understood the feeling. He felt the same way about Big Sister.
“We’re going to be fine, Jase,” he said, patting him on the shoulder. “We’ll get through this.”
Jase shook himself now, much like a wet dog, and said, “Enough jawing. Let’s get some work done.” And with that he clomped on over to the other sycamore and began attacking it with his chain saw.
“Actually, I’ve been seriously rethinking my move out to L.A.,” Spence told Mitch as they returned to their own labors. “The promotion, the whole thing.”
“Is that right-how come?”
“The young lady who I’m presently involved with has roots here in the East, and she doesn’t want to relocate out there. Not right now, anyway. It’s… kind of complicated.”
“Life can be,” Mitch said, working the pruning saw back and forth.
“It didn’t used to be. Not for me. I’ve never let any woman get in the way of my career. They’re strictly around for recreational humpage, nothing more. But now that it’s turned into something more-Mitch, I’m not even sure I know how to describe how much different this all is.”
“I’m partial to food analogies, if that’s of any help.”
“Okay, then here it is,” Spence offered. “It’s like the very first time you taste fresh store-made mozzarella from one of those delis down in Little Italy. Once you’ve had the real thing, there’s no way you can ever go back to those blocks of bland pale cheese food that you get at the supermarket. Does that work for you?”
Mitch’s stomach promptly began to growl. They’d eaten no breakfast, and he was burning off a ton of calories. “Sure does. How long have you two been together?”
“We’ve known each other off and on for a number of years. But it’s only blossomed into a romance quite recently. She’s in the media.”
“Anyone I might know?”
“It’s… kind of complicated,” Spence repeated.
“Complicated,” said Mitch, who wondered why Spence was being so vague.
“I think about her day and night, Mitch. When I’m not with her, I miss her so much I can barely function. I will be miserable out in California without her-absolutely none of which was part of my plan. I never intended to get this involved.”
“Sometimes you have to come up with a new plan,” Mitch said, his own thoughts turning to Des and what he’d tried, and failed, to tell her in bed last night. He’d choked, no two ways about it.
Jase had powered his way through a massive log, the two pieces splitting apart. He paused a moment to catch his breath, the chain saw idling in his hands.
“The awful truth is that other women just don’t matter anymore,” Spence confessed. “Mind you, I’m not about to kick someone soft and warm out of bed on a cold winter night, but the whole time I’m with another woman I’m thinking about her.”
“You dudes going to work for a living or just talk puss?” Jase growled at them.
“Keep your shirt on,” Spence growled back. “We’re working plenty hard.”
Jase let out a derisive snort, then went back at it.
Spence glanced over his shoulder at the castle, his cheeks puffed out. “Norma dying in her sleep like this, it gives you pause, that’s all.”
“It does.” Mitch’s mind paused on Maisie and how quickly he’d lost her. One day they were young and in love, everything sunshine, everything ahead of them. The next day he was a lonely widower sitting by himself in the dark. “And it should, Spence. That’s healthy.”
“Believe me, what I’m thinking about right now is not healthy. Not career-wise. But I’m so nuts about this woman that I’m seriously considering turning it down. The very job I’ve been fighting for these past five years. Totally insane, right?”
“Not if it will make you happy.”
“But it’ll make me damaged goods, as far as the job is concerned.”
“Jobs come and go.”
“Mitch, what would you do?”
“That’s hard to say, since I don’t know the woman.” He looked at Spence pointedly. “Or do I?”
“She’s in the media,” Spence repeated stubbornly. “And it’s kind of…”
“Complicated, I got that,” said Mitch, wondering why Spence wouldn’t provide any more details about this woman. Wondering if it was because she was none other than Hannah Lane. Hannah worked in the media. Hannah was living in Washington, D.C. And Spence had known her off and on for years through the Panorama internship program. Toss in that she was presently hooked up with Aaron Ackerman and, well, that sure qualified as one hell of a complication, didn’t it?
Question: Was it possible that the talented young filmmaker was romantically involved with both men?
Answer: Hell, yes.
CHAPTER 8
“This is absolutely the best cup of coffee I’ve ever had in my life,” Des exclaimed, because it absolutely was-hot, strong and flavorful. She gulped it down gratefully as she huddled there next to the stove in her big coat, both hands wrapped around the mug for warmth.
Jory had gotten two big kettles of bottled water up and boiling on the kitchen’s battered old six-burner propane stove, enough to fill a pair of Melita drip coffeemakers and a ceramic teapot for Ada’s Lemon Zinger.
“Coffee always tastes better when it’s cold out,” she said, smiling faintly at Des.
“Not to mention cold in,” added Hannah, who was lending Jory a hand with breakfast.
Actually, Des had barely recognized Hannah without her bright red lipstick and jaunty beret. She also had on a different pair of glasses-slender, contemporary wire rims instead of those heavy round ones she’d worn last night, when she’d seemed to Des like an effete, rather useless trendoid. But stripped of her war paint and Left Bank costume, Hannah looked a lot more useful than she’d first appeared. Narrow-shouldered, yes, but broad through her hips and flanks, with strong wrists and large, knuckly hands that were no strangers to scullery work. She also seemed a good deal younger to Des, not so much a polished young professional as a college girl with chapped lips and a pink runny nose.
“I hate being cold,” Hannah confessed, shivering in her navy-blue pea coat. She lit a match to another burner and began laying strips of bacon out in a well-worn cast-iron skillet. “I hate it more than just about anything.”
“Once a stone house gets cold, it stays cold,” said Jory, who had on a bulky ski sweater, a down vest and fleecy sweat pants. Her curly ginger hair was gathered into a top knot. She seemed very in charge of things in Norma’s absence. Her bulldog jaw jutted with determination. Her eyes were still puffy and red, though. She’d done a lot of crying after they’d found Norma. “And it’s way hard to warm it back up. I must be wearing six layers.”
“I’d settle for one pair of long Johns,” Des said.
“I can loan you a pair of mine,” she offered. “They’d be too short, and kind of huge in the waist, but they’d keep you warm.”
“I may take you up on that,” Des said, glancing around at the kitchen as she drank her coffee.
Astrid’s Castle had two kitchens, actually. There was the one they were in, a homey old tiled farmhouse kitchen, with its double porcelain sink and six-burner range. There was a long cluttered trestle table where the innkeepers grabbed their meals and did their paperwork. There were windows over the kitchen sink. Through them, Des could see across the frozen courtyard to the caretaker’s cottage. A door led directly out to the courtyard. Next to the door was a gun case.
Des went over for a closer look. There were two deer hunting rifles in it, a Remington Model 700 bolt-action with a side-mounted thumb safety and a Winchester Model 70 Classic. “Do much shooting up here?”
“We find it necessary from time to time,” Jory answered cautiously. “We get foxes and coyotes. City folks with small children don’t much care for those. A few years back we even had a bobcat. We always make sure the case is kept locked, and Les keeps the ammunition upstairs.”
“He’s the hunter?”
“No, Jase is. But Les likes to join him. It makes him feel like the lord of the manor or something.”
