That gave her pause. After all, she wasn’t too sure about Carl herself anymore.
“We could try that,” she said, attempting to sound reasonable and watching his reaction. “We could both ask each other. Take turns.”
He made a face as though he thought that was going a little far, but still he said, “If you want.”
“Ask me something,” she challenged. “I’ll see if you deserve an answer or not.”
He nodded, considering. “And I’ll see if I can trust anything you tell me.”
Her chin rose and her eyes blazed. “Trust is a slippery thing.”
“You got that right.” He carefully put the wrench down on the desk. “Okay, let’s just try it.” He shrugged. “You start.”
She thought for a second, then said, “Here’s one. Why are you so mean?”
He threw his head back and groaned. “That’s such a girlie question. There’s no way I can answer that.”
She shrugged, nose in the air. “I rest my case. You can’t be trusted.”
He glared at her. “You’ve got to ask things that get to substance, not feelings.”
She glared back. “Okay, let’s hear your great question.”
“Okay.” He looked at her for a long moment, then shoved his hands down into the pockets of his jeans and frowned. “Here’s what I want to know. Why would you lie about being married?”
Her heart flipped over and began to pound. Her hands curled into fists. “So now you’re calling me a liar?” she said breathlessly.
“Oh yeah. Beyond a doubt.”
She flushed. What could she say? He was right. “You’re just grasping for things to make me angry,” she charged, knowing it was a weak one. “You don’t have any proof.”
“I don’t need proof. I’ve got common sense and my own two eyes.” He gave her a half smile. “In fact, I’ve got a whole list of reasons that tell me you two aren’t married.”
“A list?”
“Yeah.”
She turned away, panic fluttering in her throat. “You know, I don’t need this...” she began, but a shout from the direction of the beach stopped the words in her throat and they both went out onto the balcony, looking toward where the sound had come from.
“They’ve started back,” Marc said. “Looks like you missed your tour of the boat house.”
They both leaned on the railing, looking west and watching a gorgeous sunset. All traces of the fog were gone now, and the sky was streaked with red and purple. The ocean was silver blue.
Marc rubbed his eyes as though they were tired and he looked again, shaking his head. “It’s so damn beautiful,” he said softly, almost to himself. “I’d forgotten how much I loved the evening sky out here.”
She looked at him sideways. “You haven’t been back here much lately?”
“No. Not at all, in fact. I’ve mostly been overseas.”
She thought about that for a minute. If she’d come earlier, he wouldn’t have been here. And that would have been a good thing. Wouldn’t it?
“When did you get discharged from the military?”
“A while back. But I only came home two days ago.” His mouth twisted. “I’ve been gone over ten years and it all still looks so much the same. You’d think the land would show the scars of...” He winced, then shrugged, letting the thought go. “Anyway, I can’t believe how much this place means to me. I can see my history everywhere I look.”
He pointed. “See that broken gate to the rose garden? See how it lists? That happened when I told my high-school sweetheart I wasn’t the marrying kind. She slapped me and then slammed that poor gate so hard, it almost fell off the hinges.”
Torie tried to remember who that would have been but the memory didn’t surface. “At least you recovered,” she murmured.
“Yeah. Sort of.”
This time his grin was open and sweet and her heartbeat quickened just seeing it.
But he wasn’t finished. “See that pile of rocks by the oak tree? That’s where my brother and I buried our old dog Neville.”
“Oh.” Torie gasped. She’d forgotten about Ricky. Two years older than Marc, he’d been a shyer, more remote figure, sort of awkward and a bit of a computer geek. What had ever happened to Ricky?
“We had a funeral service and put that dear old dog in the ground,” Marc said. He shook his head, a half smile lingering on his lips.
“Where is your brother?” she asked, hoping he would tell more.
He didn’t answer for a long moment, and when he spoke again, his voice was gravelly. “Gone. I can’t believe how long it’s been. He died just over ten years ago.”
“Oh no!”
The news went through her like an electric shock. It was horrible to think of Ricky gone. And all this time, she’d never known about it. She felt a trembling deep down that shook her. Ricky had never been anything much to her. Not the way Marc had been. She’d demonized him in her mind because he was part of her enemy—the Huntingtons. But was that fair? He was part of her past, too.
There was too much tragedy in the world. Ricky, Marc’s father, her own father—all gone. Tears shimmered in her eyes and she covered her mouth with her hands, as though holding back the dark side of life for all she was worth.
He watched her for a moment, wondering why his brother’s death would seem to touch her like this. That was a part of the fascination he had with her—she was always surprising him. Just when he thought he had her all figured out, she would do or say something that showed him how useless it was to make assumptions.
Turning, he looked out at the grounds again, searching for something he could use to change the subject.
“The red tile roof you see in the distance used to be the butler’s house,” he pointed out, hoping to distract her.
It seemed to be working. She’d turned her attention to where he’d indicated.
“He had a little girl who used to hide in the apple tree while I was washing my car over there by the shed. She’d wait up there, eating apples, until the car was sparkling clean and I was gone and then she would throw the apple cores down on my just-washed car.”
“No she did not!” Torie said before she thought. But it wasn’t true! She would never have done such a thing. Would she?
He looked at her in surprise. “How would you know?”
She was flushing again and still wiping tears from her eyes. This was not a road she wanted him to go down. She had to change the subject and nip this in the bud.
Turning away, she went back into the room and sank down to sit on the bed. “Listen, you were going to tell me why you got this nutty idea that Carl and I weren’t married,” she reminded him. Better that than memories of the chubby little girl in the apple tree. “You said you had a list.”
“That’s right.” He followed her back in, standing in front of her and looking down at her. “You want to hear it?”
She took a deep breath and made herself smile. “Sure. And I’ll shoot down every one of your items. Go.”
“Okay.” He cleared his throat. “To begin with, I’d say Carl has a passion, but it’s not for you.”
He said the oddest things!