The smile broadened. "I've heard you Yankees are a blunt lot."
Piper laughed, which felt good mixed in with all her tension. "Sorry. It's just that local gossip has it that you're—I don't know if ruthless is the right word, but a tough businessman. I guess it takes focus and commitment and a lot of hard work to do what you do."
"It does."
"So, who knows that you bought the Frye house?"
"A few people. Not many." He gave her a long look, a half smile. "And no one knows I've been dealing with a trespassing neighbor."
Piper grinned. "You mean you didn't call home and gripe about me stealing valerian root out of your back yard?"
"I did not."
She stared out at a seagull wheeling over the marsh, and suddenly she could hear the voice on the other end of the phone, hear its fury and determination. Her throat tightened, her light mood gone. She turned back to Clate. "You know, if you were planning to build a resort out here, you'd want to get hold of my land. It'd be to your advantage. The nature preserve limits what you can do to the north. The only way you could expand would be to gobble up my land."
"Honey, if I wanted your land, I'd get it some other way besides making mindless phone calls."
He'd get her land. Not he'd try to get it. If the rumor mill in Frye's Cove was to be believed, Clate Jackson was a successful, driven businessman who didn't regard land, family, or community in the same way she did.
Her gaze drifted to a No Trespassing sign posted on a pitch pine. It said everything. "I suppose you would, at that."
"What about you, Piper?" he asked. If he'd noticed her irritation, he wasn't calling her on it. "Any enemies?"
"Me? No. Not anyone who'd deliberately try to scare me. I'm not naive. I know not everyone likes me, but I can't think of anyone—anyone—who'd do this to me, not out of plain hatred. There'd have to be a more concrete motive."
"Such as?"
Piper exhaled, turning her gaze back to the water. The wind was cold now, and she wished she'd thrown on a sweatshirt before heading down to the beach. Motives for harassment, for someone not wanting her messing around on Clate Jackson's land. Hannah was trying to get her to dig for supposed buried treasure and uncover the answers to one of Cape Cod's most notorious incidents. Who on earth would care? Who even knew?
Piper's immediate impulse was to lie outright and deny anything and everything. She couldn't stand to have Clate suspect her aunt or apply that hardheaded thinking of his to her claims about what she saw as a girl of seven.
But she didn't want to lie to him, either. "I can't think of any motives that make sense." That was true, as far as it went. "If I do, I'll let you know."
Clate settled back on his heels, studying her through suspicious half-closed eyes. Piper tried not to squirm. This wasn't a man who'd take well to lies, dissembling, or foolishness, a quality that no doubt served him well in business. She didn't know how her latest mission on Hannah's behalf would fit into his scheme of things, but she wouldn't expect patience or understanding.
She was accustomed to sparing the men in her life details they didn't need to know, especially when they involved her great-aunt. The Macintosh men were less indulgent of Hannah's whims. For years they'd warned Piper that her propensity for doing her aunt's bidding would get her into trouble one of these days. If she told them about the calls, they'd jump way ahead of the facts and there'd be no peace. She had no reason to believe Clate would be any different, and she didn't need a man breathing down her neck while she was still trying to sort out her options.
But to her surprise, once again he didn't pressure her to talk. "All right. If you decide you want to tell me what you know, I'll be around most of the day."
If similarly provoked, her brothers would have had a totally different reaction. Probably it would have involved dunking her into the cold tide until she talked. Piper nodded. "Thanks." She lifted the damp hem of her nightgown. "I'm a mess. I should go back up and get dressed. I didn't expect you to be out this early."
"Nice sunrise."
She managed a smile. "Yes. Are you technically on vacation?"
"No. I've got a hand in things back in Nashville. I just came up here to get a feel for the place. I'm hoping to come back for a couple of weeks later in the summer."
"Then you don't plan to stay long?"
He grinned at her. "Do I see a gleam of hope in your eye?"
Piper suppressed all thought of Russian princesses and buried treasure. "No, certainly not. I—"
He laughed. "Well, if your aunt wants more valerian root, she need only ask."
"That's a softer stance than you had when you caught me."
"I'm not at my best at four in the morning, and I did say she should ask."
Piper nodded thoughtfully, wondering how he would respond to a request from his house's former owner to dig under his wisteria.
No. She wouldn't tell him. She needed to keep things simple. In her experience, the fewer people who knew about Hannah's missions, the better.