The House On The Creek (19 page)

It was the heart that complicated matters.

She stiffened her spine and pulled her hand away. Crossing her arms tight against her chest, she spread her legs long and crossed her ankles, slouching into the chair.

“You and I,” she said, meeting his green stare straight on. “We need to talk about Edward.”

Chapter Twelve

HE TURNED AWAY.
“There’s nothing to say.”

“You’re wrong. There’s the house, and the money I used to start up my business. You won’t ask.”

“Because it doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter. It should have been yours, Ev.”

His mouth thinned to a straight line. She watched his fingers squeeze the edge of his chair. “It never would have been mine.”

“Maybe.” The cold made her ache so she folded her sleeves over her hands and tucked the makeshift gloves under her chin. “He eased up quite a bit during the last two years.”

He sat rigid, silent.

“Ev?”

“I’m listening.”

Abby sighed. “He got sick. Did you know?”

“I knew the drink would dissolve his liver eventually.”

Abby rubbed her chin against the wool of her sweater. “It wasn’t that. It was cancer. In his throat, in his lungs, all over. I think it spread pretty quickly.”

She paused, waiting for a reaction, but Everett’s attention appeared riveted on the distant trees. “They wanted him in a hospital. He wouldn’t have it. So they tried Hospice, but he threw them out. Said Hospice was for people who were dying.” Abby rolled her eyes heavenward. “Stubborn fool.”

“He was a bastard,” Everett said, soft as velvet and cold as steel.

Abby considered his profile. “Maybe a lot of that was the drink. Drink does funny things to people.”

“Is there a point to this, Abby?”

“Fine,” she continued on a growl. “The point is, he wouldn’t let Hospice help him. He scared or out maneuvered everyone who tried. So that’s where I came in.”

She took a deep breath, and looked out into the woods, wondering what Everett saw in the shadows. “I needed the money, badly. And I knew what he was capable of, or I thought I did. And, you know, nothing much scares me. Especially not a bad reputation. I’ve grown up with one of my own.” She laughed quietly, but Everett only turned and looked at her through eyes that were more black than green.

“Anyway, by the time I showed up, he had been on the wagon for about six months, if you can believe it. Mostly because he couldn’t keep the stuff down. And he looked like this tangle of bones and loose fat. A pot bellied skeleton. Very sick and too weak to cause much trouble. The one doctor who managed to get a look gave him three months to live. Edward had to prove him wrong.”

“So you played nurse.” The sarcasm fairly dripped. “For how long? Six months? A year?”

“Two years. And I did more than ‘play nurse’. We moved in with him, Chris and I. Took care of him twenty-four hours a day. Fed him, washed his clothes, shopped for his food. Gave him baths when he was too weak to handle it himself. I’d had some experience, you know.”

He cocked his chin in silent query.

“Mom.” Abby said, “Blood pressure eventually did her in, but not before several strokes left her mostly helpless.” She shrugged. “Sure, Edward was full of piss and venom, but most of it was bluster. I think he was lonely, and scared. Chris did him some good. And Jack.”

“Pierce?”

“I needed someone to help make the place livable. Most of the plumbing was down. And the electricity, in the kitchen. I found Jackson in the papers.” She smiled, faintly. “He started on the house. And if I needed help with Edward, well, he had muscle. And a stubborn way that got the job done. Could be he reminded Edward a little of you.

Your father never gave up to the very end, Ev. And he never stopped wondering about you.”

“He gave up the right to wonder a long time ago.” Everett let go of his chair and shot to his feet. He gripped the porch rail instead. “You were a fool. You shouldn’t have risked your child in this house, Abigail.”

Abby considered the lines of tension beneath his t shirt. “Are you cold?”

“What?” He sounded a million miles away.

“I’m freezing out here and you’re wearing only shirt sleeves.”

“I’m not cold. Are you finished?”

“Not quite.” She yanked her turtle neck back up against her lower lip, and exhaled warm air down her sweater. “In between looking after Edward and doing my best to keep Chris well adjusted, I learned a few things from Jack. Turns out I had a talent. And I liked it, fixing things, making them better, stronger, prettier.

We started talking about a business. Turns out there was plenty of work to be done around town. Small fixes, bigger jobs. Jack had a little bit put away. I cashed in a few stocks Mom had in trust. And we took out a loan. Started Chesapeake Renovations. Even managed top pick up a few clients here and there.”

She glanced at Everett, but he stood motionless.

“Then, almost two years exactly to the day we moved in, Edward fell asleep in the living room and never woke up. It was quiet. He didn’t have much pain. Really, if he suffered at all, it was in missing his drink.” Abby tilted her head back until the stars came into focus. “Chris and I moved out, back into our shoe box on the hill. It wasn’t until four months later that I found out he’d left the house and some money to Chris.”

“To Chris.”

“Yes. Seems there was more than a little cash left over in a college fund your mother had started for you when you were born. It was enough that I could roll most of it back into the house, some of it into the business, and basically invest it toward Chris’s future. I was lucky. My investment tripled.”

Everett propped his elbows on the railing, and stared down at the lawn beneath the deck. The flat reflection of light in his eyes made her shiver. Just to prove to herself that he was harmless, she rose from her chair, and set a hand on his bare arm.

“Ev? Are you angry? I know we really didn’t have any right to the money.” She shrugged helplessly, and then bit her lip. She wasn’t sure if she could explain to the new Everett Anderson how desperately she had needed that money, and how determined she had been to make it work for her son’s future.

“The old man left it to you,” Everett said. “It was his decision.”

“He had a soft spot for Chris.”

“The old bastard didn’t have a sentimental bone in his body.”

“He missed you, Everett.” She squeezed his wrist.

“You’re not going to convince me, Abby.” He turned from the railing. “Edward’s dead and gone. You managed to salvage something usable out of a wasted life. Let’s leave it at that.”

Abby forced herself to stand calmly under his sharp gaze. Promising herself that he really couldn’t see into her heart as easily as he claimed, she nodded, feeling a coward.

“Okay. Let’s leave it at that. I just wanted you to understand.”

He studied her, and for a moment Abby’s convulsive shivering had nothing to do with the cold. “There’s nothing to understand. You took what you could and did well by your boy. Most people wouldn’t have had the talent or the drive to manage it.”

Abby puffed her cheeks and expelled a breath. “Thank you.”

“Mmmhmm.” He seemed to see her truly for the first time in many long minutes. “You cold, Abigail?”

“Freezing. Let’s go inside. Chris and I should be heading home.” She grabbed the chenille throw and wrapped it around her shoulders.

He snagged her elbow before she could reach for her empty mug, and dragged her gently back across the deck. She gasped when he pulled her up against his chest, but his hands were tender as he wrapped the blanket around them both, cocooning her snugly and thoroughly against his warmth.

She started to protest, but he only smoothed errant tendrils from her cheeks, and linked on arm around her waist. “Don’t fuss, Abby. I’m not going to jump you.” His free hand rubbed up and down her backbone, warming the goosebumps from her flesh.

“What are you doing?” Her ear was pressed against his collarbone. She could hear the thump of his pulse, slow and steady and reassuring.

“Watching the stars. The skies are always clearest before the fall sets in.”

Abby tilted her head and studied the sky. “They’re lovely. Like diamonds. I tried to count them earlier, but...”

His pale brows arched. “But?”

She tried to drag her gaze from those fathomless green depths, but when she did his mouth stole her attention.

“Abby?”

His lips were hard, tilted down at the corners, but she recalled their dance across her belly, soft as butterflies. Across her belly, she remembered, and lower, until he had her begging for more, and more again.

“Abby.” He repeated, brushing the tip of her nose with his thumb, and she jumped.

“What?”

“You said you tried to count the stars.”

“Oh.” She refused to blush. “I couldn’t count them all before they went fuzzy.”

His ribs vibrated. “Have you thought about glasses?”

She huffed, and rubbed her chin against the heat of his shirt. He was warm. And safe. Funny how he always made her feel safe, even as he threatened every one of her defenses.

“It’s easier if you start in this quarter.” He lifted his arm beneath the blanket and gestured at the sky. “With the North Star. And if you move up, there, you’ve got the Dipper.” His finger sketched above her head. “And then left, and you’ve got, let’s see, fifteen, sixteen, there’s seventeen and eighteen...”

His hand danced like a sorcerer’s, making Abby’s eyelids heavy. Stifling a yawn, she nestled closer until the back of her head rested in the crook of his arm, and shifted her weight. His voice rumbled on, soothing, and she smiled.

Everett Anderson, stargazer. She should have guessed.

She didn’t fall sleep. Not exactly. But her eyes drifted shut and she began to float, rocking weightlessly above the deck, stretching up into the stars with Everett’s voice to guide her.

“...Gemini,” he murmured, just as she cupped her hands around the brightest star. “Abby?”

The star flickered. She couldn’t quite grasp the white heat. She grumbled.

“Abby.”

The star burnt out, and Abby fell to the deck like a rock. Her body jerked and her eyes snapped open.

“What?” She asked, alarmed. “What is it?”

“You were asleep.” His chin rested against her temple. She could feel his breath through her hair, but she couldn’t see his face.

“Oh. Sorry.” She frowned over her lost dream. “What time is it?”

“Late.” He sounded strained. Startled, Abby ducked and stretched to get a look at his face, and as she moved against his body she felt the unmistakable swell in his jeans.

“Oh.” In immediate, mortifying response, her own body quivered and began to melt. “Oh. Sorry.”

Everett made a harsh sound and set her aside, unwinding the blanket. The abrupt chill set Abby to shaking. He dropped chenille over her shoulders.

“Shall we call it a night?”

She saw the tension in his jaw, and couldn’t help but notice his desire seemed to have grown rather than lessened. Blushing furiously, silently swearing, she studied the toes of her boots with new attention.

He pushed two chocolate stained mugs into her hands. “Dump these into the sink, will you? I’ll wake Chris.” He started toward the sliders, paused and looked back. “You’re okay to drive? I don’t want you falling asleep at the wheel.”

“I’m fine.” The words stuck in her throat. She coughed and tried again. “We’ll be just fine.”

He nodded once, remote, and disappeared into the house.

Abby made a face at the stars, resisted the urge to hurl both mugs onto the lawn below, and told herself she had made the right decision. He was no good to her tangled up in the past, even if it was
their
past.

“You don’t need heart break, Abby Ross,” she scolded herself in a whisper, trying to ignore the hungry drawing of her body.

But as she juggled ceramic mugs, and tugged the blanket more closely around her, she was afraid it was already too late.

The old man lay dying.

Everett sat cross legged on shag carpet, and listened to the wheeze and hitch of labored lungs. Outside, the last of the summer thunderstorms tossed gouts of wind and fistfuls of hail across the trees.

The house shuddered and shook, but even the howl of the wind couldn’t drown out Edward’s groans.

“Boy,” the old man rasped in the space between one breath and the next. “Bring me my bottle.” He lifted one feeble hand from dirty blankets as though he could summon the drink to his side.

The bottle in question lay overturned only a few inches from Edward’s soiled mattress. A thin stream of whisky ran onto the carpet, and Everett could smell the tang of alcohol even from across the room.