FLASHBACK Page 15

  "Isn't it terrible about the house?" Mrs. Walters sounded truly distressed. "We're getting the committee together today to try and decide what's best. But, of course, we'll have to ask you to stop work for now."

  "Of course. I understand."

  "I'm so sorry, dear."

  "Me, too."

  "Would you tell your grandmother the meeting's scheduled for two o'clock today in the mayor's chambers?"

  *

  Jack called his buddy Ned of Ned's Tree Topping to get the damaged tree out of the bedroom window. He had no authorization from the committee, and frankly didn't care. If the cost ended up coming out of his own pocket, so be it. He had the strangest sense of urgency about the house.

  He needed to save it.

  It was pretty obvious the place wasn't going to be any tourist attraction come summer, and he had a strong hunch his contract was about to end. But Jack wanted to protect the old girl from further damage.

  While Ned and his crew heaved and hacked the tree out of the window and into firewood, Jack tacked heavy plastic sheeting over the gaping hole in the roof and window.

  Inside, he set up a couple of industrial drying fans he'd rented that morning, along with a portable emergency generator. With the fans roaring full blast, connected to the chugging generator, he paused to look around.

  The damage wasn't too bad, all things considered. Enough neighbors had seen and heard the lightning strike that the fire department had caught the blaze almost as soon as it started. The water damage was more serious, but he was sure the whole project could be salvaged if there was only more money. He adjusted the roaring dryers slightly and then began a more thorough inspection.

  He agreed with the fire crew's initial assessment that structurally the damage was minimal. He felt perfectly safe wandering the rooms, although he wore his hard hat just in case. Lightning was funny. It traveled in uncanny ways, and the worst devastation was sometimes concealed.

  Jack tried to work out the exact path the lightning had taken so he could uncover any hidden disaster areas. He got his notebook out and jotted down his findings, took a few measurements. He could put a rough estimate together of what it would cost to repair the damage.

  It was probably hopeless, but he had to try. Keeping busy also kept his mind off the lead weight that had established residence in his stomach since Laura had taken off on him the previous night.

  He'd called her first thing in the morning, left his cell number so she could reach him wherever he was. But she hadn't called. Twice he'd started to punch in Gran's number, but each time he stopped, afraid of where Laura might be. As the morning crawled by he envisioned her at some clinic, popping the magic morning-after pill.

  The rational part of his brain recognized that that was the sensible thing to do. But it made him feel like his love was no more to Laura than an inconvenience, easily remedied with a pill or two.

  He was pacing restlessly, open notebook in his hand, when he stumbled. "What the…" He looked down in startled surprise and noticed a couple of floorboards jutting up. It struck him as odd that the floor would have budded just here.

  He knelt, puzzled, and wiggled a board. He was even more surprised when the fir plank popped out smoothly in his hands. The edges weren't jagged, but sawn straight across.

  Surprise turned to excitement as he peered down into the dark hole under the floor, thinking of hidden treasure. He lowered himself to the ground and thrust his arm into the recess until his reaching fingers touched something hard. A prickle of anticipation ran up his spine as he pulled out a cloth-wrapped object.

  He felt like Indiana Jones as he hunkered down on the floor and carefully opened the cloth. Inside was no crusty treasure chest containing a fortune in jewels. The item in his hands was a plain black, leather-bound book.

  As he eased open the age-worn cover, a musty smell hit him. The handwriting on the flyleaf was faded, but legible, with lots of old-fashioned curlicues. "Elizabeth McNair, 1886."

  A diary. Wow, he thought, wait till Laura sees this.

  The rounded, flowing writing drew him into the world of Elizabeth McNair and Laroche more than a century ago. The old paper crackled as he carefully turned the page and read the first entry.

  I begin this journal as a record of my new life as the wife of my beloved Albert. I am conscious of a powerful notion that such a love ought to be recorded, which I shall try to do within these pages. I feel new life stirring in me and one day I hope my children and their children will read these pages and know that their beginnings were happy ones.

  I chose today to begin my journal because our house is almost ready. Such excitement I feel, and pride in my Albert, who has built me this splendid home. He had the stonemason carve The House of Love into a large granite boulder, which Albert swore he planned to have set in the gateway for all to see. Of course, I laughed at such nonsense, but am secretly much pleased. He used the stone instead as the cornerstone of the foundation. It is hidden from all eyes, but is our secret, and it gives me much joy.

  Goose bumps rose on Jack's arms.

  He held the book reverently in his hands. So Laura had been right all along. Her voice echoed back to him from childhood. "This house was built with love, Jack, can't you feel it?"

  Love. The cornerstone of a house. It was a crazy idea. Crazier still that a teenager could feel that love a century later.

  He flipped ahead a few pages.

  Nearly lost Cook again last night after she came face-to-face with a bear on her visit to the necessary. She is such a good cook, I do wish she could accustom herself to this new land, but I fear one day she will head back to Boston in spite of all our pleas and the monstrous salary Albert pays her.

  Jack propped himself more comfortably in a corner and read on. He learned about the early days of Laroche firsthand. He also learned how to make rosehip jelly and how to preserve local fruits and berries for winter. He learned a few secrets about Albert and Elizabeth's private life that made him feel like a Peeping Tom. And he experienced with Elizabeth McNair her pangs of childbirth, until he was shifting restlessly on the hard, damp floor, his own gut hurting.

  He looked up at last from the book, which hardly filled his big hands, and sensed the spirit of Elizabeth and Albert in the house. He had a spooky feeling that they had passed their special home to two people further on in time who felt as they did.

  Laura and him and the house. They went together. What was he thinking? The house was a ruin. The idea was crazy. He was crazy.

  He rubbed the cracked leather cover of the diary in his hands. He wasn't a guy who believed in signs, or ghosts, or messages from other worlds, but as he held that book, he knew what he had to do. He had to get this house for Laura, and her child, if she was carrying one.

  Maybe he could show her, as Albert had shown his Elizabeth, how much he cared. Maybe then she would forgive him, in time learn to love him. He had to try, because he felt part of him had come to life while Laura was back here on the island, but it would die again if she left.

  *

  It felt like someone had died. Laura wandered Gran's house, not knowing what to do with herself. Any activity seemed disrespectful, somehow.

  She drove Gran to the meeting at city hall. "Are you sure you're well enough to go out?"

  "Of course. It's just a silly cold. You'd better drive me by the house first. I suppose I should inspect the damage, though Lord knows, I don't want to."

  Laura didn't want to, either, but she helped Gran descend from her van and walk to the edge of the taped-off area to look at the damage in full daylight.

  The tree was gone, cut down to a scarred black stump, and clear plastic now covered the missing chunk of roof and wall. Still, the blackened hole looked like a bomb had ripped through it. Bright yellow electric cords snaked down the side of the house and round the corner to where a generator rumbled. Again she wondered, What's the point?

  While her grandmother was at the meeting, Laura pottered around the kitchen, ma
king quiche and salad. She should have been packing, but didn't have the heart for it. How could she leave so much unfinished business?

  She wondered if she'd meet up with Jack again. He hadn't made any attempt to see her today, apart from the feeble message that she should call him. Maybe it was just as well. All her foolish dreams were over. The sooner she accepted that and got on with her life the better.

  She heard a car stop outside and her hands flew to her face. Jack. She ran upstairs to put on fresh lipstick and run a comb through her hair. Her heart hammered.

  Then she heard voices downstairs and realized it was Gran and Mrs. Walters, back from the meeting. Laura trod downstairs to the kitchen a lot more slowly than she'd pounded up the same stairs moments before. "I thought you were going to phone me. I would have picked you up."

  "It was no trouble, Laura," the committee chairwoman answered. "Your gran and I wanted a few minutes to chat, anyway, away from all the fidgets."

  Laura smiled at Mrs. Walters's term for the other committee members. "Do you want some tea or coffee?" she asked politely.

  "Get the whiskey, dear," Gran said, sitting down heavily in her chair. "We all need it."

  They sat over their drinks at the oak kitchen table while Mrs. Walters confirmed the worst. The new damage had knocked the heart out of the committee. There wasn't enough money, or time, to complete the house before the tourist season began.

  "I'm so sorry, Laura," Mrs. Walters said. "The city's lawyer will contact you about some kind of severance, since your contract has been canceled."

  "I'm just sorry for the house," Laura said.

  "I can't bear to see that lovely old home turned into condos," Mrs. Walters wailed. "After all our hard work. The developer isn't even an islander. He must have an inside source of information, though, because he's made another offer for the property – much lower, of course, now he knows about the damage. The offer expires next Friday."

  "But that's only a week from now. The city doesn't have to accept the offer, surely?"

  "It's the only offer that's been made on that property in thirty years. Unless another one comes in before Friday, McNair house will be bulldozed." Mrs. Walters' voice wavered and she hid her emotions in a deep swallow of whiskey.

  The committee chairwoman finished her drink and refused a second. "This feels too much like a funeral. Besides, I have to drive home."

  She strode off, businesslike as ever, with just the quiver of her chin giving away her emotional state.

  "We don't have to drive. Besides, I like funerals." Gran topped up their glasses.

  The bottle was a lot emptier when Laura finally served dinner.

  "Do you have anything to rush back for, dear?" Gran asked, as they picked at their salad and pretended to eat quiche.

  "Hmm?" she asked vaguely.

  "I was wondering whether you could stay a week or so and paint my bedroom." She sighed. "You were right when you said I'd get tired of that pink quickly. I know it's only been three years since you did all that fancy painting in there, and it seems rather wasteful…"

  Laura hated the idea of staying anywhere near Laroche now that she and Jack were finished. It was physically painful just being on the same island with him. All she wanted was to slink back to Seattle and lick her wounds. Muzzily, she reviewed her options.

  She could do as her grandmother asked, which was the very least a good granddaughter would do. She could plead work piling up in Seattle, which was true enough, and hire someone locally to do her gran's bedroom.

  Gran sneezed. What kind of a brute left an aged grandmother when she was ill? Laura gazed at the beloved wrinkled face across the table and smiled mistily. "That's a great idea, Gran. It will give us time to visit." She smiled. "Don't worry. I'll get the paint wholesale, and the labor's free. It will hardly cost anything."

  Except the cost to her heart.

  *

  Laura got up early the next morning to fetch her tools and materials out of the McNair House.

  The tape had been pulled away from the front doorway, so she was able to convince herself that she wasn't really trespassing by entering the house. For good measure she grabbed her hard hat out of the back of her van.

  It was before seven when she let herself into the house and paused in the foyer. The last time she'd been in here… She shuddered at the memory of passion, right there on the floor.

  She shuddered again at the memory of its bitter aftermath, and the depressing assurance this morning that she definitely wasn't pregnant. With a sigh, she rubbed her tired eyes, determined to get her stuff and get out as soon as possible. She'd brought a hefty flashlight with her, but the early morning light shining in the windows allowed her to see quite well.

  She noticed a book, obviously old and probably valuable, lying in the middle of the third step. What on earth was it doing here? Curious, she picked it up.

  Opening the cover, she gasped at the inscription. She sat down on the step, angling the book to get the full light from the window, then began to read.

  She brushed tears away as she read about Elizabeth McNair's first year in this house. Her love for her husband and his for her. The birth of their first child, a son, upstairs in the bed that was too big to move out because Albert McNair had had it built right in the bedroom, completing the house around it.

  Laura read about the trials of Cook and the other servants, of picnics at the seaside, the worries of a new parent, of pickling and drying and preserving foods for winter. She read about Elizabeth McNair's hopes that her second child would be a girl.

  The last entry told of a planned trip back to Boston, where Albert had business to attend to.

  I long to return to all the gaiety of society, to my friends and family. I long to present my sturdy young son, John. I am only sorry that my second child will not be born in our very own home. Still, I shall not repine. Albert would have left me behind, but I would not hear of it. How should I bear the long winter and the birth of a child without my Albert by my side? I do not think I shall continue my journal while I am away from home. I shall put this little book by in a secret place and pick it up again when I return. How much I shall have to say!

  The rest of the pages were blank, but Laura knew from the county historical records that Elizabeth and Albert had returned. She even knew that the second child had been a girl and that the McNairs went on to raise three more children. Perhaps Elizabeth was too busy to continue her journal once she returned, or maybe she just forgot about it.

  Laura hugged the little book to her fiercely. "I won't let them tear down this house, I won't," she whispered. She replaced the diary carefully on the stairs, feeling that it would be wrong to take it outside these walls.

  Tracing the old leather cover with a fingertip, she wondered how she was going to save this house of love, which had been part of her ever since she could remember.

  Time was running out.

  She remembered Mrs. Walters telling them about an offer that expired next Friday. What on earth could she do in a little more than a week, with her contract canceled?

  Her hand stilled on the book cover.

  Suddenly, she snapped her fingers.

  It was simple. She'd buy the house herself.

  Maybe she couldn't have the whole dream, but she could have part of it. If she couldn't have Jack, at least she could have this special house. She had some money put away, enough for a solid down payment. She could take in roommates or turn the McNair House into a bed-and-breakfast inn. And she was close enough to Seattle that she could still keep her business.

  Excitement pumped through her veins. It could work.

  The whole idea was impulsive and ludicrous – and Laura knew she was going to do it. It felt right. The house had been waiting for her all these years. Elizabeth's diary as good as proved it.

  She ran home to Gran's, only to find the place empty. That was odd. Her grandmother hadn't mentioned she was going out, and Laura had so wanted to tell her about her idea. Well, she
didn't have time to waste. She fixed her face, changed her clothes, grabbed her purse and was out the door. Minutes later she walked into the local real estate office with a bright smile on her face.

  "Hi, I'm Laura Kinkaide. I want to buy the old McNair House," she told the startled man sitting reading the newspaper.

  "Who doesn't?" he mumbled, scratching his pure-white crew cut. The matching white moustache curled as he smiled and offered Laura a chair.

  "I know there's a bid from a developer that expires next Friday. That's why I want to put my offer in as soon as possible."

  The old man's eyes were dancing. She supposed he was excited about the commission he would earn if he could get her the property.

  "I see. And you're, ah, planning to buy this property alone?" He was looking at her strangely, his eyes still twinkling.

  Oh, great. Just my luck. A dinosaur who doesn't believe women should own property. "Yes." She made her voice brisk. "I have quite a successful business, an excellent credit history and a healthy investment portfolio. I'll cash part of that in, of course, for the down payment."

  "I see." The man held out his hand. "Jed Hansen. I know your grandmother well. Have you talked to her about this?"

  "No, I just decided today."

  Jed Hansen's mustache lifted again as he chuckled. "You're not buying a hat, young lady. Would you like to think it over? Talk to someone you trust?"

  Really, this guy's attitude was too much. She felt a flush heating her face. "Aren't you supposed to talk me into buying property?"

  He laughed out loud at that. "I want all my customers to be happy, Miss Kinkaide. You can make mistakes if you rush."

  "Thank you. But I've made up my mind."

  The newspaper rustled as he folded it carefully and laid it to one side. "Tell you what. I'll start the paperwork for you. You'll need a five-thousand-dollar deposit and a letter from your bank saying they'll lend you the rest of the money. Then, if you still want the house, come back in. I'll have the papers ready for you."