The Guest House (4 page)

Lexi stared at the grass. “They should have told me,” she said numbly. “I should have been told.”

“Why? What difference does it make now?”

All the difference in the world. Don’t you understand?

Heather came out of the house then, carrying a glass of wine. “How much longer on the steaks?”

Lexi rose, her legs shaky. “I should go.”

“Lex, wait.” Owen moved toward her. “Don’t go yet. We should keep talking about this.”

But there was nothing more to talk about, Lexi decided as she walked back to the truck and climbed in, feeling the knot inside her stomach cinch. It was terrible news. The very worst. For she’d done something awful, something she couldn’t undo. Something she wasn’t sure she wanted to even if she could, and this truth of her mother’s unfortunate romance had simply come too late.

Lexi had already fallen hopelessly and irreversibly in love with Hudson Moss.

M
orning rolled across the harbor, slow as sap behind a heavy fog, the mist still so thick when light finally dawned that it was nearly impossible to see the water from the shore. Lexi took the long way through town. She loved the early hours, when the sidewalks weren’t yet crowded and the storefronts were still shuttered, the farmers’ market vendors just setting up. No matter how many times Lexi passed the rows of squat, dormered capes that flanked the village, she never tired of their rambling charm, the climbing roses that spilled down trellises like overfrosted cakes, the wreaths of dried wisteria vines that hung from doors and gateposts.

It was easy to see what drew people to her hometown summer after summer. Lexi was no more immune to the beauty of the Cape than anyone who’d just arrived to it for the first time.

Even with the added travel, Lexi reached the entrance to Birch Drive at ten to eight, impossibly punctual, as she’d been her whole life. Melancholy trickled into her thoughts as she steered down the road. Had she somehow expected the landscape to appear changed since the last time she’d driven through it? How could it? Trees that had been there a hundred times longer than she had didn’t look any different rising up on either side of the washboard dirt, their canopy of leafy branches providing the same dappled shade it had provided for decades of summer mornings. It was only when she passed the gatehouse and noted the evidence of decay that had faded its weathered shingles that Lexi saw the passage of time that had lapsed between this visit and her last, and with the proof came the memories. She’d collected mail with Hudson there, left notes for him there, even sought shelter there in a downpour while he’d changed a flat on his father’s sports car.

But it wasn’t until she’d turned down the last stretch of dirt and the driveway began to widen that Lexi found herself truly pulled back in time. It was the smell, she decided as she parked and climbed out of her car. A fruity sweetness to the air that she always swore she could never detect anywhere else on the Cape, a magical blend of tide and the gardenia blossoms that Florence Moss had insisted on carting up from North Carolina and planting summer after summer, even though the poor things rarely survived the coastal winters. Lexi scanned the side of the house and saw a pair of bushes in bloom, their flowers a flawless white against the dingy grayed shingles, and she smiled. How ironic, she thought. It seemed Florence’s flowers had finally taken to the property, ultimately far more so than Florence.

Her gaze rose to the house, lifting slowly as if she weren’t sure she wanted to take it in all at once. Not that it was even possible to see it all in one view; that was how massive it was. Still, her eyes managed to capture enough that she felt an unexpected charge of disappointment as she scanned the enormous gables, the curving eyebrow dormers, the chimneys that rose up like two stone skyscrapers, then down to the porch that stretched nearly the full length of the house, as wide and danceable as a ballroom. It saddened her, more so than she would have imagined, to find the cottage so weathered-looking. But it was more than the drooping facade, the parched cedar shingles, the deep green trim that was peeling and faded, the untended lawn. In all the years she’d visited this spot of earth, she’d never known it to be so quiet. It seemed unnatural, as if some law of the universe would require motion on the property at all times: an idling car, a burst of music, the cacophony of screen doors thrown open in unison, the thump of bare feet rushing out, dragging towels and scraping the steps with the metal ends of beach umbrellas.

And voices! Cries of victory or defeat over a badminton game. Then, when the sun slid down a satin sky and the lawn burned pink and violet, the tangle of party tones blended with the chorus of a string quartet. Bow ties and champagne toasts. Slipped shoulder straps. Heels abandoned in a patch of sea grass. Magic. From her very first visit, despite her every intention to resist its seduction, Lexi had been spellbound. Just like those gardenias, night or day, life had seemed forever in bloom here. Until, of course, the moment it wilted.

“Alexandra?”

She turned and saw Cooper Moss coming toward her in jeans and a white-collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. She had wondered whether she’d recognize him, whether her memory of him had held up. It had. His hair, though still cut close to his scalp, had darkened from sun-bleached blond to sueded brown. His limbs, still long and lean, moved with the grace and confidence of age.

He extended his hand and she took it, finding his grip warm and tight. “It’s good to see you,” he said. “I really appreciate your coming down on such short notice.”

“Of course,” Lexi said. “I’m just glad it’s finally getting on the registry.”

“Me too. I couldn’t believe it when I heard my father never made that happen. It’s sad, really,” Cooper said, squinting up at the cottage. “All those years everyone took such good care of her. Registering her now, when she looks as limp as an old boutonniere, seems almost cruel.” He swept his gaze back to Lexi and smiled. “The lady at the town office told me you’ve just come back from grad school—London, was it?”

“Yes, the Royal Academy. And someone told me you’re a writer.”

Someone
. Lexi felt foolish saying it that way. Like she’d heard it on the playground.

“I am.” He grinned, deep dimples sinking into his cheeks. “All those years of coming to the dinner table with my face buried in a book and driving my mother nuts finally paid off.”

Lexi smiled, searching his gaze for evidence of what he remembered from the last time they’d seen each other, but he gave no clues to any discomfort or regret, just a warm and steady interest. She chastised herself for thinking he’d given their kiss a second thought. All the kisses that had surely decorated his memory in the years since that night. Who was she kidding to imagine theirs had stood the test of time?

Relief settled over her, burying a flicker of disappointment she chose to ignore.

Cooper gestured to the house. “Why don’t we get started?”

•   •   •

O
f all the times Lexi had entered the cottage, she could count on one hand the times she
hadn’t
come through the kitchen. At first she’d been so sure her direction to the service door was to minimize her presence on the property; then in time she’d come to think it was more because Hudson was always ravenous, but eventually Lexi came to see that the real reason was Florence. Hudson and Cooper’s rigid mother was notorious for her decree that all guests under the age of twenty-four—who, in her opinion, had a preternatural inclination for slamming doors—use the service entrance exclusively.

“After you.” At the door, Cooper stepped back to let her enter first. All at once, the familiar smell of old wood baking in a relentless summer sun filled her lungs. She took in the space, the empty stretches of stainless steel, the wall of tall cabinets, the breakfast booth built into the window. Sunlight trickled in. If memory served her, by eleven the linoleum would be burnished gold, and nearly as hot underfoot as beach sand.

“I wish I had something to offer you,” Cooper said as they walked by the counter. “I got in too late to go to the store. I don’t even have any coffee.”

“That’s fine; I’ve had plenty.” Lexi followed him past the nook of the butler’s pantry, the dry, musty scent of old shelf paper tickling her throat, reminding her of stolen moments with Hudson there. His lust had been reckless and immediate, as unpredictable as heat lightning. She never knew when he’d pull her behind a door, or press her against a wall or a shaggy-barked tree. It had excited her beyond words.

Stepping now through the doorway and into the great room at last, Lexi took in a sharp breath. She had wondered whether the enormous space might lose some of its majesty without any furnishings, without its plush Oriental carpets, its fat leather couches, its standing lamps. It hadn’t. Her eyes lifted to the vaulted ceiling, resting a while at the peak where the massive beams intersected before her gaze drifted to the room’s huge stone fireplace. Behind them, a stretch of windows with stained-glass bays in their upper sashes offered an impressive view of the lawn and the water beyond it.

“How soon are you putting it on the market?” Lexi asked.

“That depends,” said Cooper. “I’m hoping we can take our time. I’d like one more summer here.”

Lexi glanced around the empty room. “You’re
staying
here?”

He smiled. “It’s not as grim as it sounds. Everything still works. And a few of the guest bedrooms have mattresses. And just between you and me,” he confessed as he walked over to the fireplace, “I’m overdue to deliver a manuscript to my editor. I thought this might be the perfect place to hunker down and just get it done.” He ran his palm over the edge of the mantel, a flawless piece of oak that had been wedged into the stones.

Lexi joined him at the other end of the fireplace, her hands lured to the mantel as his had been. Was Hudson as determined as their mother to see it sold? Lexi couldn’t help wondering whether he was, not to mention why Cooper still hadn’t mentioned his older brother. She hoped his silence on the subject meant Hudson had no part in this plan and, more important, no intention of visiting.

“Just so you know, I charge by the hour,” she said. “It’s a big house. I would probably need a week to photograph it properly.”

“Of course. Whatever it takes. I don’t lock it up. You can come and go as you please.”

She nodded, wondering for a moment how it would feel to enjoy unlimited access in a place she’d once seen as a fortress. “I brought my laptop so you could see some of my work,” she said.

“That’s not necessary. You came highly recommended. Besides . . . I’ve seen your work before.” Cooper lifted his eyes to hers, a deep brown, pooling with warmth. “Hud used to hang your photographs in his room at college.”

Lexi smiled, unexpectedly pleased at the information. She’d only ever visited Hudson a handful of times at Duke, and always hoped to find evidence of herself in his college world, a universe she feared she was exempt from.

“Hudson was the reason I took up photography in the first place,” she admitted. “He gave me my very first real camera.”

Cooper smiled. “I know. I remember.”

Lexi reached for her earring, twisting the silver teardrop between her fingers.

They smiled at each other, the past crackling briefly between them, until a thick burst of salt-scented air came through the screens and carried it away.

I
t had been a photograph that caused her path to cross with Hudson’s in the first place. She’d been waiting for Kim to find a reference book in the library and was killing time by wandering through a photography exhibit one of the local artists had donated for the summer. It was a series of black-and-white portraits, the subjects all ages, the settings always sparse. In the two months it had been up, Lexi had viewed it over a dozen times, hoping to glean clues to how the photographer had worked his magic with lighting and composition. She was studying one of her favorites, a portrait of an old woman on a porch swing, when Hudson had approached her; she’d been so entranced that she hadn’t even realized he was there until he’d said, “Are any of these yours?”

She’d been so startled, first by the sound of his voice, then by the suggestion that she might have actually taken one of these brilliant works of art, that she’d needed a long moment before she could answer. “No,” she said at last. “I wish, but
no
.”

“I bet you could have taken any one of these,” he said, his drawl more noticeable to her as he gestured to the rows on either side of them.

Lexi shook her head, turning her gaze back to the portrait.

“It’s not as easy as it looks,” she said, pointing to the woman’s jawline. “I bet the photographer spent hours getting the light on this side of her face to look that beautiful.”

“It’s beautiful, all right.”

She’d turned to find he was staring at her, not the picture. A surge of heat rushed down her limbs.

She had recognized him immediately. Every girl in Harrisport knew about Hudson Moss, knew how handsome he was, how charming. High season always brought lots of attractive guys from away. “Boys of summer,” she and Kim had called them. Just like the Don Henley song that still lived in Dock’s jukebox. They were fun to look at and fantasize about, but Lexi knew better than to think she might have a chance with one—her brother, Owen, had made sure of that.

“Is this what you want to do?” Hudson asked her. “Take pictures like these?”

“I’d love to,” she admitted. “But you need a real camera and lots of equipment.”

“Like what?”

“Special lenses, light meters.”

She waited for him to suggest she get herself some, to assume that she had the means that he did to make her dreams happen, but he didn’t. He just smiled and said, “I bet you’d be real good at it if you ever did.”

She laughed. “How would you know?”

He shrugged. “I don’t,” he said. “It just seems like someone who loves something would be good at it.”

“Why? Are you good at the things you love?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I’m still waiting to find out, I guess.” He pulled his hand out of his pocket and held it out to her. “I’m Hudson.”

“Lexi,” she said, meeting his eyes as she slid her fingers into his.

“It’s real nice to meet you, Lexi.”

As she’d walked the length of the corridor with Hudson Moss for the next few minutes, slowing with him at each photograph, Lexi had assured herself that there was no harm in polite conversation, in a brief and simple exchange. Where could it go?

But even as she walked home, his parting request to take her out sometime tucked in her memory like an unwrapped gift, Lexi knew there was nothing simple or brief about what had transpired between her and Hudson Moss in that library hallway. Passing the Salty Shelf Bookstore, she glanced over and saw her reflection floating like a cloud in front of the display of beach reads, the flush of desire and hope already fixed on her cheeks like a sunburn.