Dancing in the Dark

“Do you honestly think I’d come to you for approval to get on with my life? Seth? Damn you, answer me!”

He raised a hand and waggled it without looking back.

“Seth? Seth!”

From the corner of her eye, she saw the headlights on her mother’s car blink on and off. Wendy glared after Seth’s retreating figure. Then she started toward the Volvo, her pace quickening with each step.

She wasn’t looking back, either. Not anymore.

CHAPTER EIGHT

CLINT COOPER SQUATTED next to Seth, protected from the bite of the wind by the walls of the woodshed behind Twin Oaks. Firewood lay scattered all around them; above, snow fell lightly through what, until the evening before, Clint had thought was a perfectly good roof.

Seth ran his hand along the edge of a rafter that had supported the roof, and frowned. He poked at a couple of the logs and turned them over. Finally, he stood, took off his gloves and slapped them against his jeans-clad legs to rid them of snow.

“Well?” Clint got to his feet and tucked his hands into the pockets of his coat. “What do you think?”

Seth heard the impatience in Clint’s voice. He’d called him a couple of hours ago, sounding upset. Maureen had gone out to the shed the night before for some wood, and a section of the roof had collapsed on top of her.

“Is Maureen okay?” Seth had asked.

Clint said she had a couple of bruises and that she’d been a little shaken by the accident.

“But she keeps insisting she’s fine,” he’d said wryly, and then he’d asked if Seth could stop by and see about repairing the shed. Seth had said he would, but ever since he’d gotten here, Clint’s questions had dealt more with how the accident could have occurred than with fixing the woodshed.

Seth decided it was time to confront that, head-on.

“Come spring, I can fix the shed easily enough,” he said, watching Clint closely. “But I get the feeling there’s more to your question than how long it’ll take me to get that roof back up.”

Clint hesitated. “You might say that, yes.” He looked up at the empty space. “The thing is, I can’t figure out why the roof would give way.”

“Snow can be really heavy, Clint. You know that as well as I do.”

“There wasn’t any more weight on that shed than usual. Less, maybe. I shoveled it off just a couple of days ago.”

“Still, stuff like this happens.”

Clint sighed. “Does it?”

“Sure. You’re dealing with wood. This shed was built a while ago, near as I can tell. There are termites and carpenter ants, hungry little buggers that can weaken a piece of wood over time. A building can go all to hell if it isn’t maintained properly, especially with lots of snow, icy rain... I’ve been working over near Williamstown. There’s a farm I pass each day. Old place, with lots of small outbuildings. Monday, this little structure that looks like it might have been a pumphouse was fine. Tuesday, I drove by, noticed that a section of it had collapsed.” Seth smiled. “Welcome to the country, pal.”

“Yeah.” Clint nodded. “I guess I feel guilty, that’s all.”

“About what?”

“About the roof coming down on Maureen instead of me. She always insists on bringing in the wood, but I’d noticed that there were only a few logs left by the fireplace in the gathering room and said I’d do it. Then the phone rang and I got sidetracked.” Clint’s mouth turned down at the corners. “If I’d only ignored that telephone...”

“You guys run a B and B.” Seth smiled. “Ignore that phone enough and there won’t be anything to run.”

“You’re right. I just feel...well, I’d rather this hadn’t happened at all, but to have it happen to my sister...”

“Did she notice anything wrong before the accident?”

“No. She just opened the door, stepped inside the way she’s done hundreds of times...” Clint looked up at the hole in the roof again “...and just like that, the roof came down and took the whole wall of logs with it.”

“But you said Maureen’s okay, right?”

“She’s got some bruises on her shoulder and a mild concussion. Nothing serious, thank goodness. Doc Dorn stopped by, checked her over, then convinced her to go for an X ray.” Clint rolled his eyes. “It took a lot of fast talking, but then, you know my sister.”

“She’s lucky. Damn lucky. Those logs are heavy.”

“I know.” Clint’s jaw tightened. “She could have been badly hurt. As it is, if she’d been trapped under the logs much longer...” His voice trailed off. “It was bitter cold last night.”

Seth nodded. “Yeah. It’s a good thing you found her when you did.”

“Tell me about it.” Clint rocked back on his heels and peered at the roof again. “So, you figure it was the weight of the snow, huh?”

Seth picked up a splintered piece of the two-by-four brace that had held up the logs. “I can’t think what else it could have been.”

“Just an accident, right?”

Seth looked at him. Clint’s expression was impassive, but something in his tone was troubling.

“Do you have reason to think it wasn’t?” he asked quietly.

Clint opened his mouth, then shut it again. “No. Of course not.”

The denial wasn’t convincing. “Because if you do,” Seth said, “you might want to contact the police.”

“There’s no reason. I’m sure this is just what you said it was. Too much snow on the roof.” Clint slapped his hand against one of the walls. “So, what do you think?” he said briskly. “Should we repair it or rebuild it? This shed’s got to be, what, almost as old as the house?”

“Darned close.”

“Uh-huh.” Clint clapped him on the back. “Tell you what. Come on up to the house. We’ll have some coffee and you can explain the pros and cons of repairing the roof as opposed to building a new shed.”

“Does that coffee come with homemade scones?”

Clint laughed. “It does.”

“In that case, it’s a deal.”

The men walked slowly up the hill toward Twin Oaks. Seth craned his neck and looked back at the ice-bound river, then at the snow-covered hills surrounding them.

“One heck of a view,” he said.

“Yup. The Cooper that built here sure knew a nice piece of land when he saw it.”

“So did you and Maureen,” Seth said, smiling. “Took you, what, ten minutes to fall in love with the place and decide to move here?”

“Move back here, you mean.”

“Right. I keep forgetting you lived in Cooper’s Corner as a kid.”

“Yeah.” Clint opened the back door and motioned Seth to move ahead of him. “I was here till I was nine, and all those years, I don’t ever recall a woodshed roof collapsing because of the snow. But then, I was only a kid. I guess I didn’t pay much attention to those things.” He toed off his boots, shrugged off his coat and hung it on a peg beside the door. “Take off your jacket,” he said as he washed up at the utility sink, “and sit down.”

Seth glanced down at his feet. “My boots are going to leave tracks on the floor.”

Clint grinned. “That’s one of the benefits of a stone floor. Nothing ruins it. Go on. Take a load off while I pour us some coffee.”

“Sounds good.” Seth took his turn at the sink. “If you have some paper and a pencil, I’ll work up a rough estimate of building a new shed.”

Clint took a notepad and pencil from the counter and put them on the table. “What about fixing up the old one?”

“Well, I’ll give you a rough idea of that, too, but it probably makes sense to start from scratch.”

While Seth made his calculations, Clint poured coffee and piled scones on a plate.

“Okay. Here?

??s what I figure it’ll cost you, both ways.” Seth turned the pad toward Clint, who frowned as he read the numbers.

“So cheap?”

“Of course.” Seth reached for a scone from the plate Clint had placed on the kitchen table. “You’ll do it yourself. Zero labor costs.”

“Hey. I didn’t mean—”

“Come on, man. You know you’re just looking to put me out of work.” The men grinned at each other.

“Hey, Castleman,” Clint said in a Western drawl that would have made John Wayne proud, “are you tellin’ me this town ain’t big enough for the two of us?”

Both men laughed. They’d fallen into the friendly routine ever since Clint and his sister inherited Twin Oaks and decided to convert the old house to a bed-and-breakfast. Clint was an architect by training and had always gone in for hands-on participation in the projects he designed. He was a more than competent carpenter, but he cheerfully admitted he couldn’t hold a candle to Seth when it came to things like cabinetry or furniture making.

“Okay. Thanks for the estimate.”

“No problem. I can even give you a couple of recommendations to some lumberyards where you can buy well-seasoned wood.” Seth bit into the scone and rolled his eyes. “Did you ever think about opening a restaurant, adding a little class to the valley? I know, I know. Cooking’s just a hobby, but you’re damned good.”

“That’s just what we need, all right.” Clint smiled, amused. “A gourmet restaurant to compete with the ones in Lenox. I was surprised enough when that new place opened in Stockbridge. What’s it called? The Purple Panda?”

“Yeah. Something like that.”