The Winter Road Read online

  As soon as she asked the question, something flashed between them. Awareness. She had forgotten about that sense of possibility. A pleasant, alert, tingly sort of feeling. It was a little rusty if it thought it should pop up now. There was no possibility with this unfriendly stranger.

  “I’m here alone,” he said.

  “Then she’s bound to be knocking at the door with salads and cookies and casseroles. She’ll pack your fridge with enough food for a month.”

  The idea didn’t seem to please him. This really was an uphill conversation. She wasn’t going to give up, though. “Why don’t you come for dinner at my place one evening soon?”

  Again, the stare. It wasn’t a complicated question. “Thanks, I’d love to,” he could say. Or “Sorry, I won’t have time.”

  He didn’t choose either of those easy options. With traces of that disquieting awareness hovering, he stood in the doorway, apparently evaluating the invitation. She could picture him at the table, slowly and silently chewing and swallowing with that same look in his eyes. And she could picture herself getting very annoyed if he did.

  “Daniel won’t want you to sit and look at the walls while you’re here. Now and then you’ll need to get out of this boiling hot house and have a proper home-cooked meal.”

  The watchfulness became mild interest. His head tilted to one side. “Do you think a home-cooked meal is beyond me?”

  Was he being curious or challenging? “Well, no…but there’s nothing like a home-cooked meal eaten in the shade of a big old maple tree.”

  “That sounds appealing.”

  The maple tree had clinched it. She should have known food wouldn’t be a draw. As far as she could see he didn’t have an ounce of body fat anywhere.

  “Good.” She thought of her mother, still recovering from the wedding crowd. How long should she wait? He was only here for a week—it wasn’t meant to be a farewell dinner. “Come tomorrow? Around six?”

  His expression was less stern now. Was he thawing? Was it because she was about to leave?

  She smiled, and hoped it didn’t look as wooden as it felt. One dinner, and her duty to Daniel would be done.

  SO THAT WAS Emily Robb. The problem of how to meet her was solved. He watched until she reached her car—an old Tempo, 1990, maybe—then he shut the door. It didn’t do anything to shut out her indignation.

  People reacted differently to a blank slate. Some rushed to please, some got angry, some scared. He’d been up all night and had reached the point of not fully trusting his impressions but it was clear her efforts to please weren’t for his benefit. Daniel’s, he supposed. Or maybe the community’s.

  He went up to the kitchen, ran the tap until the water was cold and filled a glass. From the window over the sink he could see the street. Her car was gone.

  Hard to know what to think about her. Flustered, emotional, a little on the schoolmarmish side. At least that was what she presented. And why not? That’s what she was. A small-town, high-school-educated teaching assistant. Flustered schoolmarms usually got his back up. Not this one. For some reason, he kind of liked her.

  It didn’t have to be a complication.

  He yawned and rubbed sandpapery eyes. His files were downloaded, passwords set up, contacts alerted. Time for coffee and a shower. Then he’d go exploring.

  BELLA AND Dora took the trouble to leave the shade of the lilac bushes as Emily’s car approached, and three figures on the veranda waved. Aunt Edith and Susannah had already arrived.

  As soon as Emily stepped onto the porch her grandmother handed her a cup of tea. “No luck with your mother?”

  “Sorry, Grandma. I guess she needs a little more time to herself. She’s fine, though. Reading recipes and ordering books, as usual.”

  “Just as if Susannah and Alex and Winston and Lucy weren’t visiting,” Edith said, smiling over her tea.

  Eleanor frowned. “Really, Edith.”

  “I’m not criticizing her. I’m only saying what she’s doing. That’s allowed, isn’t it?”

  Susannah said, “Aunt Julia and I had a good visit at the reception.” She looked content in a Muskoka chair, her long dark hair pulled back in its usual French braid, her feet up, and one hand resting on her very noticeable stomach. She and her husband Alex were expecting their first child in September.

  “You’ve grown over the past couple of days, Sue.”

  “Must be all the somersaults. He’s flinging himself every which way.” She had told Emily they were sure the baby was a boy. Something about heart-rate and needles swinging over pulse points and deep-down instinct. They weren’t acting like scientists at all.

  “If only Liz hadn’t left for her honeymoon yet,” Aunt Edith said to Eleanor. “Wouldn’t it be lovely to have the three girls here with us?”

  “We did, all week—”

  “Barely long enough to tease.” Edith helped herself to a cookie. “You won’t believe what happened yesterday, Emily. In broad daylight. Here, in Three Creeks.”

  This must be the news Martin had promised.

  It seemed Eleanor had already heard. “The first thing Jack did when he moved into the Ramsey place was install better locks. He advised me to do the same.” She looked at Edith pointedly. “And to use them.”

  “Someone broke into your house, Aunt Edith?”

  “Well, not exactly broke—”

  “The doors weren’t locked,” Susannah explained.

  “Someone went in without our permission, though. Corporal Reed says that’s still called break and enter.” Edith was becoming more animated with every word.

  “When we got back from the lake yesterday evening—oh, and it was a lovely day, Emily, you should have come—the door was open, the house was full of flies and bees, the cat—who knows perfectly well she’s not allowed in—was comfortable as can be on the sofa and refusing to budge, and everything in your uncle’s desk, all his bills and receipts and bank statements, were pulled out of place.”

  “Aunt Edith!”

  “Pulled out of place,” she repeated with satisfaction.

  “They didn’t take anything,” Susannah added. “Dad thought they must have been looking for credit card receipts or checks they could use.”

  “Such nasty people. They were long gone by the time we got home. A pity, with Will and Alex ready to take them on. They’ve gone to town to buy dead bolts.”

  Emily looked at her grandmother. “I thought we’d be able to move into the long, lazy part of summer now that the wedding’s over. When do you suppose that will happen?”

  Susannah stretched. “Right now. Every moment from now until the first contraction is going to be peaceful.”

  “And not a single moment afterward, my girl,” Edith said. “Never again.”

  A look of irritation crossed Susannah’s face. Emily decided it was a good time to jump in with her news. She rarely heard anything first, so she tried to draw it out.

  “A stranger has come to town.”

  Three curious faces turned her way.

  “A handsome stranger?” Susannah asked, in a Twenty Questions voice.

  “I suppose you could say handsome.”

  “We are talking about a handsome man?”

  “Definitely a man.” No need to think about that. In spite of his overall coldness, Matthew Rutherford had radiated more masculine energy than Emily had ever experienced from a single source. “Just standing in the doorway doing nothing he made Daniel’s house feel smaller.”

  Three sets of eyebrows twitched.

  “You know how men can be,” Emily said quickly. “So…” Her voice trailed off.

  “Yes, indeed,” Edith said.

  “But what was this handsome, virile stranger doing in Daniel’s house?” Susannah asked.

  Emily explained who he was, concluding that he had agreed to come to dinner the next day. Eleanor and Edith went back and forth listing Rutherfords and birth dates and agreed they didn’t know a Matthew.

  Susannah held ou
t her cup for more tea. “Tell me, Em, what was that inflection I heard in your voice just now?”

  “I heard it, too,” Aunt Edith said. “Is he anything like his uncle? I think I remember Daniel being a very attractive man when he was younger.”

  “He still is,” Eleanor protested.

  “You can stop matchmaking, all of you. This nephew is only here for a week. Anyway, he hardly spoke to me. He seems used to being in charge, not answering to anyone. He sort of guards information.” That was exactly what he did. As if it was his own personal treasure. “I couldn’t even find out where Daniel went, or why. Whenever I asked him a direct question he ignored me!”

  “I’ll ask him. He can’t ignore a woman who’s about to give birth.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.”

  “Then I’ll ask him,” Eleanor said. “He can’t ignore an octogenarian. Can he?”

  “Wait until you meet him, Grandma. Then you’ll see.”

  Edith passed around the cookie plate. “He doesn’t sound like a very nice man. Of course, the Rutherfords were always like that. Standoffish.”

  “It’s more that they’re slow to warm to a person,” Eleanor said. “They’re good in a pinch, though.”

  That was a perfect description of Daniel. Emily wasn’t sure it applied to the nephew, not with that analytical look in his eye. By the time he’d finished evaluating the pros and cons of getting involved the pinch would be over.

  The conversation turned to the problem of feeding a rather large man when temperatures were so high. Now that she had promised a proper home-cooked meal, Emily would have to provide something more impressive than the sandwiches she and her mother usually ate on hot summer evenings. When she left her grandmother’s, she had a jar of pickled mixed vegetables in one hand, a bag of frozen potato scones in the other and a promise of a green bean salad from her aunt.

  “And do lock your door whenever you leave the house,” Aunt Edith said. “With people driving so fast these days we’re not as far from the city as we used to be. Who knows how many troublemakers are around?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  EMILY HAD ALWAYS LOCKED the door at night, so talk of troublemakers and break-ins didn’t disturb her sleep. The thought of Matthew Rutherford did, though. It was the suit, she decided, while getting dressed the next morning. Who wore a suit to drive all the way from Ontario?

  It was the attitude that went with the suit, too. Leaving her standing on the step while he looked her up and down appraisingly—as if she was the stranger! If she’d thought of it earlier she would have invited her whole family for dinner. Let him appraise them. See how he liked being appraised right back by a room full of Robb men.

  She took an empty ice cream pail from the pantry and went outside to pick berries for dessert. She had just the thing in mind, something she’d seen once in a magazine—five or six layers of meringue with whipped cream in between and fresh fruit on top. Simple, but special.

  Hamish and the cat followed her along the driveway. The dog stopped once, head raised, looking into the woods across the road. A few years ago he would have bounded after whatever he sensed there, but now he turned and continued down the path to the garden. As soon as they reached soil he stretched out, flattening himself against the cool dirt.

  The cat stayed close to Emily. When she stood still to pick a few berries it sat down, and when she moved more than a few steps it jumped up and trotted after her.

  “You do know you’re not behaving like a cat,” she told it. “Cats don’t follow people. Cats play hard to get. Maybe we should call you Rover.”

  It stared, nose twitching.

  “You don’t like Rover? I don’t blame you. It’s not respectful. I apologize.”

  Its gaze intensified.

  “All right, then, if you want to talk, tell me what you think about this nephew Daniel never mentioned. Am I being harsh? He’s male and from the city, after all. How chummy can I expect him to be?”

  The cat rubbed against her. She scratched behind its ear and it immediately threw itself on the ground, offering its belly for her attention, purring as soon as she touched it. When she got back to work it gave a protesting meow.

  “Sorry. One day soon you can come on the porch with me. I’ll read and scratch your tummy.”

  She hadn’t been out to pick for days, except for snacking, and most of the berries hovered between perfectly ripe and overripe. When she cupped a hand under them whole clumps of dark red fruit dropped in.

  Instead of concentrating on avoiding spiders and worms, her mind kept going back to Matthew Rutherford. In particular, back to the suggestion of hard muscles under a crisp white shirt. How could she be preoccupied by something so superficial? There was nothing attractive about a man who wasn’t kind.

  Maybe it didn’t have much to do with attraction. It could be the challenge of defrosting that cold face of his. Once or twice yesterday it had shown a hint of warming. Did he ever laugh? She’d like to see that. And manners. Manners would be nice.

  She looked down at the cat, rubbing against her legs again. “I’m asking too much, aren’t I? A pretty tablecloth won’t make him behave.”

  EMILY SQUEEZED PAST her pacing mother and began washing berries. “Something wrong, Mom?”

  Julia gathered speed. After a few trips from the sink to the window and back, she said, “There’s another early book.”

  “How early?”

  “From Egypt.”

  She must mean from the time of the Pharaohs. An unexpected picture of Cleopatra curled up reading came to Emily’s mind.

  “Sinuhe, it’s called. The originals are on papyrus. Fragments of papyrus.”

  “It’ll be hard to get your hands on any of those.”

  Her mother didn’t smile. “Only museums can have the originals. Old papyrus needs special conditions or it will crumble. It’ll crumble, anyway.” Doubtfully, she repeated, “Sinuhe. I don’t even know how to pronounce it.”

  “We’ll have to go to the library so you can look it up.”

  “When?”

  Emily wasn’t sure. She had promised to help with her grandmother’s garden and housework while Liz was away. “Soon. Tomorrow, maybe, or the next day?”

  “Tomorrow.” Julia gave a determined nod. She’d never learned to drive. It didn’t usually bother her because she rarely wanted to go anywhere. She picked up her new book catalog and left the room. Something heavy, no doubt the Encyclopedia of Ancient and Medieval History, thudded onto the coffee table.

  The rest of the day went too quickly. Emily finished washing berries, fried chicken to serve cold, picked up beer in case the nephew liked it, defrosted a quiche she’d made during cooler weather, piped rounds of meringue onto cookie sheets, whipped the cream and prepared salads.

  With an hour to go before dinner she dragged the picnic table into the shade of the maples, as promised, angling it so no matter where the nephew sat he would be able to see the perennial garden, where sweet-smelling daylilies and clumps of bright yellow heliopsis were coming into their prime.

  It was an ordinary, weathered picnic table, more than weathered, really—in a few years it would be sinking into the ground, its very own compost pile—but with a bit of care it looked beautiful. Her mother’s Irish linen cloth on top, a bowl of deep pink roses from the Henry Kelsey climber in the middle, sparkling glass and silverware, and the Wedgwood china her father had given her mother as a birthday present the year before he died. There was something about linen and bone china outdoors, with grass underfoot and branches overhead. No one, regardless of his personal deficiencies, could look at this table with anything but approval.

  Hamish got up and gave himself a shake just before Emily heard tires in the driveway. The nephew was early, or she was late. She smoothed her hair and pulled at her dress, fanning it against her skin, then went to greet her guest.

  He stood beside his car with his back to her, looking at the house. Today he had dressed more casually, but city casual,
in lightweight khakis and a shirt that looked so soft she wondered if it was made of silk. She wished she’d had time to shower.

  “Matthew. You found us.”

  He turned, and in that moment her mental image of him, tended overnight, dissolved. The coldness that had surprised her yesterday, and that awful evaluating expression, were gone. He’d shaved, and he looked rested. Approachable.

  Her body started humming about possibility again. She told it to give up. He was here for one week—less than that now—he had shown no interest in her, and he had been pleasant for all of thirty seconds since they met.

  “Mrs. Bowen told me it was the house with all the trees around it,” he said. “Luckily, she added it was the third house with all the trees around it.”

  “My aunt and uncle and my grandmother are the ones before us. You see why they call it Robbs’ Road.”

  “Your very own road. The Robbs must be big fish.”

  “Little fish, but there’s a big school of us.”

  He held out a plastic-wrapped rectangle. “This was in my uncle’s freezer. Can you make use of it?”

  It was a pumpkin loaf, like the ones Jack pressed on her when his crop outstripped consumer demand. Since his first harvest everyone he knew had received more loaves, pies and muffins than their appreciation for pumpkin could accommodate. “Lovely. We’ll have it with tea after dinner.”

  Hamish hadn’t barked when Matthew arrived, but he kept skulking with his low-to-the-ground herding posture, circling from Emily to the newcomer and back.

  “It’s all right, Hamish. Matthew is invited.”

  “Is he a good watchdog?”

  “He doesn’t get much testing. If he likes people he lets them do whatever they want.” She gave the dog a reassuring pat. “He growls at the cat all the time. I hope he can do it with people. My aunt and uncle’s house was broken into the other day.”

  Matthew’s voice changed. “Anything taken?”