Beauty and the Black Sheep (The Moorehouse Legacy 1)

“Can you drive all the way up?” Nate asked as they each settled into one of the grooves in the road.

“Only part way.”

The dark forest surrounded them, the trees a cool, protective shield, the ferns and grasses a lovely green carpet. The air smelled like pine and earth and she felt the tension leave her body.

Just as they hit the trail proper, the road broke off to the right. Nate stopped while she went ahead.

“What’s over here?”

“The graveyard. But there’s not much to see.”

He started down the road.

“Nate? Let’s just keep going, okay? Nate?”

There was no answer, just the sound of his boots cracking an occasional stick, so she cursed and went after him. When she came up to the familiar stone pylons and the gate that was made out of unshucked cedar branches in the Adirondack style, she stopped. The barrier kept the cars out although pedestrians could easily walk around it and go inside, as Nate had. The only time the heavy arm was swung open was for burials or regular maintenance and there was an old, ratty chain with a fresh Master lock hanging at one side.

Putting her hands on the top rail, she felt the rough scratch of the bark against her palms. Ahead, in a flat grassy plain, there were some twenty gray slate headstones, lined up in rows. There were no showy angels or Christ figures, no temple-like artifices. Just stones marking when people had checked in and out. Frankie knew she would be buried there, and so would her brother and sister and Grand-Em, of course. But after that, who else would? She wasn’t in a big hurry to get married and start a family and neither was Alex. Who knew what Joy would do.

Nate paused in front of a grave. “This one is dated 1827. Is it the earliest?”

“No. That was Charles Moorehouse’s second son, Edward. The first, Charles, Jr., died in infancy—1811.”

He touched the weathered, lichen-covered slab. “Edward died young. Fifteen, was he?”

She nodded and Nate moved on. He seemed to take care not to step on the ground in front of the stones, as if he didn’t want to trample on the dead. She didn’t know, though, whether the coffins had been buried in front of or behind the markers. When her grandfather had died, she’d been too young to remember much of anything. And when her parents had been laid to rest, she’d been down at the house. The day she’d finally gone up to see where they’d been buried, some two years later, the grass had all grown in.

She supposed that had been the last time she’d walked around the gate.

A part of her wanted to join Nate, she realized. To wander around, look at the inscriptions, remember faces from black-and-white pictures that hung on the walls or were protected in leather bound albums. But she knew sooner or later she would come to two headstones that would make her hurt so she stayed away from all of them.

Her parents had died in a May storm out on the lake, and the beautiful spring day when they’d been buried was a memory clear enough to have Frankie coughing away a lump in her throat. The sun had been thoughtlessly bright, the sky a cruel and lovely blue. The birds had been in the trees and there had been buds everywhere you looked. Worst of all, there had been boats out on the lake, skimming across docile waves. Watching them go by, she’d wondered why some lives got to go on while others were stopped in the middle.

Right before the service, Frankie had told Joy and Alex that she had to watch over the B B, and would stay at the house. It hadn’t been the whole truth and she’d had a feeling they knew it. The thing was, she’d been afraid of making a fool of herself by bursting into tears. Up until the day of the burials, she’d only had one crying jag. It had kicked off when she’d opened the back door that terrible night and found two local cops on the other side. The men were standing in the rain with their hats off, looking at their shoes. Her father had been gone in the storm for two hours by then, her mother for a little over an hour.

She’d sobbed through the awkward words of sympathy they’d offered and she’d thought the crying would never stop, but then Joy had come downstairs. Frankie could never forget the expression on her sister’s face as the girl had taken in the scene. She’d been stone-cold terrified, and when she’d asked whether she still had a family, Frankie had made a vow. Wiping her eyes, she’d decided her sister was not going to grow up without a parent. Frankie had no idea how to be one, but she figured the first rule of thumb was no more crying. Tears meant you were scared and the last thing a teenager needed was a caregiver who was falling apart.

Frankie had intended to go to the memorial service, she really had. But then Alex had finally showed up and that meant Joy had someone to stand next to and Frankie had an out. She’d been worried about staying strong through the service, picturing herself weeping and having to be escorted away by some distant, caring relative. In front of Joy. Or God, maybe it would have been even worse. She’d easily been able to imagine throwing herself on her father’s coffin and pounding on it as if she could get his attention somehow.

She thought about doing that, still.

And what would she say to him? She was ashamed of the truth. The first thing out of her mouth wouldn’t be I love you. It would be more along the lines of What the hell did you think you were doing when you headed out on the lake in that storm in a half-restored boat? And Didn’t you know she would come after you, you selfish bastard?

“Someone’s been up here.”

Frankie braced herself and looked over at the two newest graves, which weren’t new anymore. Ten years had brought a thick thatch of grass around her parents’ headstones and some moss to the sides of the markers. The tree, which had been planted to shade their resting places, a hearty hemlock that Frankie had been assured would survive the harsh winters, was now six feet tall. At its base was a small bouquet on the ground and the flowers were from White Caps’ garden. No doubt Joy had come up recently for a visit.

Frankie stared hard at the lilacs. She would have liked to show her grief in such an acceptable, dignified way. She wanted to mourn with quiet, soul-felt love. But a decade later she wasn’t anymore capable of such convention than she would have been the day they’d been buried. Soldiering on had put the trauma in cold storage, so on those rare occasions she let herself think of the past, the emotions were as raw as ever.

She heard a stick snap and focused her eyes. Nate had come over to her although she hadn’t sensed him moving.

“You want to go?” he asked.

“I want to be like my sister,” she blurted. “Putting down pretty flowers. Talking to their headstones.”

Nate covered her hand with one of his. His eyes were grave and tender. “You must miss them, still.”

“I curse him and hate myself for it. Missing them would be a relief.” She turned and walked away. “Let’s head on up the trail.”

Chapter Eight

F rom his perch on the mountain’s summit, Nate had a good look at Frankie. She was standing on a rock ledge in front of him, surveying the strip of lake that was far below. Her hands were on her h*ps and the wind was blowing her hair around, pulling strands out of her ponytail.

It had been a mistake to go to the graveyard, he thought.“Beautiful view,” he said.

“Isn’t it.” Her words were carried back to him on the wind.

Their pace up the mountain had been a bruising one. She was a steady, sure hiker, and she hadn’t slowed down even through the hardest parts of the trail. Going over a rock face, scurrying up the messy remnants of a mudslide, traversing a river or a fallen tree, she just kept pressing on.

“You want to eat?” he asked, picking up the bag and unrolling the top.

She looked at him over her shoulder. “Good idea. I’m hungry.”

Nate fell still. He could barely see her face in the swirl of hair, but he could feel her eyes on him. She had a smudge of dirt on the side of her neck and her T-shirt had come untucked from her shorts. There was mud on her calves and her socks.

And she was the loveliest woman he’d ever seen.

Frankie walked over to him. “What did you bring us?”

Blinking twice, he felt his body shift in his skin, if that was possible, and then a wave of something like nausea hit his belly. He thought about altitude sickness, but that was what you got in the Himalayas. Not the Adirondacks.

She sat down beside him, stretching her legs out next to his and leaning back on her hands. She frowned. “Are you okay? Is the height bothering you?”

It wasn’t the height. He’d surprised himself, that was all.

He’d always assumed that at the age of thirty-eight, there were very few firsts left in his life. First root canal, sure. First time he looked in the mirror and saw an old man staring back at him, absolutely. First hip replacement? Maybe, if that old hockey injury kept acting up.

But the lurching feeling in his gut was definitely not what he expected to feel for the first time now. That odd rush was something he should have experienced back in high school. Toward some sixteen-year-old girl who’d kissed him under the bleachers and then broken his heart by going to the prom with his best friend.

It wasn’t lust. He knew lust. This was different.

“What’s the matter?”

Nate put the bag down between them and rubbed his eyes, forcing a smile. “Not a damn thing.”

She studied him and then crossed her feet and tilted her face up to the sun. “So what’s in the bag.”

Maybe there was a more reasonable explanation, he thought. Maybe some of those fritters he’d had for breakfast had been underdone. Or he was coming down with something. Or the height really was getting to him.

He craned his neck around, staring down at the lake and the expansive, yawning view. When his stomach heaved with alarm, he was reassured.

“I’m trying out a new recipe. Here—” he held out a piece of chicken “—ginger, garlic, herbs. Pretty simple stuff, but I like it.”

She brushed off her hands, took a bite out of the leg, and chewed thoughtfully. He liked feeding her, liked knowing that something he’d made was passing over her tongue and going down into her body.

“It’s good.”

He smiled. “I know.”

She shook her head, but he caught a hint of smile. “You’ve got a monstrous ego, you know that?”

He took out a piece for himself. “Yeah. But I’d also never give you something that wasn’t my best.”

“Trying to impress the boss,” she said, lightly.

No, the woman, he thought.

“Maybe.” He polished off a thigh and a leg and then settled back against a rock. He looked over at her.

“This is really good.” She reached into the bag for another piece. “Are you going to put it on the new menu?”

“I don’t think so. I’m keeping the number of selections small and everything is French. Two chickens, two fish, two meats. Until we get more customers, I’m not even going to bother with a dessert list. They’ll have to be satisfied with whatever I make.”

“God, I really hope this season’s strong.”

“But you’re thinking of selling, aren’t you?”

Her head snapped around. “Good Lord, no. What makes you say that?”

“The Englishman. I could see his head working like an adding machine as he went through the kitchen.”

She looked down at the drumstick in her hand. “He’s just a tourist.”

“Hardly. That was Karl Graves, the international hotelier. He owns a dozen or so luxury hotels around the world.”

She seemed stunned, but recovered quickly. “Then he can’t be interested in buying White Caps. We’re small fries to him.”

Nate wasn’t about to mention that the mansion would make a perfect private house for someone like Graves.

“How much trouble are you in, Frankie?” There was a long pause. “You can tell me.”