“It’s locked!” she said in disbelief. “I’ll bet Olivia did it out of habit. She always does that,” she said, knocking. No one came. “She’s probably upstairs with Wyatt. We’ll have to go around to the front.”
They left the porch, plunging themselves into the pouring rain. It was sheeting down, causing her vision to blur. Callie wasn’t familiar enough yet with the landscape to run easily in the dark, and she stumbled on something. But before she could fall, she felt strong arms around her, lifting her up and nearly taking her breath away. Just as she could process it, the sensation was gone and they were running again, but Luke had her hand. Moving blindly, the sound of the rain and thunder in her ears, her senses were on high alert. Luke’s grasp on her hand was strong yet gentle as he guided her through the darkness, making her feel safe despite the surroundings. His breath was short and fast. They got to the front, taking the stairs as quickly as they could, another clap of thunder booming.
As the coastal wind blew harder, the house started to sway. It was designed that way to help it withstand the storms that the Atlantic threw at it. But that didn’t make the feeling any less concerning. Trying not to think about it, she opened the front door and they nearly fell inside.
They stood there, dripping wet. Luke’s gaze started to travel down her body, but he seemed to recover himself and drew his focus back to her face and smiled. “I forgot the candle,” he said, dumping the towels on the floor, and they laughed quietly, both of them still a little winded.
“It’s fine,” she said. She grabbed a beach towel from the basket where they kept them. “Here,” she said holding it out to him. “Use it to keep your seat dry on the way home. I’ll get it back at the birthday party.”
When she said that, he looked a little disappointed and she wondered if he might have been hoping to stay longer. Luke moved closer to her, looking down into her eyes. “I had fun tonight,” he said, his words heavy with unsaid thoughts. Did he feel like she did—that she’d never felt more alive than she did running through the darkness with him? She leaned in just a little, their bodies so close, wondering if he might try to kiss her again. But did she want that? What if she’d just been swept up in the moment? Callie took a step back.
“Will you be okay driving in this?” she asked.
Looking a little unsure, Luke took in a breath. “Yeah, it’s just a storm,” he said, toweling his hair. “It’ll probably pass before I’m even home.”
“Okay,” she said with a thoughtful smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
Ten
“Look at this,” Olivia said from the other room as the deliverymen finished the appliance installation. She came into the kitchen where Callie was, holding an old lockbox about the size of a shoebox. It was brown with a keyhole on the front, the hinges thick with dust.
Wyatt was beside her with a little hammer, both he and his mother wearing matching safety glasses. “I know this wasn’t in the plan for today. I’ve been working to get rid of those built-in shelves like we’d talked about while the workers are here so they can fill in any missing drywall. I’m doing one and Wyatt’s doing the other. Take a look at what we found.” She held up the box.
“It was in the bottom of the built-in,” Wyatt said.
“Apparently, the bottom of each one—the part that juts out—is hollow and accessible by lifting the last shelf out,” Olivia explained with excitement.
“Is it treasure?” Wyatt asked.
“I don’t know,” Callie said, sitting down at the table with her coffee. “What’s written on that brass tag there?” She pointed just above the keyhole.
Olivia set it down and squinted at the tag, running her finger over it to shine it up. “It looks like ‘FM’.”
“Could M be for McFarlin?” Callie took a sip of the coffee. She’d made it while she waited to sign off on the delivery, the warm, creamy liquid melting away her aches from working so hard yesterday. “F for Frederick.” Callie jiggled the lock. “I wonder where the key is.”
“I wonder why it was left here, if it is in fact his. Wouldn’t it be of importance to him or Alice? Unless it’s empty…” Olivia lifted it to her ear and gave it a shake. “It sounds like something’s in it.”
Wyatt twisted the latch, but it wouldn’t budge.
“They left the lockbox and that journal that you found. Wonder what else they left.” The deliverymen quietly interrupted, handing Olivia a clipboard for signature.
“I’m sure Alice had hidden them and, after she died, no one knew they were here.”
“The fact that they were hidden makes me wonder what’s in them,” Olivia said quietly, scrawling her name across the paper on the clipboard, raising her eyebrows in curiosity. “Maybe there are some family secrets,” she teased. She put the box on the floor of the pantry and shut the door.
Callie walked over to the oven as Olivia handed the paperwork back to the crew, thanking them. “Oh, oh! We have fire!” she said with excitement. She turned the knobs of the brand new gas stove that had just been delivered, along with the giant refrigerator. They must have been the first delivery of the day because they’d been there right at eight-thirty in the morning.
After the deliverymen left, Callie sat back down. She put her face in her hands. “I shouldn’t have let Luke stay so long last night,” she said, her heart telling her something else. She wished he were there right now, holding her hand like he had last night. She missed his smile already and couldn’t wait to see him tonight.
“No, I think you just let yourself relax, let things come naturally,” Olivia said, grinning.
“Now we have this party tonight…” Callie lifted her mug to her lips to keep from smiling.
“It’ll be fine. Plus, Wyatt’s absolutely thrilled about it.” She opened the fridge and freezer, peering inside at the new space.
There was a knock at the front door and they both looked at each other.
Olivia shut the freezer and went to get it while Callie got up, leaving her coffee, not going with her to answer the door just in case it was Luke, but unable to sit with all her nervous energy. Instead, she wiped down the stove and the new granite countertops they’d picked out. They’d chosen them because the light caramel and cream specks on them reminded them of the wet grains of sand on the shore just after the tide went out. She needed something to do to keep her mind off last night.
Last week, they’d painted the kitchen a beachy pink color, the stainless steel appliances coordinating with the silver metallic seashells they’d put up on the wall. They’d also added whitewashed cabinets, demolishing the dark wood ones that had been there since probably the 1970s. With the new tan tiles under her feet, she stood back, admiring the look of it all.