Contracts law was not her specialty, but her memory of the few courses she had taken made her fairly certain that she could force Kirkland to stop work. She was just annoyed that she would have to spend precious studying time getting rid of this intractable man and his crew of industrious noisemakers.
Carol sighed and took a sip of her drink. She had decided to spend the summer in Strathmere, a small New Jersey shore town, because it was quiet and out of the way, the perfect place to study. She had finished law school in May. Her father had seen her graduate and then died two weeks later, leaving her this house, where she had spent her childhood summers. Carol hadn’t been back to the cottage in Strathmere since she was ten, when her mother had died. There had been too many memories in the house for either remaining Lansing to enjoy staying there, so her father had rented it out during the succeeding years. Carol had no idea why he had decided to renovate it; he had been dating someone during the last year of his life and maybe he had wanted to bring Gloria to the house. Carol herself had only decided to come to Strathmere after his death, when she had remembered the town’s isolation and knew the house would be empty. She had felt that fifteen years was enough time to make the absence of her mother from the house less keenly felt, and she was right. Now only the good memories remained, and she had been looking forward to a quiet summer.
Strathmere was located between Ocean City and Avalon on a barrier island off New Jersey’s coast. Between the island towns and the peninsula, which ended in Cape May, flowed the Intracoastal Waterway on the west and the Atlantic Ocean on the east. With its elderly clapboard houses, single main street, and dusty, unpaved alleys housing fishermen and boat mechanics, Strathmere was not a tourist attraction. It had no boardwalk or amusements like Sea Isle City or Avalon or Wildwood farther to the south. It was isolated, accessible by only one bridge and clinging to the northernmost tip of the strip island. It had one decidedly noncontinental restaurant/bar and a handful of permanent residents whose families had been living in the little town for generations. The abandoned schoolhouse just a few doors away from Carol’s cottage was two hundred years old, built by laborers with their own hands; the streets leading away from the main drag to the water were little more than pebble-strewn footpaths, just wide enough to accommodate cars. Since its location discouraged “summer people,” its population was low all year ‘round, and it was the perfect place for Carol to hole up with her books and block out the rest of the world until the ordeal of the bar exam was behind her.
And now here she was in the midst of this sudden and infernal din, saddled with a raucous construction crew that refused to depart. That man Kirkland was certainly rude. She intended to make short work of him and his deafening little band.
The telephone rang. Carol went into the kitchen to answer it, avoiding the bedroom extension because of the noise right above that room.
“Hi, John,” she said in response to the greeting from her father’s lawyer, John Spencer.
“What seems to be the problem?” John asked.
“I described the problem on your voice mail,” Carol replied crisply. “I have this construction crew at my house and I want to get rid of them. Whatever they’re doing, I don’t want them to do it, and the boss refuses to call them off and leave.”
“Which company is it?” John asked. Carol heard the rustle of papers in the background as he took notes.
“Kirkland Construction.”
“Tay Kirkland?” John asked in surprise.
“Yes. That’s who he said he was, anyway.”
“He’s usually pretty reasonable.”
Carol made a disgusted sound. “Not on this occasion, I’m afraid.”
“Well, look. I don’t know what’s going on, your father never said anything to me about renovating the cottage, and if he signed a contract, he did so without my knowledge. I’ll give Kirkland a call and see if I can resolve the situation.”
“He’s up on my roof, if you want to talk to him,” Carol said dryly. “Do you want me to get him?”
“He’s usually in his office after he lets his crew go at three,” John said. “I’ll talk to him then. If you want to stop by my place around five, I should have something for you.”
“Fine,” Carol said shortly. “I’ll see you at five.”
She hung up the phone and went to the kitchen window, gazing out at the driveway where Tay Kirkland was now standing at the mouth of his pickup truck, directing the action. The sun glinted off his blond hair and ignited the gold in his watch as he raised his arm to gesture to one of his men. Carol studied the scene for a few moments, then went back to her bedroom. She went though the clothes she had brought with her, choosing a blue sundress with a bolero jacket and a pair of sandals that would not put pressure on her injured toe.
She would curl up in here to study and try her best to block out the noise. It was only for one day. After that the problem would be solved.
The construction crew departed precisely at three, and Carol enjoyed an hour and a half of blissful silence before she got into her father’s car to make the trip to Avalon. The weather was pleasant, with a sea breeze all the way, and she left the windows open for the salt air. Her good spirits had been restored by the time she reached John Spencer’s office, which was housed in a converted Victorian summer home about two blocks from the beach. But her upbeat mood dispelled rapidly when she saw who was sitting inside the lawyer’s suite, waiting for her.
“Tay came right over when I called him about your situation,” John said to Carol, almost apologetically, correctly reading the expression on her face when she spotted his companion. “He brought the contract with him.”
Kirkland rose to his feet as she entered the room and then sat again when she did.
The secretary, who was leaving for the day, pulled the office door shut behind them and then Carol heard the thud of the outer door closing, as well. She looked from one to the other of the two men slowly.
The silence echoed.
Taylor Kirkland was now wearing a dark blue, pinstriped suit of tropical wool, with a light blue shirt and a navy-and-white-figured tie. He sat with a manila folder in one tanned hand, the other resting lightly on the arm of his chair. Carol noticed that the blond hairs on his fingers were bleached almost white, and that his nails had recently been scrubbed scrupulously clean. The color of his shirt made his eyes look even more vivid than before, and his wavy hair had recently been wet combed into submission. It was now drying and curling around his ears and onto his forehead, lightening to a color millions of women regularly tried, and failed, to achieve in beauty salons.
Carol looked away from him deliberately.
John cleared his throat. “Well, I suppose we should get down to business,” he said.
“By all means,” Carol said.
“I’ve read Tay’s contract and I must say that everything in it looks to be in order,” John said. “Your father did contract for Tay’s firm to do the work on the house and it was scheduled to begin today. Tay is within his rights to insist on completing the job.”
Carol glared at him. “Even if I don’t want the work done?” she asked.
John sighed. “He can insist on specific performance from the estate, Carol. You’re not a layman, you know the rules.”
“I can get an injunction to keep him off the property until this is resolved in court. That’s in the rules, too.”
“To what end?”
“To the end of peace and quiet,” Carol said shortly.
John shook his head. “The court calendar is dead down here at the best of times—the fishermen don’t sue each other and the tourists