An amused, exaggeratedly patient look passed between the two men, one of the aren’t-females-foolish? variety, but she decided to ignore it. The male brain worked differently from the female’s, and that was just the way it was.
“Well, look,” Hank announced, “I’d best check on that leak under the church. Why don’t the two of you go over the stuff on your list?”
Now was the moment, Kayla knew, the one where she could say, “I’m sorry, but Mr. Fitzgerald won’t do.” She wouldn’t have to explain her reasons. After all, she was doing the hiring here and didn’t owe anyone anything.
But before she could, Fitzgerald said, “What church is that?”
Kayla pointed toward an expanse of birch trees on the far side of the house. “It’s over there. The Old Stone Church. It’s part of the property.”
Paul had always been fascinated by early American architecture, and now his curiosity was piqued. “Mind if I take a look with Hank?”
“We can all go, I guess,” Mrs. Thorne said.
As they followed Hank down the gravel driveway toward the main road, Paul asked her, “Does the church still function as a church?”
“Mostly it’s used for weddings and funerals. Anyone who wants to belong to a congregation has to go down the mountain to Susanville.”
Susanville.
The name sent a chill through him. It was where he’d just spent four hellish years in the penitentiary. Where the families of the prisoners rode the bus from New York City and Albany and Buffalo on Sunday mornings, filled with excitement and picnic baskets, and returned on the same bus, subdued and sad, their baskets empty, on Sunday nights.
As they walked along the main road for a brief period, then turned up the path leading to the church, Paul shook himself mentally. He was out now. His lawyer had gotten him released on a technicality, but if he was lucky, he’d never have to go back. Hell, he couldn’t go back. Didn’t think his soul could take another day there.
Which was why he was here, high in the Catskills, on the way to checking out an old church with Kayla Thorne. She held the key to his freedom, although he doubted she was aware of that.
And, if he played his cards right, she would never have to be.
Chapter 2
Kayla remembered the first time she’d seen the Old Stone Church; it had been nearly four years before, when Walter had brought her here on their honeymoon. As he’d shown her around his family’s mountain retreat and related stories of his childhood, there had been rueful pride and unabashed sentimentality in his voice. At the moment, she couldn’t help comparing that time with this one.
Somewhat guiltily, she contrasted her late husband with Fitzgerald. Walter had been under six feet, reedy rather than muscular. And, of course, a young-thinking but still aging man of seventy. Fitzgerald was so much taller and broader, so much more muscular…and so much younger. Always a fast walker, Kayla had had to slow her pace to match Walter’s stride. Today, she had to hurry to keep up.
They paused at the front of the building, which was relatively modest as churches went, one story made to look a lot taller by its sharply pitched roofline and a high, broad steeple. The bell tower still had its original nine-hundred-pound bell, one that was rung on special occasions.
Fitzgerald ran one huge hand over several of the dark gray and dusty brown stones that made up the entire facade. “Solid workmanship,” he said, and she detected a flicker of admiration—an actual emotion?—on his face as he did. “Do you know anything about it?”
“Just what’s in the brochure. It’s native fieldstone and was carved by Italian masons,” Kayla explained, “brought to America in the mid 1890s for that express purpose. A wealthy widow, Honoria Desbaugh, built it to honor her husband. For years, it was run by some monks, an offshoot of a sect called the Brothers of the Sacred Nazarene. Our cabin was their dormitory. One by one, the monks died out, and the place was pretty much abandoned till the 1920s, when Walter’s family bought the entire property.”
“The church is a real tourist attraction in the summer,” Hank added. “Good for the town.” He pulled open the thick wooden front door, and they followed him in.
As it had before, the cool quiet of the church’s interior had the effect of a balm on Kayla’s nerves; even if she hadn’t been aware of being tense, the easing of the tightness in her shoulder muscles and abdomen was a dead giveaway. She stood in the nave and breathed deeply of the air—it had the slightly musty but clean smell of damp earth and old caves.
The calm lasted seconds only, because Paul Fitzgerald came up to stand beside her, his hands in his back pockets as he peered upward, his gaze taking in the high ceiling and its heavy beams. She couldn’t help noting his strong neck and prominent Adam’s apple. The filtered sunlight streaming through the stained-glass windows cast shadows on the sharply defined planes of his face.
Good Lord, she thought, he was like some kind of stone monument himself.
“This has been kept up,” he said.
Hank, still standing near the door, said, “Mr. Thorne paid for the restoration years ago,” to which Kayla added, “Walter set up a fund to keep it up in perpetuity.”
“Religious, huh?”
“Not particularly,” she said. “He intended the church to be nondenominational, sort of a general, all-purpose place to worship whatever god you believe in.”
He angled his head to gaze down at her. His pale eyes were grim and joyless, and spoke of bone-deep bitterness. “What if you don’t believe in any kind of god?”
“Doesn’t everyone need to believe in something?” she asked him softly.
His gaze remained on her face for another moment or two, revealing nothing of whatever was going on inside him. She felt, again, her blood running cold, signaling her dread of violence. The bleakness in Fitzgerald’s eyes did that to her.
Then he shrugged and looked away. “If you say so.”
He walked over to one of the walls, and as he had outside, rubbed his hand over the stone. His attention caught by something near his feet, he bent over and scraped a nail against a floorboard. “This must be it, Hank. The leak’s under this area of rotting wood.”
“Okay.” Hank headed for a small side door near the altar. “I’ll just check in the basement, see where that water’s coming from. You two look around, I’ll be back in five minutes or so.”
Kayla watched as Fitzgerald ambled past the pews and to the altar. On the rear wall were five wooden statues of saints, each about four feet high. He studied them silently for a moment. What was he thinking? she wondered. Had he ever had any beliefs?
Why couldn’t she shake this need to understand this emotionally cutoff man? He was none of her business, especially as she would be sending him on his way as soon as they got back to the house.
Annoyed with herself, she followed his progress as he strode over to the east wall and, one by one, perused the stained-glass windows. Several were dedicated to people who’d passed away, dating from the early 1900s to the 1970s. Desbaughs had given way to Montgomerys, who’d given way to Thornes. She joined him at her favorite, an exquisite rose window, its colors pale pink to deep red and all hues between. Along the bottom of the window ran a green-leafed vine, above it the words “Entwined forever.”
“Isn’t it beautiful?” she said as they both gazed at the fine craftsmanship combined with a delicate sensibility.
He didn’t reply for a moment, then he nodded. “Yeah.”
“I’m having a window made in honor of Walter.”
Again, he made no reply at first. Then he said, “Good for you.”
Was