Beloved (88 page)

"Mister
Tremblay. I don't understand what you're driving at. As far as I know, my grandfather and grandmother were a happily married couple — average happy, anyway. But even if they weren't, I don't see what the point is in your dragging up the fact. They're both dead now. I think the decent thing would be to let them rest in peace."

"Aaagh, you're right," Orel Tremblay said, more annoyed than embarrassed. "Why ever did I bother? Never mind. What's done is done.
Mrs. Billings!"
he shouted, with astonishing vigor.

The nurse came in, and Meg went out. That was the end of her visit with Orel Tremblay, unrequited lover of Margaret Mary Atwells.

****

At the family supper that night, Meg's strange and wildly unsatisfying visit with Orel Tremblay was
the
hot topic. Nothing else could touch it — not young Terry's second black eye of the month; not his mother's honorable mention at the pie bazaar; not even the ten-year-old pickup Meg's older brother Lloyd had just got for a song. Everyone wanted a word-by-word blow, and they did everything but bang on the table with their spoons to get Meg to tell her story.

Meg wasn't inclined to go into detail. For one thing, they had an outsider at the table tonight — Tom Wyler, sitting smack-dab in the middle of the Wednesday chaos they called Chicken Pie Night. She stole glances at him, perfectly aware that he was watching her watch him. He made her uncomfortable, although nobody else in the family seemed to feel funny about having him there. Allie was still enchanted by the man, and their nephew Timmy seemed to be thrilled to know someone so tall and smart with almost the same first name. His twin brother Terry was ignoring Tom Wyler, but that was nothing new; Terry wasn't on speaking terms with anyone except Coughdrop, the family part-Golden Retriever.

Meg looked to her father, Everett Atwells, head of their extended household, for
his
reaction to the newcomer. No problem; to him Tom Wyler was apparently just another mouth to feed. Of her relatives, only her brother Lloyd looked unhappy to have him here. That was probably because Tom Wyler clearly had money and a job, and at the moment Lloyd had neither.

The real test, of course, was Uncle Bill, her father's older brother. Uncle Bill was outspoken, outrageous, and unmanageable. He was a kind of litmus strip for the family. If Uncle Bill liked someone, everyone else was allowed to like him too. If he didn't, he made life such hell for the newcomer that the family, out of pity, usually ended up taking the poor wretch back to where they'd found him.

They had no choice in the matter, because Uncle Bill, not the marrying kind, wasn't the cooking kind, either; he ate with the family as often as he could and
always
on Wednesday, when Comfort served her Chicken Pie with Secret Seasonings.

So it was Bill Atwells's voice, as usual, that elbowed its way through all the rest.

"Are you gonna tell us what happened or not, Meg? In the meantime, pass them pertitters. And I don't mind another dollop of chicken pie while I'm at it, Comfort; it's wicked good tonight. Well, Meg? Don't just sit there poundin' sand. You went to the man's house and the nurse let you in and what?"

Meg cast a wary eye at her irrepressible uncle. She was treading over tricky ground here. Bill Atwells might find it fascinating that someone had had a crush on his mother, but he wouldn't think much of the "drunken-lout" description of his father. And what about Allie? Did Allie really need to be reminded that drinking ran in the family?

Meg tried simple evasion. "We don't want to bore Mr. Wyler with our little small-town dramas, Uncle Bill."

"Don't be silly, Meg. Tom
wants
to hear," Allie said with a confident, beguiling look at her invited guest.

Meg had seen her sister — who could look seductive reciting the alphabet — use that look before. It was very effective, almost a form of hypnosis.

Tom Wyler gave Meg a good-humored smile and said, "I like a good mystery."

"C'mon, tell!" said Timmy.

"What're you afraid of?" asked his twin brother Terry.

"Okay," Meg said with a sigh. "As I said, Mr. Tremblay's not in great shape physically. But he's very sharp mentally. It turns out that he's noticed me around town. In fact he says I look exactly like Grandmother."

"Don't be silly," Everett Atwells said. "You look exactly like you."

"Well, all right; but here's the part he seemed determined for me to know: He was wildly in love with Grandmother."

"That son of a bitch!" Bill Atwells said through a mouthful of chicken pie.

"It never went anywhere, Uncle Bill; you won't have to challenge Mr. Tremblay to a duel," Meg said ironically.

"When was
this?"
Everett
demanded. Plainly it was all news to him.

Meg explained that Orel Tremblay and Margaret Mary Atwells had both worked at the Eagle's Nest at the same time, and that Tremblay, like the rest of the staff, was smitten with her grandmother's great natural warmth.

"Which, by the way, he told me I didn't have," Meg added wryly.

"He said that to you? That he had a thing for Grandmother, and that he thinks you're cold?" Allie was agape with indignation. "What nerve!"

"He didn't exactly say
cold,"
Meg said, coloring. "I think he said I was ‘guarded'."

"Well, that
has
been true since Paul killed himself," said Comfort naïvely. "He knew about Paul?"

"No
...
I don't know. Paul did not kill himself, Comfort. Anyway, cold or hot was not the
point,"
Meg said, exasperated. "Orel Tremblay wanted to show me the dollhouse; it was because of the dollhouse that he summoned me."

She went on to describe in great detail the exquisite miniature of the Eagle's Nest that was hidden away in Orel Tremblay's unassuming home. She avoided dwelling on the obvious — that the dollhouse was a replica of the tomb of Margaret Mary Atwells — and she made no mention at all of Orel Tremblay's scathing opinion of her grandfather.

She limped to the end of her story, which clearly had no conclusion, and waited, knowing that her family would jump all over her to provide one.

Uncle Bill weighed in first. "That's it? He had you over there to look at a dollhouse? What
for?"

"I don't know."

"It must be worth a pile," said Lloyd. "How much, do you think?"

"I don't know."

"How come
he
has the dollhouse?" asked Terry suspiciously.

"I don't know."

"Probably he
stole
it," his twin brother said. "After he fixed it up he kept it for hisself. Brother. What a dumb thing to steal."

"It must be worth a
pile,"
said Lloyd again. "How much did you say it was worth?"

"I don't know."

"This dollhouse — " Meg's father began.

"I never understood what they were doing at the Eagle's Nest in October, anyway," Allie said, interrupting him. "Okay, we know Gordon Camplin was staying on through the hunting season. Fine. But why keep his wife and two children and the whole staff there? Why not send them back to
New York
or
Boston
like everyone else? Did you ask Mr. Tremblay?"

Meg shook her head. "He threw me out."

Her family began hooting her off the stage with cries of "So you don't know
beans!"

Meg wouldn't have cared, except for Tom Wyler. He was sitting there as calm as a clock while her family took turns beating her up. It bothered her that he was neither embarrassed
nor
amused by their antics. She had the sense that he was watching them the way a psychologist might watch a play group through a one-way mirror.

No doubt it was part of his job. She was struck by the way he held himself, so casually alert, so ready to spring. If a fire alarm went off, he'd be the first one into action. But whether it would be to help the women and children, or to step over them on his way out the door — that, she couldn't know.

"Uncle Bill? A piece of my roobub pie?"

Without waiting for an answer, Comfort cut a wedge the size of an Egyptian pyramid, eased it onto a dinner plate, and passed it down the table to her husband's uncle. Comfort began dividing what was left of dessert among the rest of the family, and the talk settled down into pleasing, pie-filled murmurs about everyone else's day.

Uncle Bill, however, wasn't interested in everyone else's day; he was interested in the new man at the table. Uncle Bill had money — he'd sold his hardware store at the peak of the boom in ‘87 — and as a result he tended to respect other people who had money. He wanted to know how much respect Tom Wyler deserved.

"
So
.
Whatsit you do for a living, Mr. Wyler?"

Buy 
Embers

Antoinette Stockenberg

"Buy this book! A truly fantastic read!"

--
Suzanne Barr
,
Gulf
Coast
Woman
 

USA
TODAY
bestselling author Antoinette Stockenberg delivers an original and wonderfully romantic story of two people -- college lovers separated for twenty years -- who have the chance to be happy together at last.
 
But family, friends, an ex-husband, a teenaged daughter and an unsolved murder seem destined to keep the lovers star-crossed, until Dan takes up residence in the Cape Cod lighthouse, with Maddie's rose-covered cottage just a short walk away ...

Chapter 1

"
He'd look perfect tied to my bedposts," Norah
murmured
.

Joan lifted the binoculars from her friend's grip and focused them on the lighthouse at the tip of the windswept peninsula. After a minute, she said, "They'd better be pretty strong bedposts."

She held out the binoculars to Maddie Regan, who, as always, was the first to show up at Rosedale, her family's summer cottage on the
Cape
. "Here, Maddie. Have a look."

"Thank you, no," said Maddie, walking away from the kitchen window with her box of books. "Unlike the two of you, I happen to have a life."

Norah arched one perfectl
y shaped eyebrow. "Well, la-di-
da. Doing what? Spending another summer on the
Cape
, watching the beach erode? Get with the program, Maddie. Women our age have to keep their eyes open. Especially women our age in Dulltown."

Maddie managed a wry smile and said, "There's nothing wrong with
Sandy
Point
. It's where I want to be every year come June. It's where I want a teenage daughter to be. It's quiet; it's safe; it's—"

"Dull. Let's face it. It's
dull.
We aren't the
Hamptons
. We aren't the Vineyard. We aren't even
Newport
. There's nothing to do in
Sandy
Point
, and no one rich to do it with."

Joan, still focused on the peninsula, said, "This one could change your mind, Norah. No kidding. Wow. Killer aura.
He's standing in front of the lighthouse, looking out at the ocean. The wind's blowing his hair around. You can't mistake the guy. It really is him. Sure you don't want a peek, Maddie?"

Maddie shook her head and kept to her box of books.

Norah took Maddie's refusal personally. "You do understand our situation here? Three women, nada men—none worth bringing down from
Boston
, anyway? How are we going to network? This is turning into a serious dry spell, Maddie. I'm still separated. Joan's still single. And you're still—"

"All right, all right. Divorced," Maddie conceded. "But unlike you two,
not
dribbling with lust."

"Why should you be?" Norah shot back. "Your ex has a condo two miles away, and he's willing to bed you any time you want."

"But I don't want."

"I've never really understood that," Joan admitted. "Michael's always been so kind, so considerate to me."

"So considerate to
everyone
," said Norah with a caustic smile. She repossessed the binoculars from Joan and aimed them on her prey. "Nuts. He's gone. No, wait. Here he comes out of the lighthouse—with a basket of laundry. Good Lord. Dan Hawke is going to hang his own laundry. Dan Hawke!"

Joan, as usual, had a theory. "He's a war correspondent. He's probably used to washing his socks in some dead soldier's helmet."

"Joannie, the way you put things. Okay, here we go. First item out of the basket: jeans. I'd s
ay a thirty-four waist, thirty-
six, tops. How cute—he's holding the clothespins between his teeth. Oh, Maddie, you
should
look. He looks nothing like he does on TV."