The Guest Cottage (4 page)

S
ophie slowly stepped into the music room and stood in front of the piano. She raised the lid and gazed down at the ivory keys. The keys were moonstones to her, gleaming pearls, black diamonds, a wealth of romance and desire.

Could she remember even how to play?

Sliding onto the piano stool, she placed her hands on the keyboard. Instinctively, her fingers chose the spot, the notes: G, B-flat, C.

“Greensleeves.”

Without thinking, her hands found the keys, the chords, the rhythm, and she sang as she played.

“Alas, my love, you do me wrong, to cast me off
discourteously…”

So courtly, so melancholy, the ballad written hundreds of years ago in England told of heartbreak experienced then, and now, in Sophie’s own heart. It was universal, being cast away; it surpassed time and space. It was said that Henry VIII composed the song for Anne Boleyn. Another discarded wife.

At least Zack couldn’t shut Sophie in a tower.

She hit a few clinkers, but it was a surprise how it all returned at once, how good Sophie still was. She played, her hands spontaneously embroidering the simple tune with evocative chords. As she played, her heart broke open. The tears she’d been holding back streamed down her face.

“Mom?”

Sophie flinched. In one awkward move, she rose, turning to see her son and daughter standing in the doorway of the music room, both her children staring at her as if she’d turned into green cheese.

A man stood there, too, holding the hand of a little boy.

What?

For one frightening moment, Sophie thought she was hallucinating.

“Hello?” the man greeted her, tentatively, carefully, as if she might start foaming at the mouth.

“Sorry,” Sophie said, wiping the tears away. “Sorry. Got carried away. How can I help you?”

The man smiled quizzically. “Um, well, not to be rude, but, uh, you can tell me what you’re doing in my house.” He was tall and incredibly good-looking, with thick black hair and green eyes with such dark lashes it looked as if he’d used eyeliner.

“
Your
house? This is
our
house.”

The man was young, younger than Sophie, and his clothes gave him an adolescent air, especially his rumpled T-shirt printed with the slogan
Geeks Do It with More Ram.
Politely, he inquired, “This house is the old Swenson guest cottage, right?”

“It is. I’m renting it from Susie Swenson.”

“Ah. Now we’re getting somewhere. I’m renting it from Ivan Swenson. Susie and Ivan are cousins. And not particularly communicative with each other, it seems.”

Sophie stared speechlessly. Her unexpected piano tsunami had flushed away her usual, Capable Mommy persona. It didn’t help that the young man was jaw-droppingly handsome. She had to turn her eyes away from him in order to think. Her children frowned at her. “Maybe I’d better join you in the living room. We need to sort this out.”

“Good idea.” The man approached Sophie with his hand held out, his small son clinging to his leg and gawking wide-eyed at Sophie as if she might explode at any moment. “I’m Trevor Black. From Boston. This is my son, Leo.”

Trevor Black was relaxed, easy in his body, present but not pressing. Zack always came on strong—the blazing smile, the hearty greeting. Trevor’s hand was a bridge, not a rope to jerk her into Zack’s realm. She lightly touched his palm, and her heart leapt in her chest. Oh, good. She was physically attracted to some random young guy right in front of her children. Nice.

She knew her cheeks were scarlet. She withdrew her hand and summoned up any dignity she could find. “Sophie Anderson, also from Boston. This is Jonah and Lacey. Come on, kids. Let’s all sit down and talk.” She gestured toward the living room like Vanna White, feeling silly.

They sat on facing sofas. Lacey was almost on top of Sophie while Jonah, obviously embarrassed by his mother, sat at the end. Across from them, Trevor sat with his son squeezed next to him, leg to leg.

“Where should we start?” Sophie asked.

Trevor said, “I guess the first question to ask is whether or not you have some kind of legal contract.”

It was as if the man had thrown a glass of ice water in her face. “Legal contract?”

From his end of the sofa, Jonah muttered,
“Mom.”

“Mommy!” wailed Lacey. “We haven’t even been to the beach.”

Trevor held up his hands, palms out, reassuringly. “Hey, it’s okay—I don’t have a legal contract, either. Ivan phoned me from London and we made a verbal agreement for me to rent the house for two months this summer. All I have is a copy of the wire transfer of the money I paid him.”

“All I have is a copy of the check I sent Susie,” Sophie admitted.

Trevor frowned. “It looks like it’s up to us to come up with some sort of compromise. Like, you could have the house for July and I could have it for August. Except I’ve kind of given my apartment to someone for both months.”

Sophie went numb. She didn’t want to discuss the sordid details of her marriage with this stranger, especially not in front of the kids.

Leo whispered in Trevor’s ear. Trevor nodded.

“We need to use the bathroom.”

“I’ll take him,” Lacey offered.

“Thanks, but I think I’d better do it. Can you tell me where it is?”

Like a good miniature tour guide, Lacey announced, “There’s a bathroom off the kitchen on the first floor, and a cute one squeezed into the space beneath the staircase, but if you want more privacy, there are lots of bathrooms upstairs.”

Trevor smiled. “Thanks.” Holding his son’s hand, he left the room.

“Mom, what are we going to do?” Lacey asked.

Jonah had sunk into himself, chewing on a thumbnail, staring at the floor.

Sophie thought aloud, remembering the lie. Renovation work was being done. Daddy would be staying in a house he was working on. “Daddy’s having the interior of the house painted, every room, and the floors all sanded and stained. Everything will be topsy-turvy, sand dust everywhere. We can’t go back.”

“We could live with Grandmother,” Lacey offered.

Sweet Lacey.
“Do you want to live with Grandmother?” Sophie asked. Sophie’s mother was widowed. Hester continued her work as an emergency room doctor at Emerson Hospital in Concord, and lived in a small house she kept as sharply neat as the corners on a hospital bed.
Grandmother—Mother—Hester—firmly
believed in striving to do one’s best every day. No slouching allowed.

Lacey’s mouth turned down.

“No,” Sophie agreed. “I don’t want to, either.” She looked around. “Plus, this place is great. I was looking forward to spending lots of time at the beach.”

“Uh, excuse me?” Trevor and Leo Black were back, standing in the entrance to the living room.

The child looked frightened. He stuck his thumb in his mouth and squeezed next to his father. The poor kid was scared and miserable, and Sophie’s heart went out to him. She could stand for it not to be okay, but she could not stand for it not to be okay for this little boy.

“I’m sure we can work something out,” she said, and was glad to see Leo’s face light up. “This is a big house.”

“We could share it,” Trevor suggested.

Sophie met his eyes. He
seemed
normal enough…“If there were some way we could, I don’t know, exchange references,” she said. She checked her watch. “It’s almost too late now for any of us to get off the island, and it’s probably too late to find a hotel room we can afford, at least one that
I
can afford.”

“We could stay here tonight,” Trevor Black said. “You all can stay in one wing and we’ll stay in the other.”

Sophie hesitated. “Yes, and maybe we could try it for a few days while we work on other possibilities. I mean, I’m taking it on trust that you’re not a—” She glanced at his goofy T-shirt. She didn’t want to call him a hopelessly lame dork in front of his son.

Trevor’s shoulders loosened and he smiled. “Good idea. And I’ll take it on trust that you’re not a constant singing-off-key-while-playing-the-piano kind of woman.”

“Mom wasn’t singing off-key!” Lacey insisted, insulted.

Sophie laughed, and the tension in the room broke. “If only we could get references, or I suppose I mean
reassurances—talk
to someone who knows us. You live in Boston, right?”

“In Cambridge. Hey, I helped set up the website at a local church. You could phone Linda Logan—she’s the secretary. She’d vouch for me.”

“That’s a good idea. And—” Sophie shook her head. “I should just hand you my cell phone and let you punch in the numbers of the heads of all the committees I serve on for the schools the kids go to.”

“That’s not a bad idea.”

Leo interrupted, tugging on his father’s shorts. “So can we go to the beach?”

“Yeah, Mommy,” Lacey chimed in. “Let’s go to the beach!”

“I don’t know, Lacey. I should make some inquiries…”

“We could take our phones and laptops,” Trevor said.

“Swimsuits.” Sophie chewed her lip. This was all going so fast. She felt out of control. She
was
out of control. “I don’t think we should unpack yet.”

“We don’t have to swim,” Trevor pointed out. “We can kick off our shoes and wade. We can at least stick our feet in the water and get sand between our toes.”

“Yeah, Mom, he’s right—come on,” Jonah urged.

Jonah was a good judge of character, a sensible guy, and protective of his younger sister. Since he seemed to feel Trevor was an okay guy, Sophie felt strengthened in her own judgment. Still, she needed to be in charge. “All right, sure. Let me find Susie’s map to the closest beach…”

Trevor said, “It’s Surfside. You all can ride with me and Leo.”

“Beach towels,” Sophie said weakly.

“I’ll get them!” Lacey piped up, racing from the room.

S
ophie scanned the living room. “Will I need my purse? I could hide it somewhere…”

Lacey ran up, clutching so many towels she could scarcely see over them. Jonah relieved her of them and nodded toward the door.

Jonah said, “Mom. Put it in the car. Lock the car. Let’s go.” Taller than his mom, Jonah was a lanky boy not yet comfortable with his height—boy, did Trevor remember those days.

Leo buckled himself into his car seat in the backseat of Trevor’s Passat. All their stuff was in the rear hatch, except for a bunch of books, snacks, and car toys. Trevor swept them onto the floor to let Lacey and Jonah squeeze into the backseat. Sophie sat in the passenger seat, snapping her seat belt immediately.

Trevor shot her a look. “I’m not going to speed. I’ve got a child in the car.”

“Of course. Sorry. I—sorry.”

In the rearview mirror, Trevor saw Jonah roll his eyes.

It took only five minutes to make the drive to Surfside Beach. By the time Trevor pulled the car into the parking lot, he found a lot of empty spaces. People were trudging up the path from the beach, lugging baskets and beach chairs, their skin fluorescent from a day in the sun.

“No lifeguard on duty, dude,” one guy told them as the group headed down toward the ocean.

Trevor nodded and gestured thanks. Leo held on tight to Trevor’s hand and his eyes were all over the place, checking out Jonah and Lacey and the view at the bottom of the dune where the beach stretched to the end of the world and the blue waves rolled in.

“Look, Mommy!” Lacey shot ahead of the group toward the water.

“Don’t go in the ocean! There’s no lifeguard!” Sophie shouted. When her daughter paid no attention to her, she pleaded, “Jonah.”

The long-limbed teen covered the ground easily. He took his sister’s hand, bent down, and spoke to her. She kicked off her flip-flops and rolled up her pink flowered trousers.

“Your son’s a good guy,” Trevor told Sophie.

“He is,” Sophie agreed. Glancing up at Trevor, she asked softly, “Do you think a boy can be too good?”

Trevor looked away, tilting his head as if he were reflecting on her question. In fact, he was dealing with the electricity that zapped him when their eyes met. So much was going on inside that woman’s head and he was a man who loved complications. Still, that had gotten him into trouble with Tallulah.

“I mean, Jonah has friends and everything. He’s not weird or odd, I’m not saying that. It’s, well, I don’t know how to explain it—he’s been acting different lately.” Sophie shook her head, laughing at herself. “I must sound a bit demented, sharing intimate details with a stranger like this. But you’re a man. You might have some insight.”

“Maybe just a little,” joked Trevor, before saying, “It’s hard to be a teenage boy.” He mentally kicked himself for such a lame statement.

“I’m sure you’re right.” Sophie ran off to join her children.

Trevor tore his attention away from the way her butt looked in her jeans and knelt down next to his son. “Let’s take your sandals off and we can wade in the water.” Seeing fear flash across his son’s face, he added, “I won’t let go of you, I promise.”

The sun was still high in the sky; they were only a few days past the longest day of the year. The sand beneath Trevor’s bare feet was soft and hot from the day’s sun. Warm water frothed up around his ankles. Plenty of people still populated the long stretch of beach, dozing facedown on beach towels or reading or lounging in beach chairs, sipping bright-colored drinks in plastic glasses. Tallulah would have loved this, Trevor thought cynically. She would have put on her skimpiest bikini and sauntered along the water’s edge, allowing everyone to get a good look at her in all her voluptuous glory.

Up ahead, Lacey shrieked with delight. She showed something to her mother and brother, then raced back with full hands to Leo.

“Look, Leo, look!” she shouted.

Leo clutched his father’s hand tighter and recoiled slightly as the larger child came charging toward him.

“It’s a toenail shell,” Lacey informed the little boy, holding out her cupped hand. “It’s not really a toenail—it just looks like one except prettier. See how this one sort of shines? Isn’t it pretty?”

Leo looked down at the shell. Cautiously, he nodded.

“Would you like to have it? Here, it’s for you. I’m going to see if I can find another one. Mom says we can make a fairy house in the backyard and we need all sorts of shells and rocks to build the house in the paths and make their dishes. This shell could be a dish, maybe—we’ll have to see how big the house will be.” With that, Lacey raced away back down the beach.

“She’s energetic,” Trevor remarked to his son. Leo was studying the shell as if it were something remarkable. Trevor realized that for his son this shell
was
remarkable. He squatted down next to him.

“It’s like orange sherbet,” Leo said, holding the shell up for Trevor to see.

Trevor smiled. “Yeah, it looks like orange sherbet but you better not eat it.”

“Daddy,” Leo giggled at Trevor’s silliness.

My God,
Trevor thought, when had he last heard Leo giggle?

Jonah waded along down the beach. Lacey knelt to build a sand castle, near her.

Leo industriously packed sand into walls.

Sophie spread out the beach towels and sat down. “Okay,” she said to Trevor. “I’m going to make some phone calls.”
Don’t be rash,
she told herself,
you’ve paid for two months in this house.
She used what ammunition she had. “One of my best friends,” she continued, “Angie Clift, is a trial lawyer in Boston. I’ll have her check around while I call your church reference.”

Trevor sat down on the beach towel close to her—but not too close. “Great.”

“Do you want to phone any of my contacts?”

“Nah.” Trevor opened his laptop. “I’ll Google you. Check out your Facebook page.”

Sophie rolled her eyes. “It’s all flowers, recipes, and cute animal videos,” she confessed. She focused on phoning Angie and was sent—as always, how could she forget this?—to voicemail. She left a message, Googled the church number, and phoned the office.

The phone rang and rang, until suddenly a laughing woman said, “Oops, hello! I was just going out the door.” Her voice was warm and maternal.

“Sorry to bother you, and I won’t take much of your time,” Sophie said. She introduced herself and explained the unusual circumstances, finally asking, “Do you think it’s safe for us to share a house with Trevor Black?”

Linda Logan sounded warm and wise. “Oh, my dear, of course! He’s a lovely man and the most wonderful father,” she said. “I can give you a long list of people who know him and adore him—preschool teachers, mommies, our minister.”

“That’s so helpful. Could you give me maybe one mother’s name? I’ll feel better with another reference…”

“I understand. I’ll give you Candace Hall’s number. Her daughter Cassidy is Leo’s best friend in preschool.”

Sophie wrote the mother’s phone number in the sand. “Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome. Tell Trevor and Leo hello.”

“Linda Logan says hello,” Sophie told Trevor. “She spoke highly of you.”

Trevor, tapping away on his iPhone, only nodded.

“I’m going to phone someone named Candace Hall now.”

“Fine,” Trevor mumbled, his attention still on his phone’s screen. “She’s nice, kind of long-winded, but a good mom.”

Sophie dialed Candace, who answered and listened to Sophie’s explanation of the odd situation. When Sophie paused, Candace said, in an oddly hostile voice, “I’d give anything to have your problem. Trevor Black is the nicest man on earth, plus he’s responsible, reliable, honest, and kind.”

“Oh,” Sophie said, surprised. “Well. That’s good to know. I mean, that you can vouch for his character.”

“Yeah, well, I hope you’re ugly,” Candace sniffed, then laughed feebly. “Sorry, sounds like I’m jealous. Maybe I am.”

Well, that’s blunt,
Sophie thought, but again, it was reassuring. “I’m married,” Sophie said, as if she needed to offer a defense.

“Still, hands off,” Candace said, adding humorlessly, “Ha, ha. Anything else?”

“Um, no. Thank you so much.” Sophie clicked off and sat staring at the ocean, letting her thoughts settle.

“What do you think?” Trevor asked. The sun was sinking lower, the ocean’s silver fading to gray.

“Everyone gave you a glowing report,” Sophie admitted. “Especially Candace Hall.”

“Oh, Candace, yeah. They’ll be coming to visit this summer. So, you’re feeling okay about sharing the house tonight?”

“I can’t think of any other solution.”

Trevor nodded. “I’m glad. It’s a huge house and our kids seem to get along. I’m sure it will be fine.”

The sun was low when they drifted up the dune to the parking lot. They kicked the sand off their feet, buckled themselves into the car, and drove back to what was probably going to be their summer home.

At the guest cottage, they sat around the kitchen table eating the snacks, sandwiches, fresh veggies, and fruit that both parents had packed in the car for the trip. Trevor and Sophie set out the food, encouraged their children to eat apple slices even though they had gotten brown during the day, and wiped up accidental spills. The two smallest children were too tired to talk and Jonah kept checking his cell, as if anything there was preferable to the action around him.

“I’ve got to put my guy to bed,” Trevor said, looking at Leo, who was almost falling asleep on his plate.

“Let’s go up and organize our territories,” Sophie said.

The second floor was divided by a large hall around the stairs, with a window seat beneath long casement windows. Long wings on each side of the house held three bedrooms and a full bath.

“You could have the left half and we could take the right,” Trevor suggested. “Or vice versa.”

Sophie nodded. “Yeah, that would work. I mean, we’d have to make some rules about not walking around naked.”

“Mom,”
Jonah muttered.

Why had she said that? Sophie thought. Her mother would bark:
Get your mind out of the gutter.
“Except the kitchen,” Sophie continued, as they all trooped downstairs. “No way to divide that.”

“Do you like to cook?” Trevor asked.

Sophie chewed her lip. Did she want to make the meals for two extra people? It wouldn’t be so different from cooking for the family, back when she had a family with a husband in it, and she’d be happy to get that poor, thin little boy plumped up…

“I do like to cook,” she admitted cautiously.

“Then I have a suggestion. What if I went into town and got all the food—which is a pain, let me tell you, with all the congestion and people and not enough parking places and so on. And you cook, but I clean the kitchen.”

“You can clean a kitchen?” Sophie asked doubtfully. She didn’t think Zack knew where the dishwasher soap was.

“I can.” Trevor held up his arm and made a muscle. “I’m kind of fanatical about cleaning, to tell the truth. In the best possible way, of course. Aren’t I, dude?” He looked down at his son.

Leo gave a tiny nod.

“Are you vegetarian or vegan or lactose intolerant?” Sophie asked, wondering if she was making a big mistake.

“Nope. We’ll pretty much eat anything, although Leo eats only one thing for lunch. I’ll make his lunch.”

Sophie glanced at her kids. At home, they alternated nights cleaning the kitchen. They’d be thrilled with this arrangement.

“Let’s try it for a week,” Sophie suggested. “The whole living together, cooking, cleaning thing. Let’s try it for a week and then evaluate.”

“It’s a deal,” Trevor said, and held out his hand.

Sophie extended her hand to shake. Again, Trevor’s grip was warm and firm, not too hard, not too soft. Like
Goldilocks and the Three Bears,
she thought irrationally: just right.

Trevor hefted his son in his arms and carried him up to bed. Sophie herded her own two children upstairs, let Jonah choose his room, and agreed to allow Lacey to sleep with her in the big queen bed for this first night. They dragged up their luggage, did a minimal bit of unpacking, and then Sophie supervised Lacey brushing her teeth and nagged Jonah to do the same.