Secrets in the Stone (3 page)

“Now there’s a mess,” the cabbie said as he slogged toward her. “Gonna need to get a tarp up on that roof before you get a lot of water damage.”

“Oh, God.” Adrian’s first instinct was to climb back in the cab and tell him to take her back to the train station. She was cold, she was tired, and she was hungry. The last thing she wanted to do was deal with a house emergency. However, she’d faced far worse challenges, both natural and man-made, including arid deserts and nearly impassable mountain ranges filled with hostile forces. Even if it weren’t a matter of pride not to back down from any kind of problem, she’d rather climb up on that roof herself in a blizzard than drag her family into it. The mere thought of her brother showing up to direct the repairs while subjecting her to a barrage of unwanted advice was enough to make the hair on the backs of her arms stand up.

“I guess I need a contractor,” she said. “Got any recommendations?”

The grizzled cabbie took off his cap and rubbed the back of his head while the cab idled behind them, emitting an ominous clanking sound. “Not too many local outfits anymore. Most of the construction work around here is seasonal. Moving the tree won’t be a big problem. You just need someone out to cut it up for you. Once it dries out, you’ll have plenty of firewood.”

“Doesn’t look like I’ll be having a fire anytime soon,” Adrian said, burying her hands in her pockets. Her short boots were losing the battle against the drifting snow, and a trickle of ice water soaked her right foot. “At least not in the main fireplace.”

“Shame about that. Don’t see that kind of stonework anymore. Everything’s fake. Fake stone. Fake tiles. They even have fake wood now.”

Adrian smothered a smile because the way he spoke made it sound as if synthetic materials were an affront to nature. He had a point, though. Her grandmother’s house was designated a historic building, and even if it hadn’t been, she would have wanted to restore it in the manner the beautiful old home deserved. “I want it put back the way it was. Can’t they use the original stones?”

“Seems like.” The cabbie resettled his hat. “You want it done right, you might give Ronnie Tyler a call. Tell him you got a stone problem.”

“Tyler,” Adrian repeated. “Okay, I will. Thanks.” She took a deep breath and started back toward the cab. “Well, I’d better get inside and see how bad the damage is.”

“I’ll get your bags. Watch your step getting around that tree, miss.”

“Thanks. I’m okay.” Adrian grabbed her briefcase and her smaller bag and gratefully left him to wrestle the larger one through the snow to the porch. The light from the cab’s headlights didn’t quite penetrate all the way to the front door, and even though the moon slipped in and out from behind the clouds to illuminate the porch a few seconds at a time, it took her a minute to find the house key on her key ring. By then, she was shivering. She finally got the huge front doors unlocked, pushed her luggage inside, and whispered a prayer as she flipped the light switch in the foyer. When the porch light came on, she let out a sigh of relief.

“At least the power lines are okay.”

“Got lucky there.” He took a step into the foyer. “Feels like you’ve got heat too. Like I said. Lucky.”

Adrian handed him the agreed-upon fare and a generous tip. “Thanks for bringing the luggage up.”

He squinted at her, his expression dubious. “You sure you’re gonna be okay out here all by yourself?”

“Yes, thanks. I’ll be fine.” Adrian didn’t add she was used to being here alone. That she’d always been here alone, even when all the family had been present.

*

Rooke Tyler heard the phone ringing upstairs in the apartment over her shop where she lived, but she didn’t plan on answering. When her grandfather went out, he forwarded his number to her because the calls were almost always business. Right now, the only business on her mind as she knelt on the concrete floor in front of the workbench was making Emma Ryan have an outstanding orgasm. When Emma writhed closer to the edge of the counter, Rooke tightened her hold on the hips that kept bucking, afraid that Emma was going to fling herself off and take Rooke down with her. Not only was that not the climax she was hoping for, but her toolbox was open on the floor behind them. She hadn’t even had time to close it when Emma had arrived unexpectedly, proclaiming she only had thirty minutes before cooking class and couldn’t wait another hour for Rooke to make her come. If Emma crashed down on a bunch of hammers and chisels, she was likely to get hurt.

“Don’t you dare answer that phone,” Emma gasped, twisting her fingers through Rooke’s thick, unruly hair. “I’m going to come any second. You just keep your mouth right on that spot.” She arched her back as Rooke obediently attended to her demands. “God, you are so
good
at that. I can’t believe…I went…three whole months…without this.”

The phone stopped ringing, at least Rooke thought it did, but she wasn’t certain because all she could hear was Emma screaming to God or maybe that she
was
God. She smiled, resting her cheek against the inside of Emma’s thigh. She never tired of hearing Emma’s pleasure, no matter how many times they did this.

“Oh, honey,” Emma sighed, brushing Rooke’s hair back from her forehead with trembling fingers. “I am going to miss you something fierce when you finally get yourself a girlfriend.”

Rooke stood, ignoring the cramps in the backs of her thighs, while Emma arranged her skirt. Then she clasped Emma around the waist and helped her down. “What makes you think I’m looking for one?”

“You might not be looking, but I expect someone will find you.” Emma opened the hair clip at the back of her neck, smoothed the loose chestnut tendrils laced with gray back into order, and reclipped it. She braced her hands on Rooke’s shoulders, leaned up on her tiptoes, and kissed her on the cheek. “You’re too good looking and just plain too damn good every other way to be running around loose. If my ex-husband had been half as talented with any of his body parts as you are, I’d probably still be married to him.”

“You’ll find another one someday. Maybe even one who knows what to do with his…parts.”

Emma laughed. “You’ve spoiled me, although I do tend to be drawn to those extra bits by nature. Can’t really imagine why.”

Rooke grinned and stretched, checking the big metal, plain-faced clock that hung over her workbench. Almost eight. She still had a lot of night left ahead of her to work.

“I’m keeping you from something, aren’t I?” Emma asked, glancing toward the door to the rear of the garage where Rooke worked. In all the dozens of times they’d trysted in this small front room, she’d never been in the back room.

“That’s okay,” Rooke said. “There’s plenty of time.”

The garage had once been used to house heavy machinery, but when a newer, bigger building had been built to accommodate a larger fleet of backhoes and Bobcats to meet the cemetery’s needs, Rooke had claimed for herself the building next to the groundskeeper’s house where her grandfather lived. She’d grown up in the big house next door with him, but by the time she was twenty and this place became available, she was ready to live on her own. In the five years since, she hadn’t changed anything about it, other than finishing the second floor for her living space. The first floor was still just two rooms with concrete floors, rough wood paneling, and an unfinished ceiling with exposed pipes and heating ducts. The small room in the front where she stored most of her tools had a counter along one wall with pegs above for hanging tools and shelves underneath for storage of her bigger items and toolboxes, a potbellied stove in the corner with a small black-and-white TV on a high shelf behind it, and a big overstuffed chair in the middle of the room. She only used the double roll-down doors when she brought in large materials, coming and going through the side door by the exit sign. The forty by sixty foot room in the back was where she worked, and off-limits to visitors. Even her grandfather was rarely admitted.

“I guess I was lucky I caught you when I did,” Emma said, gathering up her coat and purse. She linked her arm through Rooke’s. “I just had such an urge. Forty-three is too young for menopause, isn’t it? They say women want more sex during menopause.”

Rooke’s eyebrows rose. “Um.”

“Of course, you won’t have to worry about that for a long time.” Emma stopped next to the door beneath the big red exit sign. For a second, she looked uncomfortable. “Ronald playing bridge?”

“Uh-huh.”

She sighed. “Do you think that was him calling?”

“Not likely.” Rooke took Emma’s coat and held it while Emma slipped into it. “It’s okay. Don’t worry.”

“You know what he’d think,” Emma said, her hand on the doorknob. “That I seduced you…well, I
did
seduce you. But—”

“I was willing. And legal.”

Emma snorted and stroked Rooke’s cheek. “Barely. But my goodness, you are something special. I never dreamed of a woman doing what you do to me. But, oh my.” She kissed Rooke’s cheek again. “You should get out more. It’s Friday night. Have some fun.”

“I just had fun,” Rooke said gently.

“Oh darlin’,” Emma whispered. “Thank you for saying that.” She traced her fingers along Rooke’s shoulder. “You’re sure you’re all right? Because you know if you wanted—”

“I’m great, Emma.” Rooke smiled. “Really.”

Emma nodded. “Good night, then.”

“’Night, Emma.”

Rooke stood in the open door until Emma drove off. She stopped in the tiny bathroom off the front room to wash up, then went into the back of her shop. She found her iPod, sorted through the images until she came to the
New York Times
bestseller her grandfather had downloaded earlier that day, and pulled on her safety goggles. Then she picked up her hammer and chisel and got to work, ignoring the tension her encounter with Emma had stirred in the pit of her stomach. The rhythm of steel on stone, like another heartbeat in the room, and the melodic voice of the narrator were all the company she needed.

*

Six hours later, Rooke headed back to the small bathroom, unlaced her workboots, kicked them aside, and stripped off her sweat-soaked T-shirt and jeans. She stepped into the hot shower, lathered her body and hair, and stood under the steaming spray until her skin tingled with a rush of blood. The image she’d carved still lingered in her mind, the seductive curves and tempting hollows coming to life beneath her hands. She hadn’t known what the stone would reveal until she’d begun to explore it with hammer and chisel, following its natural planes at the same time as her mind guided her hands, bringing the essence of the woman who flirted along the edges of her consciousness into being. She didn’t know her name, she couldn’t see her face, but she felt her energy and passion. And when she touched the stone, hot from the strike of her steel, she knew her more intimately than she knew Emma, the only woman she’d ever touched in the flesh. Emma, a woman she liked and admired, but a woman she didn’t love and who didn’t love her. The woman who haunted her dreams, who drove her into the late hours of the night in search of a glimpse of her, lived only in her imagination. And in the stone.

Rooke flipped off the faucets and stepped out into the tiny bathroom, blindly reaching for the towel on the back of the door. After drying off briskly and efficiently, she pulled clean jeans and a T-shirt from a stack she kept on the shelf above the sink and dressed. She stepped into her boots, not bothering with socks, and walked back through the shop to the rear staircase that led to her apartment.

Upstairs, she dumped her soiled clothing in the alcove by the stacked washer and dryer and wandered into the galley kitchen at the far end of the room that made up the living and dining area. She’d partitioned off part of the space for a small bedroom. Since she was hardly ever there, preferring to spend her time in her shop, she had never bothered to decorate. She pulled a beer from the refrigerator, popped the top, and finished half of it in three long swallows. The yeasty taste made her think of pizza, and she realized she hadn’t eaten since lunch. Living alone, working alone, she didn’t follow any kind of regular schedule and often forgot to eat. Her grandfather constantly complained that she was too skinny for the strenuous work she did, even though he knew she was stronger than most of the men in the grounds crew because she spent her days and most of her nights moving stone.

Noticing the blinking light on her answering machine, she went to clear the message she hadn’t answered earlier. By now, whoever had called would have called back and reached her grandfather. Everyone in town knew he played bridge on Friday nights. With her finger poised over the first button in the row beneath the display, she looked out the kitchen window to be sure his red Chevy pick-up was parked behind the house where she’d grown up. She could make out the shape of the truck through the sheet of snow that had gotten heavier since Emma left. Several inches already covered the hood. The house was dark. He’d probably been in bed for hours. She hesitated with her finger over the first button, then pressed the middle button instead. She opened the refrigerator while she finished her beer, expecting to hear someone from the funeral home letting her grandfather know they needed to schedule an internment.

“Hi,” a woman said. “This is Adrian Oakes, Elizabeth Winchester’s granddaughter.”

For just a second, Rooke thought she was listening to one of the narrators of an audio book. The caller’s voice was so full timbred and vibrant, the air around Rooke practically shimmered with energy. Intent on hearing more, she closed the refrigerator and bent over the machine.