Navy Seal's Match

“Why, yes,” Zelda said, glad he was catching on.

“So you think it was the kitchen girl,” he surmised.

“It’s a sound theory,” Zelda said. “One Mavis, Phyllis and I are in agreeance on. But what’s most interesting is that she spoke two names. The first in what remained of the living quarters above stairs. Josiah.”

“And the second in the chamber Phyllis told us about behind the servants’ stairwell. Daniel,” Mavis added. “That’s where the family claims most activity has occurred throughout the years.”

Gavin scraped what remained of his soup from the sides of his bowl, mulling the information. “Did this baby and its mother wind up reaping the estate benefits and carrying on the line?”

Zelda laughed. For once, it didn’t ring true. “Hell, no, she didn’t. Cousins came in, Phyllis’s ancestors, and turned the place over. The servants were dismissed and nothing was heard of the girl or her baby. The place wasn’t fit for living for another whole generation. The cousins eventually gave it up cold turkey.”

“Phyllis’s grandfather eventually inherited the mess and decided to rebuild most everything from the ground up,” Mavis told him. “It took years because workmen kept walking off, claiming they felt a tap on the shoulder or they could hear whispering when they were alone.”

“Phyllis’s first encounter herself was in the chamber behind the servants’ stairs,” Zelda divulged. “She was playing hide-and-seek with friends from grammar school. She was alone in the dark, but someone brushed the hair from her face. She lit outta there like someone had planted live firecrackers in her saddle shoes.”

Gavin sniffed. “And which of you ladies volunteered to take your recorder into the servants’ stairwell?”

“Oh, that was Mavis,” Zelda replied. “She usually volunteers for the tight spots. Attics. Basements. Crawl spaces. You name it, our Mavis is there.”

“That’s great,” Gavin said. He downed half his water before letting the glass clack against the counter next to his empty bowl. “Does your family know about this?”

“Did yours know anything about your combat injury for six months after it happened?” she responded in kind. “I didn’t think you were judgmental, Gavin. And I didn’t think you believed in this stuff anyway, much less cared.”

“I’m having trouble with the belief thing,” he admitted. “But I never said anything about not caring.”

“If you don’t believe, why’s it necessary to care?” Mavis asked. “It’s all just a racket. Right?”

“It’s big creepy houses that belong to strange people,” he told her. “Sure, Zelda’s friend Phyllis might be all right, but her family home sounds like it’s been a meal for more generations of termite colonies than you can trace. How carefully do you screen callers before showing up? It’s just the two of you? No muscle?”

“Well, Errol,” Zelda said. “He likes the country drives.”

“How old is this Errol?” Gavin wanted to know. When neither of them answered, he scowled. “Uh-huh.”

“Our screening process is thorough enough,” Mavis explained. Her tone had grown taut from irritation. “You can’t tell us that the process we’ve operated under for the last five years isn’t up to standard. Who do you think you are?”

“I’m a goddamn navy SEAL,” Gavin told her. “I think I know a sight more about the ugly parts of humanity than you do.”

“Try me,” she invited.

“Don’t tell him about that meth lab two weeks ago,” Zelda suggested. “He’ll blow a gasket.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” He groaned. The slow-roasting coals were growing in temperature. “Did you know they were cooking meth?”

“They didn’t announce it,” Mavis responded.

“They weren’t hiding it, either,” Zelda noted. “They were nice boys. If you like mullets and missing teeth.”

“These are drug dealers we’re talking about,” Gavin said. “Drug dealers.”

Mavis rolled her eyes when he slowed the words down to mocking speed the second time. “Yeah, we got that.”

“But we scored,” Zelda said. “EMF and confirmed audio.”

“Wait,” Gavin said. “You walked in, saw what they were doing and you went ahead and did the job anyway?”

“Well, sure,” Zelda answered readily. When he cursed a stream and mashed two fingers against his temple, muttering disbelief, Zelda added, “You think we’re simpletons? You think we don’t know to arm ourselves with more than curiosity and flashlights? You’ve known her a long time, handsome. You really think Mavis is crazy?”

“I’m starting to,” he said. At the sound of books closing again, he reached out for Mavis. He closed his fingers around the back of her hand to stop her from scooting off. “Drug dealers, Freckles,” he reiterated. “Drug. Dealers.”

“One of them hit on her,” Zelda revealed, uncovering the mischievous streak Gavin thought he’d gleaned earlier.

Exasperated, Mavis slid from his grip and off her stool with books under her arm. “I’m so glad you two are living together, because you deserve each other. Night-night.”

“I have an idea,” Zelda announced, stopping Gavin from reaching for Mavis again and preventing Mavis from retreating. “You’re going to like this, the both of you.”

“Aren’t we optimistic?” Gavin said.

Zelda went on. “Why doesn’t Gavin accompany us this Saturday...?”

“What’s this Saturday?” he wondered.

“Fieldwork,” Mavis muttered. “For our next case.”

Gavin felt a stone drop in his stomach. It sank to the bottom and spread cold everywhere. “I don’t think so.”

“Oh, why not?” Zelda asked hopefully. “You’d get an idea of what we do. He’d enjoy our approach at least, I think, Mavis. Tell him!”

“Every job we take,” Mavis said dutifully, “we approach as skeptics. Our main focus is debunking claims of paranormal activity. It takes up the bulk of what we do.”

“I still don’t think it’s a good idea,” he said dully.

“Come on, handsome,” Zelda said. “There’s nothing worse for the mind than confining oneself to the indoors. It’ll make you crazier than a holy roller on Sunday. The cure is fresh air and the outdoors.”

“With all due respect, ma’am,” Gavin said coldly, “I’m not going anywhere.” He lifted his hands from the counter. “Excuse me.”

He sidestepped Prometheus, nearly overcompensated and leaned unintentionally into Mavis. When he felt her hand on his arm for balance, he straightened, veered around her and made a quick exit.

Not quick enough to miss Zelda utter, confounded, “He called me ma’am again. I’m not sure I deserved it.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“I KNOW HE’S not eating like he used to,” Briar Savitt said as she walked alongside Mavis through the pecan grove. The salty breeze adhered the clothes to their backs. The swelling heat index hadn’t stopped Briar from taking Mavis aside just as soon as she’d arrived at the Leighton orchard. “He’s so much thinner than he was when we saw him last. But do you think he’s sleeping better now that he’s at Miss Zelda’s where it’s quiet?”

“I couldn’t tell you.” Since the brush-off from him several days ago, Mavis had steered clear of Gavin, opting to stay home for dinner as opposed to lingering at Zelda’s in the late afternoons.

“You and Miss Zelda talk every day,” Briar said. “She must tell you...how things are going.”

Briar was the kindest person Mavis had ever known. Her reasons for the inquest were genuine. Regardless, Mavis wasn’t comfortable. Especially since Gavin had already accused her of keeping tabs on him for his parents. She cleared her throat. “I think Prometheus sees Gavin more than Zelda does. I understand he comes down for meals and weight lifting. Zelda gave him one side of her private meditation room for his bench. She says he isn’t conversational.” Mavis shrugged. “That’s really all I know, Briar. Sorry.”

“I don’t mean to put you on the spot.” She rubbed Mavis’s arm in a motherly fashion, then seemed to remember that Mavis wasn’t the affectionate sort and eased back. “But Cole’s eaten up over the whole situation.”

“Because Gavin’s living at Miss Zelda’s?” Mavis asked.

“No. Well, yes. He wishes he was within arm’s length again. We all do. But the injury. The trauma. I wish we could do something to help Gavin be free of it.”

“He’ll probably never be free of it,” Mavis reminded her. Briar’s mouth folded into a line and worry knit her forehead. Mavis hated to see her this way. “He came back. And he tried to make it work at the inn. He’s never done that before. Not since he was a kid.”

“We think it’s only because it wasn’t working elsewhere,” Briar said, “on his own. He tried that first.”

“In my experience, admitting you need help is the first step to recovery.”

“Yes, but how long before he convinces himself again that he doesn’t need us?” Briar asked. “That he’s better off alone? We’ll do anything to make him stay.”

“You’re doing the right thing,” Mavis assured her. “Letting him be on his own—or with Miss Zelda... Letting him have his own space...it’ll all work out. Especially if he gives in to her. Miss Zelda wants him to try meditation. Maybe some yoga. It won’t help if he’s skeptical. And if Gavin is anything, it’s skeptical.” Of everything—of everybody, Mavis thought. There had been that moment under the bougainvillea where she’d seemed to get through that coarse web of suspicion. It had vanished at Zelda’s.

“It wasn’t just his experience on the far side of the world that made him that way,” Briar said. “You do know about his mother.”

“Yes.” Mavis frowned. Gavin’s mother, Tiffany Howard, had made large upsetting waves whenever she visited Gavin as a child.

“Thank goodness he cut off communication with her,” Briar stated. “I’ll never forget him as a boy, caught between two worlds. I know she tried for the longest time to poison his opinion of us and Fairhope.”

“He was smarter than that,” Mavis said.

“Yes,” Briar said, a small smile making the lines in her brow retreat briefly. “Though I’m afraid when that didn’t work, she tried another tack. She made him think he was different—that he’d never have a place here. That try as he might, he’d never belong.”

“That’s horrible,” Mavis muttered.

“The strongest minds can yield to the basest ideas if they hear them enough. So we understand why he feels he’s never been able to stay, and all we can do is reinforce that he does belong. To all of us.”

All of us.

“If you think he’s in trouble,” Briar said, “or you see he’s about to run, will you...”

“I’ll call,” Mavis assured her. “But I think you’re right. He is strong. He doesn’t think he is.” She thought of the weakness peeking through the bandage he’d placed around his open wounds. She’d seen the strength behind it, flagging but real. “I don’t think he wants to be alone. Not completely.”

“Thank goodness for you, Mavis,” Briar said, ignoring boundaries and squeezing Mavis’s hand as they approached the deck of the Leightons’ brick house. “I feel better knowing you’re close to him.”

“Why exactly?” Mavis asked.

“Because he’s always respected you,” Briar revealed. “A friend can save a life.”

Mavis felt a frisson of awareness scaling her spine. She crossed her arms. Did Gavin need saving? Would he want her to be the one to save him?

Doubtful. Regardless, she couldn’t let Briar down. And just like at the inn, she wouldn’t let him drown on his own. Not without him taking her down with him, if necessary.

The door to the Leightons’ rear deck swung ajar wide enough to bash the handle against the wall behind it. A short blond head streaked through, bounding down the steps to the ground. “Mammy! Mavis!”

“Here comes trouble,” Mavis said, a fond smile tugging at her lips as Briar waved a cheerful greeting.

Briar crouched to wrap her granddaughter up like a present. “The world is right again,” she murmured. She chuckled low in her throat, hugged Bea tighter, then sat back on her heels to skim curls from the girl’s brow. She pressed a kiss to the center of her forehead. “Your grandfather showed up early with you, as promised. Good man. But did he bring watermelon?”

Bea nodded eagerly. “They were selling them on the side of the road. There were hundreds of them, big and dirty—like they’d just popped out of the ground. He let me pick two, but I wasn’t big enough to carry them...”

“Give it time,” Mavis said, amused. The precocious four-year-old was growing like a weed.

“...so Uncle Gavin carried them for me,” Bea concluded.

“What?” Mavis said, slack-jawed, while a surprised Briar said, “Gavin? He came?”

“Uh-huh,” Bea replied. “He might not see so good anymore, but he sure can carry a watermelon!”

The happy report of barking brought Mavis’s head up. Prometheus, who’d been gleefully chasing squirrels since arriving in the back of her Subaru, trampled a shrub of Indian hawthorn as he made a break for the raised deck.

Gavin was ready for him this time, folding to one knee and hooking one muscled arm over Prometheus’s collar. He rocked back from the torrent of kisses Prometheus rained over the surface of his face. “Back,” Gavin said, gentle. “Back.” Prometheus’s wriggling body went still as Gavin found the place behind his ear that made the canine groan. “Good boy,” Mavis heard him murmur. He ran a hand along Prometheus’s spine before glancing up.

The frown was never far from his face. It returned in force. Replacing the Oakley sunglasses he had wisely removed before receiving Prometheus’s attentions, he straightened, his feet braced apart on the decking. He didn’t say a word when Prometheus began to wind circles around them, bumping his head and body against the man’s knees in a motion that would’ve looked feline had it not been for the speedy whip motion of the dog’s tail.

Briar didn’t hesitate to approach Gavin. “You made it,” she greeted, taking his rigid form into her arms.

“I’m sweating.” Gavin’s hands lifted, lowered, then rose the rest of the way to hug Briar back. After a second, his head dipped so that his cheek touched her temple. He let her go, but not without a small rub over the slender line of her back. “I heard rumors about your potato salad and Gerald’s rum ribs.”

Briar patted his flat tummy. “You could use some of both, I think.”

“Thanks,” he said without seeming to take offense. He reached down and ran his fingers down Bea’s upturned face, pinching her nose lightly between his knuckles. “This one charmed me out of wrestling Harmony for shotgun.”

“He taught me how to make a spitball,” Bea revealed.

“Lord help us, Gavin,” Briar said, and sighed.

“Yeah,” he said. “Sorry about that.” His gaze relocated—to Mavis. “How’s it hangin’, Frexy?”

Mavis narrowed her eyes. “Frexy?”

He lifted a shoulder. “Since you hate Freckles so much. Thought I’d change it up.”

“Frexy?” she said again.

When he said nothing further, Briar pointed out, “We were just talking, Mavis and I, about Miss Zelda.”

Lines barred the sides of his mouth, his attention all over Mavis again and displeased. “And me.”

Rigid as he was, he still emitted a waver of suspicion around his full lips. “Well, yeah,” Mavis answered. She crossed her arms. “Your stepmother wanted to know if you can do a Fallen Angel yet.”

He hesitated, measuring her. “What’d you tell her?”

“That I can’t wait to see you try.”

His features didn’t ease much. Mavis knew him well enough, however, to see them smooth, even if the frown persisted. He shifted his feet beneath him. “Can you?”

“What?” she asked. Jesus. It’d been nearly a week. She’d forgotten how little effort it took for the center line of his focus to knock her off-kilter.

“Do a Fallen Angel,” he said.

She spread her hands. “Come to class and find out.”

A hint of a grin flirted with the edges of his mouth.

Her heart reeled. Son of a bitch, she thought. Uncomfortable, she snapped her spine straight. There was a crepe myrtle encroaching on the deck. The white blossom heads were heavy enough to bow to the ensuing heat. One tickled her elbow. Irritably, she pinched the crown of blossoms until she rent flowers loose between her fingers. She stared at them for a moment before handing them absently to Bea.

She and Briar made a motion to escape into the air-conditioned house. Mavis’s feet shuffled in an awkward ball change to follow. “I taught a beginner class a few months ago. I could teach you a few poses or help you build your own flow to manage tension, stress...even head and neck aches.”

“I don’t think stretching’s going to solve all my problems,” he said.

“Probably not,” she agreed. She let the door close after Bea and Briar, lingering with her hand on the knob. He pivoted slowly to face her, giving her a second to measure the solid slope of his shoulders and his T-shirt-clad back. Briar was right. He had lost weight. “But if you can’t punch your way through the bigger problems, you might as well start chiseling away at the small stuff. Otherwise, you’re just...standing still.”

He stared. It wasn’t like being bathed in sunlight. More, moonlight. Lots and lots of super moon–light. It was mystical in its intensity—as was Gavin’s effect on her.

When she realized neither of them had spoken in nearly two minutes, she opened the door. The sounds of family conversation lured her in. The door was solid paneling, heavy. She hid a grunt behind her teeth.

A large fist clamped over the top of hers, spreading the door wider from the jamb. He was there, close.

They’d been close before, but she couldn’t remember ever being this aware of him, his large, roughened hands, or his arms roped with muscle and dark hair. Under his white T-shirt she could see the outline of black tattoo work. Body ink was her weakness—the darker, more pronounced and exquisite, the better.

Dark, pronounced, exquisite—like him.

What are you doing? she wondered. She stopped from shaking her head. He didn’t move the frigging earth; he opened a door.

She wasn’t into chivalry. She quelled the urge to trace what she could see of the tattoo’s design through the thin cotton. When her fingertips—and other areas—grew hot at the idea of tugging down the collar of his shirt altogether, she moved over the threshold out of his way.

Harmony seized the moment by shouting across the room, “You two! We’ve got frozen lemonade over here. Stop letting the heat in!”

Mavis rolled her eyes at her friend for calling them out. “I’m surprised you came,” she muttered at Gavin.

“I haven’t had Gerald’s cooking in years,” he pointed out. “When he and Briar get going in the kitchen...it’s like religion. Also, I heard there’d be a show.”

“Oh.” He meant her and Zelda. Olivia and Gerald had called them to their orchard in hopes that their EMF meters might be able to help find a lost time capsule of Olivia’s grandparents. Decades ago, the orchard had belonged to them—Ward and the first Olivia. Rumors of activity at the grove had been rife among their circle for decades. Olivia claimed she could still hear her grandmother’s laughter tinkling on the wind in autumn months. Gerald told intriguing anecdotes about the scent of pipe smoke heavy in the evenings near Olivia’s grandfather’s old woodshop. Their second son, Finnian, could jaw for hours about supposed conversations he’d had with Ward. His brother, William, was more close-mouthed, falling quieter whenever the topic was broached.

Today Mavis and Zelda weren’t here to debunk the Leightons’ claims. They were on hand to aid in what was sure to be an exhaustive search. Mavis had come dressed for dirty work in a gray cropped T-shirt and a thin plaid work shirt unbuttoned over fitted workout capris and black-and-white high-tops. She came prepared with EMF readers and a shovel of her own. Olivia had called on Briar, her first cousin, and Cole. It was Gerald’s idea to prepare the family-style fiesta.

“I thought you weren’t interested in what Zelda and I do,” Mavis said as they joined the queue for plates.

“I’m not interested in joining the revelry,” Gavin claimed. “But I bet from a distance it’s fair entertainment.”

“That proves you’ve never seen EMFs operate,” she said. “Ever worked with a metal detector?”

“At least they find treasure,” he said, handing her a plate off the stack and motioning her ahead in line. “Or tinfoil.”

“Depending on the contents of Olivia and Ward’s time capsule,” Mavis replied, “we might be finding more than that today.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it, Frexy.”

* * *

THE BLADE CUT deep into the dirt. The smells of earth, clay and rain enriched the air as Gavin worked under the baking sun.

“Mind you don’t come up against any bones,” Olivia stated. “‘Round here’s ’bout where we buried Rex.”

Gavin’s shovel paused. Visions of a clumsy Irish wolfhound he’d chased through the inn gardens alongside Kyle hit him full force. Next to him, William Leighton’s shovel stilled, too. “Now you tell us?” he demanded of his mother.

“No worries, gents,” Gerald said, and grunted. He’d joined the digging. The polished vowels of his British upbringing rang clear. “Rex is entombed under that iris bed over there. Remember, love?” He addressed his wife. “To keep a fair distance from the roots.”

The roots. Right, Gavin thought. They’d come up against a rough dozen as they dug around the tree closest to the brick house. It was an ancient specter. On the few occasions he’d visited Olivia and Gerald and their boys at the pecan orchard in the past, it had been an impressive sight. He recalled thick gnarled limbs weighted by healthy green foliage, perfect for climbing. It had had a rope swing tied in its boughs and the initials of Olivia’s grandparents carved into the trunk.

It was difficult to reconcile memories with what remained. According to Gerald, the tree had taken a direct hit from a lightning strike. Now it was as black as night. Not a speck of green decked its stark skeleton. Most of the branches had fallen or been removed for safety. From the house, its bare silhouette looked like a dancer stuck in a painful arabesque.

But the damned roots remained. Gavin’s arms sang as the shovel blade sliced into another thick offender. He lifted the shovel with both hands, bringing it down in decisive strokes to break it up. The tree was dead. How was it that so many of its roots remained lodged in the earth—as if time or disaster had never taken place?

He stopped to sweep his forearm across his brow. Sweat had built there. It soaked through his clothes. He thought of removing his shirt.

“They should take a break,” he heard Briar say. “The heat. It’s getting worse.”

“They can hear you,” William called to her. Humor lilted from his voice.

“Yeah,” Cole piped up from Gerald’s other side. “They’d like a beer, maybe.”

William and Gerald made affirmative noises. Gavin kept slicing the blade through unbroken ground, tuning in to the song of metal and clay. His blood, too, was singing. He ached with effort. The release was sweet.

His head had screamed all morning, since 3:30 a.m. when dreams had tripped him awake. With a meal in his belly, however, and the lull of early afternoon on the orchard, plus the added work...the feeling of industry...he could almost convince himself he was enjoying all of it.

And there was Mavis. It had all started with her, the shovel in her hands. The EMF meters had found anomalies, suggesting activity of some kind. Gavin had heard her struggling with the blade near the woodshed, then the front porch of the house, and finally closer to the irises. When she’d stopped to drink the glass of lemonade Briar brought her, Gavin had yanked the shovel and picked up where she left off. William and Cole had followed his lead. Soon there was a trench around the dead tree beside the irises.

“We close, Frexy?” he called out to her without looking. He felt her watchful eyes.

“It doesn’t work like sonar. There could be something here. There could be nothing.”