Elsa returned their smiles. By her count, today marked only the fourth day they’d all been at Elmhurst together. She still didn’t know them well, yet, but she’d like the chance to change that.
As she peered through the window at the back seat, Barney jumped through the side door and stretched out on it, ears perked up, as if asking who would sit with him. She chuckled. “Are you asking me to ride in the back of your truck with that hairy, bright-eyed thief? For twenty-four miles?” She was only half teasing. “Actually, I may warm up to him yet. But I admit to being prone to motion sickness.”
In answer, Tom climbed in and sat next to the dog, then patted the empty seat in front of him. “All yours, Elsa. Let’s shake a leg, huh?”
She looked from him and Barney to Luke and was strangely touched by this threesome who had been through so much together and now made room for her. She could likely handle travel by train and taxi back to the Beresford even after wearing herself out today, but these men offered more than a simple mode of transit.
“I’d be foolish to refuse time spent in pleasant company,” she said. “I accept. Thank you.”
“Who said anything about it being pleasant?” Tom joked.
But it absolutely was. The ride home was peppered with talk of work at Elmhurst, then ventured to stories of Barney’s pastadventures at other estates. She loved seeing the unlikely camaraderie between these two men.
“I never asked how inconvenient it will be for you to bring me to the Beresford,” Elsa said. “Do either of you live anywhere near the Upper West Side?”
“We liveinthe Upper West Side,” Luke said, “which means we’re practically neighbors.”
Tom named a corner only a handful of blocks from the Beresford.
“That area is full of brownstones from the last century, isn’t it? What a beautiful area.” Elsa remembered the treelined streets and uniform sandstone rowhouses.
“Some parts are more beautiful than others these days,” Luke admitted. “In fact, the place we live in now had fallen into disrepair long before it went into foreclosure. Soon after I returned from war, my father heard about it from one of his real estate contacts and sent me out there to salvage for his warehouse.”
“The real estate agent didn’t mind you tearing out the best pieces?” Elsa asked. “Wouldn’t that make it harder to sell?”
Luke shook his head. “Believe me, no one was going to buy this place.”
“No one but Luke,” Tom said on a laugh.
A smile curled on Luke’s face. “Bought it for a song. My father wasn’t too happy when I told him, either. He’d been planning to get some original mantels, banisters, and paneled doors. He could have made a lot of money on those if I had ripped them out of the house as I’d been tasked to do. But I couldn’t stand the idea of gutting the old dame even further. She’d been ill-used for years, and I knew I could fix her up, give her back her dignity.”
Tom leaned forward from the back seat. “And?”
Luke cast him a sidelong glance over his shoulder. “And Ialso couldn’t stand the idea of living with my parents again in their Gramercy Park home. I had been on my own for years and couldn’t go back.”
Elsa could understand that. Living in one’s childhood home as an adult—especially after experiencing independence for years—would be a huge adjustment.
She angled in her seat to look at Tom. “You live near Luke?”
“Very.” He grinned. “We’re housemates. He’d already moved in by the time I got back from Europe, and he offered me a place. I couldn’t pay much for rent, but he said that was no problem as long as I pitched in to help him fix the place up. I didn’t know it at the time, but it turned out to be training for the kind of work I do for his father’s company now. Sure kept me busy and worn out.”
Luke squinted through the windscreen at the lowering sun. “All part of the plan.”
His tone was light, but Elsa believed there had been purpose in that plan, indeed. Not only had Luke given the young veteran a place to land, but he’d given him work. All-consuming, virtually never-ending work that yielded tangible results, job training, a shared goal, and a way to stop the tremors, which she’d noticed he suffered from only when his hands were idle.
“Come to think of it, hestillkeeps me busy and worn out.” With a crooked smile, Tom lit a cigarette.
The smell sent Elsa’s stomach churning. “Oh, I’m sorry, Tom, but would you mind not smoking until after you drop me off? The smoke will make me carsick for sure.”
He promptly put it out. “No problem.”
Luke raised an eyebrow at her. “He doesn’t obey me half so well.”
“You don’t ask nearly so nice!” Tom piped up from the backseat. Barney snored beside him.
Ignoring the jibe, Luke said, “Say, you should ride along more often. How’s tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow I work at the museum. But Wednesday?”
