Secrets in the Stone (9 page)

“Good morning,” Adrian said quietly.

“Hi.”

“How’s your hand?”

Rooke kept her bandaged hand in the pocket of her sweatshirt. “Doing fine.”

“You’ll be all right up there?”

“Shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Okay then.” Adrian started to close the door, then stopped. “I was about to put on a pot of coffee. When you’re done, why don’t you and Dominic come in and have some and you can tell me how things look.”

“All right. I should check the fireplace too.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Adrian said, unable to look away from Rooke’s face. As she felt herself slipping into the endless dark depths of Rooke’s eyes, she had the impression of being sheltered, held, kept safe. She didn’t resist the pull, even though she should.

“Are you sure?” Rooke murmured, sounding far away.

“Yes,” Adrian said hastily, blinking as the odd sensation disappeared as quickly as it had arisen. Ordinarily she’d never seek protection or even simple comfort from anyone. She didn’t trust the demand for control that would surely follow.
Trust us, Adrian, we know what’s best for you. Don’t be foolish, Adrian, you don’t know what you really want. Do as we say, Adrian…

“You look tired,” Rooke said. “I can call you with an estimate tomor—”

“I’m fine. I didn’t sleep much, but then, I imagine you didn’t either.”

“I’m used to it.” Rooke shrugged. “Sometimes I forget.”

Adrian laughed. “You forget?”

Rooke looked uncertain, and then she laughed, her quick grin highlighting a deep dimple in her right cheek. “There are better things to do at night than sleep.”

Adrian sucked in a breath as a swift kick of arousal caught her unawares. They weren’t touching and she wasn’t riding an adrenaline high today, so she had no explanation for her physical reaction other than the fact that Rooke was gorgeous and sexy and, unlike her handsome friend Dominic, didn’t seem to have a clue. Or perhaps it was just that she hadn’t had sex in months and now that she wasn’t sleeping in a tent on the ground, alternately worried about poisonous bugs and stray bombs, her libido had returned with a vengeance.

“Better things like what?” Adrian wanted to know. Suddenly she wanted to know everything about Rooke with a fierceness that alarmed her.

“Work,” Rooke said uncomfortably. Adrian had the strangest expression on her face, as if Rooke were speaking a foreign language. Adrian probably really thought she was crazy now. “I should probably get—”

“You do the gravestone carvings at night?” When Rooke nodded, Adrian said, “What do you do during the day?”

“The same thing.”

“You work all the time.”

“Pretty much.”

Adrian smiled. “You must love it.”

Heat rushed through Rooke’s chest, and her stomach was suddenly all over the place again. She’d never tried to talk about her work with anyone because she was afraid they wouldn’t understand. But Adrian seemed to. “Yes.”

“Can I come see, sometime? I’ve always been fascinated by cemeteries.”

“That’s strange.”

“Maybe.” Adrian grinned. “So what do you say?”

“Okay.” Rooke was too stunned to say anything else. And she didn’t want to. She wanted very much for Adrian to see what she did. Some of it, at least. She backed up a step, then another, until she was standing on the snow-packed path looking up into Adrian’s face. “I should go.”

“But you’ll be back, right?” Adrian had no idea why, but the answer to that question was more important than anything else she could think of.

“I will.”

“Be careful, then.”

Adrian watched her walk away, enjoying the fit of her jeans over her tight backside and the way her mahogany hair curled along the edges of her cap. Her fingertips tingled as if the soft strands played over her skin even now, and her loins tightened in pleasant anticipation. Even as she welcomed the desire teasing in her depths, she recognized her reaction as completely foreign to anything in her experience and completely beyond her control. Fearing the intensity of her response, she went inside and firmly closed the door, leaving her wildly unpredictable emotions outside with the woman responsible for them.

*

“Did you know her from before?” Dominic grabbed one end of the extension ladder and hefted it onto his shoulder as Rooke did the same.

“No.” Rooke forged a path through the knee-deep, unblemished snow toward the right side of the house where the fallen tree had wrought havoc. She was still trying to figure out why being around Adrian had her wanting to do things she’d never done before. On rare occasions she shared her sculptures with her grandfather, but he had probably only seen a fraction of the work she’d done over the years. Emma, the one human being she was intimate with, had never seen a single one. The grave markers that Adrian had asked to see were important to her, but they were designed for the public. She knew as she created them they would eventually be on display. Even though she brought all of her skill and imagination to those carvings, they weren’t personal the way her sculptures were. If her sculptures were ever revealed, she would be too. Exposed and defenseless, something she had vowed since childhood never to be.

“She seemed to know you,” Dominic persisted.

“I told you, I looked at the roof last night.” Rooke braced the bottom of the aluminum ladder in the snow and jockeyed it from side to side, making sure it was well seated on the frozen ground.

“Is she married?”

“I don’t know,” Rooke said, her chest tightening. For no reason she could imagine, she didn’t want Dominic anywhere near Adrian Oakes. Dominic was a good guy. He worked hard. He treated his men respectfully. He had befriended Rooke when no one else had. He’d first started working on the Stillwater grounds with his father’s landscaping crew. They’d both been eleven. Over the years, they’d developed an undemanding, comfortable friendship. He was easygoing and nonjudgmental and never seemed to want anything from her except simple company. They didn’t talk about their personal lives, although Rooke wouldn’t have had much to discuss if they had. She certainly wouldn’t have told him about Emma, who had worked as a bookkeeper at the cemetery for twenty years, and was known to everyone, including Dominic. When she’d first realized she wasn’t attracted to Dominic or any of the guys she saw around Stillwater, she kept the knowledge to herself, uncertain what to do. Then she’d noticed Emma,
really
noticed her. After months of flirtation, Emma had noticed her interest and tried to talk to her. Rooke hadn’t wanted to talk, she’d wanted to touch her, and Emma had let her. The rest had come naturally, and she’d been satisfied with the occasional pleasure of pleasing Emma.

Just the same, when she thought about Dominic asking Adrian for a date, her whole body grew hot and she wanted to demand he stay away from her. The reaction was totally unfamiliar and completely confusing. The only other thing she’d ever felt so proprietary about was her work.

“You want to go up or hold the ladder?” Rooke asked, needing to do what she had come to do and forget about the disquieting feelings she couldn’t explain.

“Why don’t you go. You’re the monkey, after all.”

Rooke grinned as she started up. She was lighter and more agile than Dominic and when they were younger, they’d race to see who could climb the highest and the fastest in the sweeping oaks and maples that guarded the dead at Stillwater. She had always won.

*

Adrian poured another cup of tea and listened to the distant thud of footsteps overhead. She leaned forward over the sink to glance out the window, and saw Dominic with his legs spread and his arms braced against the ladder to steady it. Rooke must be the one climbing around up there. She shook her head at Rooke’s stubbornness, but secretly admitted she probably would’ve done the same thing. She could never let anyone do her job for her, and apparently Rooke was the same way.

She carried her mug to the kitchen table and set up her laptop, whispering thanks for her grandmother’s addiction to late-night television and classic movies. Her grandmother had cable and, along with it, Internet service. At least she wouldn’t be dependent on dial-up for the next few months. Since she did much of her research online when preparing a new project, being connected was critical. She Googled “gravestone carvings” and began to jot notes on a yellow legal pad. Before long she was completely immersed in the history of grave markings, the significance of the symbols and figures, and the social and religious messages inherent in the carvings. Captured by the familiar thrill of the hunt, she sipped her cooling tea and followed one link after another, all the while envisioning Rooke bent over a marble slab creating designs and patterns with hammer and chisel.

The house phone rang and Adrian jumped. As she leapt up to grab the cordless phone on the counter, she became aware that the thumps overhead had morphed into banging. Rooke must be nailing down the tarp she’d spoken of the night before.

“Winchester residence. May I help you?” Adrian answered, automatically repeating the message she had been taught as a child.

“Hello, darling,” her grandmother said breezily. “So you made it all right? I’ve been watching that nasty storm on television. I can’t tell you how happy I am to be down here in Fort Lauderdale. It was eighty-two when I woke up this morning.”

“That’s really very cruel of you, Grandmother.” Adrian paused as her grandmother laughed. “I do have a bit of bad news. I’m afraid one of the big trees came down in the wind and damaged the roof and the chimney.”

“Oh dear. Is it bad?”

“I don’t think so, but it’s definitely going to require repair. The fireplace too.”

“Did you call your father?”

Adrian took a deep breath. She didn’t need to be reminded how the family hierarchy worked. The men made the decisions and handled the problems. Even though her mother and sister, a VP in the family business just as her brother was, were both intelligent, capable women, they seemed content to take a backseat and deferred to the men in most matters. Growing up, Adrian had always run afoul of the subtle but clear lines between what was appropriate and what wasn’t for her to say or do or think. She’d always been at odds with her family because of that, and when she came out to them, the distance had grown.

But she knew she wasn’t going to change her grandmother’s worldview at this point.

“No,” Adrian said as calmly as she could. “There’s really nothing he could do from the city, and I’m right here. I have someone looking at the roof right now, as a matter of fact. I was going to call you after I had some idea of the extent of the damage.”

“Well, that was certainly fast. I’m surprised you could get anyone on a Saturday. And in that weather too.”

Adrian thought better of telling her grandmother that she had actually gotten someone at two a.m. Somehow, Rooke’s showing up in the middle of the night made perfect sense to her—she appreciated Rooke’s stubborn, single-minded focus. They were alike that way. Her grandmother, though, like the rest of the family, was big on doing things in the “proper fashion.”

“They’ve been really terrific. Some contractors who manage the work at the cemetery in—”

“Ronald Tyler?” her grandmother asked sharply.

“Yes. Well, he’s not actually here,” Adrian said, surprised by her grandmother’s tone. “His granddaughter and another man are looking at the damage.”

“The girl is there?”

Adrian’s defenses immediately shot up at her grandmother’s dismissive manner. If she’d been feline, her fur would have been standing on end and her claws would have been out and ready for battle. “Yes, Rooke Tyler. But she’s hardly a girl. She must be in her mid-twenties at least.”

“I’m surprised Ronald has her doing that kind of work. She’s not…” Her grandmother’s voice dropped. “She’s not quite right, you know.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Adrian said stiffly. She’d spent quite a bit of time with Rooke the night before, and despite the fact that they tended to rub each other the wrong way, Rooke had been nothing but scrupulously polite and responsible. If anything, Adrian had been the one verging on rude. “She seems very knowledgeable.”

“I’m sure she’s capable of whatever job her grandfather has her doing at the cemetery, but I do think you should get another estimate just to be sure.”

“Ronald Tyler came highly recommended.” Adrian didn’t add the recommendation came from a cab driver whose name she didn’t even know. She had the strongest urge to protect Rooke from her grandmother’s criticisms, and she wasn’t entirely sure why. She didn’t know her, after all.

“I know it’s all the rage to homeschool children today, but that wasn’t the case twenty years ago. Ronald kept her home because she was…well, the kindest word for it would be ‘slow.’ Everyone in town knows it.”

Adrian laughed, recalling the verbal battles she and Rooke had waged the night before. “You have been misinformed. Believe me, she is not slow.”

“I suppose you are a better judge than I,” her grandmother said, though her tone implied otherwise.

“Grandmother,” Adrian said, trying desperately to hold on to her temper. “I can handle this. If I have any concerns about the estimate, I’ll get a second opinion. And I promise to keep a close eye on the repairs. You don’t need to worry.”