"What complications?"
Some of the earlier edginess and fatigue crept back, but he covered with a half smile. "Nothing like witches, ghosts, devils, and romance. I just climbed the ladder fast and hard. I decided I needed to catch my breath."
"I understand," Piper said quietly, stifling her sudden curiosity about his life in Tennessee. Maybe it didn't include witches, ghosts, and devils, but she'd bet he'd had his share of romances. But that was none of her concern, and she'd put her foot in her mouth enough for one day. "Well, I have no intention of complicating your life, I can assure you."
He laughed unexpectedly. "Oh?"
"If you hadn't come home when you did, you'd never know I'd trespassed. And Hannah—" Piper set down her scissors. She could hear her aunt pressing for immediate action on her buried treasure. She hated to be so duplicitous, but how on earth could she explain without having Hannah sound like a lunatic? She sighed deeply. "My aunt complicates everybody's life."
"You know, I'm not so sure she's not a witch." His laughter had faded, and the shadows suddenly seemed to draw out the small scars on his face, to make his eyes seem more remote. "Someone close to me did die. A woman I've known all my life. She was eighty-nine." He breathed. "Anyway, that's why I had to head back to Tennessee."
"I'm sorry."
"How your aunt knew—"
"I don't know. She never said anything to me."
"She calculates her moves, doesn't she?"
"Always." Which was part of the reason no one in Frye's Cove believed she hadn't deliberately thrown off Stan Carlucci's digestion.
Clate nodded. "I should leave you to your work. Have a good class, and I hope the hummingbirds find their feeders."
"Thanks," she said, her voice thick as he retreated through the screen door. She couldn't figure him out. Her nerves and emotions were a jumble. She sensed kindness and deep feeling one moment, remoteness the next, and all the while she'd noticed muscles in his arms, the shape of his fingers, the occasional strand of gray in his dark hair. Could she trust him? Should she just tell him about Hannah's buried treasure?
Suddenly she plunged through the door out into the wet, cold, foggy early evening. The drizzle had turned into a light, steady rain. He was just a few yards off, her windsock flapping above him.
"My aunt means a lot to me. I hope you understand that." She pushed back her hair with both hands, her heart pounding at her own impulsiveness. She was open by nature. Secrecy and deceptiveness weren't her style. But her urge to protect Hannah was stronger than anything she'd ever known, her desire to come clean with Clate Jackson notwithstanding. She took a breath, calming herself. "I just want her to live out her life on her own terms."
Clate glanced around at her, his eyes taking on the gray of the fog. He said nothing.
Piper exhaled at the sky, felt the drizzle on her face as she fought for the right words, for some semblance of control over her emotions. Finally, she leveled her gaze on him. "Not everyone around here thinks Hannah's as harmless and innocent as I do."
His mouth was an unreadable slit. "Go on."
Piper chose her words carefully, reining in the impulse that had pushed her outside. "Some people are afraid she's going to end up hurting someone, or even herself."
"That doesn't seem an entirely unreasonable fear." There was no trace of humor in his tone or expression. "Do you share it?"
"No, of course not." But the words tumbled out fast, as if she'd been saying them to herself too many times, almost like a prayer she wasn't quite sure she believed. "I'm just worried about her. I'd hate to see her forced into a situation where she has to be... watched more carefully."
"You mean put in a home."
Piper hated even the thought. "She's so happy with her microwave and her remote control. She just figured out how to do faxes off her computer and plans to pepper the local papers with her opinions. I don't want to see her lose what she's worked so hard to get." Rain pelted onto her hair, further distracting her. Clate seemed oblivious. "I hated to see her sell the Frye house for selfish reasons. But I can understand. You must realize its problems. Selling it and all its furnishings has given her an infusion of cash she's never had. She's enjoying herself."
"But there's all this talk of poison, witches, ghosts, devils, romantic spells."
Her shoulders slumped. "Yes."
"Piper." His voice was liquid, melting into the fog. He moved toward her. "No one will hear any talk from me."
"Really?"
He smiled. "Really."
"Thanks. I guess that's what I wanted to hear."
She expected him to continue on his way. The rain had picked up, glistening on his dark hair, soaking into his shirt. A wayward image flashed, and Piper could see herself rubbing her palms across his rain-soaked chest.
Nuts, she thought. Her attraction to him wasn't going to help her decide what to do about Hannah and the eighty-year-old mystery of the deaths of Caleb and Phoebe Macintosh.