The Guest House (8 page)

A
s Cape history told it, the invasion of the “wash-ashores” started in the late 1800s. From the beginning, it was the Cape’s simplicity, its natural charms that held appeal for the wealthy city dwellers who came to claim the land. Early architects were instructed to build with the landscape in mind, to construct big but undecorated homes. Those who moved there did so to get away from the hustle of cosmopolitan life, to escape it—and the locals built as they were told. But it was that exchange that set in motion a legacy of strained relations. Men who had made perfectly acceptable livings as farmers and fishermen became Realtors and builders to suit the demand. The division in the sand was drawn early on.

Now, as Lexi stood in the middle of the Mosses’ great lawn and looked around, she could feel the awe and excitement—and maybe even a bit of the ambivalence—of those who came before her. She’d found Cooper’s Jeep gone and a new car in the driveway when she’d arrived, nervous for a moment that it might have belonged to Hudson, but the South Carolina plates calmed her fears. When no one came out to greet her, she wondered whether the car belonged to a girlfriend of Cooper’s, thinking maybe his guest was holed up in one of the upstairs rooms waiting for Cooper to return with breakfast: a box of toffee rolls from Roy’s, or one of the Edgewater’s famous lobster omelets sent out in a flecked cardboard container.

She steered her thoughts to more important matters and set up her equipment on the porch. The sun had yet to push through the morning mist, but when it did, the heat would arrive with it, and she’d want the shade of a deep roof.

•   •   •

B
y eleven, after two productive hours and not a glimpse of another person on the property, Lexi was back on the porch changing her lenses when she heard the creak of the screen and spun around, startled. In the doorway stood Cooper, barefoot, wearing swim trunks and holding a beach towel in one hand. “I’m sorry,” he said, moving toward her. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You didn’t,” she said. “I just thought you were . . . I didn’t see the Jeep.”

“I let Jim take it to get food.”

“Jim?”

“My father’s best friend. He arrived last night to help me coordinate repairs to the property.”

“Oh.” Lexi nodded; so much for her theory about a lover. “Then you’ve hired someone to do the work?”

“Not yet. I’ve got a guy coming over this afternoon to take a look at the guest house,” Cooper said, gesturing to the small cottage at the edge of the lawn that was partially visible behind a curtain of skinny pines. “It’s in rough shape, as you might have guessed from the outside.”

Lexi wanted to tell Cooper that her mother and her brother could do the work, wanted to offer up their services on the spot, but she didn’t. There were only so many times she was willing to kick the hornet’s nest.

Cooper squinted up at the sky. “I think the sun’s supposed to get here eventually.”

“I don’t mind. I prefer to shoot exteriors when it’s overcast. The light’s even and I don’t have to worry about harsh shadows or glare.”

“Good to know.” He smiled. “I wish I could say the same for writing.”

“No luck yet with a new story?”

“Unfortunately, no,” said Cooper, slinging the towel over his shoulder. “I’m hoping a hard swim might shake loose some ideas.”

A hard swim
. Lexi took in a quick survey of his body, a flush of warmth heating her skin.

He stepped closer. “I would have thought you’d be one of the holdouts,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

He nodded to her camera. “That’s digital, right?”

“I avoided the technology for as long as I could,” she admitted with a sigh. “It’s just easier. The only downside is getting people to believe the photographs haven’t been manipulated. I can spend an hour getting the light just right and clients look at it and assume I spent ten seconds changing the levels on my computer.”

“That must be frustrating.”

She shrugged. “Not really. Frankly, I enjoy the challenge. I still treat the camera as if it were a traditional camera; I still bracket my shots as if I won’t have the chance to fix my mistakes or ramp it up in Photoshop. Honestly, the only thing I
really
miss is my darkroom.”

“No space?”

She smiled. “No money. It’s too expensive to maintain. Most of the photographers I know say the same thing. I still have my old film camera but I rarely use it now.”

Cooper looked wistfully at the camera in her hand. “I dated a photography student once who practically lived in the school’s darkroom.” He raised his eyes to meet Lexi’s, a slow smile pulling at his mouth. “I’m sure I’m not the first guy to leave college thinking darkrooms are sexy as hell. Something about that dim red light.”

Lexi turned back to her gear, his confession unquestionably provocative. It didn’t help that he stood there in nothing but a pair of shorts, a uniform she might have seen him wearing for weeks at a time when they were younger. But now, his body older, surer, the exposure of skin seemed to charge the air with suggestion. Surely he felt it too?

“I should let you get back to work,” Cooper said, moving to the steps.

Lexi nodded, faced again with the uncomfortable feeling that she’d imagined something erotic in a moment that had been utterly innocent.

“Good luck shaking loose those ideas,” she offered.

“Thanks,” he said. “And good luck with your light. Or lack of it.” He began down the lawn; she watched him go, thinking of his words—a lack of light—then wishing suddenly, desperately, for a flash of hot sunshine, no matter what it did for her shot.

“Alexandra?”

Cooper had stopped and turned back to face her. She met his gaze.

“If there’s anything you need,” he said, “anything I can do to make the job easier for you, let me know, all right?”

She considered him a moment, then said, “There is one thing.”

“Name it.”

She smiled. “Call me Lexi. No one calls me Alexandra unless they’re really mad at me.”

“Duly noted,” he said, walking backward down the lawn. “Lexi it is.”

•   •   •

E
die Wright pushed through the door of the village market and sighed at the blast of cold air against her damp skin. It had already been a stressful morning and she’d yet to arrive at the office. Several of her crew had called in to ask about their next project. They needed work and apologized for calling, but things had grown dire. Edie didn’t need to be told. It had been weeks since their last job, and as much as the women wanted to stay loyal to her, Edie knew that if push came to shove, they’d have to accept other work. In high season, that meant being behind the counter at the Crab Trap or waiting tables at Russo’s. Edie couldn’t bear it. Here it was, peak building season, when every male crew from Provincetown to Sandwich was booked solid, and she couldn’t even get so much as a half-bath renovation job. More than forty-five years since she’d fought for a place on her father’s crew, and still she struggled to make the people of the Cape see her female builders as every bit as capable as her son’s male crews.

She could ask the Bridges, she thought as she wandered down the frozen aisle. She knew Karen had been talking about redoing their kitchen cabinets; she knew too that Karen and Bob’s retirement had reduced their budget. She’d offer them a price they couldn’t refuse.

“Edie Worthington?”

She turned, startled by the sound of her maiden name. No one had called her that in over forty years.

A lanky, white-haired man waved to her as he approached. She squinted at him.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” he asked cheerfully.

Edie looked hard at the man, sure she heard a Southern accent but still no closer to placing him. “No,” she said carefully. “I’m sorry; I don’t.”

“James Masterson.
Jim
.” His lips spread in a puckish smile. “Tucker Moss’s college roommate. We met a long, long time ago. I’m not surprised you don’t remember—I’m deeply wounded,” he added, clapping a hand dramatically over his heart, “but I’m not surprised.”

James Masterson? Memories flashed back like lightning. Cokes on the beach. A plate of pastries. Feet scrambling to get across a roof.

“You had glasses,” she said, her voice quiet with amazement that she would recall that.

“So you
do
remember me,” Jim said, obviously pleased. “Yes, I did. But thanks to the wonders of LASIK surgery, I don’t anymore. You see, I went the backward route with my eyesight. Started out life blind as a bat, and now I’m going to finish it out with twenty/twenty.” He hesitated, his amusement turning wistful. “It’s good to see you, Edie.”

She blinked at him, still in shock. “It’s been . . . God, it’s been years.”

“Young lady, it’s been
centuries
.”

“Not quite,” she said. “Decades, maybe.”

“You’d never know it to look at you. You look exactly the same.”

Edie smiled. “What brings you to Harrisport, James?”

“The house. Florence wants to put it on the market as soon as possible. I offered to come up and help manage the sale.”

“I heard,” said Edie. “About Cooper coming to see to the cottage, I mean.”

“Then you knew about Tuck,” Jim said, his voice dropping.

“Yes, I had heard that too.”

“And I just learned about your Hank, Edie. I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you, James.”

The air between them fell silent. Edie looked up at him. “Are you in town for long?” she asked.

“It all depends on how much work we have to do to get the house in shape for sale, how difficult it is to get a crew to help. The guest house had a hard winter.”

Edie could swear Jim’s eyes flashed knowingly at the mention of the spot where they’d first met, but maybe it was only her imagination. Either way, her mind turned sharply from memories to the present. The saleswoman in her bolted from slumber. It was too perfect an opportunity not to at least try.

“You know, James,” she said, “I’m still in the construction business. My son runs most of the bigger jobs, but I have a crew of my own I’ve trained over the years. They’re quite good, and available if you’re looking.”

Jim nodded thoughtfully. “I should have known you’d never put down that hammer of yours.”

“I hope you’ll keep us in mind,” she said, giving her cart a gentle push to signal her intention to leave. “Wright Construction. Our office is on Bridge Street, across from the library.”

•   •   •

T
he tangy sweetness of Jim’s famous pulled-pork barbecue slid under Cooper’s door at six, and just as he might have done at fifteen, starving after a day at the beach, Cooper rose to find its source. It was amazing to him what just the scent of home-cooked food could do to a space. As he walked downstairs, the cottage felt lived-in for the first time since he’d come back. He’d been searching for the moment, the event that would spark his true sense of return to the place of his childhood; Jim had delivered it.

Cooper came into the kitchen and found Jim at the counter, sleeves rolled up past his elbows and nursing a gin and tonic.

“Smells great.”

“Good,” said Jim. “I saw there’s a little wicker number on the porch, if you’d care to dine al fresco.”

Cooper gathered settings and a chilled bottle of chenin blanc and carried the load outside, finding the sky a startling lavender and the air filled with the whistle of crickets. Jim arrived a few minutes later with their plates and they took their seats.

“I saw your photographer today,” said Jim. “She’s a lovely girl.”

Cooper smiled. “Yes, she is.”

“Looks nothing like her mother, though,” Jim added, shaking open a napkin over his lap.

“You remember her mother that well, huh?”

“I do, indeed. In fact, I spotted her this morning at the store.”

“No kidding?” Cooper reached for the wine and filled their glasses.

“We talked for a bit, caught up, if that’s the term for it,” said Jim, reaching for his fork. “Which reminds me, did that contractor ever come by to look at the guest house?” Cooper nodded; Jim’s eyes narrowed expectantly. “And?”

“It needs a ton of work,” Cooper reported. “Unfortunately, he says he can’t start until the fall. He doesn’t think anyone else around here will be able to either. It’s peak building season.”

Jim slowed his chewing, considering the answer. “That’s interesting timing,” he mused. “As luck would have it, Edie said she has a crew looking for work right now. I happened to mention we might be needing help on the guest house, and she offered her services. I could give her a call tomorrow. Wouldn’t hurt to get her over here just to take a look. I’m sure she’d find it amusing, even if she didn’t take the job.”

Cooper drew up his glass. “Why would she find it amusing?”

“You don’t know?” Jim smiled, shifting his gaze reflexively to the lawn, the view of the guest house shrouded slightly by dusk’s dimming curtain. “She and her late husband helped build it.”

“You’re kidding. I never knew that.”

“Ah, yet more secrets I’m spilling.”

“Speaking of which . . .” Cooper picked up the bottle and added more wine to his glass, then some to Jim’s. “Now you can tell me the rest of that fat night crawler of a story you dangled and yanked out of the water the other night.”

“And what story was that?”

Cooper gave Jim a weary look; Jim chuckled. “Oh,
that
one,” he said. “I should warn you, son: It’s long.”

Cooper gestured to their full plates with his glass. “Good thing we just got started then.”

Harrisport, Massachusetts

July 1966

T
he sun shone without interruption for four straight days. Tucker took advantage of their good fortune and showed Jim every inch of the Cape, leaving plenty of time for lazy afternoons on the beach and games of badminton before dinner.

The construction crew had taken advantage of the sun too, making the most of perfect building weather to frame up the guest house in record time.

Tucker considered their progress from the window of his father’s study on Thursday morning, his gaze drawn again to the movements of the red-haired girl he’d tried to help upon his arrival. While the men scaled the scaffolding to sheet the roof, she’d been relegated to the edge of the lawn with a stack of short boards, an assignment that Tucker could discern by her fierce expression was not an agreeable one.

“I wasn’t aware you had such an interest in construction, son.”

Tucker turned to meet his father’s reproachful gaze; Garrison had arrived in the doorway and now came into the room, pointing his son to the upholstered chair in front of his desk. “Have a seat.”

“Yes, sir.” Tucker sat, rubbing his palms expectantly along the carved mahogany of the chair’s arms. He waited while his father shuffled through a pile of papers, frowning down at them as if they held some tremendous mathematical equation that had stumped brilliant minds for years.

“So . . .” Garrison began absently, still surveying his documents. “Your roommate seems to be enjoying himself.”

“Yes, sir.”

“He have a girl down there?”

“No, sir.”

“Why not?” Now Garrison raised his eyes, which were narrowed with consideration.

Tucker shrugged. “Says he wants to take his time.”

“What for? I guarantee you that boy won’t have a spare minute when he starts working for his father. Now’s the time to get all that squared away.”

Squared away.
Tucker hated the way his father could make finding love sound like something to check off your life’s to-do list, like laundry or a license renewal.

“Speaking of such matters . . .” Garrison snapped open a silver case, slid out a cigarette, and tapped the end against the metal edge. “Your mother just informed me the jeweler called. The ring’s ready to be picked up. I promised her you’d go get it as soon as we’re done here.”

“Now?” Tucker said, oddly panicked at the announcement. “But Florence won’t be here for another month.”

Garrison lit his cigarette. “You know how your mother gets.”

Tucker nodded. He hadn’t even seen this ring—not that it mattered. It was understood he’d use it to propose to Florence when she arrived with her father in August. Tucker wondered what other arrangements had been made on his behalf regarding his future fiancée.

“Oh, and Horace wants you boys in Boston first thing next week,” said Garrison, waving away a cloud of smoke. “I assured him your grades were top-notch, but he feels strongly that ya’ll will benefit from a refresher before you take the bar.”

Next week? Tucker swallowed his disappointment and forced an agreeable nod. He rose and left his father already engaged in a lively phone call with one of the partners by the time he’d closed the door behind him. Upstairs, Jim slept on; Tucker left him a note explaining his absence and slipped out through the kitchen.

As soon as he reached the bottom of the steps and looked out at the driveway, Tucker saw that the red-haired girl had stationed herself in the crescent of space he would need to pull out the roadster. A fierce charge of excitement or dread—maybe both—ran through him, knowing he’d have to approach her and ask her to move her work. She had her back to him as he came closer, her thin frame hunched over a board, biting her lip as she pounded at the point of a nail to drive it out the other side.

“Hi,” he said tentatively, not wanting to startle her, especially not while she was wielding—swinging!—a hammer.

She paused briefly, shot a quick assessing look at him over her shoulder, and returned to her work.

Tucker took another step forward. “Look, I really hate to ask you to move all this, but, you see, I have to pull out. So if you might could—”

“It’s fine,” she said, lowering her hammer and already shuffling loose boards into a pile.

“At least let me help.” This time Tucker didn’t wait for her answer before he started gathering the rest of the boards and carrying them to the edge of the lawn.

He handed her the hammer, wondering what had become of her hat.

“What is it you’re doing here, if you don’t mind my asking?” he said. “See, I thought builders were supposed to put nails
into
boards, not hammer ’em out.”

“They are.” The girl blew a lazy tendril out of her face. “But some
dumb ass
put up a partition wrong, so all the boards had to come down, and I’m taking the nails out so we can use them again. The boards, not the nails,” she clarified.

Tucker smiled. “Yeah, I figured that.”

She squinted up at him, considering him in a way that Tucker couldn’t quite make out.

He slid his hands into his pockets. “I really am sorry about your bike.”

“Hey, Edie!” someone called out from behind them. Tucker turned to see a tall, dark-haired man with his hands cupped around his mouth. “Kyle needs more spade bits!”

“Tell him to hold his goddamn horses!” the girl shot back at him.

Edie
. It suited her, Tucker thought.

“Must be hard working with all these guys,” he said.

Edie swung her braid testily over her shoulder.

“Are you the only girl?” he asked.

“Do you see any others?”

Tucker glanced up to find the same dark-haired man scowling at him from behind a stretch of studs. “That must be your brother, then. He’s giving me one of those big-brother glares.”

“Hank’s not my brother,” she said.

“Boyfriend, huh?”

“No,” she snapped, but her glance back to Hank made Tucker suspect he wasn’t the first person to wonder. “What’s it to you, anyway?”

Tucker frowned, exasperated. “Look, did I do something to offend you?” he asked carefully. “I mean, besides the whole business with your bike. Because I swear, you’re at me like I ran over your favorite pair of shoes.”

Edie Worthington considered him a moment; Tucker watched a shift in her expression, softness glinting in her gray eyes. “Well, I don’t see how you could have, since I don’t
have
a favorite pair of shoes.”

“Oh.” He saw the smallest hint of a smile creep up her lips. “Then that couldn’t have been it. Maybe a favorite
hat
? I did notice yours has gone missing.”

Now her grin wouldn’t be kept down. She sighed, her whole body, once rigid as a nail, relaxed. “It’s not you,” she admitted. “I’m just mad as hell because every time I ask Hank to let me do something real, he puts me to work doing
this
crap.” She gestured to the pile of boards. “And I’m not even the one who screwed it up in the first place!”

“Maybe he worries about you,” Tucker suggested.

Edie flashed another glare in Hank’s direction. “That’s not it. He’s even more a drill sergeant than usual because my dad’s running a job in Eastham. And Hank can’t stand the idea of a girl being a better carpenter than he is.”

“Are you?”

Edie frowned. “Not yet—but I could be,” she added firmly. “If he gave me a damn chance. He thinks he knows what’s best for me and he doesn’t.”

“Yeah,” Tucker said quietly. “I know the feeling.”

“Ede, the spade bits! Come on, already!”

They both turned at Hank’s call, Edie’s cheeks suddenly soaked in scarlet. Tucker steeled himself for another of her cuss-filled shouts, but instead she just turned back to him and rolled her eyes. “I have to go,” she said, “before I get court-martialed.”

Tucker smiled. “You’re always welcome to come down to the beach to cool off after work, you know.”

Edie squinted up at him skeptically.

“I’m serious,” he said. “It must be awful hot out here all day. I’m sweating like a dog right now and I’m not even doing anything.” Which wasn’t entirely true; he was talking with her—could that have been the source of his heat?

“We’re not allowed on the beach,” Edie said.

“Says who?”

She shrugged. “Everyone knows that.”

“Well, I don’t, and it’s my beach as much as anyone’s. I say bring your suit tomorrow. Heck, tell everybody on the crew to bring one.”

“What would your father say?”

“Never mind my father; I don’t,” Tucker said as he began to walk backward toward the roadster, the lie feeling as refreshing and thrilling as a cold drink.

•   •   •

A
ll the next day, Tucker had the strangest sense of killing time. Even while he and Jim battled it out over badminton and took a drive to Orleans for a late lunch, Tucker couldn’t shake a sense of impending excitement. When four thirty drew near and Jim suggested Tucker join him for a before-dinner swim, Tucker changed into his trunks but said he’d follow later, wanting to be in sight when the crew—and Edie Worthington in particular—began to put up their tools.

It had been a hot day—not as grim and humid a heat as he would have endured in Charlotte if he’d been there, but it was thick enough that a quick dip would have been welcome. At the first sign of cleanup, Tucker pushed out the side door and crossed the driveway to where Edie and the others were packing up.

“So where’s your suit?” he asked brightly.

She looked up and blinked at him. “You were serious?”

“Of course I was.” Tucker shrugged. “Never mind, you don’t need one to get your feet wet.”

He watched her eyes shift back to the rest of the crew; Tucker spotted head carpenter Hank looking their way as he deftly wound an extension cord between his elbow and wrist. Tucker offered him a cheery wave; Hank didn’t send one back.

“So what do you say?” Tucker asked.

Edie smiled, giving the group one last look before she answered. “Just give me a minute to say good-bye.”

•   •   •

E
die was almost to the guest house when she saw the Mustang slide down the driveway and swing into an open spot beside Hank’s truck. She knew the hot-pink Mustang—everyone in Harrisport with eyes in their head knew it—but what Edie
didn’t
know was what business its owner, twenty-year-old Missy Murphy, the daughter of Harrisport’s most-loved restaurateur, Teddy Murphy, had at the Moss job site.

In the few minutes it took for Missy to slip from the driver’s side, looking as fresh and untouched as a newly milled board, and carrying a picnic basket between her hands as tightly as a bride her bouquet, Edie stepped up beside Sonny, who was cleaning buckets, and demanded, “What’s Missy Murphy doing here?”

“Give you one guess,” Sonny said, his gaze fixed on the shapely blonde as if she’d come to deliver him a thousand dollars. Edie frowned, stymied by the useless answer, and tried to solve the mystery herself while Missy approached, deciding, with a prickle of agitation, that what Sonny had meant was that Missy had obviously come to make a play for Tucker Moss.

Missy approached Edie with the sort of detached half smile that someone would give a clerk at a department store, looking to see a shoe in their size. As she neared, Edie scanned the older girl’s outfit, deciding Missy looked ridiculous and cheap in her lilac gingham tank top and sailor shorts. Who arrived at a job site showing off her stomach like it was a newly painted wall?

“I’m looking for Hank.” Missy pushed a piece of gum between her glossed lips. “Is he here?”

Edie blinked at Missy, shocked at the question. Had she asked for
Hank
?

“He’s inside,” Sonny answered before Edie could, pointing to the guest house. Missy shifted the basket in her hands; the salty smell of chowder filled the air.

“Thanks,” Missy said, her gratitude directed solely at Sonny before she turned and marched toward the guest house, her honey-blond hair bouncing over her shoulders.

Edie looked back at Sonny and frowned. “Might want to use one of those buckets to catch your drool,” she said.

“Very funny,” snapped Sonny, his eyes still fixed on Missy’s careful steps down the lawn. “That sneaky son of a bitch . . .”

“Who?” demanded Edie.

“Who do you think?” Sonny snorted. “Hank. He’s been wanting to ask her out for weeks.”

Weeks? No, thought Edie. Surely Sonny was wrong. How was it that Edie hadn’t known any of this? She spent eight hours a day with Hank Wright, knew what he ate for lunch, what he wore, what part of his jaw he always missed when he shaved.

She stifled a sense of outrage, then another flush of hurt, though she wasn’t sure why she should feel left out or care who Hank Wright dreamed about when he wasn’t ordering her around.

“Lucky stiff,” said Sonny, returning to cleaning his buckets.

Edie sniffed. “I’ve had Murphy’s chowder and it’s not great,” she said.

Sonny chuckled. “I’m not talking about the
food
, Ede.”

•   •   •

Y
ou’re sure no one will care?” Edie asked as she followed Tucker through the grass, a tangy breeze hitting her face the minute they crested the dune.

“See for yourself.” He pointed down the beach to where Jim Masterson was waving madly to them on top of a striped towel. “Look; you’ve even got a welcoming committee.”

Edie smiled, loving the feel of hot, velvety sand under her arches. She’d abandoned her boots on the lawn, socks too, and rolled up her overalls in preparation for the surf.

“Ahoy, mates!” Jim leaped to his feet, assuming a mock salute, then a bow as they arrived.

Tucker made the introductions. “Edie Worthington, James Masterson.”

“But everyone calls me Jim—among other things,” Jim said, grinning as he thrust out a hand. “Nice to meet you officially, ma’am.”

“You too.” Edie offered Jim a rueful look. “I wasn’t exactly in the best of moods when you first saw me.”

“Who could blame you?” Jim exclaimed. “He’s a menace on the road, Edie. And hardly a Southern gentleman. Now, me, I’d have
carried
you home.”

“Don’t mind Jim,” Tucker said. “He’s a terrible flirt.”