The Widow - Carla Neggers [42]
“I’m not hungry.”
“Yeah. I’ll bet. See you soon.”
Abigail was shivering by the time she climbed out of bed. She slept in the smallest of the three bedrooms. The largest had been Chris’s grandfather’s room, the second largest Chris’s room. She’d cleaned out all their belongings and painted the furniture, bought new rugs and lamps and picked out inexpensive artwork, but the rooms still had the feel of the Browning men. She let her renters use them.
Moving quickly, Abigail showered, the hot streams of water calling up sensations she didn’t want to think about, of Owen’s hands on her, his mouth—her reaction. They hadn’t gone beyond their kiss last night. A bit more than a kiss, really, she thought. But afterward they’d had wine. Talked. He’d walked with her back to her house, then left with just a good-night, as if he, too, knew that was enough. Their attraction to each other was out on the table. That was plenty to get used to at least for now. She’d never brought a man here. It’d never seemed right. Too many ghosts in Maine. Too many memories. Easier, she thought, just to keep that part of herself out of reach.
Owen was different. He’d known Chris forever, and she didn’t have to explain to him what had happened, how he’d died, how she’d felt in those awful days.
And in the years since, he’d never patronized her because of her situation. He’d experienced tragedy himself, and he’d seen countless others who’d had to find a way to carry on after the worst kind of loss—babies, young children, entire families, entire communities.
Abigail switched off the water and grabbed a towel, rubbed herself dry. Never mind the rest of it, she thought. She’d responded to Owen for purely physical reasons. He felt good. The taste of him, the heat of his skin.
He’s bored.
He was a man of action with nothing to do. She’d be out of her mind if she got too far ahead of herself with him.
She pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt and slipped on sports sandals, leaving her hair to dry on its own as she headed downstairs. She grabbed her gun and checked outside, but she saw no sign of spies or intruders, just cormorants diving for fish and brightly colored lobster buoys bobbing in the glistening water.
Satisfied, Abigail went back inside and put on coffee. While it brewed, she sat at her kitchen table and wrote down every word of her conversation with her anonymous caller.
“Your husband had secrets.”
She finished her transcript and returned to the back room, grabbing her sledgehammer and tackling another section of the wall while she waited for the local law enforcement officers to arrive.
Ellis couldn’t remember the last time he’d been to Jordan Pond House, a tourist trap, if a pleasant one, famous for its postcard-perfect location and its tea and popovers. Day-trippers to Acadia National Park would take in the Visitors Center, Cadillac Mountain—the tallest peak on the Atlantic seaboard and the only one in the park they could drive up—and Jordan Pond House. Some would venture out along the twenty-mile Park Loop Road and stop at Thunder Hole, a favorite with its dramatic rock cliffs and crashing waves. Ellis hadn’t done the loop road in years, either.
But everything was changing, he thought. Why not his habit of avoiding tourist hot spots?
Lunch at Jordan Pond House was his brother’s idea. He and Grace already had a table out on the terrace, the sun warm and bright on a perfect Mt. Desert Island summer afternoon. Ellis noticed that his niece had put on a crisp blouse and a touch of makeup. An improvement. She’d arrived on the island exhausted—and far more tense about her appointment and the background investigation it required than she wanted to admit. She was at a crossroads in her life. Big changes were ahead.
And she preferred to have everyone think she had nothing to hide. Open nervousness would imply she did have something. Ellis, who’d been around Washington a long time, had come to believe, and accept, that everyone had something to hide. The FBI wouldn’t