Kitabı oku: «Return of the Wild Son», sayfa 3

CHAPTER FOUR

A T FIVE O’CLOCK , Jenna headed to Sunshine House with two turkey dinners. She parked and went into the well-kept colonial building where Hester had been living for four years. She saw her grandmother across the lounge.

She must have been to the beauty shop, for her soft silver hair had been clipped and curled. And she’d applied rouge to her cheeks. From the familiar theme song coming from the TV, an episode of Green Acres was just ending.

Jenna set her package on a coffee table and went to help Hester with her walker. “Hey, Grandma, how are you tonight?”

Hester turned off the TV. “I’m fine, sweetheart. It’s good to see you.”

“I got macaroni tonight instead of mashed potatoes. I figured we could use the change.”

Hester moved carefully across the wood floor. “Always nice to have change,” she said. “Keeps a body young.”

Hester seemed deceptively calm, which usually meant something was up. Jenna set their meal out on the table. “How was your day?”

“Like every other for the most part,” Hester said, “which at my age is a good thing.” She opened a napkin, placed it on her lap and delicately cleared her throat. “Except for hearing that Nathaniel Shelton is in town.”

So that was it. “How’d you find out?” Jenna asked.

“Oh, sweetheart, this is Finnegan Cove. If someone sneezes on one side of town, we say God bless on the other.” She stared longingly at the small salt packets on the table. “Wish I could have some of that.”

Jenna slid them out of reach. “So, what else did you hear?”

Hester stopped a passing aide. “Susan, would you mind getting me real silverware? I don’t like to use the plastic stuff.”

“Sure, Hester. Hi, Jenna,” the woman said as she went into the dining room.

Jenna opened her bag and pulled out the plastic utensils. “Gran?” Jenna said, “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Oh, right. Well, the grapevine tells me that Nathaniel is looking to buy our lighthouse.” She peered across the table, her eyes as clear as they’d been when Jenna was a child and Hester a young sixty-five. “Is it true?”

“Nate came into the bakery this morning,” she replied. “He admitted that he was looking into it.”

Hester swallowed a bite of turkey and washed it down with tea. “What for? He lives in California, doesn’t he?”

“Yes. He said he has his reasons.”

“I knew nothing good would come of this plan to sell the lighthouse. I called Bill myself and told him. The light station should belong to all of us, not the council, and certainly not Nate Shelton.”

Jenna chewed slowly, trying to appear thoughtful. “Well, you have to admit, Gran, that the building is in terrible shape. It would cost a small fortune to fix it up. And now it just sits there, abandoned.”

Hester pointed her silver fork at Jenna. “You don’t give up on something just because it’s old or discarded. I remember when people set their watches by its bell, and boats set their courses by its beacon.”

“I know, Grandma,” Jenna said. She’d once had a similar appreciation for the building. But not anymore. Not since her dad’s blood had stained the floors. “But I don’t think it’s worth saving. It’s too far gone. And I’m sorry to say this, but I don’t think too many people really care any longer.”

“Don’t say that to the Michigan Beacon Society,” Hester said. “They care about all the lighthouses.”

Jenna didn’t believe that was true. She couldn’t remember anyone from that organization ever visiting the Finnegan Cove Light. But she made a mental note to call the society tomorrow to see if the organization was even aware of their small station.

Hester dabbed her lips with her napkin. “The building does need a lot of work. I don’t know who should take over responsibility for the place, but I can’t imagine that it should be Nathaniel Shelton.”

Jenna could always count on her grandmother to see the logic of things. “Exactly, Gran. That’s just what I think—”

“We need to get to the bottom of this,” Hester said. “Send that boy over here to see me.”

Jenna dropped her fork. “What? You want to see Nate?”

“Absolutely. I want to know what he’s doing here, what his intentions are.”

Jenna wasn’t sure how she felt about contacting Nate, but she’d always found it impossible to deny her grandmother anything. “If I see him, I’ll tell him,” she said.

“Not if, sweetheart, when. I understand if you have reservations about Nate, but get over them. I want to see him.”

Jenna sat back and stared at Hester. Her answer was automatic. This was Gran. “Well, okay. When I see him, I’ll tell him.”

B Y THE NEXT AFTERNOON Jenna’s eyes were tired from intensive research on the Internet. She’d hoped to find a legal precedent that would enable her to challenge the sale of the lighthouse to an individual. Maybe somewhere in the annals of Michigan lighthouse history there was a statute that said decommissioned stations could only be sold to conservancy groups. If that was so, then Jenna’s committee might qualify. True, their ultimate goal was not to conserve, but they could get around that detail later by establishing their goals for Lighthouse Park. Unfortunately, her searches had proved futile. In fact, she’d discovered that several of Michigan’s one hundred twenty lighthouses were privately owned. Her only hope was that a purchaser must meet some rigid standards.

Just before five o’clock, she placed a call to Lansing. A pleasant-sounding woman answered, “Michigan Beacon Society. We love our lighthouses.”

You’d have a hard time loving this one if you were me, Jenna thought. She gave her name and location and explained the reason for her call. “So you see, the Finnegan Cove Lighthouse is now being investigated by a private investor who is seeking to buy it.”

“Oh, my, isn’t that wonderful?”

Jenna’s hope deflated. “Wonderful? Don’t you want to know about him, what his intentions are for the light station?”

“Well, yes, ideally,” the woman said. “But in fact, it doesn’t really matter. Most of these little-known light stations fare much better when they’re taken over by private citizens, whether individuals or groups. If this man does any renovation at all, the building will only benefit.”

But I don’t want it to benefit. I want it torn down. And I especially don’t want it in the hands of a Shelton!

There was a pause, during which Jenna heard the shuffling of paper. “Where did you say this is?” the woman asked.

“Finnegan Cove on Lake Michigan.”

“Let me see if I can find files on that building.” After a moment, she said, “Yes, here it is. The Finnegan Cove Light Station located at the juncture of Lake Michigan and Big Bear Channel. Is that right?”

“Yes. The light used to guide barges heading through the channel to Big Bear Lake, where there was a sawmill until the middle of the century.”

“It says here that when shipping dried up, an electric navigational device was put in, making the lighthouse unnecessary.”

“Well, of course. Once lumber was no longer sent across Lake Michigan, the light was decommissioned. It stood for a while as the focal point of a park, but now even that’s gone. No one paid any attention to the lighthouse for years.”

“Oh, my, that is sad,” the woman said. “At least sixty of our stations are in danger of being destroyed, or are disintegrating on their own.”

Especially this one. Jenna figured she was doing the town a favour by tearing down the station rather than watching it slowly and painfully wash into the lake, even if her motives were linked to a personal tragedy. Besides, she wasn’t responsible for the property’s current condition. If anything, Nate and his friends were by abusing the area for years. And Harley. His actions kept all but the most ghoulish sightseers away.

“We consider private purchase the last chance for some of them,” the woman said, “since we don’t get nearly what we need from the National Park Service.”

“So there’s nothing I can do to prevent this private sale?”

The woman seemed astounded at the question. “Why would you want to? Be thankful someone is buying it.”

Jenna knew the conversation had come to an end when the woman added, “We simply have too many lighthouses to save them all. But we’re doing our best.”

“I’m sure you are,” Jenna said.

“E-mail us pictures. We love seeing before and after shots. I’m amazed what some people do with our stations.”

Jenna disconnected. She rested her chin in her hand and stared out the window of her living room. “You’d be amazed at what happened in this light station, too,” she said.

Jenna hurried to get ready for her night class. Tomorrow was Friday, her day off from the bakery. She’d have to implement plan B.

“W HAT ARE YOU DOING here?” Shirley asked when Jenna came into the bakery the next morning at eight o’clock.

“I just need to pick something up,” she said, smiling at the dozen customers having coffee at the counter as she passed into the kitchen. After surprising her mother with a kiss on the cheek, she helped herself to fresh-from-the-oven raspberry pastries.

“Where are you going with those?” Marion asked.

“Isn’t it obvious, Mom? Who, recently returned to this town, likes raspberry Danish?”

Marion watched as she dropped the goodies into a bag. “You’re taking those to Nate?”

Jenna smiled. “Absolutely. I can be nice.”

Marion pulled a loaf of bread from the oven and poked it, testing its doneness. “I think he’ll be as hard to influence as Bill Hastings.”

Jenna folded the top of the bag. “Yeah, I remember how well that worked.” She headed for the exit. “Wish me luck.”

Marion didn’t glance up from her baking. “Somehow I think I should be wishing Nate luck. Don’t be too hard on him.”

Jenna left the bakery and headed two blocks down Main Street before turning onto Sparrow Court. Word had traveled quickly around town that Nate Shelton was back and had taken up temporary residence at Cove Country House, owned by long-time residents Jubal and Bonnie Payne.

Jenna walked three blocks under budding maple and oak trees to the charming three-story home. Like most of the houses on the narrow lanes off Main, it had been built in the early 1900s, at the height of Finnegan Cove’s lumber boom. Jenna was thankful she’d been able to buy a carriage house next to one of the Victorians two blocks over on Hummingbird Street.

She opened the gate in the picket fence and proceeded up the brick walkway to the blue-and-white gingerbread house. Jubal greeted her from a rocker on the porch, where he was having coffee and reading the Sutter’s Point newspaper. “’Morning, Jenna. Did you come to see Bonnie?” He retreated behind his newspaper. “If you came to see me, I don’t know anything about the lighthouse.”

“Actually, I’ve come to see one of your boarders,” she said.

The screen door opened and Bonnie Payne stepped onto the porch. Her permed gray hair was meticulous except for three pink plastic curlers still at the top of her head. Jenna wondered if she’d forgotten to pull them out. She wiped her hands on an embroidered apron. “Since I’ve only got one boarder, I guess it’s him you’ve come to see.”

“I expect,” Jenna said.

Bonnie fanned her face with the hem of her apron. The scent of maple syrup drifted across the porch. “Whew, that stove is warm this morning. I just made French toast. Nate took his plate to the back garden.”

Jubal peeked around his paper. “Where’s mine?”

“On the kitchen table. I’m not waiting on you, mister.”

“Do you mind if I go around back then?” Jenna asked.

She wondered if Bonnie had even heard the question. She put a finger to her chin and said, “Isn’t that something, Nate coming back after all these years?”

“Yes, it’s something, all right,” Jenna said.

“I know some people spoke ill of him before he left here. He just went through a phase…. But I always thought he was such a charming boy. So industrious.” She looked at Jubal. “Remember when he used to come around and clean out the gutters for a couple of bucks?”

Jubal grunted.

“He wanted the money so he could take the bus to Sutter’s Point and see a movie on Friday afternoons. He couldn’t have been more than twelve.”

Jenna pointed to the side of the house. “I’ll just go around back—”

“Terrible thing when his mama died,” Bonnie continued. “Broke his poor little heart. But he worked until he got his driver’s license and his daddy bought him that old truck. I guess he didn’t need bus money any longer.”

Jenna slowly worked her way to the porch steps. “I’ll see if I can find him…”

Bonnie tugged her husband’s newspaper to his knees. “What’d Nate say he was doing out in California, Jubal?”

“I think he said he was writing movies.” Jubal stood and headed for the door. “I’m getting my French toast.”

“Nate’s out back, Jenna,” Bonnie repeated. “Why don’t you go around and see him?”

Jenna smiled. “I think I will.”

She’d almost made it down the steps when the woman added, “I hear Nate’s interested in the lighthouse, but I think he’d like a visitor, even if you are put out at him.”

Jenna stepped onto the flagstone walk that led around the house.

“You’re not going to bring up that ugliness about Harley and your daddy, are you?” Bonnie asked. “We don’t want any problems.”

“There won’t be any,” Jenna said. “At least not from me.” To avoid another interruption, she strode quickly away. Good grief. Shouldn’t Bonnie be warning Nate instead of picking on her?

J ENNA STOPPED at the corner of the house and looked over the backyard fence. Nate was there, sitting in a lounge chair in his jeans, his legs stretched out, his leather sandals propped on the edge of a clay planter filled with pansies. Like Jubal, he was reading the paper, but not the one from Sutter’s Point. Nate was reading the Finnegan Cove Sentinel which had just come out this morning.

Jenna chewed her bottom lip. Now that Nate was close to getting what he wanted, she couldn’t imagine why this California man would be interested in the local news and gossip of the town he’d left. Of course, she didn’t know why he wanted the lighthouse, either. But in spite of her anger and resentment, looking at Nate Shelton now, relaxing in the spring sun, all she could think about was Bonnie saying that she’d thought of him as “such a charming boy.”

Like the confident, swaggering youth Jenna remembered, he still seemed to possess an easy grace that no doubt made him appear comfortable in any environment, fast-paced California or the lazy back garden of Cove Country House. Jenna almost hated to disturb him.

But then a honeybee landed on her arm. She instinctively swatted it with the bag of raspberry Danish, and Nate looked up. “Jenna?”

He got up and came to the back gate and opened it. “Good morning.”

“Hi.” She handed him the sadly wrinkled bag.

He held it between his thumb and forefinger. “For me?”

“Raspberry Danish. Two of them.”

“Thanks. This was nice of you.”

“I work at a bakery,” she said. “It’s no big thing.”

He walked back to his lounger, indicating a lawn chair for her. “Somehow, Jenna, I have a hard time thinking of a thoughtful gesture from you as ‘no big thing.’”

She sat stiffly. The metal chair was old and rickety. “I deserved that,” she said. “I guess the Danish is a peace offering. I wasn’t very welcoming yesterday.”

He set the bag on a table next to a syrupy plate that was attracting a variety of flying insects. “Understandable, I suppose.”

“I thought maybe we could talk. Start over, sort of.”

“Okay.”

She saw what looked like a shopping list on the ground, only it wasn’t for groceries. Reading upside down, she recognized a few words. Nails. C-clamps. Putty knife . “Doing some repairs?” she asked.

He set his newspaper on top of the list. “Thinking along those lines. What do you want to talk about?”

“The lighthouse.”

His eyes narrowed. “What about it?”

“Have you bought it? Officially, I mean?”

“I put in an offer.”

“A low one?”

“Not very.”

She thought of Bill Hastings and his town council cronies’ desperation to get rid of the place. “Then you’ll probably get it. May I ask what you plan to do with it?”

He stared at her for several seconds. “I’m going to tinker with it for a time, and then consider my options. But ultimately, my decision will be influenced by another person, so…there are variables.”

Variables? His answer left her mystified. Was there a Mrs. Nathaniel Shelton? Was she a lighthouse enthusiast? There were a bunch of people like that in the country. The only thing Jenna was certain of was that Nate couldn’t be talking about his father. Harley had four more years in Foggy Creek.

A sudden and very creepy thought made her heart pound. It wouldn’t hurt to make a phone call to the state corrections bureau to make sure Harley was staying where he belonged. She leveled a stern glare at Nate. “Come on, Nate, why are you buying it?”

“It intrigues me,” he said. “I have some time between projects. I thought it might be fun…” He stopped, as if uncertain how to finish.

“Fun? You thought buying the place where your father—” She bit back her words. “You thought returning to Finnegan Cove would be fun? You haven’t been here in…”

“Not since the trial.”

“That’s what I thought. I would have heard.”

“I’m sure you would have.”

“So why now?”

He paused, stared at the tall hedge at the back of the Paynes’ property. “I have my reasons.”

Nate was an expert at dodging answers. “Are you going to live in the lighthouse?” she asked.

“Maybe, while I do some renovations. But permanently? No. My home is in California. My work is there.”

And your family, as well? she wondered. “But what will happen to the light when you’ve finished tinkering as you put it? Will you just leave again? Desert it?”

He picked up a mug and drank from it. Then he studied her for a long, uncomfortable moment. “Maybe I’ll sell it, make a profit. I don’t know. Like I said, I have a few options.”

“But then, why…?”

He set down his mug and leaned toward her. “Look, Jenna, why don’t you stop this interrogation and say what’s really on your mind? We’re obviously no good at reading each other’s thoughts. You don’t like my answers and I don’t have anything else to tell you right now.”

She tamped down her rising anger. “I just need to know if the light station will still be here when you leave.”

“Why wouldn’t it be? It was a part of Finnegan Cove decades before I was born. There’s no reason to think it won’t survive a few weeks of me living in it.” He stood, gathered his dishes, the Danishes, newspaper and writing tablet. “I have errands to run, Jenna, so if there’s nothing else…”

He was dismissing her. And all he’d told her was that he intended to tinker, and he had options. Apparently buying the lighthouse was a lark, maybe a trip down memory lane, maybe an attempt to regain something he’d lost. Jenna had to admit the place symbolized a significant loss for several people, including Nate. Could he be buying the station out of some sense of guilt? She stared at him. Confident, relaxed, almost cocky…

Couldn’t be.

So maybe he just needed a diversion from whatever it was he did in California. The only clue she had about his life was the hint she’d just gotten from Jubal. If Nathaniel Shelton wrote movie scripts, she should be able to find out on the search engines—if he’d ever made a sale, that is. She carefully got up from the rickety chair. “Thank you for your time.”

“No problem. Though I don’t know what we accomplished here.”

Oh, yes you do, Nate. Nothing. This conversation couldn’t have gone more your way if you had scripted it for one of your so-called movies. She forced a smile and headed for the gate. “By the way…”

He’d already started for the back door, but stopped and waited. “Yeah?”

“My grandmother wants to see you.”

The plate slipped in his hand. Only his quick reflexes saved it from landing on the ground. “Hester? She’s still alive?”

“Oh, yes. Ninety and going strong.”

“Why does she want to see me?”

“I don’t know. But when Hester demands an audience, you’d better go.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know about this, Jenna. Hester always sort of scared me.”

She looked down to hide a smile. “I should warn you. She hasn’t lost the ability to do that. She lives in Sunshine House at the end of Main Street. You won’t need an appointment.”

“I guess I’ll go over there, then.”

“When?”

“This weekend.”

“Good thinking. Have a nice day.”