Necessary Evil (16 page)

Despite my
misgivings, the rest of the week passed quietly. Randall burst in on my dinner
that first night to inform me that he’d just received a series of extensive
revisions from his editor and he would be forced to attend to those first
before pursuing the Chase matter any further. My lack of enthusiasm seemed to
goad him until he finally cut himself off in mid-sentence with a frustrated,
“Am I boring you?”

“I’m just wondering
when I asked you to keep me informed about your schedule,” I said. I was
sitting at the table with my shoes off, a half-eaten sandwich on my dish, and a
magazine open in front of me. I wasn’t in the mood to talk, but then, I rarely
was anymore, unless it was to Joe Tremonti. “Honestly, I don’t really care what
you do or when you do it, so long as you keep out from under my feet and out of
the way of my clients.”

“Oh,” he said,
then again, “Oh! Well, I can promise that.”

“Excellent,” I
said and turned a page in my magazine.

A moment went by
before he went back into the office, shutting the door behind him.

According to Aunt
Susanna, he spent the majority of the week in there, locking himself in with
his research materials and coming out only to help himself to coffee and to
pace the front yard. He didn’t eat much, talked less, and seemed, to her mind,
to be wrestling with some terrible inner demon. She became so concerned that
she called me at work and left a message with my co-worker, Che Che.

“Your aunt wants
you to call,” Che Che told me when I came back from my lunch break. “She’s says
she’s worried about Vincent, that he’s off his feed. Did you get a new horse?
Do you need to schedule an appointment?”

I surprised her by
sighing and rolling my eyes. “Vincent isn’t a horse, he’s a man,” I said and
her eyes lit up with interest.

“Oh?”

Che Che Randazzo
is a petite woman with a quick mind, bright lipstick, and a motherly interest
in my personal affairs. Her daughter, Melanie, was part of Joe’s class that conducted
the dig on the farm all those years ago, but I didn’t really become acquainted
with either woman until I started working at the vet’s office. Che Che is a
fixture in the place, having worked as a receptionist there for thirty years,
and she had an intimate knowledge of every family, puppy, horse, and goldfish
in a twenty-mile radius.

We’ve worked
together for four years now, and despite my attempts to maintain a professional
distance, she knows me almost as well as Aunt Susanna. I found myself confiding
things to her that I couldn’t say to my aunt. She knew, for instance, that I
had been having lunch with Joe Tremonti today, so her next assumption was a
natural one.

“Is this fellow
your aunt’s beau?”

“No!” I objected with
such force that she was startled. I took a breath, shook my head, and sat down
in my chair. “No, he’s a houseguest.”

When she arched
her eyebrow at me, I said, “A paying houseguest. Of sorts. He’s writing a book
about, um, farms, and he wanted to get some real life experience.”

The explanation
sounded lame to me – so flimsy as to be unable to withstand the typical first
round of Che Che’s questions. I braced myself, but to my surprise, my coworker
sat up straight and gasped in excitement.

“Really? Your
place is going to be in a book? That is so exciting! What good advertising for
your place! I read all the time – I wonder if I’ve read any of his books.
What’s his name? What kind of books does he write? Are you going to be in it?
Leah, did you hear?” she asked, as one of the technicians came in with an
armload of files and a tablet. “Maddie’s farm is going to be in a book!”

“Cool.” Leah was
too busy to be very impressed. She thumped the stack of files on my desk, and
frowned at the tablet as she made a note on it. “What kind of book?”

“A novel!” Che Che
said. “The writer is living there right now, getting the feel for it. Isn’t
that exciting? It’s like one of those TV movies.”

“Who’s the
writer?” Leah asked. “She local?”

“It’s a man,” Che
Che said, and that made Leah look up and grin at me.

“Does Joe know?”
she asked, and I blushed up to my roots.

As a matter of
fact, Joe did know. He’d found out that day over lunch, and his reaction had
been a little less enthusiastic than my co-workers.

Lunch with Joe was
a last minute thing. He’d sent me a text that morning, telling me he was
working in Portsmouth and was dying for a decent lobster roll and intelligent
conversation. Couldn’t I take a little extra time for lunch and come meet him?
Naturally, I was as incapable of saying no as the romantic-minded Che Che was
of refusing me the extra time.

We had lunch at a
ramshackle-looking restaurant on Hampton Beach that served what was possibly
the best haddock I’d ever tasted. But although he’d said that he was starving,
Joe didn’t eat much. He’d been worrying about our situation ever since he
learned of Lindsay’s accident. Convinced that I was next to have an accident,
he spent a good deal of the meal arguing with me, again, about closing down the
trails. I was more flattered than annoyed by his interference.

Because of the
circumstances, I didn’t want to tell him about Randall and would have avoided
the subject altogether if I could. But in trying to convince Joe that there was
nothing to worry about, I lied and told him that the hole-digging had ceased.
Then he started hinting that he’d like to come up and ride the trails,
something he couldn’t do and keep ignorant of Randall’s presence. Not inviting
Joe seemed impossible – the very idea of riding along with him on one of the
trails was too deliciously romantic to refuse.

Even so, I
wouldn’t have told him about our guest if Joe hadn’t asked what my plans were
now that Lindsay was no longer able to work.

“Will you be able
to afford to hire someone?” he asked.

Had anyone else
asked me that question, I would have been offended by the suggestion that I
couldn’t handle my own affairs; but the concern etched on his handsome face
looked so heartfelt, so genuine, that I softened and wished that I could tell
him everything. Something in the way he spoke, the way he looked at me, made me
feel as though we were alone in that restaurant, despite the noon-day crowds.

Nevertheless, I
was convinced that it was better he didn’t know all yet.

“I’m not worried,”
I said, as lightly as I was able. “Someone, uh, recommended a boy to us. He
seems to be working out well.”

It wasn’t a lie,
but it felt like one and I flushed and looked at my plate rather than at him.
After a moment, Joe reached out and covered my hand, squeezing it a little. My
heart sped up and I found myself locking eyes with him, losing myself in their
shifting depths.

How easy it would
be just to stay here,
I thought.

Falling in love
with Joe would be too easy. As it was, our relationship was growing so slowly
as to be almost imperceptible. His divorce had gone through quietly and easily
and was finalized in March, and even though we’d been seeing each other on a
fairly regular basis, there was no move on his part to take things beyond the
friend zone, something that I was happy to report to Aunt Susanna even while I
was privately growing impatient with the delay. Lunches were nice – but I
wanted more. It was moments like this, when I was falling into his deep, dark
hazel eyes, that I lived for.

“Maddie,” he said
softly. “You don’t have to hide anything from me. Is it getting too much for
you? The lessons and the job and the stable work – how can you possibly do it
all?”

I would have
regretted telling him about having to double up on the lessons since Lindsay’s
accident, only he looked so worried, so concerned, so involved, that I felt
cared for. But warm as this feeling made me, I knew he was about to offer to
help, something I couldn’t accept. So I told him a novelist Darlene knew was
looking to gain some experience on a horse farm and offered to help out for
free at the stables in return for room, board, and research.

Joe was surprised.

“That’s generous,”
he said. “What does he write?”

I shrugged and
very nearly spoiled my story with the grin I found hard to suppress. “Romance
novels,” I said.

Joe immediately
began asking me all kinds of questions about Randall’s character, capabilities,
and motives before finally letting it go.

“If he looks at
you funny, you let me know,” he said, and I had to stop myself from throwing my
arms around him. “I don’t want you or Susanna uncomfortable. He does anything
and I’ll be over like a shot.”

Thinking about
that made me grin again as I told Che Che and Leah that Randall was on the farm
to write a romance novel. This stunned them for a moment, then Leah started to
laugh and Che Che frowned. She’d read romances by the dozen and in all
varieties, from the staple bodice rippers to the more modern paranormal
romances. I could tell that, in the wake of this new knowledge, her suggestion that
I was a character in the book was making her uncomfortable.

“What’s his name?”
she asked. “I’ve probably read something of his.”

“Oh, probably,” I
said. “His name is Gregory Vincent.”

“Oh?” She looked
doubtful.

“He writes under a
few pennames, I think.”

“Oh!” She nodded.

“What kind of
romances does he write?” Leah asked.

I shrugged. “He’s
written dozens in all genres, but I think he does the American dream-type
romances now. You know, single mom meets broken, brooding Navy Seal-type and
her ex doesn’t like it.”

“Ohhh!” breathed
Che Che, looking dreamy. “Those are my favorites.”

Leah was still
grinning. “Are you going to be a character in the book?”

“God forbid!” I
said. “Um, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t spread this news around.
Vincent’s on a tight schedule, and we can’t afford to have too much attention
drawn to him.”

Leah, a practical
woman who hardly ever let herself get carried away on the waves of fad or
fashions, shrugged and promised easily. Che Che, however, had a wide circle of
friends, including five sisters that she regularly played cards with, and I
could tell that she relished the idea of having this juicy piece of information
to tell them. In the end, her affection for me won out and she nodded
acquiescence, but not without a request.

“Do you think you
could get me an autographed copy of his book? Maybe a couple, for my sisters
and me? We just
love
Vincent’s books.”

She looked so
enthused that my guilt flared up. I promised anyway. There was nothing else to
do at that point and, as it happened, I could actually get autographed copies
of Randall’s books, only it would be
The Dunstable Connection
, rather
than
Dunstable’s Dark Desires
or whatever they title those books
now. 

Thankfully the phone
started ringing, forcing us all to get back to work.

I finally had time
to call Aunt Susanna an hour later. She was out with Darlene and couldn’t talk
more than to whisper: “I’m so worried, Maddie. He just paces and frowns and he won’t
eat much. I keep bringing him things and offering to help, but he seems so – so
intense.”

“Just leave him
alone,” I advised. “He’s probably just upset with his editor.”

“But he’s so thin
– he should eat something. And I’ve got nothing better to do, I was thinking I
could help, but he just won’t…”

“I don’t think
Ran-Vincent is the type to neglect himself for very long,” I said, earning a
raised eye brow from Che Che at the desk next to mine. “Don’t worry about him,
Aunt Susanna.”

“Well…” She seemed
reluctant. “All right. I guess. If you think so.”

“I do,” I said,
then after a moment’s hesitation, continued. “I told the girls at the office
about Vincent.”

I emphasized the
name, and she sounded surprised when she said, “You did? What did you say?”

“I told them about
his research for his new romance book. I like that he’s going in a new
direction with this series – not as trashy as the others, more story, less torn
shirt.”

It was all I could
do not to start giggling, especially when Che Che threw me a startled look. But
on the other end of the line was dead silence.

Then, finally,
“You told them he was a romance novelist?”

“Yeah. I figured
it was better to come clean. They will keep it to themselves, though. I told
them we didn’t want too much publicity. Uh, until the book comes out, of
course.” I nodded at my co-worker.

There was more
silence, then an unmistakable giggle.

“Oh my,” Aunt
Susanna said. “Oh my goodness. Oh, Maddie! Randall is not going to like that!
Not at all!”

And then she was
laughing, a hearty and full sound that rolled through the phone’s speaker,
filling my ear and making me laugh as well. It was so genuine, so unaffected
that my eyes stung with sudden tears. She laughed so infrequently now – even
with Darlene she only ever seemed to chuckle. To hear it now warmed me, and I
quickly dashed the gathering moisture from my eyes. This was no time to indulge
in emotional outbursts.