The Long Way Home (24 page)

“We could stop. I could go back to this tomorrow.”

“You really want to come downstairs and look at this first thing in the morning?” He pointed to the floor, half of which had exposed wood and the other linoleum that appeared to have been chewed on. “I wouldn’t.”

“It’ll be okay.”

“It won’t take that long,” he assured her as he carried the chairs into the hall.

“If you say so.” Ellie picked up the other two chairs and followed him, squeezing past him in the doorway when he returned for the table.

“I feel really badly about keeping you here all this time,” she said when she’d resumed pulling up the flooring.

“My choice, so don’t.” He scraped at a few leftover clumps of glue on the newly uncovered wood floor. “I can’t wait to see this all refinished. It’s going to be real pretty.”

“I guess there’s someone around who can do the refinishing.” Looks like she’d be making another call to Jesse this week. She was going to need some money from that account her mother left to fund renovations on the house. Refinished floors would definitely qualify.

“Dave Freeman does floors,” Cam told her. “But I doubt he works for decoys.” He tossed a wad of glue into the bucket. “I can sand and refinish the floor but I suggest you do that before you start painting. Sanding makes a mess of dust.”

“Swell,” she grunted.

“As does scraping off the old paper. Which you have to do before you can paint anyway,” he reminded her.

“I forgot about the scraping part.” Ellie frowned and eyed the old wallpaper.

“You were hoping to forget that part. The prep work is always the worst part of painting.” He reached over and put one hand on her biceps. “Scraping paper is going to wake up muscles you never knew you had.”

“I’m in good shape.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll see just what kind of shape you’re in once you’ve spent a few hours scraping at those walls.”

She made a face and cracked a large piece of linoleum over her knee.

It took another hour, but the last bucket of linoleum was finally dumped into the back of the pickup. When Cam came back into the house, Ellie expected him to ask for his jacket.

“It’s after eight,” he said. “I imagine you’re as hungry as I am. How ’bout splitting a pizza with me?”

She started to decline, but heard herself say, “I love pizza. But I couldn’t possibly go anywhere looking like this.” Bits of dried linoleum clung to her knees and the front of her sweatshirt. She looked him over. “Why don’t you look as grubby as I do?”

“You’re a novice. I’m a professional.” Cam leaned against the counter. “I can run out and pick something up.”

Before she could respond, he’d taken out his phone. “Pepperoni okay?”

“It’s great, but …”

He had already speed-dialed a number and was starting to place an order.

“Done. Fifteen minutes.”

“Cam, I don’t know how to thank you for everything. You’re doing so much here.…”

“Protecting my investment.” He corrected himself. “My potential investment.”

“I hope you feel it’s worth it.”

“There’s no doubt in my mind that it will be.” His voice trailed down the hall. “I’ll be back in a few.”

And that quickly, he was out the front door.

Well, he was certainly a guy who knew what he wanted, and he clearly wanted this house.

Ellie got out the vacuum and cleaned up as much of the dust and dirt from the floor as she could. She fed Dune, then wet a paper towel and rubbed it lightly on her face. When she saw how much dust she’d been wearing, she was appalled. It was a miracle Cam didn’t take the opportunity to leave and not come back. She’d just tossed the paper towel into the trash when she heard him at the front door.

“Can we eat in here?” He nodded in the direction of the living room. “There’s a lot of dust in the kitchen.”

“Sure.”

He placed the pizza box and a bag on the coffee table.

“I got a couple of bottles of water,” he told her as he emptied the bag. “I wasn’t sure what you liked to drink.”

“Water is fine.” She disappeared into the kitchen for plates, flatware, and napkins.

“I hope that knife is for the brownies and not the pizza,” he said when she handed him a plate with the flatware on top. “Around here we eat pizza with our hands.”

“I’ll remember that.” She peeked into the bag. “You got brownies?”

“The mother of the guy who owns the pizza place in town makes wicked desserts.” Cam sat on the edge of the sofa cushion and opened the pizza box. “I wasn’t sure what to get.”

The smell of the sauce and cheese all but made Ellie swoon. She hadn’t realized just how hungry she was.

Cam turned the box in her direction so she could select first. She put a slice on her plate and sat next to him.

“You can never go wrong with brownies,” she assured him.

She took a bite of pizza and rolled her eyes. “Oh, my God, this is good.”

“Yeah, Dominic makes the best pizza around. Most of St. Dennis is seriously addicted.” He opened one of the water bottles and handed it to Ellie. “Wade and Clay are talking about making a beer flavor specifically to complement Dominic’s pizza.”

“You’re making that up.”

“Nope. They were talking about it at poker the other night.” He opened the second bottle of water and took a long drink, staring at the bookcase on the opposite wall. “Mr. C. had a great collection of mysteries from the 1930s and forties. I can still see him sitting in that chair over there near the window, his glasses perched at the end of his nose, the book practically in his face. He really needed to have his glasses changed but he wouldn’t admit that his eyesight was failing.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Twenty-five years or so.”

“You must have been, what, eight? Nine back then?”

“Something like that.”

“How did you know the Cavanaughs so well?”

“We were neighbors.”

“I didn’t realize that. Which house did you live in?”

“The one that isn’t there anymore.” He looked as if he was about to say more, but thought better of it.

Before she could ask, he changed the subject. “Do you have plans for Thanksgiving?”

“Thanksgiving?” The pizza in her hand stopped halfway to her mouth. When was Thanksgiving?

“Strictly American holiday. Fourth Thursday in November every year. People get together with family and friends and eat more than they should. It’s a tradition we observe here in St. Dennis. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it.”

She laughed. “It’s this week already?”

Cam nodded.

“If you tell me that you cook, too, I’ll be totally intimidated,” she said.

“I do cook, but not this holiday. A lot of us have dinner at the inn on Thanksgiving every year. Why don’t you join us?”

“I’d love to. Thanks for the invitation.”

“Good. I’ll let Grace know there will be one more. It’s a good holiday. A lot of us around here have much to be thankful for.” He eyed the last piece of pizza.

“It’s all yours,” she told him. While he ate, she said, “You know, if you want to borrow any of Mr. Cavanaugh’s books, you’re welcome to.”

“I’ve read most of them, but I wouldn’t mind reading a few of them again.”

“Take whatever you want.”

“Thanks.” He tossed her a brownie, and she shook her head. “I couldn’t eat another bite.”

“Save it for breakfast.” He stood and started folding up the empty box.

“Don’t bother with that,” she told him. “I’ll take care of it. Why don’t you grab a book or two before you leave?”

“Thanks. I think I will.”

He scanned the shelves while she cleaned up the debris from their impromptu dinner.

“Mickey Spillane,” Cam announced. “
I, The Jury
. His first Mike Hammer novel. Published in 1947.” He turned to Ellie with a smile. “Only one of the best detective novels ever written.”

“Take it. Please, take whichever books you want. With my thanks for all your help.”

“I thought we agreed I’d be paid in decoys.”

“This isn’t payment.” She watched his face as his eyes scanned the titles. In that moment, he looked like a happy little boy on his birthday, one who’d just been told he’d be getting that new bike he wanted. She wouldn’t have suspected that the books would mean so much to him. “This is a thank-you, one friend to another.”

“In that case …” He reached into the cabinet and took two books from the shelf. “Thank you. These two were Mr. C.’s favorites. Miss Lilly scolded him like you wouldn’t believe when she found out he’d let me read them.”

“When you were eight or nine?”

“No, no, older than that. Fifteen, sixteen, maybe.”

“So you were always sort of friends with them.”

“You could say that.” Cam tucked the books under his arm. “Thanks again, Ellie. These mean a lot to me.”

He turned, and for a moment, she thought he was about to kiss her. All it would have taken would have
been for him to lean forward just a bit to close that tiny space between them. But he didn’t.

After she’d closed the door behind him, she wondered why he hadn’t.

Then again, why hadn’t
she
?

D
UNE
sat upright on the chair she’d been sleeping on in the corner of Ellie’s bedroom and tilted her head as if listening to something outside right before turning into a barking machine.

“Who needs a burglar alarm when you’re around?” Ellie stumbled out of bed and pulled back the curtain. It was barely dawn. Cam’s pickup was in the driveway, the driver’s-side door open, but Cam was nowhere to be seen. “Looks like we have company.”

She tossed on an old sweatshirt, traded her pajama bottoms for sweatpants, grabbed her slippers, and danced into them on her way to the stairwell.

“Hush, Dune.” She attempted to quiet the dog, which now stood howling at the top of the steps.

Ellie ran down the steps just as the pickup drove past the house. She unlocked the front door and found a ladder propped up against the wall, a bucket, a pile of plastic sheets, and an odd contraption that looked like something an exterminator would use to spray an infestation of ants. Two short-handled scrapers were in the bucket and a plain white envelope was
taped to the top step of the ladder three feet above her head.

She stared up at the white rectangle that fluttered in the breeze. “Cute, Cam.”

She dragged the ladder inside and rested it against the foyer wall, then brought in the bucket and the plastic while Dune danced impatiently around her feet.

“You need to go out, of course you do. Sorry. I got distracted.”

Ellie managed to get the ladder into the kitchen on her way to the back door. She stood on the back porch shivering while Dune went about her early morning business. The breeze out back wasn’t quite as stiff as the breeze that blew directly off the Bay out front. Still, there was no question that November had moved in, and as Jesse had said, was moving headfirst into winter. The dog paused in her patrol of the yard to scamper after some birds that had landed on the ground and were pecking at seed fallen from the bird feeder. Moments later, she was chasing a squirrel up a nearby tree and barking gleefully. When it became obvious that there was more pleasure than business being conducted, Ellie called her back to the house.

“It’s too cold to play outside,” Ellie told the dog as it followed her inside. “Maybe later it will warm up.”

Ellie put a pot of coffee on the stove, then opened the ladder. It was metal and had some age on it, so it seemed a bit cranky until she’d opened it all the way. She yanked the envelope free when she got to the top step and read Cam’s note.

Under the last line, he’d written his phone number, which Ellie programmed into her cell. She turned off the flame under the boiling coffeepot, then dialed the number he’d written down.

“Keep me honest, eh?” she said when he answered.

“I was afraid that without proper guidance you’d be painting right over the paper. I just thought I’d remove all possible excuses.”

“I admit to momentarily considering it.”

“Sorry I had to drop it all off so early. I had a meeting at seven with a potential customer in Ballard. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“I was awake,” she fibbed. “So am I going to be graded on the work I do on the kitchen walls?”

“No pressure but I can spot shoddy workmanship a mile away.” She could hear the smile in his voice as
he teased. “And since I intend on buying that house someday, I’d think you’d want to get the best price out of me that you can.”

“I get the point. I’ll follow your instructions to the letter.”

“I’ll be by later to check it out,” he said before he disconnected the call.

Ellie filled the tank with water and sprayed a mist of water onto a small section of wall. She waited a moment, then scraped at the paper until she got a tiny rip that she could exploit. It took a few minutes, but she got down through three layers of paper and several layers of paint to the plaster wall.

“This isn’t so bad,” she told Dune. She pulled the ladder across the floor and climbed halfway up. “We’ll just start in one corner and move right across to the next. We’ll be finished in no time.”

She sprayed more water, waited, then scraped. Spray. Wait. Scrape.

Spray. Wait. Scrape.

She found the rubber gloves Cameron had brought her, picked up all the pasty strips of paper that had fallen onto the floor, and stuffed them into a plastic trash bag that wasn’t nearly big enough for all the debris. She made a mental note to make a run to the market after lunch to purchase larger bags as she stuffed two more. She’d tossed them into the hall before she remembered about the plastic sheets that Cam had given her to tape up over the doorways and cover the floor. She hastily rectified the error and went back to work on the next section of paper.