Man With A Message

“I’ll wait for you and follow you home,” Hank called after her.

She turned at the top. “I’m fine. Go home to Jackie.”

“I’ll buy you a mocha at the Breakfast Barn on the way.”

She grinned. “Okay. Who cares about Jackie.” She blew him a kiss and disappeared inside.

Hank opened the lid of the truck’s toolbox for Cam. “One of our more dramatic messes,” he said with a laugh. “Hey, Freddy!” He patted the back window as Fred’s head appeared. The dog was barking excitedly. Hank leaned an elbow on the side of the truck as Cam put away his tools. “I hear you rescued Mariah Mercer from drowning.”

Cam shook his head. “That’s a little overstated. Brian—one of the kids—held her head out of the water. I just carried her to a bed.”

“Where you gave her mouth-to-mouth and she French-kissed you.”

Cam frowned. “No, she didn’t.”

“Yes, she did. Ashley told me.” Hank grinned. “She’s thrilled about it. She adores Mariah and thinks it’d be wonderful if she could find a husband.”

Cam gave Hank a shove out of his way as he dropped pipes into the back. “Yeah, well, I don’t think Mariah Mercer has designs on me. After she kissed me, she slugged me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Probably a reaction to the bump on the head, or something. No big deal.”

“So I can tell my mother you’re still on the market?”

Cam opened the passenger side of the cab to let Fred out, the gesture half practical, half vengeful. The dog leaped on him elatedly, then went right to Hank, who always had treats in his pockets. Fred backed Hank up to the side of the truck, his paws on his chest, alternately kissing him and barking a demand for treats.

Pinned to the truck, Hank reached into a pants pocket. “How big is this guy going to get?” he asked, quickly putting a biscuit in the dog’s mouth. “He doesn’t beg—he just mugs you for what he wants!”

“I’m not sure. I guess some Labs get to a hundred pounds or more. Jimmy didn’t tell me that when he sold him to me.” Jimmy Elliott was a fireman and another of Whitcomb’s Wonders.

Treat in his mouth, Fred ran off around the side of the carriage house.

“You must be beat,” Hank said. “You have a class in the morning?”

“In the afternoon. I’ll be fine. I’m a little wired, actually. Letty brought us coffee and I don’t think she bothered to grind the beans.”

Hank took a key out of his jacket pocket and offered it to Hank. “Why don’t you go take a look at the lake house,” he suggested. “You and Fred can even sleep there if you don’t want to go back home tonight.”

Cam tried to push the key away. “Hank, I appreciate the offer to buy your house. There’s not a place in town I’d like better. But I keep telling you—I don’t have the cash.”

Hank nodded. They’d argued this before. “We’ll find a way to keep the payments way down.”

Hank had married Jackie Fortin, the mayor of Maple Hill, a brief two months ago. In doing so, he’d acquired two little girls, ages seven and eleven, and infant twin boys. He’d bought the big house on the lake as a bachelor, but now found that the old family home Jackie occupied was closer to school for the girls, and closer to city hall for Jackie and for Hank, since the office of Whitcomb’s Wonders was located in its basement.

Cam had mentioned once at a party Hank had held how ideal he thought the house was, how warm and welcoming after his cramped apartment behind the fire station.

“We’ll put a balloon payment at the end,” Hank said, “and by then you’ll be a well-known developer. Since you have plans to save our colonial charm rather than replace it with malls and movie-plexes, you’ll be popular and make big bucks.”

“That’s a little optimistic.”

“It never hurts to think positive.” Hank took his hand and slapped the key into it. “Even though that hasn’t been your experience in the past. You have control now. You’re not dependent upon neglectful parents, and you don’t have to worry about a selfish wife. Do what you want to do.”

Cam was touched by his concern and grateful for his support. “You’re pretty philosophical for a NASA engineer-turned-electrician. You didn’t get zapped tonight while standing in all that water, did you?”

“No.” Hank grinned and braced his stance as Fred came running back to them. “I’m charged on life, pal…charged on life. Oof! Go look at the house. Fred needs room to run. And someday you’ll want to think about getting married again and having children.”

Well, he was right about Fred needing room to run, anyway. Cam closed the dog in the car, said good-night to Hank and the cleaning crew still working, waved at Haley, who photographed them, then headed for home. But somewhere along the way he took a turn toward Maple Hill Lake and Hank’s house on the less-populated far side of it.

He pulled off the road onto a private drive that led through a high hedge, and into the driveway of the two-story split-level. He would look through it as Hank suggested, get the notion of buying it out of his system. Then he could just settle down, keep working and going to school so that he could finally achieve the goal for which he’d come here. He wanted an MBA behind him before he bought the old Chandler Mill outside of town and turned it into office space and apartments.

He’d talked to Evan Braga about it, and he thought the idea was sound. Braga was another of Hank’s men who did painting and wallpapering, and sold real estate on the side. He’d been a cop in Boston and had come to Maple Hill for the same reason Cam had—to start over. He hadn’t said why and Cam hadn’t asked.

Anyway…if he was going to buy a house in Maple Hill, it should be one of the classic salt boxes or Georgians that were such a part of the area’s history.

But he loved this house. From the moment he’d arrived at Hank’s party all those months ago, he’d felt as if the house had a heartbeat.

He let himself in and flipped on the light in the front room. Fred stayed right beside him intimidated by the new surroundings. As Cam walked from room to room, he became aware of details he hadn’t noticed before. The master bedroom had a fireplace that was also open to the bathroom, which had two sinks and vanities, a sunken tub and greenery growing all around it. It was probably what a Roman bath would have looked like. He could imagine lying in the tub after a particularly grueling and dirty day in the pipes, and being warmed by a real fire. Here was a tendency toward hedonism he didn’t even realize he had. Each of the three bedrooms upstairs had a private bath.

He walked back downstairs to look around outside and Fred went wild, running through the tall grass that rimmed the lake, chasing imaginary quarry in the dark. He stopped to sniff the air and bark his delight to the woods across the road.

The property spread for five acres in both directions, and except for Fred’s footsteps, there was nothing but the sound of insects. The natural perfume of the dark quiet night took his breath away.

A broad deck ran all around the house, and Cam remembered Hank saying that when he’d bought the place, he’d anticipated having barbecues and inviting his friends. But Whitcomb’s Wonders had been more successful than even he’d imagined, and family life had kept him too busy.

Cam looked at the covered gas grill in a corner of the porch, and the wide picnic table beside it. “I could have the guys over for a barbecue,” he thought aloud. He could get a small boat and go fishing.

As a child, he’d never been able to bring anyone home because of the unpredictable condition of his parents. He’d dreamed of inviting friends over, hosting parties, having a Christmas open house the way his friends’ parents did.

A curious hopefulness stirred in the middle of his chest. He could do that here. He could…maybe…someday…give some thought to getting married again, having a family.

“Oh, whoa!” he said to himself.

Fred, hearing the command and thinking it applied to him, came racing back. Cam caught him as he jumped against his chest.

“I’m getting carried away here, Fred,” he said, going back to the front door to make sure he’d locked it. “That’s the trouble with having a cold, grim childhood and a selfish wife. You get a glimpse of warmth and happiness and you become this greedy monster, wanting more and more.”

Fred raced around his legs, apparently seeing nothing wrong with that.

Cam tested the doorknob and, finding it secure, led the way back to the truck and the little apartment behind the fire station. So he had cardiac arrest every time the alarm went off. He was learning to live with it.

He didn’t need the house. And so far his life had taught him that you didn’t always get what you needed, much less what you wanted.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE ALARM SHRIEKED in Cam’s ear. Without moving his head from the pillow, he reached out to slam it off.

Blessed quiet.