Hidden Treasures (8 page)

“Do you want to see where I found the box?” Erica asked, pulling her apron from the hook inside the broom-closet door and offering it to Fern.

“In your vegetable garden, right?” Fern answered as she took the apron. “Your backyard.”

But she was staring at the side yard. Beyond the side yard, actually. She was staring at the Willetz front porch.

“You came here to check out Jed Willetz,” Erica accused her.

Fern spun around and laughed guiltily. “I came here to make you a feast. You should be worshiping me. And pouring me a glass of wine. And getting me a cutting board and a sharp knife.”

“You want to drink wine while you’re using a sharp knife?”

“Okay, give me a dull knife.” Fern looped the neck strap of the apron over her head and tied the belt around her waist. “There. Do I look like someone from the Food Channel?”

“No. You look like a ninny who’d drop her panties for my next-door neighbor.”

“Is he your neighbor? Really? As in, he’s planning to stay in town for a while?” Fern peered eagerly out the window again.

“I have no idea how long he’s planning to stay.”

“I wish I had a neighbor like Jed Willetz. Fill a big pot with water and get it boiling, okay? I wish,” she said, breaking off a couple of cloves of garlic, “I had a neighbor as handsome as him, anyway. Do you know what it’s like to go down to my mailbox to pick up my newspaper every morning and come face-to-face with Angus Murray?”

“Angus is a nice man,” Erica called over from the sink, where she was filling her largest pot with water.

“He looks like a squid. I don’t know how Norma
can stay married to him. I mean,
ugh
. She goes to bed every night with a man who looks like a squid.”

“I’m sure that in her eyes he’s gorgeous. Love is blind.”

“Well, I’m not in love
or
blind, and seeing Angus first thing in the morning is awful. I’d much rather see Jed Willetz.”

Erica had to admit that seeing him first thing in the morning wouldn’t be the most unpleasant experience in the world. Seeing him any time of day was a treat.

Yesterday, when she’d gotten home from school, he’d almost seemed to be waiting for her. She’d actually suffered a little pang of disappointment that he hadn’t been out on his grandfather’s porch when she’d come home today. Which was stupid, of course. She wasn’t going to make herself silly over the guy. He was her temporary neighbor; that was all. And possibly her adversary, if he decided to contest the property line.

The scent of the raw garlic Fern was mincing filled the room, so heavenly she nearly forgot all about Jed and the box and all the annoying phone messages that had been jamming her machine. She cranked a corkscrew into the bottle of Chianti Classico, one of several bottles of wine she’d brought back from Brookline during her last visit home, because none of the stores in Rockwell carried decent vintages. Erica wasn’t a wine snob, but the stuff sold in Hackett’s had screw tops. For the rare occasions when she desired a glass of wine, she thought it best to import the stuff.

Her phone rang and she cursed. Fern eyed her curiously. “Expecting someone?”

“You don’t know what it’s been like here.” She pressed down the metal levers to raise the cork and
filled two goblets with wine while the phone rang a second and a third time. “The calls never end. I had fifteen messages when I got home today, all about the box.”

The machine clicked on. Through the speaker, Erica heard a familiar voice: “Erica? Darling? It’s your mother. I just called to say hello, nothing urgent, Daddy and I are both fine, thank God. So give me a call when you’ve got a minute.” She hung up and the machine clicked off.

“She doesn’t know about the box,” Fern commented.

“How would she know? She doesn’t subscribe to the
Rockwell Gazette
.”

“I thought mothers knew everything. If I ever have kids, I intend to know everything.”

A knock on the back door startled them. Erica glanced wistfully at the knife Fern had in her hand; as a Rockwell native, it probably wouldn’t occur to Fern to remain armed until the identity of the visitor was known. In another year or three or seven, Erica promised herself, she would no longer want to have a knife with her when a stranger showed up at her door.

Her visitor was no stranger, though. Through the window in the top half of the door, she recognized Jed Willetz’s silhouette.

So did Fern. “Well, look who’s here!” Before Erica could answer her own door, Fern was turning the knob and pulling the door open. “Jed Willetz!” she greeted him heartily. “I heard you were back in town.”

He made her day by recognizing her. “Fern…Bernard? Or is it Fern Something-Else now?”

“Still Bernard,” she told him, her eyes glittering as if someone had lit sparklers in them. “Still available.”

Smiling vaguely, Jed turned to Erica. She hoped her eyes weren’t glittering the way Fern’s were. Just because the man deserved his own gallery in the Museum of Hunky Guys didn’t mean she wanted to turn into a silly, simpering flirt in his presence. “Hi,” she said curtly, then took a sip of wine.

“Okay,” he said. “I checked the records. The property lines are kind of iffy, but I’m not going to push it.”

A begrudging admission at best, lacking the proper contrition. She took another sip of wine to keep herself from thanking him.

He dug his hands into the pockets of a pair of well-worn jeans. He had on another snug T-shirt, topped by an unbuttoned flannel shirt. Didn’t he know that grunge had gone out of style years ago? Why the hell did grunge look so good on him, anyway?

“So…you ladies are cooking up a feast, huh,” he observed.

“A big feast,” said Fern, sending Erica a pleading gaze. “More than enough for two.”

Erica relented. Inviting Jed to join them for dinner wasn’t the same thing as throwing herself at him. And she wasn’t about to throw herself at him, anyway. Fern would be in charge of that part of the evening’s entertainment. “Do you want to have dinner with us?” she asked.

He eyed the food on the table and drew in a deep breath. The air vibrated with the scent of garlic. “Well, I was planning on having a peanut butter sandwich for dinner,” he said, shooting Erica a grin. “Let me think about it.” His smile was almost as good as an apology. Damn it, it was
better
than an apology. She turned her
back on him and reached into the cabinet for a third wine goblet.

Fern’s energy level kicked up a few notches. “How’s that water coming?” she asked. “Are you watching it?”

“If I watch it, it won’t boil,” Erica said, filling the glass and handing it to Jed. He took it and his smile grew gentle. She sensed an apology in it. Or
something
, some intangible message—she wasn’t sure what. She ought to forgive him for the property-line misunderstanding and cheer up. She ought to forget about all the phone messages, including the one from the Rideouts’ attorney, and especially her mother’s call. She knew what would happen when she phoned her mother back, as she eventually would. Her mother would tell her that Rockwell was a ghastly place and she’d list all the reasons why. Her mother had visited Rockwell only once in the three years Erica had lived here. One time had been enough. “This place gives me the willies,” she’d declared. “It’s too quiet and small. It makes me claustrophobic. And you can’t buy a good bagel anywhere. I’m not talking about those doughnut-shaped things they were selling at that supermarket—well, it’s hardly a supermarket, they carry only two brands of toilet tissue—but
real
bagels. I don’t know how you survive up here.”

“The water’s boiling,” she informed Fern.

Beaming, Fern launched into high gear. She emptied the box of rigatoni into the pot, then dug through Erica’s cabinets until she found a skillet and set it on another burner. Stepping out of her way, Erica glanced toward Jed and found him gazing at her.

“She’s a better cook than I am,” she explained.

“I’m glad she’s doing the cooking, then,” he said
before taking a sip of his wine. “Are you still getting lots of calls?”

She sighed. It wasn’t his problem, but he appeared sympathetic, so she said, “Glenn Rideout seems to have hired an attorney.”

Jed choked on his wine, coughed a few times and let out a laugh. “What does he need an attorney for?”

“To intimidate me, I guess. To make me share my newfound wealth with Randy.”

“What newfound wealth?” Fern called from the stove, where she was sautéing vegetables in garlic and oil. “Erica, would you slice the bread? Inch-thick slices. Thanks. Anyway, if you’re wealthy, I think you ought to share the wealth with me, not with Randy. I’m a much better friend.”

“Hire a lawyer and take a number.” Erica found another knife and settled in at the kitchen table with the loaf of bread. “There’s no million dollars in the box. If it turns out to be a historical artifact, I’m going to donate it to a museum. I don’t know why Glenn Rideout is dragging lawyers into this.”

Jed took another sip of wine and shrugged. “If the box is worth something and you donate it to a museum, Rideout’ll demand half the tax credit.”

Erica sighed. She didn’t want to think about tax credits. She didn’t even want to think about the box. She wished it had been found in someone else’s backyard. “Fern, do you know any lawyers?”

“Around here?” Fern snorted. “You’d be better off finding someone from Boston. Don’t you agree, Jed?” she asked, peering over her shoulder at him.

“I haven’t lived here for twelve years. What would I know?”

“Does your dad have a lawyer?”

“No. He could probably use one, though,” Jed muttered.

“Is your father in legal trouble?” Erica asked. She pictured the thin, silent man she’d seen wandering in and out of John Willetz’s house. What might he need a lawyer for?

Jed snorted, then strode to the table with his wine and slumped into the chair across from her. “When it comes to my father, you never know.”

She waited for him to elaborate, and when he didn’t, she asked, “Have you and he made arrangements for your grandfather’s ashes?” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. Once Jed and his father had made arrangements, he would bury his grandfather’s ashes and leave town. Which really shouldn’t matter to her, one way or another—as long as he didn’t sell his grandfather’s house to someone who looked like a squid.

Jed ran his index finger around the rim of his glass. His fingers were thick and blunt, callused. From what? she wondered. Manual labor? What did he do in New York City? She knew nothing about him.

Well, she had a knife. So did Fern. As long as she was armed, she could enjoy having a gorgeous guy drinking wine in her kitchen, even if he was practically a stranger.

T
HE LAST PERSON
he wanted to talk about was his father. After a quick, cursory stop at town hall that morning, where popcorn-brained Myrna Gilhooley forgot she was the town clerk for ten whole minutes so she could badger him about when he’d gotten to town and what his business was with Erica Leitner—“You think there’s money in that box? Is that why you’re being
so neighborly?”—he’d decided to skip checking the deeds on Erica’s and his grandfather’s houses and instead headed over to the Moosehead, where he’d found his father enjoying a belated breakfast of orange juice, scrambled eggs and Ice House beer.

“Oh, so here’s my famous son,” Jack had greeted him with phony enthusiasm as he shook a sluggish stream of ketchup onto his eggs. “You want something to eat? Order it at the counter. They don’t have a waitress here till afternoon.”

“I’m not hungry,” Jed said, taking the seat across from his father and sighing. After fifty-three years of hard living, his father’s skin looked like scuffed shoe leather and his fingers had deep creases scoring them, like frets on a guitar. Jed had reminded himself that the old man was what he was, and he wasn’t going to change. Even so, he didn’t have the right to filch stuff John Willetz had left to his grandson.

“Get a cuppa coffee, at least,” Jack insisted. “I don’t want to eat alone.”

“You were all set to eat alone before I walked in. Dad—”

“Now, don’t you go ‘Dad’-ing me. You’ve been in town how long? Talkin’ to Meryl Hummer, talkin’ to that snooty teacher, and you don’t even let your father know you’re here?”

“I came up here to bury Grandpa’s ashes.” Jed kept his tone level so the anger wouldn’t spill out. “And I go into his house—
my
house—and discover you’ve been stealing things from it.”

“Haven’t been
stealin
’ them. Just took a few items that the old man said should be mine.”

“The old man left you all his money. I’m sure his will didn’t say his fry pan should be yours.”

“I need a pan,” his father had argued before shoveling a forkful of ketchup-covered eggs into his mouth. “What’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is that you went through the house and took things. Things Grandpa left to me.”

“Don’t be greedy, Jed. What the hell were you going to do with that old pan, anyway? I need a pan.”

“Why? You never cook anything.” At least, Jed couldn’t recall his father ever cooking anything for him. His mother used to cook, and after the divorce, Jed had spent most of his time between her house and his grandfather’s.

“I do so cook, sometimes. Maybe now that I’ve got a pan I’ll cook more. Look, Jed, don’t tell me you traveled all the way up from the big city to fight with me over a pan.”

“No, I told you, I came up here to bury Grandpa’s ashes. But when I got here, I found that you’d taken things from his house. Those things weren’t yours to take.”

“Get over it,” Jack said before gulping down some beer. “No big deal.”

The things themselves weren’t a big deal. It was his father who was the big deal. If his mother had still lived in town, she would have given Jack an earful for taking stuff from John’s house, but she’d moved to upstate New York with Jed’s stepfather a few years ago, and without anyone to keep an eye on him, Jed’s father did whatever the hell he wanted. A fun way to live, probably—until whatever the hell you wanted crossed into someone else’s territory.