The House On The Creek (6 page)

The man narrowed his eyes at Everett’s vehemence. His scarred fingers wandered over the top of the kiosk and then stilled.

“If there’s nothing else I can help you with?” he said, cool and polite. “Or if you leave your name, I can let Ms. Ross know you stopped by.”

“No,” Everett said. He pressed keys into the palm of his hand until they bit. “No. I’ll tell her myself.”

“Mom! We’re out of peanut butter!”

Abby looked up from a yellowed sheaf of architect specs and focused weary eyes on the kitchen door. “Try the cupboard.”

“I did!” She could hear Chris rummaging through drawers. “I only see your chunky!”

“There’s some creamy in there somewhere.” Abby abandoned the specs. She rose from her desk and bent over sideways, try to stretch the kinks from her back.

Chris’s head popped around the swinging door.

“Found it!” He said, flashing a rare smile. “There was a jar behind the M&Ms.”

Peanut butter and toast sounds good.” Abby’s stomach rumbled. She followed her son back into the kitchen. “Aren’t you home early?”

He shook his head as he shoved bread into their ancient toaster.

“Soccer practice was just sign-up, today. Nothing real. We don’t start until next week.” He unscrewed the jar and sorted through a drawer for a knife. “Think it will be cooler on Monday?”

Abby glanced out at the sunny afternoon. “Dunno, kid. I don’t see any sign of fall.”

“But it’s almost October.” Chris grumped, stirring peanut butter. “And Jefferson’s air conditioning is broken. Emma said the main unit’s like, totally melted or something.”

“Emma would know.” Abby grabbed her own stash of peanut butter from the cupboard and grinned at her son. “Don’t worry, you’ll be complaining about the cold soon enough. I remember someone whining all winter long.”

“It didn’t snow more than an inch. And it rained all December.”

“Winter in Williamsburg.” Unimpressed by her son’s dramatic sighs, Abby licked peanut butter off her knife. “Maybe this year you should see if you could get one of those dress up jobs during break. The Historic District’s always looking for kids your age.”

Chris wasn’t enthused. “They make you wear tights. And you have to be nice to tourists.”

“But the pay’s good.”

Chris only made a face.

“You’d make a little spending money. You could pick up a few new paperbacks. And you could put some of it away in-”

“The college fund.” Chris sounded supremely bored. “I know, Mom.”

“Christopher.” Abby knocked gently on her son’s forehead with sticky peanut butter knuckles. “You’ll thank me when you get that acceptance letter from Harvard.”

“That’s years away.” Chris’s mouth turned down at the edges. “And I thought it was Yale.”

Abby rolled her eyes, and stabbed a piece of singed bread from the toaster with her knife. She tried to drag the bit of crisp bread free, hissing as she stung fingers of the edge of the toaster.

“Mom.”

“Hmm?” The burnt toast was sticking to the grill and putting up the good fight. Muttering, Abby scraped at black edges with her knife.

“Mom, there’s a sports car coming up the drive.”

Abby forgot the toast and whirled around. Over her son’s head and through the kitchen window a low black machine wound its way up the dirt road that served as their driveway.

“Look at that.” Chris couldn’t keep awe from his face. Abby recognized the glazed look in her son’s eyes. The sinking feeling in the depths of her stomach completely banished hunger pangs.

“Stay here, hon, and finish your snack.” She wiped her fingers on a dishrag. “I’ll see who it is.”

Damn the man, what was he doing all the way out here?

Leaving her protesting son behind, Abby stalked through the house and out the front door. She stood on the porch, crossed her arms, and worked up a healthy temper while she waited.

The car eased to a stop behind Abby’s ancient Mercedes. Dust settled, dulling the sports car’s fresh from the factory sheen.

Now he’ll have to get it washed
, Abby thought with a great deal of satisfaction.
Serves him right for driving a car like that up here. He knows how bad the roads are.

Or maybe he didn’t. Abby felt her stomach dip again as Everett stepped out into the heat. Maybe he’d forgotten.

For a brief moment she was uneasy, ashamed of the rutted dirt drive and embarrassed by the shoe box sized house that crouched bravely in the dust.

She crossed her arms more tightly across her chest and burned the doubts away with another flare of temper. Nobody, especially not Everett Anderson, had the right to make her feel ashamed.

Not Everett, who’d taken most of his meals at her mother’s table. Done his homework on their front porch. Why, hadn’t she patched his torn trousers and cut down a few of her dad’s shirts when Everett had grown out of his own?

Only, he wasn’t wearing patched trousers and hand-me-downs anymore. His slacks were grey and perfectly tailored. He wore a simple cotton t shirt green as the Creek woods. Green as the depths of his eyes. The watch on his wrist was gold and the shoes on his feet looked like good leather.

He wore his shades with the old air of arrogance she remembered from childhood. In his right hand he carried a bouquet of white daisies.

“Abigail,” he drawled, pausing in front of the porch steps and tilting his head in her direction. “You’ve given your ma’s place a face lift.”

“Just some paint and new boards.” It had been her first real project and she was absurdly proud that he’d noticed. “It’ll do us for now.”

“It looks good,” he said, and Abby could hear reluctant honesty in the admission. “Still smaller than a bread box, but prettier. Ma Ross must be happy.”

“Mom’s dead.” Abby tried to ignore the lump that still formed in the back of her throat whenever she thought of her mother. “Dead and buried almost a year, now.”

“I’m sorry, Abby.” And she knew that he meant it.

She still couldn’t see his eyes past the blue lenses. He seemed to hesitate, and then recall the flowers in his hand. “These are for you.”

“Why?” She didn’t want to take the offering, but white daisies were her favorite, always had been, and he knew it. She had the flowers in her arms before she could shake her head no.

They smelled of spring and youth and shade beneath the hot sun. She cradled the offering gently, and sternly kept herself from burying her face in the soft petals.

“An apology. My behavior yesterday was...inexcusable.” But he didn’t sound sorry. His voice was flat, Virginia drawl clipped. Abby wished, again, that she could see his eyes.

“You said some nasty things.”

“I know.” His left hand curled and uncurled at his side. Abby wondered that he didn’t seem to notice the movement. “I’m sorry. But you know the old man, Abby. His taste for women. And you got his house and his money.”

Abby felt blood rise in a flush along her chest and neck. “So you assumed I’d just whored myself out.”

He mouth had turned hard. “I don’t know what to think.”

Rage heated her cheeks and Abby could hear her pulse thumping in her ears. “Little Abby Ross who always wanted money but never had any. Who’d kiss the boys at school because they’d give her candy and pop. Who always talked about the rich husband she’d marry and the big house they’d have. But that didn’t happen. You knew it wouldn’t. And maybe you just assumed I’d grow up and be a whore.”

“Just like your ma.” Everett’s voice was Southern soft and full of venom.

Fury flashed red. Abby tossed the daisies into the dust at Everett’s feet and swung around, intending to take the boil of her emotions into the safety of the house.

He was up the steps before she could reach the door. His fingers locked around her elbow and he pulled her around. She stumbled on the edge of the porch and started to fall but his arm clamped around her waist and held her still.

They stood for an instant, pressed thigh to thigh. Abby could see the faint tick of pulse in his tanned throat, and she thought she could smell the Creek off his skin.

He’d smelled like that, like earth and tree and wet loam, so many years ago when they had wrestled in the water. She remembered drifting in the deep green current on the summer evenings, flesh against flesh. She remembered the sweet urgency and crude innocence of his kisses.

She knew, looking back, that she was the first girl he’d ever tasted.

Fresh heat warmed the pit of her belly. A fire that had nothing to do with temper.

He looked down at her, his face very still, his arm a vise around her waist. His mouth had softened and his shades slipped down along his nose. Beyond their tilt Abby could at last see the expression in his eyes.

Cool and remote and somehow faintly puzzled.

He shifted slightly, and she could feel the heat of his breath on her cheek.

“Mom! The toast’s burning!”

Abby saw the flash of disbelief in those green eyes, followed by something that looked very like horror. He released her so abruptly that she swayed and fetched up off kilter against the porch railing.

When she straightened and turned, Everett had left her. He stood on the doormat, hands in his pockets, straight and stiff in as Chris faced him down with all the indignation a boy nearly twelve could muster.

Chapter Five

“MOM,” CHRIS REPEATED
when Abby didn’t move. He stared at Everett as he spoke. “My toast’s burning.”

Abby could smell the dry scent of smoke and charred bread. She brushed past her son and into the house.

Smoke filled the kitchen, issuing in billows from the toaster. Abby grabbed a hot pad from a hook on the wall and yanked at the smoldering grill, trying to free it from the oven. The grill made an angry grinding sound as it came free. Three pieces of withered toast burned on the rack.

“Toss it in the sink!” Chris suggested from somewhere in the smoke. “Douse ‘em!”

Abby’s eyes watered and her nose itched. She balanced the grill away from her body, feeling foolish. In the hall past the kitchen the smoke detector began to wail, late.

“Dammit!” She yelped.

“Mom.” Chris materialized at her side. “The toast is still burning.”

A hand, wrapped in one of Abby’s colorful dishtowels, reached from the smoke and snagged the grill. Over the angry alarm she heard the crackling sound of burnt toast hitting the bottom of her enamel sink and then groan of pipes as the tap ran. More smoke billowed and Chris sneezed.

“Chris, the window,” Abby began, but Everett interrupted.

“I’ve got it,” he said. “Turn on the fan over the range.”

Abby fumbled until she found the switch on the oven, and then heaved a sigh of relief when the whirred to life. The black smoke seemed to clear almost immediately. The detector in the hall went blessedly silent.

Ears ringing, Abby wiped her eyes and looked around. Her son stood next to the toaster oven, peering doubtfully at its innards.

“Careful, it’s still hot,” she warned, and then glanced over at the sink.

Everett unwrapped the dish towel from his hand with a grace he’d only began to show as a teenager. He stood with one hip propped against her counter, apparently at ease. Spots of water darkened his t shirt and a back splotch of soot marked his forearm. His eyes were narrowed against the haze.

“Toaster’s dead, Mom.” Chris announced. “The heating element’s fried. Told you it was bad.”

“It was about done for,” Abby agreed. She wanted to smile at her son’s mournful tone. She swallowed her amusement and watched Everett warily. “You burn your hand?”

His expression was remote, guarded. “No. Just your towel.” He held up the square of red and Abby saw two quarter sized holes seared into the fabric.

“Bad day for the kitchen,” she said lightly, and forced herself to cross linoleum and take the towel from his hand.

“What were you doing in here, barbecuing?”

“Very funny. Chris was making toast.”

“I forgot about it,” Chris said. Guilt or defiance turned his nose pink.

She sent him a reassuring smile. “We’ll blame it on the fancy sports car. Chris, I told you about Mr. Anderson.”

“Everett.” He corrected, “Mr. Anderson was my dad.”

“Christopher,” her child said. He abandoned the toaster and manfully held out a hand.

Everett took the boy’s hand and shook it silently. Abby didn’t like the calculating light in his green eyes as he studied her son.

“Thanks for the help,” Chris said. “How’d you know about the fan above the range?”

“Your mom tried to bake a pie in this kitchen years ago. Nearly burned the house to ashes. I saved her butt and helped her clean up the mess before her ma got home.”