She swatted his arm. “And you have to promise you won’t sneak a peek while I’m asleep.”
He held up two fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
Grabbing his hand, Annie led him to the bed. “Besides,” she added, “it needs a few alterations.”
“So do I,” he replied. “My heart is beating very fast, and I think it needs some attention.”
They fell onto the bed, laughing, and Rex Winsted fled from Annie’s mind as quickly as the squirrels he’d once purportedly chased.
* * *
The only reason Annie ever ate green beans was because she’d been told they were good for her. On Thanksgiving, her mother had always re-created a recipe she’d found in a popular women’s magazine. It was a sad casserole, whose only touch of flavor came from a can of cream of mushroom soup and a few fried onion rings, also canned. (Years later, when Annie first tried fried onion rings in a Boston pub, she’d been startled that they weren’t tiny and limp and laced with aluminum essence.) She was fairly sure that her mother had never heard of a tomato-almond pesto dressing for the legumes. But on this Vineyard Thanksgiving morning—with the turkeys in the ovens, the root veggies ready for slicing and dicing, and the pies lined up in the chef’s room, where Francine was busily shaping fresh dinner rolls—Annie watched Rex prepare a mysterious dish of lightly roasted green beans, and she was enticed by the aromas.
“My mother was aMayflowerdescendant,” she told him. “But her old Yankee recipes looked nothing like this.” She was trying to rise above their tenuous encounter the previous evening, hoping there might be a way they could connect, which might please her brother. She hadn’t yet talked to Kevin about his unexpected houseguest, but family was family, and, like it or not, he was Kevin’s brother-in-law. Knowing Kevin, he’d make it work.
Rex emitted a coarse half laugh as he steadily sautéed the beans on the Inn’s ten-burner gas stove. “I don’t suppose the Pilgrims arrived with sacks of garlic, paprika, and olive oil,” he remarked. “More likely they boiled them to death over an open fire or ate them raw from the garden—once they had gardens.”
Glancing around the Inn’s kitchen, Annie wondered how it measured up to whatever a top-notch chef like Rex Winsted—and it was starting to appear as if he, indeed, was one—was accustomed to. Designed with help from things Francine had been learning in culinary classes, the room was a modern blend of white marble and stainless steel, accented by the bank of windows that provided a spectacular view of Edgartown Harbor and the town on the opposite side. The kitchen had been intended to enable efficient preparation for breakfast making and baking while establishing the Inn’s positive brand with clean lines and professionalism in a comfortable setting that showcased the ambiance of the island.
“And my ancestors sure didn’t have a kitchen like this one,” Annie said. “Though it must pale in comparison with the one in your restaurant. Or other places you’ve worked.” She was fishing for information about him, as he might have guessed. But it was hard to believe that such a lumberjack of a man would create such delicate food. Of course, people often told her that she didn’t look like a mystery writer, as if they expected her to have shifty eyes, a trench coat, and a .22-caliber pistol in her handbag. She knew that whatever “look” she had came straight from her birth mother: tall and lean, with hazel eyes and Scottish black hair that Annie wore cropped just below her ears and refused to dye despite the silver strands that were increasing in number since she’d turned fifty.
Because Rex continued to prepare the pesto and had not replied, she asked him outright if he’d attended culinary school.
He responded with a roar. “Not unless you’d call Cedar Hollow Road a culinary school.”
It took Annie a moment to remember that Cedar Hollow Road was the name of the street where the family home was, where Taylor and Rex had been raised, and where Taylor and Kevin now lived. With Rex.
“Your mother taught you?”
“No. But when I brought home berries and mushrooms and whatever herbs I could find, she showed me what was good and what might be poisonous, and I went from there. Never poisoned anyone. Not that I know of.” His voice was as gruff as it had been the night before; Annie wondered if it was not an attempt to intimidate but was simply the post-puberty tone he’d wound up with.
She supposed he might be an interesting, if not very sociable, man, but not quite as scary as she’d first presumed. He was indeed large—well over six feet and extremely broad—and if he’d ever had Taylor’s auburn hair, it was no longer visible, thanks to the bald head he presumably shaved. It also seemed that his bulk was due not to fat but to muscle, as if he were a bodybuilder. But though that day Rex was acting friendly enough, Annie would not want to encounter him at night on one of Chappy’s remote roads. Then she remembered she’d once thought the same thing about Taylor.
Just then, their tenant Rose Atkins padded silently into the kitchen, holding a bone china cup, as if in search of tea. Dressed in a long, plain wool skirt and what looked like a hand-crocheted cardigan sweater, she smiled at Annie, then turned her head toward the stove. But when she spotted Rex, she stopped. She blinked. Once. Twice. The teacup rattled in its saucer. She took a step back; perhaps the man’s size had frightened her. She was, after all, fragile, “a mere slip of a woman,” as Earl had noted when she’d first moved in.
Rex glanced at her for a second, nodded once, then resumed his task.
Rose twittered, spun around, and dashed from the room.
Annie looked at Rex. Did he know Rose—or did she know him? But he was engaged with the green beans again, as if the woman’s presence had been inconsequential.
“Excuse me,” Annie said. “I need to check on the table settings.” Grabbing a selection of tea bags from the cabinet, she tossed them into a small basket. Rose had once said that she had a passion for tea that must have come from her British ancestors. Since she’d become a tenant, it was the most she’d revealed about her life, past or present.
Until now. When something had definitely prompted the mere slip of a woman to flee.
* * *
Six guest rooms with private baths and a small suite perpetually reserved for Francine and Bella—or anyone who might need emergency shelter when they weren’t there—graced the second floor of the Inn. As Annie climbed the sweeping staircase in the two-story foyer, she tried to determine a reason for Rose’s reaction. It was clear that Rex’s presence had startled her. But Rose looked a lot older than he was, so it wasn’t as if they’d been in school together—if Rose had ever lived on the Vineyard, which Annie had no reason to believe she had. She didn’t even know if the woman had ever visited the island until now. Still, something about Rex had scared her.
When Annie reached room 2, she knocked.
“Rose? It’s Annie.” No sounds of the television or radio came from within, not even the click-click of a keyboard.
Clearing her throat, Annie spoke louder. “I’ve brought tea.” The guest rooms did not have kitchenettes, but every morning Rose typically filled a thermos of boiling water in the kitchen and brought it to her room so that she’d always be prepared for a “cuppa.”
The door opened slowly, exposing small brown eyes that were rimmed red. “Yes?”
“Are you all right?” Annie asked. “Would you like to talk?”
