Marek didn't say anything; he didn't even offer Colin a glance, but he did leave the door open as he turned and walked inside.
Colin followed to the back of the house into the kitchen, watching as the man went to the fridge and pulled out the tomatoes and cucumbers he had washed earlier. After setting them on the center island, he opened a cabinet and pulled down two thick white plates, set them next to the vegetables, and then withdrew a large knife from a drawer.
Looking up from his task, Marek used the knife and pointed to the rectangular table across the room. “Make yourself useful and set the table. Utensils are second drawer from the left. Glasses you can see through the cabinets, and drinks are in the fridge.” Marek put an unwavering stare on Colin that laid out a hard warning. “You can talk about the house while you're doing it.”
Colin got the message loud and clear. The brief conversation about Payton had never happened.
Glancing at Marek and finding him already slicing tomatoes, Colin grabbed forks and knives, as well as a few paper napkins off a pile on the counter. “The house was built a little over a hundred years ago by an Australian man who owned a number of sugarcane plantations in both Australia and Fiji. He found himself an American wife, who was apparently vacationing in Australia. I don't know how common that would have been in the early nineteen hundreds, but that's the story people tell.” Colin took another quick look at Marek as he palmed two bottles of beer from the fridge and held them up. At Marek's nod, Colin took them to the table and arranged everything in two place settings.
“Anyway,” Colin went on, “she—her name was Beatrice and his was Stewart—came with him to Fiji once to visit his plantation and fell completely in love with the islands. The story is this was the house of a childhood fantasy of hers, and he built it for her from the ground up. His touch was the blue tiles, because he wanted some feeling of a design you might find near the water against the colonial facade. Stewart also fancied himself the start of a legacy and created his own coat of arms, which is what is in the stained glass window above the door.”
“I figured that was what it was.” Marek went to the fridge and returned to the butcher block with a clear-wrapped white ball. “It made me think some British person with a title might have lived here.”
Not quite so dead inside that his own curiosities weren't roused about his home. Colin took heart and sat down, sharing while he watched Marek put together two plates of food. “No royalty under your roof, I'm afraid. It was an upstart Australian and his Yankee wife. Word is they were very much in love and were very kind and generous with the local people. It was just them; they never had any kids. Stewart would leave every so often to tend to his business in Australia, and Beatrice would wait for him to return. Less than fifteen years into their marriage, Stewart went away on another trip, and he never returned. There is a record of his ship leaving Australia, but a storm popped up off the coast not long after, and the theory is he was lost at sea. Well, to the Pacific, to be technically correct.”
“How horrible.” Marek slid a plate in front of Colin and sat down opposite him. “But probably not uncommon back then.” He pointed at Colin's plate of sliced tomatoes and diced cucumbers garnished with shreds of parsley, drizzled with olive oil and topped with thin slices of mozzarella cheese. A huge hunk of hearty bread sat perched on the plate's edge. “I know it's early for lunch, but go ahead and dig in.”
“Thanks. I didn't really eat breakfast earlier.” Colin cut into a tomato, gathered some cucumber and cheese onto his fork, and took a huge mouthful. The cool, fresh vegetables burst with perfection on his tongue, and the rich chaser of cheese melted in his mouth. “Damn, man, that's good stuff.” He tore off a hunk of bread and ran it through some of the olive oil, relishing the pure flavors. “Maybe I should have searched for wine rather than beer.”
Shaking his head, Marek took a long drag off his bottle. “Nothing better than a cold beer on a hot day.”
Colin lifted his bottle in salute. “True enough.” He suddenly put his drink down and made to rise. “Do you mind drinking out of the bottle? I don't ever pour my beer into a glass, so I didn't think to get one for you.”
Marek gestured to the chair with his hand. “Sit down. It's fine. So”—he gathered more food on his fork—“you said someone else owned the house too?”
“Mmnn…” Colin paused and finished chewing what he had in his mouth. “Sorry about that. I'm not finished telling you about the first owners. Everyone on Stewart's ship was declared dead to the storm, but Beatrice never believed it. She ran her husband's businesses for a while, but eventually sold them. She lived off the money for the rest of her life, and she never left Fiji. She stayed here, in this house, feeling certain in her heart one day Stewart would return, and she wanted to be where he could find her.” Colin raised a brow as
