No Hiding Behind the Potted Palms! A Dance with Danger Mystery #7 (15 page)

“I heard about your mother.
I’m sorry, Kim.”

“Thanks,” I sputtered, still
in shock. My brain was malfunctioning. I still couldn’t understand
why Tom was standing on my doorstep.

“Can I come in?”

“Right now?” Out of the
corner of my eye, I saw a silver Buick pull up behind the red Ford
Taurus with the Georgia plate that was parked in the driveway. It
was Mac.

“Is this not a good time?”
Tom put a proprietary hand on my arm and gave me a gentle squeeze,
as if to claim territory. Mac was out of the car in a flash,
bounding up the walk. Even as he moved, I seemed to see the wheels
turning in Mac’s head. This was a man who meant business, and he
wasn’t shy about making his plan come to fruition.

“Kim, sorry I’m late.” He
took the bouquet out of my arms and strode confidently into the
house. “I’ll get a vase and put these in water while you finish
your conversation.”

“Boyfriend?” Tom asked. He
sighed, pausing just long enough to seem disappointed. It suddenly
dawned on me that Tom was playing me.

“Why are you here?” I asked,
studying my older, but apparently not wiser, former lover. “You
certainly didn’t come all this way to deliver flowers.”

“I’m here for a conference.
‘Advances in the Battlefield Operating Room: Emergency Medical
Simulation’. It’s part of a joint training project between the Navy
and Walden Medical Center.” As I stood looking at him, I saw more
gray in his hair, especially at the temples. He was still very fit
and it looked like he was a regular at the gym.

“I don’t understand. You’re
not a doctor.”

“I’m the point man for the
simulation technology. Vanguard Advanced created the program, so
I’m supposed to introduce it.”

“Oh.” Mac was rummaging
around in the kitchen. I could see him out of the corner of my eye,
but I couldn’t figure out what he was doing in there.

“So, what do you say --
dinner tonight?” Tom let his eyes linger on my lips, reaching out a
hand to trace the curve of my cheek with his fingertips, imbuing
all of the familiarity of a long-ago lover. Three years ago, I
would have jumped at the chance to rekindle the fire. Two years
ago, I would have played hard to get, testing the waters, to see if
there was anything left to salvage of our relationship. A year ago,
I would have turned him down, wanting to punish him for deserting
me when I was at my most vulnerable. And now? That bold stroke of
determined confidence irritated me as I stood there, those long
fingers summoning up the specter of that intimacy we had once
shared. It was as if Tom saw no distance between us, no time that
altered the course of our relationship. He acted as if we would
just take up where he left off, now that my mother’s health no
longer interfered. It dawned on me that he was playing me, not out
of love, but out of necessity. So, if I really wasn’t the love of
Tom’s life, why did he want to see me? “I’ll pick you up at
seven.”

That assumption, that I was
his for the taking, got on my nerves. This was the man who left me
to cope alone with my mother’s health crisis while he moved onto
the next woman. Was it only that Adelaide was now deceased? Is that
what made me attractive to Tom? Or was there something else pushing
him in my direction?

“Sorry,” I shook my head.
“That’s not possible.”

Mac walked in on the tail
end of that exchange. I noticed the look he gave my former lover
and my confusion grew. Why would Mac seem so aggrieved by a total
stranger?

“Kim, we should probably get
going,” Mac said somewhat impatiently. I watched Tom size up the
other man in the room. He seemed to be looking for the competitive
edge as he fluffed up his mental tail feathers.

“Tom Robacher.” His hand
shot out like a heat-seeking missile, looking to connect to Mac’s.
I watched in fascination as Mac maneuvered to avoid introducing
himself. “And you are?”

“Not you. Excuse me.”
Abruptly, uncharacteristically, Mac turned on his heel and headed
down the hallway. It was a rude explosion of testosterone I hadn’t
expected. Maybe I hadn’t imagined that spark between Mac and
me.

“Serious relationship?”
There was persistence in the tone of Tom’s question. He was looking
for information. Why?

“Tom, you’ll have to excuse
me. I’m on my way out.”

“Oh, come on. Let me see you
again,” he urged me, touching my wrist. For a moment, I almost
thought he was feeling for a pulse. I pulled myself away from him
and led him to the door.

“It’s not convenient.” I
waited for him to step out the door, but he lingered.

“I won’t take no for an
answer,” he warned me in a low whisper.

“You’ll have to, Tom.” I
took two steps away from him, holding the door wide
open.

“Are you that angry with
me?” Tom gave a brief, disbelieving shrug of his powerful shoulders
and stepped outside. He didn’t stop until he got to his car. By
then, I had almost closed the door. That didn’t prevent him from
making a declaration before the latch hit the strike
plate.

“I’m willing to admit I made
a mistake in letting you go. I’m willing to make it up to
you.”

Behind the safety of the
closed door, I took a deep breath. My head seemed to spin. How many
times had I rehearsed my speech to Tom? How many times had I
imagined him returning, tail between his legs, ready to acknowledge
what a great mistake he had made in abandoning me? And yet here and
now I had heard those words and felt nothing for him. No pang of
sorrow for what might have been. It was as if the emotional fog had
finally lifted, revealing the truth of what we shared. The shock
hit me hard. Did that mean our relationship had been a
fraud?

“Ready?” Mac came into the
hall. I exhaled, shaking myself free of the past, at least for the
moment. Had I really wasted the years dreaming about something that
had never really been?

“Let’s go,” I managed to say
more cheerfully than I felt. “I just need my bag.”

“Are you okay?” Mac’s eyes
were on me, studying my face.

“Absolutely,” I
smiled.

“I wasn’t sure. The guy
seemed pretty persistent.” Mac slipped on his game face, his true
feelings now concealed by a mask of neutrality. I wondered what was
going on behind it.

“The past is the past. I
just found out it doesn’t matter to me any more.”

“Interesting,” Mac decided,
his dark brown eyes intently observing me.

“Not really,” I replied.
“I’d much rather hear about Jenkins Beach. Tell me more about your
cottage.”

Chapter Three
--

“It was built as a summer
house in 1920 by the Frankle family,” he told me, as we pulled out
of the driveway in his silver Buick. “Mr. Frankle was an insurance
executive for Hawthorne Life and Casualty. He and his wife had
eight children and a very nice life until the Great Depression.
When the company folded, he lost his job. He and his wife sold
their mansion in the city and moved to Jenkins Beach. Rumor has it
he got into bootleg liquor sales and used the boathouse to store
his wares. The property stayed in the family until 1977. That’s
when it was bought by Darius Porter.”

“The actor?” I had seen some
of his movies on late-night cable. He was a “B” movie star,
churning out thrillers and light comedies for several
decades.

“None other. He and his
family used it for another twenty years. When he died, his widow
turned it over to the Jenkins Beach Art Guild, with a rent of one
dollar a year for twenty years. When the lease ran out in 2007, the
house went on the market. It sold in one week, and the art guild
got the money to build their new building on Main Street. The guy
who bought it got as far as gutting it before he had to file for
bankruptcy. I snatched it up as a short sale last year and had my
contractor renovate it. Architecturally true to the time period,
but with all the major conveniences of modern life.”

“Sounds interesting,” I told
him.

We talked about Bonnie Oaks
as we took Route 1 south. Mac was a steady, fluid driver,
seamlessly weaving in and out of traffic.

“The in-law apartment is in
the attic, but there’s a small elevator. I put that in for Mae’s
sake. You’ll find it comfortable. It’s about a thousand square
feet. You’ll have the whole floor to yourself.”

Maybe it wouldn’t so bad
after all. I was beginning to be curious about the house, eager to
see it.

“Shall we stop for lunch?”
Mac asked, as we left the highway and headed towards the town
center. The Atlantic peaked through the tidy yards that lined
Seaspray Avenue. I saw the rustic, faded sign for the Crab Hut up
ahead. We pulled into a crowded parking lot and Mac squeezed
between a BMW and a Chrysler mini-van.

“If it’s this crowded in the
spring, it must be packed in the summer,” I said. Mac
laughed.

“The line starts forming at
eleven on the Friday before Memorial Day and it only slows down
when the summer crowd departs. These days, that usually means late
October.”

We found a table by a window
overlooking the harbor, where we could watch the traffic on the
water. The waitress took our order for coffees and lobster rolls.
We made small talk about Jenkins Beach while we waited for her
return. In less than ten minutes, we were rewarded with plastic
baskets containing a lightly grilled hot dog bun brimming with
large chunks of buttered lobster meat, kettle chips, and
pickles.

“Dig in, “Mac directed me.
He eagerly scooped up his sandwich and took a bite. A grin spread
across his boyish face. “My favorite.”

“Mr. Tweedie! As I live and
breathe!” A hearty hand slapped Mac on the back.

“Rogan, you old dog. How’s
it going?”

“Can’t complain.” A
heavy-set blond man with long hair pulled back in a pony tail slid
into the empty seat beside Mac. He pushed a large hand across the
table and pumped mine. “I’m Steve Rogan, Mac’s contractor on the
cottage.”

“This is Kim Sheffield, an
old friend of mine,” Mac explained.

“What did you think of it?”
Steve demanded. “Do you approve?”

“She hasn’t seen it yet.”
Mac took a bite of his dill pickle. “We’re headed over there after
lunch.”

“Great. By the way, I got
the lumber for the boathouse. I can start next week,” he announced.
“You’ll both be seeing a lot of me for the next two
months.”

“Sounds good,” said
Mac.

“Glad to hear it,” Steve
replied, getting up from the chair. “Got to run. I have to pick up
little Stevie from school. Nice to meet you, Kim. If there’s
anything you need to know about the area, consider me your local
tour guide.”

“If I decide to come to
Jenkins Beach, I’ll do that.” The fact was I hadn’t agreed to take
on the role of caregiver yet. That hadn’t stopped Mac from
spreading the word.

“Fair enough.” Steve waved
on his way out, the screen door of the Crab Hut bouncing in his
wake.

“No visit would be complete
without homemade ice cream,” Mac insisted, as the waitress arrived
to clear our plastic baskets. I chose peach melba, relishing every
decadent bite. It had been a long time since I had indulged in
anything other than low-fat ice cream. Mac ordered mint chocolate
chip and he consumed it with great enthusiasm. He paid the bill as
we lingered over the second round of coffee. We sat in
companionable silence, enjoying the ever-moving flotilla of boats
passing by the picture window of the local hang-out. At last, with
the final sip of coffee drained from my cup, I put it down and
scrunched up my napkin. Mac did the same.

“Shall we?” was all he
said.

We left the restaurant,
climbed back in the car, and headed towards Bonnie Oaks. I could
feel Mac’s excitement growing as we turned down the old beach road.
The houses here sat on larger lots. Most of them were of an earlier
era, with lots of cedar shingles and period architectural details.
There were wide porticos and screened porches spanning breadth of
the elegant cottages, towers and turrets no doubt offering charming
water views from the upper floors, as well as the occasional
widow’s walk here and there. The beach sat behind tall dunes, out
of view from my perspective as a passenger in Mac’s silver Buick
Lacrosse, leaving me hungry for a glimpse.

We turned right and traveled
down a long, tree-lined street, away from the ocean. I could see
the salt marshes on either side as we crossed the small bridges,
one after another, heading towards the bay. This was a naturalist’s
paradise, with flocks of sea and shore birds partaking of the
bounty contained within the confines of the estuary.

There were no houses here,
only a wide expanse of marsh. I could see osprey nesting on large
wooden platforms that dotted the winding waterway. Soon, the
landscape began to change, as we came to Jolly Bay. I could see the
bridge in the distance, tiny cars parading across its vast
expanse.

“The beach itself is a
five-minute walk from the house,” Mac announced, breaking the
silence between us. He pointed to my right. “There’s a public path
that runs from Acorn Lane through to Ocean Avenue. You’ll see the
sign by the big brown house with green shutters. You just follow it
till you get to the boardwalk. It’s quite narrow in some spots.
Some of the homeowners don’t like to share their land, so they’re
rather stingy with their section of path. But it’s
accessible.”