Part 28 (1/2)
”Some, but I didn't expect an answer to every letter. Even if he hadn't been a soldier, that would have been unrealistic. The long silences didn't come until later, when he became a Green Beret.” The sky had cleared and was a bright winter blue against the white and gray landscape. ”He bought this land three years ago and worked on this place whenever he was home.”
”He did a good job.”
”Pop would come down and help. He knew Elijah always wanted to return home to Black Falls. I think Pop left Jo the lakefront property because he believed she and Elijah were meant to be together. He discovered them in one of the cabins. Running off with Elijah was the only time Jo veered off the path she'd set for herself and did something crazy. Elijah says he'd have ended up in jail if he hadn't gone into the army when he did.”
”But your father felt guilty,” Nick said.
”Not in the beginning. He came to believe he'd interfered with something that was meant to be. I think leaving Jo the cabins was a way for him to make amends. She wouldn't have been here in November if he hadn't. Who knows if or when she and Elijah would have gotten back together again.” Rose glanced at Nick, realized his gaze was on her, not the view. ”Do you have a place you want to be? A place you think of as home?”
He shrugged as if he had never really considered such a question. ”My father was career navy. We bounced around when I was growing up. I'm used to making a home where I am.” Humor played at the corners of his mouth. ”I didn't grow up in a small New England town where my family had lived for generations.”
”Not all Camerons stayed. For instance, some took off for Ohio after a brutal winter in the early nineteenth century.” Rose wasn't letting him off the hook. ”If you closed your eyes, clicked your heels together three times and whispered, *There's no place like home,' where would home be?”
”It's not a place. It's an att.i.tude. It's the people who'd be with me.”
His tone made her breath catch, but she saw more police cars arrive on the narrow lake road. ”I should go check on Dominique. Nick, I was so scared. First Dom. Then...I thought it was Bowie in the burning cabin.”
”I know, sweetheart.” He slipped an arm around her. ”I know.”
She leaned her head against him, his muscles taut, still tensed from wielding the splitter, carrying out first Dominique and then Robert. ”I can't imagine what Robert was thinking. None of this makes any sense. What about you? Are you okay?”
”No worries.” He drew her closer still and brushed his lips over the top of her head. She hadn't even realized she'd pulled off her hat. ”I'll snowshoe back up to the lodge. I want to take another look at the campsite. The police are there now.”
”Dominique can't be up to driving. I'll take her back to town in her car. Someone there can give me a ride back to the lodge. Would you mind taking Ranger with you?”
”Sure. Ranger and I have bonded.”
”Say his name, then give a one-word command. Stick to basics.” Rose smiled. ”Be the alpha dog. He'll behave.”
”I love being the alpha dog.”
The humor helped her to absorb the events of the morning. ”Nick...”
He slipped her hat out of her pocket and tucked it onto her head. ”Soon, Rose,” he said softly. ”We'll figure all this out soon.”
Nineteen.
D ominique put on an evergreen-colored canvas ap.r.o.n in the cafe kitchen. She'd wanted to go right back to work. Rose hadn't argued and watched her friend hop onto a stool at the butcher-block worktable. Dominique was visibly trembling, still ashen from her ordeal at the lake.
Rose stood across the worktable from her. ”Dom, what's going on?”
”We'll have a late lunch spurt because of the fire. It'll bring people out.” She placed her hands on the clean wood and splayed her fingers, as if she weren't sure what to do with herself. ”I just have to think a minute.”
”The police want to talk to Bowie.”
She nodded. ”Of course. It only makes sense.”
”Were you meeting him? Is that why you chose the lake for your run?”
Dominique looked up, her dark eyes clear, s.h.i.+ning. ”I wouldn't say I was meeting him. I knew he'd be there. Excuse me, Rose. I really have to get busy.”
”Sure.”
As Rose started out of the kitchen, Dominique jumped off the stool and gave her a hug. ”Thank you,” she whispered. ”Thank Nick Martini for me, too.”
”Dom...”
She stood back, smiling, trembling even more. ”Cooking's my refuge.”
She returned to the worktable, and Rose went out through the swinging door to the dining room, where, in fact, business was picking up. Myrtle was behind the gla.s.s case, filling an order for fruit salad and house-made yogurt. ”Dom's back?”
”Yes,” Rose said. ”Thankfully she wasn't seriously injured. She's more shaken up than anything.”
”She'll make soup. It'll be good for her.”
Rose noticed a coffee spill on the counter and grabbed a cloth and wiped it up. ”Myrtle, did Dom tell you why she was going out to the lake?”
”She said she was going for a run.” Myrtle handed the fruit and yogurt to a teenager from town, took her money and turned back to Rose with a sigh. ”If Andrei could see me now.”
Andrei Petrov was the Russian diplomat whose death Myrtle had looked into, bringing her to Lowell Whittaker's attention. The result was the fire at her house-and, ultimately, her presence at Three Sisters Cafe on Main Street in Black Falls.
Myrtle fussed with the tie on her ap.r.o.n as she continued. ”You'd think a serial arsonist who sets fires for his own pleasure and contracts out as a paid killer wouldn't end up burning himself to death in a falling-down Vermont cabin.” She straightened, her lavender eyes clear, incisive. ”I suppose it could have been suicide, but he didn't exactly go out in a blaze of glory, did he?”
”Good points.” Rose helped herself to an apple from a plate on the counter. ”Any idea what Dom's hiding?”
”She might not be hiding anything. She just might be keeping her business to herself. She's pleasant to everyone, but she's reserved. She doesn't blab about her private life.”
”Myrtle, are Dom and Bowie seeing each other?”
”I don't know,” Myrtle said as a couple from town walked up to the gla.s.s case.
Rose ate her apple as she walked down to O'Rourke's. She found Liam out back, taking off his winter gear. ”I was out snowshoeing,” he said. ”If it's above zero, I like to get out before work. Just has to be above zero. I heard sirens and called a friend. I heard what happened.”
She leaned in the doorway, every inch of the tidy back room lined with shelves and hooks for supplies, tools and Liam's personal outdoor gear. ”Where were you snowshoeing?” she asked him.
”Cameron Mountain.” He leaned his snowshoes and poles against the wall. ”I ran into Lauren, as a matter of fact. She was on the way to the sugar shack. She seemed preoccupied.”
”Was anyone with her?”
He pulled off his coat and shook his head. ”She was meeting the guys delivering the new evaporator for the shack. I can't believe you all are getting into sugaring.”
”It's more for fun than profit.”
”Impractical,” Liam said.
Probably true. Rose thought. ”Did you see any smoke from the fires at the lake?”