The House On The Creek (32 page)

“‘B’ word?” Everett watched the taller man without expression. He looked relaxed and in his element. Doing business, Abby realized, with
her
business partner.

“Branding,” Jack muttered. “Or will you claim you’ve never heard of The Painter of Light?”

“The trick is to walk the line. And that is my particular speciality. I won’t brand you, Pierce, but I will make sure your rarified skills are a coveted commodity.”

Jack opened his mouth, but Abby beat him to it. “Damn right he’s coveted. By me. Keep your interfering hands off my business, Ev.”

She expected the man she loved to laugh and apologize for getting carried away. Instead he started at the sound of her voice, surprised and...guilty?

And when she turned to Jack for understanding, he wouldn’t meet her eye.

“What?” She asked. “What is it?”

“Dammit.” Jack bared his teeth at Everett. “Now we’re in it. I warned you.”

They hid their guilt about as well as her eleven year old son. Alarm bells began to go off in Abby’s head.

“What?” She said again. “What’s going on?”

Jack shrugged and shuffled his size twelve feet. “I thought it was a good idea at the time, Abby. I’m sorry.”

“A good idea?” She glanced at Everett. He met her stare without a twitch. Whatever dismay she thought she’d seen was gone.

“I sold out,” Jack said. “Anderson here’s an owner.”

He kept talking, but she stopped listening. It wasn’t surprise she felt, because it made complete sense. Of course Everett would take what she had made. Because that’s what he did. Hadn’t he just said so? It was his particular talent, the taking and recreating.

Only, somehow she’d thought she was immune. That maybe he’d understood Chesapeake Renovations was something precious, something uniquely hers, and that she’d never needed it to be anything more.

But he hadn’t. She’d been mistaken. He didn’t understand at all.

Heart breaking into a million jagged, angry pieces, Abby gathered the skirt of her gown into both hands and did just what she’d scorned him for since childhood.

She ran away.

Chapter Twenty-Two

ABBY RAN PAST BAFFLED CATERERS,
and out the kitchen door, and down the porch steps in the direction of safety and security.

Toward the Creek.

The sky was clear and bright, the air warming. Melting snow seeped through her thin shoes. In some places a few solitary drifts lingered, higher than her ankles, clean and white until she marked them with her footprints.

She ran past the gazebo where tiny icicle lights twinkled again. Just ahead she could see the edge of the woods. The trees grew up bare and skeletal, black against the cloudless horizon. Another time she might have been impressed and deliciously frightened by the spooky picture they presented.

But for the moment she only wanted to hide.

It wasn’t a betrayal, not exactly, and probably not at all to Everett’s mind.

It wasn’t a betrayal, but it felt exactly as though the man had punched her in the gut and then danced on her ass. And for just this tiny moment in space, she hated him.

She slid to a halt just beyond the edge of the woods, arms wrapped around her stomach, waiting for the hitch in her lungs to ease. She could hear the sweep of the Creek in the distance, just down the slope. Ice melted on the branches above her head and fell like rain onto the ground below.

Beneath the trees the ground was free of snow. Muck and leaves and mud swirled in patterns around pale trunks, sculpted by wind and rain. Sunlight trickled through the wave of branches, and sparkled here on a damp leaf and there on a speckled rock.

The woods were beautiful and except for the patter of dripping ice and the rush of the Creek, very quiet. Abby wiped the damp from her cheeks, and took a deep breath.

She dipped her head until the sun fell on the back of her neck, and began to creep down the wooded slope.

Her shoes were little more than slippers and unsuitable for tromping over winter ground. She slid twice, cursing as mud stuck to her gown.

She refused to mourn the damage. Her head hurt again, and her heart throbbed an angry beat.

She wanted a few minutes alone with the drip of the thaw and the pattern of sunlight on bony branches.

The boathouse loomed up at the bottom of the slope. In the wash of the morning the Creek appeared molten as it wound past dormant ferns and exposed grey logs.

A second shadow crouched just to the left of the boathouse. It took Abby’s eyes a moment to adjust before she realized it was Everett’s skiff, wedged between two trees, propped up in a V-shaped cradle made of two by fours and cinder block.

Someone had covered the little boat with a blue canvas tarp. The fabric stretched loosely over the skin of the hull.

Abby touched the canvas with a hand. The fabric was rough and smelled of teak oil. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. She brushed them away with an irritated grimace.

From up the slope she heard the murmur of distant voices and the bang of a door. More voices and laughter and then a muddled version of Jingle Bells.

The morning seemed to be steaming along just fine without her.

The distant door banged again, and the off key singing seemed suddenly louder. Fingers trembling, Abby tore the ruined shoes from her feet, and abandoned them in the mud beneath the skiff.

The bricks were cold and slick, but Abby found the old cracks without trouble. She scaled the boathouse easily. The hem of her dress caught on the corner of a splintered shingle and almost tore. She rucked the gown around her knees for easier climbing.

Up on the roof a smattering of snow had collected and then melted into grey slush. The bottoms of Abby’s feet stung as she crossed shingles. Up so high, up nearly above the trees, the air seemed much colder, and she shivered.

If she turned and looked back up the slope she would see the lights of the house, warm and welcoming. She might even see the blink of tiny lights on the gazebo.

Her nose was running. Snuffling, Abby rubbed it with her forearm. She snuffled again, and then walked until she stood on the lip of the roof that overhung the old Creek.

The waters were high with rain or melting snow. The waves lapped along the face of the bricks and swallowed several inches of the bank. Leaves swirled on the current, black against the silver water.

Before she could think better of it, Abby stripped off silk, and folded the gown carefully into a neat square. She draped the square carefully over a tree branch.

Clad only in her panties, she clasped her arms across her chest, and stared up into the sky. Winter wrapped itself around her naked flesh, turning to goosebumps. Her breath hitched, and her nose ran but she refused to cry.

She fixed her gaze on the sun, and stretched her arms above her head and imagined that she had wings. She stretched until her muscles sang, and her head spun, and she knew that if she could only reach the clouds her head would clear.

She rose up on the balls of her feet, took a quick, deep breath, and dove.

Abby cut the air in a sharp, clean arc, exactly as she hadn’t done that summer afternoon twelve years earlier. The air rushed in her ears. She thought for an instant that she heard her name in the rustle of the leaves.

Then she hit water.

The Creek was cold, bitter. The current swirled about her legs and arms, soothing away anger, washing the track of tears from her cheeks. She dove deep until she touched the muddy floor with the tips of her fingers, then she reversed and stroked to the surface.

She broke from the waves into sunlight with a gasp and sucked air, treading water. She blinked water droplets from her lashes.

“Abby! Dammit, Abigail! Dammit to hell!”

Her muscles locked in disbelief, and she nearly sank back beneath the surface.

“Abby! Christ! Hold on! I’m coming in after you!”

“No!” She warned, but water flooded her mouth and doused the cry. Tossing her head to free tendrils of wet hair from her nose, she ducked under a wave and stroked hurriedly toward shore.

Everett met her halfway. He grabbed her arm before she could protest, hauled her back to shore, and lifted her out of the mud, cursing all the way.

“Jesus.” He buried his mouth against her ear, and collapsed on a log, holding her close. “Jesus, Abby. What were you thinking?”

His voice was little more than a croak. His fingers bit into her shoulders. Abby felt a lump threaten the back of her throat, and cleared it viciously away.

“That I needed to cool off,” she said, remembering the spin of the sky above her head. “Fly away, just for a moment.”

“You idiot.” He reached around her waist, and dumped something soft and warm onto her lap. “You idiot. You scared me half to death.”

He was hurting her, but only a little. And her mind was still muzzy with the slap of cold water and the shock of seeing him there in the water when she surfaced.

“Fur?” He was tucking it around her ribs and under her chin. “You wear fur?”

His paused mid tuck, and his fingers flexed on her neck but she thought he was breathing normally again. “Idiot. Of course not. I grabbed the first warm thing I could find and came after you. Going out into the snow in nothing.” He snarled.

Abby smothered a hysterical giggle with the back of her hand as she realized the mound of warmth wrapped easily around her torso once and then again. “It’s huge. Some plump matron is not going to be happy when she finds out you’ve ruined her coat.”

“You’ve ruined it,” Everett corrected. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“I told you.”

“Running off like that. Galloping through the snow with nothing on but a thin dress and a pair of slippers. Pulling this stupid stunt.
Again
.” He turned to scowl at the boathouse. His mouth was set and hard. “Christ Jesus, you scared me half to death.”

“You said that already.”

“You could have been killed.”

“I knew what I was doing.”

“Last time you practically nailed your skull to the creek floor.”

“I practiced after.”

“You - “ He stopped and gaped. “What?”

“I practiced.” She said patiently, “That summer. After you left. I came out here every evening and practiced. Edward never knew. I wanted to get it right. Fix whatever I did wrong. And I got pretty good at it.”

“Jesus.”

“I wasn’t sure my body would remember. It’s been so many years. But the water was high enough and once I was up there, out over the Creek -”

“
Jesus
.”

“It all came right back.”

“Abby.” Everett yanked her up against his body, squeezed her so thoroughly she thought her spine might crack, and then set her abruptly away from him and stood up. “Don’t ever do it again.”

She climbed off the log, holding the coat shut with one hand. “I’ll do what I like. I’ve made a pretty good job of it on my own. I don’t need you to meddle in my business.”

The hiss of air through his lips so resembled her own angry huffing that Abby wanted, suddenly and absurdly, to laugh.

“We’re going back inside. I’ll get your things. Just stay where you are.”

A reluctant smile puckered her mouth. “They’re up on the boathouse, Ev.”

“I know.” He set the palm of his hand on the crown of her head as though he wanted to plant her in the ground. “Don’t you dare go anywhere.”

Abby watched, astonished, as he flipped away his sopping shoes, tugged off sodden socks, and started up the boathouse wall. He moved at a snail’s pace, finding the handholds with much more difficulty than she ever had.

“Everett.”

“Be quiet. I can’t believe you were stupid enough to go into the Creek in the dead of winter. You’ve probably given yourself pneumonia.”

“Not stupid, just angry. Everett. I can be up and down in a jiffy.”

He paused a quarter of the way up the wall. “Abigail, you are enough to drive a man to murder.”

“I know you hate heights.”

“After the fright you’ve given me, Abby, a little acrophobia is next to nothing.”

He started climbing again. An instant later his right hand slipped, and he slid a few inches along the bricks before his scrabbling fingers found hold.

Abby found herself standing at the bottom of the boathouse, coat forgotten, determined to catch him if he fell.

“For God’s sake, Abigail, I’m hardly ten feet off the ground.” But she saw how his hand shook, and she noted the pinch of his mouth. “Wrap yourself back up and stay warm.” A chunk of mortar fell from above his head. He swore loudly. “And I had better not catch you up here ever again. Ever. D’you understand?”