Chapter 7

Lane

Lane sat bolt upright on the couch and glanced blearily at her watch—seven forty. It took a minute to remember what she was doing in yesterday’s clothes, and why she’d slept on the parlor sofa instead of upstairs in her bed. Finally, the fog cleared and she began to connect the acrid scent of fireplace ashes with the candles scattered about the room. She’d gone up to her room, had even tried lying down, but to no avail. The relentless wind and rain battering the third-story windows had simply been too much to take. Sometime around two she had given up, groping her way downstairs, where the noise seemed less ominous and the windows seemed less likely to blow in. It must’ve been around five thirty when she snuffed the candles and finally managed to close her eyes.

She felt stiff and gritty as she got to her feet, already dreading the cold shower she knew was in her future. Clearly, the power was still out—not a hum or whir to be heard. That was going to make coffee a challenge, and she couldn’t remember ever needing coffee more than she did this morning. God only knew what awaited her outside.

Sighing, she bent to collect the wineglasses from the coffee table. Glasses. Plural.

Damn.

She’d forgotten about Michael Forrester, asleep upstairs in the Tower Suite. The last thing she felt like doing at that moment was playing hostess. Oh well, there was fruit and fresh bread. She’d heat some water on the Coleman stove for tea. That was going to have to do. Right now she needed to see what kind of mess she was dealing with and find out whether there was anything left of the dunes. Yanking on her jacket and duck boots, she unchained the front door and ventured out onto the front porch.

Penny might have moved on, but she’d left no sunshine in her wake. Low gray clouds dragged by overhead, somber and still spitting rain. And while the wind no longer posed a threat, the breeze off the Atlantic was stiff and chilly, tangy with salt and the scent of freshly severed tree limbs.

Battered was the first word that came to mind as she stepped off the porch—plenty of downed trees, branches scattered over the lawn, but it wasn’t bad, considering. Certainly nothing like the devastation she’d been dreading. The mailbox was gone, blown who knew where, and a heavy tree limb lay across the driveway, blocking the path of a charcoal gray SUV with Vermont plates. She wondered how long it would take Sam to come by with his chain saw.

Moving around the side of the inn, she further surveyed the damage. The wind had peeled back a section of the shed’s tin roof, curling it back on itself like an apple peel, and one of the windows at the back was smashed out, but other than that the inn itself looked as if it had escaped any serious toll. Not so much as a cracked pane of glass, and only a handful of slate shingles off the roof. Those wouldn’t be easy to replace, but all in all her relief was profound. She made a mental note to price shutters the minute things were back to normal. She’d worked too hard and invested too much money—all of it, in fact—to see it blown away in a single night.

She was on her way back around front when she saw Michael standing at the edge of the road. “Good morning,” she said, slipping into hostess mode as she reached him. “Did you manage to get any sleep with all the wind and racket?”

He turned, unsmiling. “I did, as a matter of fact.”

He had showered and shaved, and smelled of the Belgian sea soap she used in the guest baths. His still-wet hair was combed straight back off his forehead, curling slightly against the damp collar of his light blue button-down. Once again, Lane found herself painfully aware of her own appearance: the remnants of last night’s ponytail, the sweats she’d been in now for almost twenty-four hours, and—God help her—duck boots and sweat socks. From where Michael Forrester stood she must look like some kind of . . . bag lady.

Lane’s gaze shifted briefly toward the beach behind the inn. It was the first time since opening her eyes that she’d given the old woman a thought. How had she weathered the storm, and where? It was a disturbing thought, but after yesterday’s uneasy encounter Lane doubted she’d ever see the woman again. Shaking off a twinge of guilt, she dragged her eyes back to Michael.

“I’ll work on some breakfast as soon as I give my handyman a call. He’ll pop over and get that limb out of the way so we can get you back on the road.”

“Give him a call . . . how?” Michael asked with annoyingly dry amusement. “The phones are out and I’ve got no signal on my cell. Towers must be down. They’ll be down several days, too, if there’s any real damage. You wouldn’t happen to have a radio, would you?”

Lane grimaced. “I do, but no batteries.”

Michael’s brows shot up, a blend of surprise and censure. “Did no one ever tell you that when you live on the Banks, water and batteries are Hurricane Prep 101?”

“I got the water,” she explained defensively. “But the batteries were gone by the time I got to the store. It’s not like there’s a Walmart on every corner, you know. This isn’t Boston.”

Michael’s eyes narrowed on her. “What’s Boston got to do with it?”

“It’s where you’re from, isn’t it? At least it’s where you sound like you’re from.”

“My parents are from Boston,” he corrected evenly. “I live in Middlebury, which is in Vermont. And we have only one Walmart in the entire state, though we do know that when there’s a storm coming, batteries are the first things to go.”

Lane cast about for a reply but couldn’t think of one. She was too busy wondering what she’d said to make this stranger’s mood turn sullen. Perhaps he’d mistaken her question for prying, but it was perfectly normal, almost required, for an innkeeper to chitchat with guests about where they were from.

It didn’t matter. Apparently he wasn’t interested in a reply. Fishing a set of keys from his pocket, he crossed the lawn and slid in behind the wheel of the charcoal SUV. He turned the key without cranking the engine, then fiddled with the radio buttons until he found a station. Lane stepped to the edge of the drive so she could hear.

Modest structural damage. All of Starry Point without power and likely to remain so for several days. Sections of Highway 12 washed out or impassable in many locations. No way on or off the island. Stay tuned for a list of shelters and medical aid stations in your area.

“Sounds like your basic mess,” Michael said as he switched off the radio and got out of the car. “Could’ve been worse, though, I guess.”

Lane was barely listening. She was too busy wondering what she was supposed to do with Michael Forrester. She had no power, no hot water, and since she’d planned on spending the next four months alone, she hadn’t much in the way of food. But she couldn’t turn him out, not when everything on Starry Point was shuttered, and there was no way to get back to the mainland. There was always the community center, although she was pretty sure turning a guest out to go to a shelter would be considered bad form, not to mention the review he was certain to post on the inn’s Web site.

He was standing at the end of the drive now, hands buried deep in his pockets, his shoulders hunching uncomfortably as he stared across the street at the Rourke House. Lane pushed her bangs out of her eyes as she gave the old house an uneasy once-over. It was hard to know exactly what to chalk up to years of neglect, and what had resulted from the storm, but none of the damage looked serious. A shutter lay splintered on the front walk while another dangled precariously from the second-floor window. Several branches were down in the yard amid a scattering of shingles.

“It’s a little bit creepy, isn’t it?” she said gravely as she came to stand beside him. “It’s been empty for years. I guess it’s not surprising, though. Not too many people looking to buy a house that’s cursed.”

Michael’s head snapped in her direction. “Cursed?”

“Its residents have a nasty habit of dying. Back in ’twenty-nine a man hanged himself in the attic, a banker who’d lost all his money in the crash. Then a while back, in the seventies, I think, the mayor bought it. One day he went out sailing and never came back. Pieces of his boat washed up several days later. A year after that there was a fire on the upper floor and a little boy died. No one’s lived there since. If you listen to the locals they’ll tell you it’s haunted.”

“And if I listened to you?”

Lane was startled. Not by the question, but by the intensity in his voice when he turned to ask it. She opened her mouth, prepared to tell him about the light she’d seen in the window two nights ago, but something stopped her. If she wasn’t careful she was going to start sounding like the locals, up to her ears in ghosts and things that went bump in the night. She stole another look at the place, its empty windows and gloomy air of dissipation stirring the old familiar sadness.

“If you listened to me I’d tell you it’s an amazing old house with a very sad history. And that I don’t believe in ghosts.”

“No?”

“You say that as if you do.”

Michael shrugged, a deep, uneasy bunching of the shoulders. “There are all kinds of ghosts, Miss Kramer.”

“Lane.”

“Right,” he grunted as he turned away. “Lane. Now, I think you said something about breakfast?”

And just like that, the conversation was over. He was already halfway up the drive, offering no opportunity to delve into his mercurial mood. Not that his mood was any of her business. She had a few ghosts of her own, and she’d just as soon keep them to herself. She could only assume he felt the same.

Breakfast was a simple affair: bread and honey with a bowl of fresh berries, washed down with a surprisingly decent pot of tea. Michael didn’t seem to mind. He ate quietly across from Lane, browsing an old copy of the Islander Dispatch, licking honey from his fingers as he turned the pages.

“Mr. Forrester,” Lane began tentatively. “We seem to have a bit of a situation here.”

Michael folded down the corner of the newspaper and peered at her. “Have we?”

“As I said last night when you showed up, the inn is closed for the season. And as you can plainly see, I’m not exactly prepared for guests.”

“During a hurricane? No, I wouldn’t think so. Yet here I am, I’m afraid—at your mercy.”

Lane cleared her throat and tried again. “My point is, last night you mentioned that you were looking for a place to—park for the winter, I think was how you put it—and I just wanted to make sure you understood that as soon as the roads are clear you’ll need to find other lodgings. I could make a few calls if you wanted to stay here on the island.”

“I thought I’d just stay here.”

“Mr. Forrester, I—”

“Michael.”

“Michael,” she corrected. “Maybe I wasn’t clear. I don’t take guests between November and March. I’m closed.”

“Perfect. It’ll be nice and quiet, exactly what I’m looking for. I’m on a sort of sabbatical, trying to finish up the research for a book I’ve been working on for about five years now. A closed inn is ideal.”

“Except for the part where it’s closed,” Lane shot back, putting emphasis on the last word. Then she realized what he’d said. “Did you say you’re writing a book?”

He nodded. “A biography on Dickens.”

Lane saw a chink and went straight for it. “Good, then you’ll understand. I’m a writer, too. Well, not a real writer. Just freelance stuff, magazines mostly. But the winter is when I do most of my work. I won’t have time to look after a guest.”

He tapped his chin thoughtfully a moment, then carefully folded the Islander Dispatch and set it aside. “What is a . . . real writer?”

The sudden change of subject gave Lane momentary whiplash. “What?”

“You said you weren’t a real writer. I’m curious to know what that means.”

“I just meant the stuff I write isn’t—I don’t know—important.”

“Ah, as opposed to tedious biographies about dead Victorian authors?”

Lane blinked at him, not sure how to answer.

It was Michael who broke the silence, his words flavored with a smile she could hear but not see. “I won’t be any trouble.”

She rolled her eyes as she began hastily gathering plates and silverware. “Of course you will. There’ll be meals to cook, beds to make, showers to scrub.”

“I’ve been making my own bed since I was six. I know my way around a frying pan. And I am perfectly capable of scrubbing my own shower. In other words, I’m extremely low maintenance. All I need is a bed and a quiet place to work. I promise to be invisible. You won’t even know I’m here.”

Lane pulled in a deep breath and let it out very slowly. If he was trying to be annoying, he was certainly succeeding. And yet there was something disarming in his tone, as if he was deliberately trying to charm his way in. She hadn’t been charmed in a very long time. She wasn’t sure she liked it. She stood abruptly with the stacked dishes and headed for the sink, trying to think of a way to end the conversation once and for all.

But Michael wasn’t giving up. Gathering the teapot and empty cups, he followed her to the sink. “How about this—you’re stuck with me anyway until the roads are clear and the power’s back on. Until then, I do my writer thing, and you do yours. If I’m a bother you have my permission to toss me out on my ear. If not, I get to stay. As a bonus, I’ll help with some of the cleanup until your handyman can come around.”

Lane turned to face him, towering above her now, and disturbingly close. “Why here?”

Michael set the teapot on the counter, then slid the cups into the sink full of soapy water. “Well, for starters I’m already here. And I guess because I like it. It feels like . . . home.”

Lane peered up at him skeptically. “It feels like Vermont?”

“No, not like Vermont. And sure as hell not like Boston.”

Something in his face told Lane not to press the matter. She was probably crazy for even considering his proposal, but it would be a nice windfall, maybe enough to pay for the storm shutters she was going to have to order before next hurricane season. And in light of the recent break-ins and the strange goings-on across the street, it might not be such a bad idea to have a man around. If—and only if—he kept his promise to be invisible.

“There are rules,” she informed him firmly.

“Let’s hear them.”

“I don’t allow smoking anywhere on the premises. The third floor is my residence and is off-limits to guests. Breakfast is provided, but not lunch. Dinner is included for an additional fee and I’ll need to know at the beginning of each week if you’ll be dining here so I can shop accordingly. Should you opt to dine elsewhere on a particular night, you will still be charged for the meal.”

She had barely finished delivering the last edict when he extended a hand to seal the agreement. “Done. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see if I can scare up something to board up that broken shed window.”

Lane felt a lingering sense of misgiving as she watched Michael slip out the back door and disappear in the direction of the shed. When he was out of sight she tugged on her jacket and ventured out onto the beach, picking her way through a tangle of sea grass and battered pink and purple morning glories. The storm had hit at low tide and she was relieved to see that the surge had left the dunes relatively, though not completely, unscathed. Squinting down the beach, she could see what appeared to be a cooler and other bits of debris snagged against the jetty.

It wasn’t pretty, but it could have been so much worse. As she turned to go back to the inn, she paused for one last look, hoping for some sign of the old woman. For the first time in weeks there was no telltale flash of the mysterious purple bag.