They had grown up on the island; the Barret Boys, people called them. Their grandfather was Holloway Barret, the famous artist. His lush illustrations, reminiscent of an earlier period, livened up all kinds of dry history tomes and sappy children’s stories. Their mother was Pamela Barret, whose elegant watercolors hung in galleries and private collections all around the world. But here on Seal Island off the coast of Maine, they were simply the Barrets, and Finn and Fitch were the Barret Boys. Sometimes Those Damned Barret Boys. But they were good kids mostly, and it was a tightly knit community, and they had grown up safe and sheltered.
For a time it looked as though the Barret drive for success had skipped a generation. Fitch had been expelled from college after one too many pranks, and Finn had flunked out. In Finn’s case, it was homesickness as much as anything else. That, and desperation to paint—really paint—not spend his life talking about painting or studying how others did it. At twenty, he had returned to the island in disgrace, for the first time experiencing what it felt like to disappoint the people you love. A feeling Fitch was well acquainted with and had learned, mostly, to laugh off.
He had certainly laughed off Finn’s guilt. Finn had done exactly what he wanted, why feel guilty? And if he felt truly bad about it, he could always go to Grandy, who would pull a few strings and get Finn admitted to another brand-name college where he could excel at listening politely to people who had never painted a real dab in their lives tell the people with talent what to do. Well, Finn didn’t feel that bad about it, and Fitch had laughed at him again.
Grandy had been less amused. Finishing university was about discipline and learning your craft and respect—it was nothing to do with talent. It was already obvious Finn was the keeper of the flame for his generation of Barrets. Even when he had been quite young, messing around in his mother’s studio, he had heard the adults quietly appraising him and agreeing; Finn had “the gift.” No, Finn had failed by leaving school, and Fitch was equally to blame for encouraging him.
The fact that Grandy had never gone to college was irrelevant.
And how the hell dare Fitch disparage art critics and art teachers when his uncle Thomas was one of the same, and a damned fine one!
Never mind that Fitch had been practically quoting Grandy verbatim.
That had led to one of Fitch and Grandy’s famous blowups, which ended with Fitch leaving the island yet again. He was gone for nine months that time—only returning when their mother lay dying.
Finn, quietly accepting that he was in disgrace, returned to his painting and blissfully lost himself in the work. He politely ignored everyone’s disappointment and disapproval—it only lasted a week or two had he even been aware of it. He was pretty much unaware of everyone and everything but the work. That was the summer he had finally given himself over to painting.
He had missed Fitch, of course, but he had missed Fitch in college too, and Fitch did periodically disappear when he and Grandy butted heads. No one antagonized Grandy like Fitch, and yet the old man adored him—when he wasn’t calling for his head on a palette. But then everyone adored Fitch. Finn did. Their mother had postponed her painful dying that long summer in order to spend as much time as possible with her eldest.
But that first spring—the spring after Finn had bailed out of college—was the happiest of his life. He felt that he had at last come into his own; he was consumed with painting, with “making up for lost time,” which (had he known it) amused the adults around him no end. He ate, drank, and slept painting. It was all he thought about, all he wanted.
For years it was all he wanted. And then Conlan Carlyle came home.
Conlan Carlyle, the writer—the writer of dry and dusty histories that, as Fitch had once said, could have used Grandy’s illustrations to perk them up. Con Carlyle was by way of being a neighbor although his folks were “summer folk,” wealthy New Yorkers who summered in their elegant and enormous “cottage” on the island. Con hadn’t any time for the Barret Boys, being so much older and busy with his own friends—female and otherwise…
So many remembrances; it could have been memory lane down which Finn was making his painstaking way rather than the path that led from The Birches to Gull Point. It was the morning after his arrival on Seal Island. He had borrowed his grandfather’s old walking stick, a maple cane with a nickel-silver wolf-head handle, and he was suffering the fresh air and sunshine so beloved by physicians everywhere. The fact that it was fucking freezing skipped everyone’s notice. There were thin layers of ice over the puddles in the path as he hobbled slowly past the black fir spinneys and meadows turning gold and red in the late autumn.
Automatically, his eye began isolating colors into the paints he would use…Raw Sienna, Old Holland Yellow, Indian Red, Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna, Cadmium Orange…
He didn’t want to remember how things used to be, but it was impossible here with the salt scent of the ocean, the chill spice of pines, the taint of wood smoke—funny how fragrance brought it all back.
He passed Estelle Minton’s house. Yellow shingles and red brick, red roses behind a white picket fence. The roses Estelle had been in the process of planting three years ago were now tall—if wind-tattered. At this time of year, her beloved garden was not at its best. Smoke rose cozily from the chimney. Finn half expected Estelle to wave him down—rarely did anyone slip past her front window without being spotted—but if she saw him, she did not come out to say hello, and Finn walked on, dogged by memory.
“You’re Finn,” Con had said. “The Barret boy.” As though there were only one Barret boy.
He was twenty-three that spring, and he had met Con—literally bumped into him—walking into the Curtis Memorial Library. He had gone to the mainland to pick up art supplies and a couple of Ross MacDonald mysteries for Grandy. His thoughts had been a million miles away; he’d spent days trying to paint the fishing fleet’s sunset return but couldn’t get it right—and he had walked right into the tall man coming out the west entrance.
At the time he had thought the collision was his own fault, but now he realized Con had been nearly as distracted as he was. It was Con who had reached out to steady him, hands warm on Finn’s arms.
“Whoa! All right?” he’d said, and he was smiling, a cynical twist of his lips as though this was exactly the kind of behavior he expected from the natives. And then his brown-black gaze had seemed to sharpen. “You’re…Finn. The Barret boy.”
Finn recognized him immediately, although it had been at least two years since he’d seen Con Carlyle. All the same, he was genuinely surprised. People—strangers—had trouble telling them apart, and when had Con Carlyle been anything but a stranger, for all that they’d summered on the same island for twenty-three years?
“Yeah. How did you know?” he’d asked.
Con had smiled again—and the smile was a revelation. Finn had never seen Conlan genuinely smile. Oh, maybe a polite grimace when someone—often Fitch—was acting more like an idiot than usual; Fitch had always had a little bit of a thing about Con Carlyle.
Con had grinned that devastatingly attractive grin and raised his elegant eyebrows. “How could I not know you? You’ve been stealing my blueberries and swimming in my cove for the last twenty years.”
“Twenty-three, but who’s counting?”
He was so very attractive—pale hair, a lean, ascetic face, sable eyes lighting with unexpected laughter. It was like one of those paintings of old saints suddenly coming to life, suddenly animated and vivid.
“But maybe I’m Fitch,” Finn had suggested.
And Con had said, “You’re not Fitch.”
The funny part was that at the time Finn had imagined it was a compliment.
But he didn’t want to remember these things. What was the point of sinking down into quaggy, regretful thoughts? If he was going to dredge all that up, better to focus on the hurt, the anger, the betrayal. But why think of it at all? It was a long time ago, and he had more important things to worry about.
Like…the fact that he had walked too far from the house. That was his impatience getting the better of him, but to hell with “not rushing things.” What did that mean? You could only rest for so long. And what on earth did peace and quiet have to do with anything? It wasn’t as though he lived in a box beneath a freeway underpass. This whole idea of being sent away to recover his health was so fucking Victorian.
Even more irritating was the fact that the only place he had been able to think of going to recuperate was Seal Island. What had he been thinking? But at the time—or perhaps it was due to too much pain medication—he had yearned for home like the homesick college kid he had once been. And of course the doctors thought Seal Island was a terrific idea. The fresh salt air, the sunshine, the long, quiet nights—everyone cheerfully ignorant of how goddamned cold it was, and how…painful and tiring to face the memories you had been running from for so long.
At least he didn’t have to face anything more than the ghosts. Con was safely on his book tour, and Fitch…
That was strange about Fitch.
All these months…years without word. That wasn’t like Fitch. Even when he had clashed with Grandy the last time, he had stayed in touch with Finn. Granted, he couldn’t very well stay in touch with Finn this time.
Still…
The spark of uneasiness Finn had felt on initially hearing that Fitch was missing had kindled into quiet worry. Three years was a very long time to disappear without a word. And Fitch had never been one to hold a grudge—nor had Fitch any reason to hold a grudge, since he had come out the winner that time.
Finn became aware that with his thoughts running elsewhere, his feet had followed the familiar path to the cottage by Bell Woods. The cottage was on the edge of the old Carlyle estate; Con worked there most days, safely out of reach of his devoted family. There was no phone at the cottage—or at least there had not been a phone three years ago.
For a time Finn stood, leaning on Grandy’s cane, studying the white shingles and black shutters, the brick chimney and neglected garden. He felt surprisingly little. It was only a building, after all, and the memories existed independently of the architecture.
Lost in these thoughts, he noticed too late the door to the cottage swinging open. Con stepped outside. “Finn,” he said.
There was an alarming moment when Finn thought his mind had snapped, that he was rolling and sliding off the edge of sanity, and then he realized that he was not imagining things. Con was striding down the path toward him.
Too late to flee even if could manage it without looking like the loser in a three-legged race. So he held his ground, clenching his grandfather’s walking stick, as Con reached him.
“Finn,” Con said again, and he sounded out of breath.
He had not changed much in three years. Tall and lithe, his hair was still ash-blond, straight, and fine as silk, but he wore it a little longer now. His eyes were a shade of brown-black that Finn had never managed to determine; he remembered reading in one of the books his grandfather had illustrated about a pirate with “sparkling black-cherry eyes,” and he’d always thought that perfectly described Con’s eyes—although the wicked laughing eyes were at odds with a face as elegantly and distantly beautiful as the saint in a Renaissance painting. But there were faint little lines now around Con’s mouth and eyes, a tightness to his features. He looked tired, like he’d run too long and too far and had still not found what he was looking for.
Idiotically, the only thing Finn could think to say was, “I didn’t know you were back.”
“I got back last night.”
Good Lord. They should have held out for a group rate given the amount of traffic to the island yesterday.
“Oh. Well…nice to see you.” Finn turned to go, leaning heavily on the cane.
“Wait.” Con jerked out, “Can you…come inside for a minute?”
“Not today.” Finn kept moving, crablike, trying to escape. “I’ve got to get back.”
“Finn—” Con came alongside him.
In his slow-motion panic, his foot turned on a stone, and Con reached out to steady him. Every nerve in Finn’s body flinched away from his touch. He’d thought he was over it, but the feel of Con’s hand—the warm weight through his sweater—warned him otherwise. Bewilderingly, it was as though no time had passed at all, all his emotions were boiling right there at the surface.
“Jesus, Finn, you’re white to your lips. You should never have walked so far. Come in out of the cold for a few minutes.” Con looked—Finn didn’t think it was an expression he could capture on canvas. It surely wasn’t an expression he remembered ever seeing before on Con’s face.
“Please,” Con said.
It was something in the way he said “please.” Not a word Con had ever used a lot. Certainly not with Finn. As he stared at him, Finn was suddenly and utterly exhausted—light-headed with it. It was borne in on him how very far he had walked—and what a bad idea that had been. His head began that slow, ominous pound. He allowed himself to be led inside the cottage.
It was blessedly dim and warm inside. A fire crackled welcomingly in the fireplace, classical music was playing softly, the wooden blinds stirred in the draft, finding a way through the window casement. A stack of printed pages sat neatly beside a desktop and printer. It hadn’t changed.
Finn dropped down on the long leather sofa, put a hand over his eyes. Con hovered.
“I can’t believe you’re here.”
Finn looked at him and failed to think of anything intelligent to say. He agreed, though. Quite fucking unbelievable that he was here.
“Can I get you anything?”
“Ouch. No.” Finn shifted gingerly. Dropped the cane.
Con retrieved the cane and propped it within Finn’s reach. Con straightened, and Finn realized he was staring at the bones of Finn’s knees poking at his Levi’s, at his wrists, which still looked too thin for the rolled cuffs of his sweater.
“I heard about your accident,” Con said. “Are you… You’re all right now?”
“I’m fine.” He looked away.
“Relax, Finn. You look like you’re going to fly up the chimney any second.”
Finn’s mouth curled. He didn’t fly so well these days.
“Sit back,” Con was urging, and Finn cautiously lifted his leg onto the sofa. Easing back, he sighed relief. Yeah, whatever made Con doubt he was in great shape?
He became aware that Con still hovered over him. He looked up warily. Con asked, “Do you have anything you can take?”
“Huh?”
“For the pain.”
“Oh.” Finn grimaced. “This isn’t that bad. Anyway, I don’t like taking that crap. It makes me dopey.”
“So? I’ll run you back. Go ahead and take the stuff.” Con strode out of the room. From the kitchen, Finn heard water running, the sound of ice cube trays cracking open.
He closed his eyes, trying not to give in to the hot, throbbing poker of pain jamming into the base of his skull. Overexertion, that’s all it was. Maybe there was something to that not-rushing thing.
“Here, Finn.”
His eyes flew open. He hadn’t heard Con return, but he stood over the couch with a glass of water.
Finn inched up against the cushions, found his pills, palmed two, and reached for the glass.
He handed the water back to Con, who set it aside and pulled up a footstool.
“Finn…I’ve been waiting three years to talk to you.”
Goddamn. If that wasn’t just like Con. After three years, it was all about getting off his chest whatever it was he’d forgotten to say the last time.
“Oh, man. Please don’t.” Finn shut his eyes, leaning back. He really did not have the strength to deal with this now. Why the hell had he walked down this way? Why the hell hadn’t someone warned him Con was back?
Con’s voice dropped. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“Yeah?” He grinned faintly at that.
“Please hear me out.”
“I can’t exactly run away.”
Silence.
Finn opened his eyes. Con looked as though he were in more pain than Finn. Meeting Finn’s gaze, he said, “I’ve thought about that day a million times.”
A million times? Why, in three years, that would be nine hundred times a day. Impressive. Finn said, “Forget it. Ancient history.”
Silence. Anger began to bubble up inside Finn. Why did Con have to start this up again? It was over. Done. Why couldn’t they preserve a polite fiction…like neither of them remembered or cared? What the hell did Con want from him?
But Con plowed on. “To this day I don’t know why… I don’t understand how I let it happen. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want him.” His voice sank so low, Finn hardly recognized it.
He said wearily, “We both know what it was, and it doesn’t matter. Forget it.”
“I can’t forget it. Not a day goes by that I don’t remember what a fool I was.”
Finn said irritably, “Well, you need to forget it. It was three years ago. What’s the point of bringing this up now? It’s over.”
“It’s not over for me.”
Finn stared at him, torn between shock and outrage. His heart was starting to slug his ribs like an angry prizefighter preparing for a match.
“What are you talking about?” He pushed up on an elbow and realized he was already starting to feel the effects of the pills. “You’re not going to pretend— This is such bullshit. Do you need me to say I forgive you? Fine. I forgive you, Con. I chalked it up to a learning experience.”
Maybe that was a cheap shot. Con swallowed hard. “Finn. God.” He scrubbed his face with his hands. “You hate me, don’t you?”
“Not at all.”
He heard his tone: polite. Con heard it too.
“I was afraid you would feel like this if I didn’t—” His jaw worked. “But you were so…adamant. I thought…give him time to cool down. I tried writing…”
Finn had received the letters—he’d tossed them.
The medication was kicking in big-time, the sofa beginning to glide in slow, lazy swoops. Finn dropped back in the cushions. All at once he felt quite relaxed. He felt like being candid. Why not? What did he have to lose? Nothing. “I don’t know why it mattered so much, Con. I know how Fitch is, and I always knew it wasn’t anything more than a summer romance for you—”
“Finn.”
“You made it pretty clear, really.” He smiled faintly at unfocused memory. “You were scrupulous about never saying you loved me or anything, so I don’t know why I feel the way…the way I did… Maybe I was embarrassed because it meant so much to me—”
Con kissed him, his mouth covering Finn’s, warm and insistent. Finn was too narcotized to do more than murmur a vague protest. Con released him immediately.
“I’m sorry. Damn it to hell. I’m sorry, Finn.”
“Me too,” he said woozily. “Love to chat. Have to…sleep now…”
He thought Con answered that, but by then Finn was whirling away into a comfortable blankness.
When he woke, it was to a complete absence of light.
Panic gripped him, and he threw out a hand for the lamp beside his bed, but there was only empty space. Instead of sheets, there was a giving stiffness beneath him—leather. At the same instant he realized he was dressed, although his shoes were missing, and that he was tangled in some kind of afghan. Desperately, he struggled up, saying, “Turn on the light!”
Even as Finn absorbed that the room was not in complete darkness—embers burned molten orange in a grate, and platinum moonlight filtered through slats of the blinds—a darker shadow detached itself from the sable nothingness.
A light snapped on.
Bright, inarguable light, golden warmth turning the room from a threatening unknown to a collection of comfortable old furniture and familiar paintings, one of them his own.
Con was crossing to him, saying, “I’m sorry. I thought you would sleep better with it off.”
Finn scrabbled to collect himself. Between the dark and Con, it was a rocky awakening. He tried to hide that moment of naked fear, pushing into the corner of the sofa and raking a hand through his hair.
“I didn’t know where I was.” He tried to say it casually; his heart still racing and bounding like a deer in terror. Given the way Con was looking at him, he wasn’t sure how successful he was. “You shouldn’t have let me sleep so long.”
Con ignored that. “Are you feeling all right?”
“Fine.”
“You’re quite sure?” Con was frowning, studying him.
“I’m sure.” Actually, now that the unreasoning alarm was receding, he realized that he had slept well, and the nap had refreshed him. His head had stopped hurting, and his back was about as pain free as it got these days. Self-consciously, he smothered a yawn under Con’s searching gaze. “What time is it?”
“After five.”
“Oh hell. Martha is going to think I fell off a cliff.” He glanced around the cottage. “You haven’t—”
“Installed a phone? No.” Con liked being incommunicado when he was working, and that was the purpose of the cottage—although they had used it for other things once upon a time.
Better not to think of that now.
“You still don’t carry a cell phone?”
“I’m morally and ethically opposed to cell phones.” Con was smiling, but Finn knew he wasn’t entirely kidding.
“I left mine in Manhattan.” Then, “What?” he asked edgily as Con continued to stare at him.
“You can’t know. It’s…to see you sitting there again. To hear your voice. You don’t know how long I’ve—”
“Don’t.”
Con nodded tightly. After an awkward pause, he said, “I’ll run you back now if you like.”
“I like.” He reached for his cane. Con slipped a hand under his elbow, giving him a lift to his feet.
Finn appreciated the no-fuss tact of that, but he resented needing help. Where Con was concerned, he was a mess of contradictory feelings. He freed his arm, not rudely but pointedly enough that Con’s face tightened.
Saying nothing, he helped Finn into his jacket again, the juggle of cane and flapping sleeves, and then Finn was doing up his jacket and Con was going to the cottage door.
He walked out of the cottage ahead of Finn, feet crunching on the shell-strewn path, a small, angry sound. It was a relief to Finn to realize that he didn’t care that Con was upset. Time had been he would have been racking his brains for what he’d done, how to fix it, whether it was going to end between them. He could even spare a small twisted smile now for that insecure boy.
Con opened the Land Rover door and stood back. This was the tricky part, climbing up into the seat while hanging on to both his cane and dignity. Finn knew Con wouldn’t offer help unless he asked for it.
He requested gruffly, “Will you give me a hand up?” and knew Con felt like a bastard for forcing the request.
Con took the cane from Finn’s hand, set it aside. Finn turned nervously, not sure what to expect, and then Con slipped one arm around his waist, half lifting him into the seat without any apparent effort. Unnecessary and startling, but certainly efficient. Finn flicked him a quick, uncertain look, but Con’s face gave nothing away.
He handed Finn his cane; then Con shut the door and walked around to his side of the vehicle. Finn buckled himself in; his heart was beating fast, and he knew it had something to do with being in Con’s arms again for those brief heartbeats.
Con started the engine. Neither of them looked at the other or spoke as the Land Rover bounced over the potholes and rocks. Out of the corner of Finn’s eye, he could see Con’s profile, grim as that on an ancient and imperial coin. Like an emperor of ancient Rome with a rebellious senate on his hands.
They hit a bigger hole in the road, and the truck came down hard. Finn must have caught his breath, because Con glanced his way.
“Sorry. Does it give you a lot of trouble?”
“What’s that?” he managed to ask calmly.
“Your leg. What do the doctors say?”
“It’s fine. Mostly. I’m supposed to exercise it regularly. Which is why I walked too far today.” In case Con thought he had deliberately strolled down memory lane.
Silence.
They passed Gull Point. Across the bay, Finn could see the ghostly white tower of the old lighthouse. He looked away.
Con said slowly, “Or is it driving in general? Is it still difficult getting in a car?”
Funny that Con would understand that. Finn didn’t have to answer; one sharp look had confirmed Con’s guess. His foot eased off the gas, and Finn relaxed his white-knuckle grip on the armrest as they slowed to a sedate jog.
After another mile or so, Con questioned, “Do you remember anything about the accident?”
“I remember thinking oh shit as the truck plowed into us.” He added wryly, “Famous last words.” Finn glanced at Con and was startled at how green he looked in the lights from the dashboard.
The rest of the short drive to The Birches passed without further discussion, which was a relief to Finn.
Con parked in the shell-shaped drive in front of the long porch and opened his door.
“You don’t have to get out,” Finn started quickly, but Con ignored him, coming round to his side.
He opened Finn’s door, waiting in silence as Finn fumbled with the seat belt. Yanking it open at last, Finn reached to steady himself on the hand rest. Con took his other arm, ignoring the exasperated look Finn threw him.
“Can I see you again?” Con asked as Finn clambered awkwardly out of the Land Rover and grabbed for his cane.
“I’m sure we’ll run into each other.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.” It was hard to look away from the pain in Con’s dark eyes.
“I still care for you, Finn.”
Finn’s hand was clutching the cane so tightly his fingers hurt.
“I want to make things right.”
Finn bent his head. Took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” he said and met Con’s gaze. “I don’t feel the same.”
Con stared at him, then nodded curtly.
Finn waited politely as Con got back into the Rover and reversed in a smooth, neat arc.
That had been easy enough. The only problem was, he thought, watching the taillights as Con drove away—he knew he hadn’t told Con the truth.