The House On The Creek Read online

  “I ran off at the beginning of the summer, twelve years past. Didn’t take you long, Abby. Or were you letting him touch you before I left, behind my back? All those nights you said your ma wouldn’t let you come out. All those nights I spent down at the Creek, or in the old cemetery, as far from that hell house as I could get?

  “When did it start?” He looked over his shoulder and the twist of his mouth made her shiver. “Don’t lie to me, Abby. I always could tell when you were lying.”

  She didn’t scream, or cry, or throw anything. The temper seemed to have been frozen right out of her. She walked across the linoleum, one foot in front of the other, and opened the side door. The screen stuck in its frame and popped open on a squeal.

  “Get out,” she said for the third time.

  He might have refused her. She thought he wanted to. But then Chris called out from the back of the house, a distant question.

  Everett flinched and his head lowered. When he moved again it was with deliberation. He wiped his hands neatly on the crumpled dish rag, and then walked past her into the evening.

  He didn’t look at her as he stepped over the threshold.

  “Don’t come back,” she warned, hoping her voice was steady.

  He shook his head without looking around. “There won’t be any more apologies, Abby. Not for this.” She saw the steel in the set of his shoulders.

  She shut the door and grabbed the towel he’d left on her counter, and began to clean up the spilled flour. She wiped up a clot of the stuff, shook it out into the trash, and bent to wipe again.

  After several minutes she straightened and decided to go for the broom. As she rinsed out the towel she glanced dully out the window and caught her breath.

  He was still there, curved over the sweet little car, his back set to the house. Elbows on the roof, forehead on his fists. The dust in the evening breeze settled on his shirt and dulled his hair.

  Abby took a deep breath, chased the tears from her eyes with the tips of her fingers, and went to get the broom. She didn’t look out the window again until she heard the rumble of departing ties on the ruts of the dirt road.

  And then she stood in the kitchen and watched his car until it disappeared beneath the overhand of the woods.

  Everett pulled into the empty park, letting tires squeal as he circled the grass divider and sliced past a giant metal garbage bin left out for summer picnickers. He stashed the Spyder sideways across two shady parking spots and threw open the door. He almost slammed it shut again, and then changed his mind and left it open to dusk as he stepped across asphalt and onto grass.

  Wasn’t likely anyone would bother the car. And anyway, he’d welcome trouble. Welcome the opportunity to smash some no good mischief maker in the face. His fists practically shook with longing.

  At the bottom of the grass bank the Creek turned sluggish and pooled into swampy marshland. Reeds and tall grasses dropped in the heat, tips almost touching the muddy water. A white heron fished along the shore.

  Further out the wetlands widened again and began to flow more quickly. Up and down tree covered banks old docks cut the water and sagged with the weight of years. Many were attached to houses hidden behind the greenery.

  One or two of the piers belonged to the college and were used by the rowing team.

  Everett strode back and forth along the bank, walking off his fury. He paced until the constriction around his lungs began to loosen. When he had his breathing under control again, he made his way up the grass and over to the arched wooden bridge that was the park’s main attraction.

  The boards trembled slightly beneath the slap of his shoes, but the bridge was still sturdy. He could see where parts of the frame had been rebuilt. Here and there initials had been carved into the rail.

  Everett walked until he stood at the very center of the arch. He leaned out over the water, watching eddies shake the reeds.

  When he was a kid there had been ducks, swarms of them, and sometimes geese. Now the waters were empty except for a lone egret waiting in the shallows on the far bank. He wondered if the ducks had already moved off for the winter. If so, they were premature. Even beneath the setting sun sweat prickled the back of his neck.

  He shut his eyes and listened to the gurgle of the water, hoping the soothing sound would bring him piece. But faces swirled across the backs of his eyelids. The old man’s scowl, the boy’s wary curiosity, Abby’s grin.

  His eyes snapped open, but he could still see her in his head. A pixie with a woman’s body, standing in her smoky kitchen like a queen, barefoot in a loose cotton dress, the kind that whispered to a man of long summer nights and breezes heavy with the perfume of gardenia, of honeysuckle.

  And even though he’d seen the fear and anger on her face, even though he knew his father had touched her, his body had responded to her unconscious invitation and he had wanted her, wanted her with the same randy intensity he’d first felt at fifteen.

  Even now, as he stood alone in the fading twilight, lust curled in his groin and made his body ache.

  “Hell!” Everett brought the flat of his palm down against the railing, hoping the stinging pain would clear the scent of her from his brain.

  Abby was wrong. He’d never expected her to follow in her ma’s footsteps.

  Juliet Ross had been a wild one, soft at the core and not too bright. She’d grown up in the back country of West Virginia, ducked out on any attempt at schooling, and spent the first quarter of her life hawking the lawn ornaments her father carved at country fairs.

  At nineteen she’d grown bored of the hills and found her way to Williamsburg in a long haul trucker’s cab.

  She’d never had much money, she had never seemed to want it. But she had always loved things. And men. And because she was a pretty piece, all long dark hair and wide black eyes and a body that made a man’s body tighten, she’d soon discovered that the easiest way to acquire things was by way of a lover’s wallet.

  Everett had seen the photographs of a young Juliet in Abby’s living room and heard stories of her youth from Edward, but the Ms. Ross he remembered from childhood had begun to go grey, begun to bend a little at the spine. She’d worn slacks and frilly blouses, and spent the days clerking in a gift shop on the Royal Mile.

  She’d learned to be discreet, but she never gave up her men, or her things. Her single bright eyed daughter grew up in a three room house filled with the gifts of local ‘suitors’ and if Abby was not exactly unaware, she never seemed ashamed.

  Once, when Abby was six and Everett seven, a snub nosed boy on the school playground had called Juliet a slut. Everett had watched from a group of classmates as the little girl socked her tormentor in the nose.

  She was sent to the principal for her trouble. And that was how Everett Anderson learned the girl’s name. Dark haired Abby Ross who wasn’t afraid to smack the school bully right across his jug.

  They became playmates and co conspirators. Everett knew better than to mention Ms. Ross’s penchant for men. When he visited the house at the end of the dirt road, he always spoke politely and respectfully to Abby’s ma.

  And Juliet had always returned the favor, pretending not to know he was the child of the Creek’s most infamous drunk.

  Everett sighed. Overhead, the sky had turned to indigo. The color of his father’s gaze.

  And the same blue, blue eyes had looked out at him from Christopher’s thin face.

  Everett felt sick.

  His own mother had once claimed the apple never fell far from the tree. Everett feared she was right.

  He turned on his heel and left the bridge to the gathering darkness. Out over the water and on the far bank he could see the fluorescent glow of fireflies. Tiny, flickering stars come down to earth.

  Chapter Six

  “PEDESTAL SINK’S NO GOOD. Threading’s completely shot and there’s a crack running straight center down the middle.”

  Abby paused over a bucket of teak oil and craned her neck around, peering u
nder her elbow. “Tina knew we’d probably need to pick up a new one.”

  The metal bucket rattled between her work boots as a particularly fierce swell caused the deck to bump and sway. The man standing half in and half out of the aft stairwell grimaced.

  Abby bit back a smile. “Looking a little green, Jackson.”

  Her partner groaned. “You couldn’t have asked for dry dock?”

  Abby grinned and dropped a paintbrush into the oil, sloshing with happy enthusiasm. “It’s faster this way. And cheaper. Which should make you want to sing hymns of praise.”

  “The books will thank you, but my stomach won’t. The James smells like an armpit in the summer.” He leaned against the tilt of the boat.

  “Only this particular part.” Abby shot a glance at the mucky river and then at the faded pier lined with houseboats of various charm and character. “Never did understand why anyone would want to pay good money to live out here.”

  “A long way from Baja.” Jack took a shallow breath and then clamored up the last of the steps. “Antique or repro?”

  “Tina wants as close to the original as possible,” Abby said. “Antique’s better.”

  Jack ran hands through hair nearly the same color as the teak she was oiling. “I’ve got a man in Richmond. Likely he’ll have one close enough. I’ll drive out on Wednesday.”

  “Wednesday will do.” Abby considered. “We’ll yank the old one tomorrow.”

  “And won’t that be fun.” But he smiled as he looked around the deck. “She’s coming together faster than I expected.”

  “You and me both.” And when the boat rocked again, she snorted. “Get back on dry land before you puke all over my hard work.”

  “Aye-aye, Captain.” He touched the top of her head, not quite a pat. “Dinner tonight?”

  “Are you kidding? Pizza night at Chez Pierce? Chris is chomping at the bit.”

  “I’ll rent something with swords and trolls, then. Appropriately bloody, but no decapitation.”

  Abby laughed and watched her friend’s hasty retreat. Even battling the rocking boat he moved with the surety of man who knew and trusted the strength of his body. When he disembarked, he took with him the faint smell of apples.

  Left alone, Abby unlaced her work boots, walked barefoot across the deck, and took the narrow stairwell into the bottom of the boat. Teak steps felt pleasantly cool against the bottoms of her feet.

  The living quarters below were carpeted with a thick cream Berber. The carpet had cost a pretty penny and Abby, who spent most her day among paints and caulking and sawdust, never ventured across it on anything than her clean, bare feet.

  Tina Princeton had dashed off to Zurich for three months, leaving Abby with explicit instructions and an almost unlimited restoration budget. She’d also left behind a fax machine and the loudly expressed hope that the boat would be ready for habitation by the time she returned.

  The fax machine lived on an antique table in the single bedroom. Abby checked the tray and found it surprisingly empty. Usually Tina dashed out four or five faxes before lunch as she changed her mind about this shade of paint or that color of fabric.

  Skirting a rolled up a tarp and a bundle of swatches, Abby crossed through the tiny living room and into the galley.

  The kitchen floors were hardwood and terribly scratched, deeply scored. Every board would need to be replaced. The teak cabinets were still in good condition, but would need a great deal of work before they were beautiful again. Luckily, Jackson had a special magic when it came to wood.

  The refrigerator was new, chrome, and shiny. Abby didn’t think it belonged in a 1920s house boat, but Tina wanted to keep it and the client was always right, even when astoundingly uneducated in the ways and means of restoration.

  Abby opened the fridge and dug around until she found the gallon of orange juice she’d buried there earlier in the morning. Standing in the galley, she gulped cold juice directly from the jug and eyed the cabinets suspiciously.

  Tina’s deadline of three months was beginning to look overly optimistic.

  Cooling sweat made Abby shiver. She stuck the OJ back into the fridge, and plucked a banana from the bowl of fruit she kept on the kitchen counter. Munching thoughtfully, she crossed back and forth along the galley floor, estimating work time and supply availability.

  She finished the banana quickly, dumped the peel into a plastic bag she kept in one corner for stray trash, and started back to work.

  On the way up to the stairs she passed again through the bedroom and stopped, frowning.

  The room was mostly as Tina had left it. A teak platform bed, a dresser, and two Craftsman style standing lamps took up most of the space. The cotton sheets on the bed were smooth and unwrinkled, waiting for the client’s return.

  But the white daisies in the pottery vase were beginning to droop.

  Abby sighed. She hadn’t been able to leave the flowers in the dust after Everett’s angry departure. But she hadn’t wanted them in her house, either, where Chris would wonder, and she would have to face them every morning when she woke up and every evening before she climbed into bed.

  She hadn’t wanted to think of Everett at all.

  So she’d dropped them into a spare vase, and carried them to Tina’s house boat where she could ignore them for most of the day and enjoy them exactly when she wanted to.

  Only, it hadn’t worked quite that way. Because every time she came in for a snack or a break or a trip to the head, there the flowers were, looking faintly accusatory.

  And now, three days old, they were beginning to wilt. Not enough sunlight in the depths of the boat, Abby supposed. Or maybe the darn things were trying to make her feel guilty.

  “Go ahead and die on me,” she muttered, glaring at the vase. “See if I care. Go on, I dare you.”

  But when she climbed out into daylight, Abby carried the flowers with her. She set the vase smack on the middle of the deck where she knew they would get enough light, laced up her boots, and went back to work.

  Painting oil onto teak was an easy enough job, even if the combination of heat and fumes made her head swim, but Abby couldn’t seem to make the work come together. Twice she dropped the brush sideways into the bucket, submerging it completely, and once she spattered drops of oil onto the freshly painted white wheel house.

  The oil wouldn’t hurt the paint, but Abby didn’t want to chance a stain, so she took several minutes out to swear, and clean up the mess, and swear some more.

  She kept seeing, over and over again, the back of his neck as he bent over the dusty Spyder. She kept feeling, over and over again, the urgency of his mouth across her own. And she couldn’t help but remember the trace of his fingertip beneath her hair and along the ridge of her ear.

  She couldn’t quite forget the tingling rasp of his rough hand against the flesh of her bare thighs.

  Abby’s own hands shook and more oil splattered. Infuriated, she tossed brush back into bucket and reached for a mop-up rag.

  When she turned back the paintbrush had sunk to the bottom of her bucket.

  She nearly kicked bucket and brush and oil clear across the deck and into the James.

  “Too much sun, Abby,” she told herself, breathing heavily. “Never get a thing done if you carry on like this. Fumes will drive you batty.”

  She glanced at her watch. Nearly half past four. The sun would be easing up soon. She’d get another good two hours in before Chris needed a ride home from school. Two hours closer to finished.

  She knelt again alongside her bucket, reaching into the oil for her paintbrush, and then hesitated, feeling again the phantom vise of his hand, a bracelet around her wrist. His grip had burned, rough with rage or passion.

  And she’d missed his touch when he withdrew.

  It wasn’t the sun or the stink of the teak oil that made her head swim. It was the memory of his touch, and the white daisies drooping on the deck. And -

  “Unfinished business,” Abby admitted to hersel
f reluctantly, and with a good deal of fury. Even as a boy, Everett had done wild things to her temper.

  And apparently he still thought he had a right to know her secrets.

  Abby hoisted the bucket and the sodden paintbrush and, resigned, started down below to clean up.

  Because her conscious wouldn’t let her rest.

  Abby heard the mower through the open car window before she turned onto the drive. She couldn’t make out the lawn through the overhang of tree branches until her Mercedes was half way up the drive. Then she saw him, dressed only in a pair of sweats cut off at the knees and ratty blue boat shoes.