulled out a handkerchief from his hip pocket, and mopped his beaded brow.

Meg put down her watering can and took the packet. "I don't mind," she said, stepping back to admire her new flower boxes. "Did you ever see a more charming geranium? Allie brought them up with her from
Portland
."

"Awful pretty," agreed the mail carrier. "Pink do sit well with Dusty Miller. The blue lobelia's a nice touch. Flesh out a bit, them boxes be right as rain."

The flower boxes, painted a dusty rose to match the shutters, were sitting on the veranda

after they began renting rooms, Meg made everyone stop calling it a porch

ready to be mounted under the big bay window of the Inn Between. The job was waiting for Everett Atwells, but as Meg poked through the mail packet she realized that it would have to wait a little longer.

"Dad! Mail's here!"

Everett Atwells ambled out from the side of the house, paint scraper in one hand, a hopeful smile on his craggy face. "You're right around this mornin', Desmond. Hot enough for ya?"

The mailman lifted his chin in an upward nod of greeting. "Corn weather, without a doubt," he said, and went back to his rounds.

Everett
eased
Fly Fishing Magazine
out from among the bills in his daughter's hand. "Two minutes," he said with an apologetic wrinkle to his nose. "Then it's right back to the grindstone."

Meg responded with a resigned sigh.

Her father took that sigh personally. "Jeez-zus, you're a driver, woman."

"
Someone
around here has to be," she said, running her hands distractedly through the straggles of her overlong hair. She reached in the pocket of her khakis and pulled out a rubber band. "High season is right around the corner, and look at this place," she said, yanking her hair back in a short and all-too-functional ponytail. "Between painting and papering, we have twice as much work as we have weeks."

"The guests'll fall asleep just as easy starin' at stripes as they will at florals."

"You
know
what I'm talking about, Dad." She pointed to the inn on the left. "Look at the Elm Tree Inn." She pointed to the inn on the right. "Look at the Calico Cat. They're perfect. Perfect! And then look at
us,"
she said with a despairing sweep of her arm across the front of their big, rambling Victorian. The pale gray clapboards of the
Inn
Between were holding on to their paint, more or less, but the white trim

and there was white trim everywhere

was a sad and peely mess.

"We ain't perfect,"
Everett
allowed, squinting at the high, pointed turret that dominated the front of the house.   "Yep," he said with a yank on his cap. "Definitely needs paint."

"Oh, take your magazine and beat it," Meg said, shaking her head and resolving not to smile. "I'll pick on Lloyd instead."

"Don't I know it?"
Everett
said with a wink. He ambled off without a care in the world toward a chair under the huge oak in the back of the yard. Meg sighed and flipped through the mail, plucking out the "Final Notice" the way she would some evil-looking weed from her garden. When she looked up again, her sister was standing on the front lawn next to the Inn Between's sign and hanging a NO in front of the VACANCY.

"No kidding? On a Wednesday?" Meg broke into a big, relieved grin. "Maybe we're finally turning the corner on this bed-and-breakfast thing," she added as she bounded up the porch

the veranda

steps. "Who was it? A couple?  A family?"

Allie shrugged and yawned at the same time. "Comfort took the call. All I know is they're due in an hour."

"Damn. Room five isn't made up. But I've got to get over to the Shop ‘n Save or there'll be nothing for afternoon tea today. Allie would you
—"

Allie looked at her older sister incredulously. "Meg, I'm exhausted; we were up all night. I was just going back to bed

why can't Comfort do it?" she demanded in the perfect pitch of a whiny twelve-year-old.

Meg lowered her voice: "Because we only have an hour and Comfort will take an hour and a half."

"What about Lloyd, then?"

"Lloyd's working on the furnace. Possibly you don't know how upscale we've become. We're actually promising hot water in our ads nowadays."

"Well, if I'd known you wanted me back in
Bar Harbor
just because you were one slave short, I might've thought twice
—"

"Yoo-hoo, Meg? And oh, my goodness,
Allie!"
Both sisters turned to see Julia Talmadge, the well-groomed owner of the well-groomed Elm Tree Inn, approaching them with a cheerful wave and a man in tow. It was the man who caught their attention. Tall, trim, good-looking, and thoroughly overdressed in corduroys and a heavy flannel shirt, he possessed something else that set him apart from the men of
Bar Harbor
: a cane.

****

"So you're
back,
Allie. How
are
you, dear? You look
fabulous

but then! Listen, dears, I want you to meet someone. This is Tom Wyler, all the way from
Chicago
. He'll be staying at the Elm Tree for the next month;
however,
there's been a dreadful mixup in the booking date. I don't have Mr. Wyler down until tomorrow."

Eyeing the newly hung NO sign with obvious skepticism, she said, "You
can
do something for Mr. Wyler, can't you, dears? Just for tonight?"

"Definitely!"

"I'm sorry."

The two sisters exchanged surprised and hostile glances. Julia stared at them both with dismay. Wyler indulged himself in a silent oath and re-adjusted his weight on the cane.

"Meg, for Pete's sake! He can have room five."

"Room five is taken, Allie. You know that."

"But the callers wouldn't even give Comfort a Visa number!"

"We promised them."

"What about first come, first served?"

"Now

dears

I didn't mean to make this awkward for you.
"

"This
isn't
awkward, Julia. Meg is just being Meg. Can't you see, Meg, that this man is
injured?"
Allie asked, turning to him with a look that suggested she'd just made him a knight.

Suddenly she did a double take. "Wait a minute

I've seen you recently."

"Oh, I doubt it," Wyler said quickly.

"Yes, I have. Wait,
I
know

the cover of
Newsweek!
You're on the cover of the
Newsweek
that's in my room!" she cried. "The one about violence in the streets!"

Hell.
Just his luck. "That's an old, old issue," he said irrelevantly.

"Violence in the streets, or
Newsweek?"
the older sister asked dryly.

Wyler lifted one eyebrow at her and said, "Both. But in any event
—"

The younger sister interrupted. "The cover was a collage of a murdered victim, some cops, and a gang. You were one of the good guys, weren't you? I
never
forget a face," she cried, pleased. "My God. What an amazing coincidence!"

"That story was done four years ago," Wyler insisted, as if she had no right to dredge up ancient history. He'd been a sergeant then, and hungrier for recognition than he was now. "Anyway, maybe I'll just try the inn on the other side of you," he murmured.

Allie was scandalized.
"What!
The Calico
Cat?
You
can't stay at a place called the Calico Cat! It's just not
...
appropriate," she decided instinctively.

"Not to mention, there's a NO VACANCY sign hanging there, too, Mr. Wyler," Meg added.

Julia was becoming impatient.  "I'll call The Waves. Presumably
they'll
know  whether they have a room or not."

Wyler smiled thinly and said, "That's very kind; I —"

"He will have
my
room,
"
said Allegra Atwells. She had the look, the tone, the absolute command of a high priestess at the altar. Everyone was impressed.

Almost.

"No. He won't."

"Meg!" Allie said sharply. "I can do what I want. This is all about control, and you know it.
"
She turned to Wyler, who by now was weaving from the pain, and said, "I'll bunk down with my sister. Are you allergic to dogs? Oh, God, and cats, of course: I hope you don't mind sleeping with cats. We keep them out of the guest-side of the house, but they pretty much have the run of everything else. Just give me five minutes
—"

"Mr. Wyler, I'm sure you can appreciate the spirit in which my sister has made her offer, but it won't be possible. Her room is nothing more than a dressing closet; it has no private bath
—"

"Neither do our guest rooms!"

"—
and I'm sure you'll be more comfortable at the Waves or somewhere else."

"There won't
be
anywhere else. If we're full, everyone's full," said Allie with embarrassing candor.

"Please forgive my sister, Mr. Wyler," Meg said through set teeth. "She hasn't had her nap."

"Meg," murmured Allie in a voice soft and hurt and low. "Is this how it's going to be all summer?"

Meg opened her mouth to say something, and then stopped. She turned to Wyler with a grim look. Apparently she thought it was all
his
fault. "If you could give us half an hour," she said stiffly.

Wyler looked at Allegra for
her
reaction. She was beaming. He took that to mean he had a room
...
her room
...
some
room. "Thanks," he said, sweeping both sisters up in the same grateful glance. "I'll keep out of everyone's way."

Flushed with victory, Allie turned suddenly shy and dropped her look from his. "It will be our pleasure," she said in a devastatingly old-fashioned way. She slipped her arm around her older sister and squeezed her affectionately as they walked toward their house, leaving the detective feeling like a loose ball that had been fumbled, recovered, and run into the end zone for a touchdown.

He pivoted awkwardly on his cane and began heading back to the Elm Tree Inn with Julia Talmadge.

"There. You see? All's well that ends well, Mr. Wyler."

Wyler murmured something polite in agreement.

In the meantime he was thinking that he'd never
seen anyone so beautiful in his life. Allegra Atwells was drop-dead, knock-down, stop-traffic gorgeous.

Her face was so disturbingly beautiful that he'd scarcely paid attention to her body. Her body, he remembered only vaguely

that it was tall and sexy and that she carried herself like a queen.

Too bad she was a spoiled brat.

"How did you hurt your leg, Mr. Wyler?" asked Julia Talmadge without a trace of nosiness in her voice. She might have been asking him how he took his morning coffee.

"Gunshot," he said curtly, hoping by his tone to nip further inquiries in the bud.

"Oh, yes; a hunting accident. We see a fair amount of that up here," she said pleasantly. Obviously she made no connection between him and the old
Newsweek
article. If only Allie Atwells were so dense.

****

"Do you remember Orel Tremblay, Allie?"

Meg, back from the Shop ‘n Save, was scrubbing a guest bath with
Ajax
while her sister was changing bedding in room
5
across the hall. Meg's voice, cheerfully puzzled, rang out above the flush of the toilet. "Remember? The old recluse in the little cottage up the hill behind Pete's Bike Rentals? We used to see him grocery shopping sometimes. He always wore that red-and-black-checked deerstalker's hat, even in summer."

BOOK: Embers
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