First she'd have to ask for their help. Piper Macintosh didn't strike him as a woman who would want to admit there was anything she couldn't handle on her own. She lived alone at the end of an isolated road, after all, and had her own woodpile, her own vegetables, her own quiet, independent life.
Clate sucked in a breath and started back down the sloping field, onto the worn path between their houses. Whatever her troubles, Piper just wasn't his problem.
Instead of taking her bicycle, Piper decided to drive to her three o'clock appointment with Sally Shepherd. She'd changed into nice pants and a silk blouse and was much calmer after her morning encounter with Clate Jackson. He'd already left for Tennessee. She'd driven past his house just to make sure. To accustom herself to his ideas about property, she'd even forced herself to turn around in the road, not his driveway.
She parked behind three trucks belonging to the men of Macintosh & Sons. She hadn't seen her father and brothers in days. Luckily she'd brought along extra jars of strawberry jam, still warm from the kettle—not that they'd be pacified. They would know why she was avoiding them: Clate Jackson and Hannah Frye. Both had her confused, disturbed, frustrated. She'd practically accused her new neighbor of making a threatening anonymous call. Of course he hadn't done such a thing! She had no reason whatever to suspect him, and now she'd succeeded in alerting him to just how jittery she was.
But something wasn't right with him, either. She suspected he'd left Cape Cod over something more serious than a business deal gone sour. Which was none of her business, of course, as he'd be the first to tell her.
She headed up onto the inn's front porch, with its rockers and potted plants, and into the entry, where the scent of old wood, lemon polish, and potpourri immediately soothed her spirits. After completing massive structural repairs on the historic old house, Macintosh & Sons had gone to work on its individual rooms, starting with the first floor. It was a century newer than her tiny Cape, with twin chimneys on either end and a beautiful center staircase. Additions and modifications had made it less a classic colonial, more a wonderful mishmash of a century and a half of American architecture. The ceilings were higher, the rooms bigger than a Cape Cod, the feel was richer, less claustrophobic, and purely functional.
Piper joined Sally and Paul Shepherd in the front parlor, where they sat together on a Queen Anne sofa, poring over stacks of fabric swatches, wallpaper books, and paint chips. They made all decisions about the inn together. Although they were committed to preserving the sprawling house's historic flavor, they weren't afraid to mix in contemporary touches, refusing to be stuffy or overly proper. Sally, known for her exquisite taste, had called on Piper to help her decide how to use and place various reproduction and original crafts she'd collected.
"Right on time," Paul said with a pleasant smile.
Piper laughed. "What, did my brothers bet you I'd show up late?"
He grinned, a dark, good-looking, charming man. "Early."
"They're such teases," Sally said. "You're lucky to have each other."
"Sometimes," Piper acknowledged. "Not that I'd know what life was like without them. They're working upstairs still? I'll have to stop up and see them after our meeting." She tried to keep any dread out of her tone. She did want to see her family, provided they didn't force her to talk about things that didn't concern them, like Hannah and Clate Jackson. "I made strawberry jam this morning. Here, I brought you a jar."
It was a deft change of subject. Sally beamed, taking the jar. "Oh, Paul, it's still warm! We'll have it with scones later on with tea. Have you heard we've hired a new chef, Piper?"
"No, I haven't."
"She's excellent. She worked at an inn up in Province-town. She suggests we serve afternoon tea on a regular basis. You'll have to bring Hannah by."
Paul cleared his throat pointedly, a glint in his dark eyes. "Not that we serve her kind of tea."
Sally flushed. She was a plain, fair-skinned woman with hair that was dyed too dark for her coloring and a wardrobe of sturdy, preppy clothes. She had married for the first time three years ago at age thirty-five. Both her and her husband's stock had gone up considerably in Frye's Cove when they hadn't made a peep about Hannah's inexplicable decision to sell her historic house and acreage. Sally was Jason Frye's only living direct descendant. Many in town considered her to have more claim to her grandfather's property—morally if not legally—than his wife of seven years. But Sally had long said she had no interest in the Frye House and was content with her and Paul's pretty house in the village and their up-and-coming inn.
"Oh, Paul, you're awful," she said affectionately. "Don't worry, Piper. We don't believe any of those silly rumors about Hannah trying to poison Stan Carlucci. She'd never deliberately hurt anyone."
"A pity," Paul put in, grinning. "I have a long list of people I wouldn't mind her treating to a pot of tea."