Night Scents (35 page)

She spun around. "The treasure, you mean? Then it exists."

"Maybe. Or maybe this guy knows it doesn't exist, and there's another reason he doesn't want you on this mission, only we don't see it yet."

The quick movement, the tension, had blood rushing to her head, pounding in her ears. She sank onto her chair. Even here, a thin, gray film of soot covered virtually everything. Water from upstairs had seeped through the ceiling. She couldn't imagine what her bedroom looked like. "I should tell Ernie."

"The police chief?"

She nodded, even her eyeballs throbbing. "I've been robbed. I've been threatened. Someone tried to burn down my house. Someone poisoned my great-aunt. She didn't just fall asleep at the wheel. Two water jugs are missing from her house. I think she's right and she was poisoned. Then there's the unexplained digging in your yard, the poisonous plants that were cut down. I know I don't have any evidence, any clue as to who's responsible, but I— well, if I don't tell Ernie, my father and brothers will once they learn about my missing notes and stuff here."

"What about Hannah? You've kept quiet this long for her sake. Suppose Ernie decides this whole thing's goofy and she's probably responsible for everything, all of it?"

"She can't be."

"But suppose this Ernie decides nothing that's happened is beyond what an eighty-seven-year-old woman who's losing touch with reality could do."

She stared at him. "Is that what you think?"

"No, it's not. I think Hannah's an eccentric, relatively harmless old lady. I think she has moments of great wisdom. I also think she's weird as hell wearing those old dresses, but that's neither here nor there. The point is, your buddy Ernie could have heard enough about her in recent weeks to make him wonder."

"Are you suggesting I not tell him?"

Clate shook his head. "I'm suggesting you prepare yourself for the authorities wanting to take a good, long, hard look at your aunt's mental state."

Ignoring her headache, Piper hurled herself to her feet. Pain shot through her head, and she staggered backward. Clate steadied her. She smiled weakly. His iron grip on her arm felt good, comforting, welcome, not at all confining. "Thanks. I'm okay. I want to have a look upstairs before I call Ernie."

"It's a mess."

"I need to see it."

A mess it was. Water still trickled down her steep stairs. Soot blackened everything, her rosy bathroom a dreary, cheerless place. But her bedroom was worse. It looked like the stuff of the eleven o'clock local news. The water from the fire hoses had turned the soot into black puddles that formed in the low spots of her floor and sopped into her hand-hooked throw rugs. The awful smell was enough to keep her in the doorway. Her cross-stitched sampler lay in the middle of the muck in front of her shattered fireplace. The fire fighters had taken axes and sledgehammers to a good part of it in their efforts to make sure they got all the fire. She could still feel some of its heat.

The bed where she'd made love to Clate only a short time ago was a wreck, the linens, mattress, and box springs a total loss. She could possibly clean and refinish the four-poster frame. Possibly. Right now, nothing was certain.

She took in the rest with a quick scan that didn't penetrate her mind and heart too deeply. So, she had her work cut out. She'd have to invest in a new wardrobe, new furniture, new artwork. New walls. The chimney would have to be repaired.

"My brothers'll insist on authenticity when I repair the chimney," she said numbly.

Clate had remained on the stair landing behind her. "And you wouldn't?"

She turned. "I would. It's part of the fun in having an antique house."

He smiled, understanding. "Sure. If you say so. Ready?"

"I should call my insurance agent." She started past him to the stairs. "Well, after I call Ernie. Think my family will have saved me a bowl of chowder?"

But Clate touched her shoulder, gently, and he said her name in that rasping, sexy drawl, and it was all over. She fell against him, burying her face in his chest as the tears came, at last. He settled both arms around her, and he held her close, saying nothing. She sobbed, aware of his warmth, his strong body, his patience, even as she cried for her house, for herself, for an aunt who meant everything to her and whom she might be losing. Clate didn't give her any platitudes, didn't shush her, just held her.

Finally, she raised her head and brushed back her tears with her wrists and gave a small, phony laugh. "God, crying on your shoulder. Anybody's shoulder. That's not my style, you know."

"I know."

"Thanks."

He smiled. "You're welcome."

"And thanks for not trying to dry my tears for me. I hate it when men do that. None have ever done it with me, of course, but you know—in the movies, in books. It always strikes me as so—I don't know, patronizing. I'd rather dry my own damned tears."

"I think it's supposed to be romantic."

"It's not."

"To you self-sufficient Yankee types, probably not."

She grinned at him, already feeling better. "And kissing a woman's tears—yuck. That's even worse. I mean, you don't see women kissing men's tears, do you?" She eyed him. "And I'm not repressed."

"No, you're embarrassed over crying."

"I am not. Crying's a healthy response to—"

"Of course it is. But crying's for other people, not for Piper Macintosh. No, she's supposed to do everything, handle everything, maintain that stiff upper lip, especially over something as measly as a chimney fire and an aunt whose eccentricities may be getting the better of her. She doesn't break down and cry."

"Oh, I see. And you would?"

"I haven't cried since I was sixteen."

She narrowed her eyes on him, aware that this conversation suddenly wasn't about her. He'd just opened a window to his soul. "What happened when you were sixteen?"

"My mother died. She was thirty-two. I buried her and left home."

And the window banged shut.

"We should go," he said, tugging on her elbow. "You have things to do, and I sense your nephews are itching to get into the last of the chowder."

But Piper didn't move.

He gave a small sigh, impatient more with himself, she sensed, than with her. "Another time, Piper. This one's not right."

"I know. That's not why I'm not moving."

"Then what—"

She took his hand, lifted it to her face, and brushed his curved finger across a stream of tears she'd missed. Before she could do anything else, his mouth found hers, tentatively at first, as if testing just how close to crumbling she was. He must have realized that she wasn't that close, or just thought he had the antidote, because he dropped an arm around her and drew her to him, sliding his tongue into her mouth, along the edge of her teeth. She draped her own arms around his neck and laced her fingers together, just to keep herself from sliding onto the floor. She was weak, but not from shock and nervousness this time.

"I'm sorry, Piper," he whispered into her mouth, "for your house, for everything that's happening. You're sweet and generous under all that Yankee reserve, and I know it hurts you to think that someone you might know is tormenting you."

She looked into his eyes, that searing blue, those dark, dark lashes. They seemed soft all at once, sincere, the eyes of a man who cared more than he ever wanted to admit he cared. She didn't know what to say. "Thank you."

The blue eyes gleamed with sudden amusement. "You're welcome."

"Don't tell my brothers you think I'm sweet and generous."

"I won't tell a soul." The amusement reached the corners of his mouth as he stood back from her, his arms still light on her back. "It'll be our secret."

They walked back to his house, and Piper went in, picked up the phone, and dialed the police station right in front of everyone gathered in the kitchen. Someone had brought cranberry muffins, a couple of six-packs of sodas had appeared, and a slow-cooker of baked beans was simmering on the counter. Tuck O'Rourke was finishing off a doughnut. One of the fire fighters, a friend of Andrew and Benjamin's, had stopped in after he'd gone home and showered. The only women in the place were Hannah, Liddy, and herself. Her female friends tended not to come around when they thought she was in trouble with her father and brothers, and having a chimney fire almost burn her house down was a sure sign of trouble.

All eyes were on her, all voices silent, when she asked to have Ernie please stop by the Frye house when he got the chance, she had a robbery to report. No, she didn't want to talk to anyone else about it. She wanted to talk to Ernie. Frye's Cove's police department was small, and she'd have to explain the whole thing to Ernie eventually, anyway.

She hung up the phone.

Andrew said, "What now, kid?"

She pushed her hair back with both hands. She hadn't fussed with it after showering, and it had gone every which way as it dried. Her sister-in-law's baggy jeans made her feel as if she'd shrunk through the day, her ordeal slowly withering her down to nothing. She wondered if she had a red nose and red eyes from crying.

"Piper," her father said, and she realized her mind had drifted.

Hannah got creakily up from the table and withdrew her jar of miracle tea from the refrigerator. "I'll have her perked up in a

jiffy-"

But Clate said, "Piper found some things missing in her house. She received a threatening call right before the fire. It's possible someone intended the fire not only to terrorize her, but to cover up for an earlier theft."

The place erupted. What precisely was missing? When did Piper last see it in her office? Could one of the fire fighters have destroyed it because it was on fire? Misplaced it? Mistakenly tossed it? Questions and theories abounded, and Piper was shoved onto a chair, a bowl of chowder planted in front of her, orders given from all around for her to eat. And talk. Of course she'd have to be comatose before they'd let her off the hook.

And she had to go through it all over again, several times, when Ernie arrived with his notepad and a long, long list of skeptical questions. He'd at least kicked everyone out of the front parlor while she talked.

When they finished, and he'd put away his notepad and was just Ernie, friend of the Macintosh family, he settled back against a musty wingbacked chair. "I'm going to have to talk to Hannah."

"I expected as much."

"You should have come to me with this sooner."

"Yes, I should have. If I'd had a crystal ball, I would have." There was no sarcasm in her tone; she meant what she said.

"There's not any more I could have done then than I can do now, but at least word'd be out and this character maybe wouldn't have been so bold as to steal these notes and things right out from under your nose, maybe even set your house on fire."

She nodded, glum. He was making a lot of sense. "I guess this is a case of hindsight being twenty-twenty."

"Or it's a case of a niece trying to protect her elderly aunt." His tone was surprisingly gentle, and he leaned over his paunch. "She means well, Piper. I'm not saying she doesn't. But when we sort this thing out, we still might find her at the bottom of it. She'll have her reasons. Some spell, some potion. Who knows?"

Piper sank back in her chair. She'd spent countless evenings in this room, talking with Hannah, knitting, reading, just watching the fire.

Ernie got heavily to his feet. "If she thinks this Clate Jackson character's the love of your life, I wouldn't put much past her to get you two together. You know, she's eighty-seven. She might not care if she scares the living shit out of you and burns your house down, provided it works and you end up with this guy."

"That doesn't explain the treasure."

"Sure it does. All part of her little game to get you to the altar."

Piper sighed. If Clate had been in the room, he'd at least have understood why she'd been reluctant to go to Frye's Cove's chief of police. "Ernie, you don't understand at all. She believed—don't ask me why—that the only way the love of my life and I would ever find each other was if she sold her house. So she sold it. It's got nothing to do with wanting to get me married off. It's got to do with wanting to bring two people together."

"If you believe her."

"True. She could have just used this spell thing as a way to get her off the hook with people in town who're ticked at her for selling to an outsider."

"Yeah, well, from what I hear, she's lucked out on this one. Think she knew Jackson wasn't a troll before she claimed she'd conjured him up?"

Gathering together her last shreds of patience, Piper rose. "I have no idea. Thanks for coming by, Ernie."

"There's not much I can do, you understand."

She nodded. "Can you wait and talk to Hannah tomorrow?"

"Sure." His gaze softened, and he cuffed her on the shoulder. "Buck up, kid. You'll get through this."

"Thanks."

She received similar encouragement from her father and brothers as they and Liddy and Hannah finished cleaning Clate's kitchen. They'd told him to sit down and leave them to it because he didn't know where anything went. He watched silently from the table as Piper said her good-nights to her family.

"You'll be all right here?" her father asked.

She nodded. "Yes, fine."

"I'm leaving the tea for you," Hannah said. "A half cup before bed will make all the difference."

"I'll try to choke some down." She felt her eyes fill with tears as she gave her aunt a quick hug and squeeze. "Ernie's coming by tomorrow. He needs to talk to you."

Hannah gave an irreverent grin. "I'll have my broomstick ready."

Piper laughed. "Oh, Hannah."

"You and I need to talk."

"I know. Tomorrow."

Hannah nodded, looking troubled. Piper kissed her on her cheek. "I'll see you in the morning. Promise."

Liddy offered to bring more clothes if needed, Benjamin said he'd help clean up her house, and their boys made off with a stack of cookies someone had dropped off while Piper was in talking with Ernie. Andrew, however, couldn't shed his concern. Instead of expressing it to his sister, he addressed Clate. "You'll see to her, right?"