'Not at all? Not even for a half hour? Twenty minutes?'
'Would you love to see me?' he asked.
'Uh,'-he had caught me off guard-'yes, I'd like it, of course.'
'Okay, then. I don't want to hang out with two people when one of them doesn't want me there.'
'I didn't realize your ego was that sensitive,' I said.
'Neither did I,' he replied with a sigh.
'So… we'll see you in a bit. Do you know how to get here?'
'I can find the gates.'
'They open automatically. Come straight up the road to the house.'
'By the way, I have to leave by three o'clock,' Sam said. 'Even though school is canceled, we have hockey practice.'
'Lovely. I mean, it's lovely that you're coming, not that you have to leave at three o'clock.'
He laughed and I signed off quickly, wishing I could stop the burn in my cheeks. At least we'd be out in the cold where my cheeks always got pink-and my ears looked like roses stuck on either side of my head, I remembered.
When I told Patrick the news, he perked up. We found Emily in her sitting room, working on sketches for an art course she was taking, and received official permission for Sam to visit. Twenty minutes later, as Patrick and I headed to the kitchen to pull on our boots, we passed Brook in the hall.
'Anybody you know drive an old heap?' Brook asked. 'One just pulled up in front of the house.'
Patrick ran to the front window. 'He's here!' he cried, as if Father Christmas had just arrived.
Mrs. Hopewell called down sternly from the top of the stairs: 'There is company, and I wasn't informed.'
'She has a boxful of eyeballs,' Brook whispered to me. 'She puts one in each window of the house.'
1 walked to the foot of the stairs and spoke loud enough for both him and Mrs. Hopewell to hear. 'The guest is a friend of Patrick and mine. We had permission to invite him.' There was no need to say permission from whom or that we secured it after I issued the invitation.
Patrick yanked open the front door. 'Hey, Sam!'
'Hey, buddy. How are you?'
'Good! Come in. I'll be right back. I have to get something upstairs.'
Sam stepped inside and Patrick raced past me. When he spied Mrs. Hopewell at the top of the stairs, he put on the brakes and headed in another direction, choosing a set of back steps.
'Hello, Kate,' Sam greeted me.
'Hi.' I tried not to notice his rough beard-he must not have shaved-or his dark hair or his intense eyes, or the softness of the sweater he wore beneath an open jacket.
Sam walked toward Brook and held out his hand. 'Hello. Sam Koscinski.'
Brook nodded without taking his hand. 'Westbrook Caulfield,' he replied formally.
Mrs. Hopewell had descended half the flight of steps and stood staring down at Sam. I assumed she recognized the name and knew he was related to the man who had investigated Ashley's death.
'Hello, Mrs. Westbrook,' Sam greeted the housekeeper.
She pulled back her head with surprise. Brook burst out laughing.
'This is Mrs. Hopewell,' I said.
Sam didn't blink. 'Hello, Mrs. Hopewell.'
Without a word, she descended the remaining steps and strode down the hall toward Robyn's wing, probably to tell her who was here. Brook asked about the condition of the roads, then headed out.
Sam turned to me. 'I knew who the old gargoyle was,' he said. 'She's a legend in town. Besides, I know how a housekeeper dresses-I've seen movies.'
'So why did you pretend not to?'
He shrugged. 'To get her to stop staring. To remind her that she is not the owner of the house.' He glanced around. 'Nice place.'
'I've got my boots in the kitchen,' I said, leading the way.
Patrick joined us there, carrying two battered hockey sticks, the ones I had seen in the third-floor storage rooms.
'Whoa! Look at those,' Sam said, taking one in his hands, running his fingers up and down it. 'This must have been used in the Revolutionary War.'' 'No, I think my dad used it,' Patrick answered seriously. 'We can play on the pond if you want.'
'You can what?' I exclaimed.
'Kate says it isn't frozen hard enough to hold us,' Patrick quickly confided to Sam, 'but I know it is.'
'Yeah? How do you know that?' Sam asked.
'Ashley told me.'
That answer didn't surprise me anymore, but Sam hadn't expected it, and he glanced at me before responding. 'Well, here's the problem. Since, far as I can tell, Ashley is lighter than air, and you and I are not, I'm going by what Kate says. But we can bring the sticks outside,' he added. 'They'll be good for batting snowballs.'
Though disappointed, Patrick was agreeable. He and I tugged on our boots, and the three of us headed to the grounds behind the house, where there were no gardens hidden by snow that we might damage. The stretch of lawn was a white downy quilt against the long, blue horizon of bay and sky.
We took turns tossing snowballs, walloping them with hockey sticks, and running madly around the bases, which were mounds of snow.
'Are you sure you're a leftie?' Sam asked, when the balls I threw kept falling short of home plate.
'Are you implying I can't pitch?' I didn't want to tell him my right shoulder hurt.
Everything Sam did, Patrick did: winding his arm to pitch, sliding dramatically into base, bellowing that he was 'safe.' Afterward, we made a snowman as tall as Sam and gave him a hockey stick to hold.
'We need eyes and a nose,' Patrick said. 'And I want to make a number for him to wear.'
'You're supposed to use a carrot for his nose,' Sam replied, 'but I always used broccoli, used it for every- thing-even had broccoli hair-that way, there wouldn't be any left for dinner.'
Patrick laughed. 'Green hair. Cool!'
'How about you, Kate?' Sam asked.
'It didn't snow much in England, not where we lived, but once we had a big storm and my father gave me loops of undeveloped film to make curly hair, then he and I dressed up our snow lady in paint rags and a drop cloth spattered with colors. She was elegant.'
1 hadn't thought about that for years. I blinked before the unexpected tears got beyond the corners of my eyes.
'Cool!' Patrick repeated.
'Very cool,' Sam said, his voice unusually gentle.
'So what do we use now?' I asked, glancing about, trying to look as if I'd already forgotten about the snow lady.
'Beach stuff,' Patrick said. 'Let's go down there.'
'Can we?' Sam asked.
'I suppose so.' There were steps, steep wooden ones that ran down the side of what Ashley and I used to call 'the cliffs,' eroded banks of sandy soil and clay that dropped about eight meters to a narrow shoreline of sand, shells, and stones. 'We should be careful on the steps. They may be rotted in places. Let me go first, Patrick.'
'I'll go first,' Sam offered.
I said I would.'
He raised an eyebrow. 'Is this like the door thing?'
It was, and it was stupid, but I wouldn't admit it. 'Fall through the steps if you want to,' I said. 'You're the one who has a play-off game on Saturday.'
