Just One Taste Part 32

"Sandy River Plantation. We learned the town history in the fourth grade."

"Right. Maine was still part of Ma.s.sachusetts then, and the first mill was wasn't much of anything yet. My family had settled here before most white men ever thought to get lost in the woods. I always imagined the early Merrills were too ornery to get along with civilized folks. But civilized folks found us anyway. My father never went to school, but he had a head for figures. And he must have had some charm, though I never saw it."

Daniel inhaled deeply. "Before I was born, he persuaded a group of investors to give him the money to buy all the land up and down the river. Somehow or other, they lost all their shares and he wound up with everything. That's usually the way things happened. He slapped his name on every business and building, eventually bullying the town to incorporate as Merrill's Mills.

"He was king of the woods. Nothing got done without his say-so. People were afraid of him, and he liked that. He was proud of his rough edges, but wanted better for me. When I was old enough, he sent me off to Harvard so I could put a little gloss on the family empire."

"Just like Don Corleone and Michael," Alice muttered.

Daniel couldn't help but grin. Movies were the one bright spot in his life. He'd spent a lot of lonely hours in theaters, and now Netflix made it possible to catch up on anything he might have missed. "Exactly. When I graduated, I came back to find myself smack in the middle of a war between my father and the Reverend Porter Gosford, the new minister in town. Gosford took exception to everything about my father, from his hiring and firing practices to his fondness for whiskey. And women. My father owned lumber camps up and down the Sandy River. When the men got out of the woods in the spring, the first thing they wanted was a woman. And my father obliged them with the one business he didn't put his name on. Most of those poor suckers put the wages my father paid them right back into his pocket."

Alice's mouth fell open. "Your father owned a wh.o.r.ehouse?"

"Several. Quite a fancy one in Bangor. That's where he took me when he thought I ready."

"How old were you?" whispered Alice.

"Thirteen. I was big for my age."

Alice smacked him. "This is not funny."

"I never said it was. My father was a despicable man, a thug and a crook. He used child labor, ripped off the tenants in his mill houses, probably kicked dogs and cats when he could. When he had the history of the town printed, whitewashing every single thing he'd ever done, taking credit for the accomplishment of others, Gosford went wild. And it didn't help that I'd run off with his only daughter. I was definitely not his son-in-law of choice."

Or Rebecca's husband of choice in the end.

"Romeo and Juliet, Maine-style."

Daniel's mouth twisted bitterly. "More like Hamlet and Ophelia. Rebecca was not exactly stable. Today I think she'd be diagnosed as bi-polar. But she was very beautiful and I was very young. I tried..."

He broke off. He had tried. Had held on when Rebecca was desperate to escape the Merrill Mansion. After a decade of marriage, her behavior had become more and more erratic. When he discovered that last letter she had written to her father, he was compelled to change every word but "the" and "and." No stubborn Merrill could allow such shame or admit such failure. And in her delusions, Daniel himself had become worse than his father in her eyes.

If only he had let her go home, Gosford would have seen for himself what his daughter had become. But no doubt he would just have blamed the Merrills for causing her madness. "She killed herself."

"Oh, Daniel." Alice's eyes filled with tears.

"The official story is that she died by misadventure. An accident. Her father insisted, so she could be buried in hallowed ground beside her mother." He studied his hands. "But I know better."

"Perhaps you are mistaken." It was now her turn to read him. He was just miserable with guilt, guilt he'd carried far too long a time.

"Don't feel sorry for me. It was my fault. My pride-let's just say I might as well have pushed her into the river myself." He stood up abruptly and walked to the fireplace.

Alice watched the rigid line of his back, saw his fists clench by his side. Even though she somehow knew everything he had told her was the truth, she still couldn't wrap her mind around the fact that the man before her had lived two hundred years. Under a curse. Things like that just weren't possible except in fiction.

But his distress was so very real. Deranged people could convince themselves of anything. It was obvious he'd experienced tragedy, but why throw in the time-travel? The mind-reading? The curse? There had to be a rational explanation. She felt the twinge of a headache start.

"I'll get you some water. There's aspirin in your desk drawer. I didn't mean to make you sick," he said dully.

The pain in her head exploded. "No wonder your wife couldn't stand it. To have your every thought known...it's...it's..."

He turned to her, a bleak expression in his eyes. "Inhuman? Yes. So I was told. Gosford a.s.sured me once I completed his little mission my affliction would disappear. Made a deal with the Devil, he told me."

Alice laughed nervously. "There is no devil."

"Oh, I a.s.sure you, that's the Devil's greatest achievement, getting people to discount the possibility of h.e.l.l. I thought like you did at first. And then I realized what Gosford had said he was going to do was really happening to me. I disappeared from my own house, my town. No matter how many times I tried to get home, on foot, on horseback, when the railway came through, I couldn't. I only get a chance every forty years to come back to Merrills Mills and sit in that chair you're in. To re-write my father's biography. The rest of the time-well, I won't bore you."

Alice scrunched up her nose and bit her lip. "This doesn't make any sense. If your father-in-law was so hot to have you change these history books, why didn't he want you to do it sooner? More people have had the time to hear the sanitized version. I mean, in the fourth grade Maine Studies unit we heard all about "King" Merrill and how he conquered the North Woods. He was like a hero."

"Ah." Daniel's mouth twisted. "Now we see the hand of the Devil himself. I think it amused him to make it impossible for me to do the task that Gosford paid for with his soul. n.o.body ever said the Devil was a nice guy."

"Oh, honestly, Daniel. You don't really believe-" She caught sight of his eyes darkening, the gold and silver bits extinguished. "You haven't actually seen the Devil, have you?" she asked faintly.

An odd strangled sound erupted from Daniel's throat. "Not exactly. Two of his minions, though. My father and father-in-law."

"Oh my G.o.d." Alice resisted the urge to run downstairs and s.n.a.t.c.h the paintings off the wall. No wonder she felt such a malevolent presence when Merrill and Gosford hung in the Reading Room.

She was engaged in a conversation with a mind-reading man who was old enough to remember the freeing of the slaves. The fact that that she almost accepted the truth of devils and curses and telekinesis made her head throb even more.

"The aspirin, please. Bring me the whole bottle."

Chapter 4.

Daniel drove her home. He'd been walking the few miles to the library for exercise, since his mental concentration required him to be sedentary for hours at a stretch. Plus, of course, his car was in Boston. When it was time, he simply appeared in Merrills Mills, as if by magic. Well, black magic. He was, he told her, bunking in as usual in the Merrill family homestead, along with an extended family of mice and forty years' worth of dustbunnies.

"And you'll be leaving Sunday?"

He thought he heard some wistfulness in her voice.

"If I can't correct the last of the books. And I just can't seem to. I get a word moved here and there. It's almost as if my old man won't let me. Like his power is stronger in his town. I didn't have this trouble in other places."

"What do you do, exactly?"

"Well, some of it's been easy. I bought up old copies and other towns' histories that mentioned Merrills Mills and just destroyed them." He saw Alice shudder as any proper librarian would. "Sometimes I can make the pages go blank, or rewrite the sentences. I confess I'm not above playing a practical joke or two. There's a picture of Marilyn Manson where my father's used to be in the edition over in the c.u.mberland courthouse."

Alice laughed. "Turn right here. It's just down the road. See the mailbox with the sunflowers on it?"

Daniel pulled into the driveway. The house, thirties-era bungalow with a deep front porch was dark. He looked at his watch. It was after midnight. "Do you want me to walk you inside?"

"I don't live in the house. Oh, you know that, don't you? You probably know what I had for dinner last night, too." She paused. "I guess you could come up for a while."

Daniel was not going to say one word about the Tuna Helper.

Alice touched the remote on the sun visor. The interior garage lights went on and the door lifted. He parked in the empty s.p.a.ce and got out of the car. He a.s.sumed the snazzy red Jeep belonged to her mother. He followed Alice up a set of bare stairs tucked into a corner, waiting while she found the right key.

"I remember when this town was so safe n.o.body knew where their house keys were."

"It still is. This is to keep my mom out. She'd be up here cleaning and rearranging my stuff if she could. Doing my laundry. Bringing me brownies. She's such a mom."

"Sounds nice."

"Oh, it is. I lock up for her protection. She has her own life to live. I don't want her to worry about mine." Alice set about turning on lamps. "Of course she has a spare key. To be used in emergencies only." Her freckled face split into a grin. "I bet she wants to use it right about now."

Daniel went very still. "She's sleeping. You called her this afternoon and said you were going out to dinner with me. She worried a little bit, but fell asleep at 10:36 anyway."

Alice seemed to ignore his p.r.o.nouncement. "Dinner! We never had any. Are you hungry?"

"It depends." Yes, he was hungry. Hungry to taste her naturally rosy lips again. Lips that matched her nipples, he was sure. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were more than bountiful beneath her sweater set, her bottom nicely rounded. All of her would be so soft and pliant under his touch.

He willed his lascivious thoughts away. "What have you got?"

The galley kitchen was divided from the bedsitting room by a turquoise Formica breakfast bar. Daniel sat down on a pink-and-white paint-spattered stool, enjoying the view of Alice's backside as she peered into the refrigerator. Her cat, Felicity, had stretched off the sofa and was at Alice's feet, helping her look. The apartment, done in surprisingly tropical colors, was a loft-like s.p.a.ce with sloping ceilings. Fat candles, plants, starfish, sand dollars and sh.e.l.ls were arranged on shelves and tables. And there were books, lots of them.

"Three pieces of leftover cheese pizza from the Merrills Mills Market. One beer and a six-pack of diet soda. I shop Sat.u.r.day afternoons after I close the library, so things get a little dodgy by Thursday. I'm sorry about the beer at the Dugout, by the way. I could scramble some eggs," she said doubtfully, checking the expiration date on the carton.

Daniel's pants had dried but he still smelled a bit like a frat boy on a Sat.u.r.day night. "Pizza sounds good. Your place reminds me of Florida. All it's missing is a parrot."

Alice busied herself at the microwave. "I lived there for a few years. With Brad, my ex-fiance. And the parrot painting is in the bathroom. As you probably are well aware."

"I'm well aware he was an idiot," Daniel said, his voice thick.

"Who, the parrot?"

"Brad. He was a fool to let you go."

Alice snorted. "Like he could have kept me there after..." She looked at him, blushing. "Well, you know. Anyway, when I left I took a little bit of Florida with me. Even when there's snow outside, I put on some Jimmy Buffett and I'm in Paradise."

Alice poured diet soda into a plastic cup for herself and handed Daniel the bottle of beer. When the microwave dinged, they ate the warmed-over pizza on sea-mist green Fiestaware plates at the counter, side by side.

"They retired this color a couple of years ago, you know." The open kitchen shelves displayed an a.s.sortment of mismatched tangerine, rose and yellow china.

"I bet you know a lot of stuff about antiques and vintage stuff," Alice said.

"Some. That's actually how I've kept myself afloat all these years."

Alice's eyes sparkled with interest. "You're a dealer?"

"An appraiser."

She asked him a few intelligent questions about his business. He dug out a card from the little leather case in his jacket pocket and handed her one. He was tickled when she put it right on the refrigerator with a flamingo magnet.

"Go sit down or visit the parrot," she waved. "I'll clean up. It won't take but a minute."

Daniel picked up a sh.e.l.l-encrusted picture frame on a rattan end table. Behind the gla.s.s were an attractive blond woman, a tall man with gla.s.ses, and a little girl, obviously Alice, her red hair in two kinky ponytails tied up with yarn. Her hair had darkened, but the big brown eyes were the same. And the freckles. He longed to see where each and every one was. Count them with his fingertip and then start all over again with his tongue. He put the picture back carefully. "These are your parents?"

"Uh-huh."

Daniel frowned. Earlier when he had probed Alice's mother, she was definitely sleeping alone if you didn't count the schnauzer who was hogging the bed.

"Are your parents divorced?"

"No, my father died."

"How long ago?"

Alice stopped wiping the counter. "Have you really turned me off?"

"Yes." He only had a few days with her and didn't want to screw them up. Somewhere after the aspirin and before showing her how he could spontaneously type-set (she hadn't approved that he'd made Horton hear a Wh.o.r.e instead of a Who), he had decided to block her from his mind. Yes, she was still there at the edges, like a feisty little moth batting against a screen. He didn't think she'd appreciate that image though.

"I was twelve. There was an ice storm, and he went off the road." She tried to keep her voice matter-of-fact, but Daniel could still hear her hurt.

"That's why you moved to Florida."

"I thought you weren't messing with my mind anymore!" She crumpled up the paper towel and threw it at him. It missed but gave the cat something to do.

"I'm not. Just guessing. Florida doesn't get ice storms. You thought you'd be warm and happy and safe." Daniel picked the damp towel up before it was completely shredded and dropped it in a wicker trash basket, earning a sneer and a swipe from Felicity.

"Ha." She scrubbed the two dishes vigorously while Daniel inspected the books on her shelves. There were a lot of paperback romance novels, but mysteries and best sellers, too. On the whole he approved of ma.s.s market publishing. Now anybody who wanted to read could have access for less than the price of a movie ticket. And online publishing was a phenomenon. Instant gratification for ninety-nine cents.

"I probably should get going."

Alice turned the water off, wiping her hands on a palm tree towel. She drew a breath. She might offer to drive him home.

She might ask him to stay.

"You shouldn't walk. It's late. And dark. And cold."

He faced her across the counter. "It's warm in here."

"Yes. I have a monitor heater," she said idiotically. She knew what he'd meant.

He leaned over and touched a cheek. "I'm not here for the heater."