Chapter One
“Here are the keys, Mr. Lovell. Once I leave tomorrow
morning you’ll have the estate to yourself. I’ll lock and shutter the big
house, but the grounds are yours to enjoy. There’s a decent fishing rod in the
cottage garden shed, if you fish. The river is famous for trout.” Jackson
Montgomery placed a sizeable bunch of keys in Dane’s palm with a smile. “You
still have my phone number, just in case, eh? Janice stocked the larder and
fridge for you?” He glanced around the big kitchen as if he could see into the
larder and fridge to assess the contents. Cottage was a misnomer for the place
Dane Lovell had rented for the next eight weeks. With two floors and a cellar,
plus the fact it stretched the length of just about three ordinary family
houses, Dane considered the old place a mansion.
“Yes, thanks. She showed me everything and it’ll
probably take me my whole stay to get through the supplies.” He smiled as he
followed the caretaker out of the back door and onto the patio.
Jackson turned to him and held out his hand.
Dane shook his hand in goodbye. “Thanks for
everything.”
The caretaker gave a nod and was gone, marching along
the short, crazy-paved path to the side gate, where with another glance over
his shoulder at Dane, he went through it to the neighboring and smaller cottage
that was his home.
Dane pushed his hands into his jeans pockets and
wandered to the bottom of the garden that adjoined the cottage. He breathed in
the cool, reinvigorating air emitted by a thicket of evergreen trees as he took
the path that wove through them and led him to the bend in the river rushing past.
His cell phone buzzed in the pocket of his denim gilet.
“Lovell.” He stopped walking to answer.
“Dane, where the hell are you? What happened to our
meeting?” His brother’s voice held both annoyance and anxiety.
“Sorry, Emmet, I took off earlier than I expected. I
did leave you a message, at your office. Didn’t you get it?”
“Rosie strikes again. I swear I’ll never have another
temp from that agency. Okay, well, have a good break. Keep in touch. I guess
planning a new project can wait until you’ve recharged your batteries for a few
weeks. I wish you’d not gone quite so far away, though, Dane—New England…”
Dane caught the change in his brother’s tone and knew
he must be smiling.
“I needed a total change after the incident with Jeremy.
It’s been months and I’m still not over it, but thanks, Emmet, I’ll try to have
a good break.” He ended the call as he gazed into the flow of water where the
weak sun threw its light. Square sparkles dashed by on the water looking like
little windows into the river. Dane walked closer to the edge of the bank and
watched for a few moments. Immediately below, long slender reeds swayed in huge
tangled bunches. Dane turned and walked back to the cottage, hunger forcing him
away from the mesmerizing sight.
He’d not eaten since the day before. Dane never ate
before late afternoon. In fact, he was never usually out and about until
midafternoon. He worked far into the night and usually fell into bed around
dawn. Somehow, over the years, this had become his normal pattern of living—Dane
was nocturnal. Meetings, such as the one he was to have with Emmet, posed a
problem. Although his brother always accommodated him, other people usually
wanted them in the morning. On those occasions, Dane forced himself out of
slumber and took a cab to the venue, not trusting his sleepy head to drive.
Sometimes Dane tried to change this nocturnal pattern, but it never worked. The
blanket of night offered him comfort.
He entered the kitchen and made straight for the
fridge. Janice, the caretaker’s wife, had left a large roasted chicken for him.
He brought it to the table and pulled a loaf of crusty bread from the breadbox
on the counter. Dane hummed as he made a sandwich. The complete change of
scenery already soothed his soul. Cocooned in stands of trees and circled by
sparkling water, Dane breathed a sigh of relief. There were no reminders of
Jeremy here.
****
Janice Montgomery handed her husband, Jackson, a beer.
He took it with a grateful smile. “Thanks, sweetheart.”
He sat heavily in his armchair and brought his feet up onto the footstool.
“It’ll be great to get away. Have you packed?”
She came to sit on the arm of the chair and ran her
fingers into his hair, taking it back from his forehead. She planted a kiss
there. “I have. Have you finished work? Can we make an early start?”
Jackson caught her hand and kissed her palm. “All done.
Let’s leave around six. We’ll miss the business traffic if we get out the other
side of town before seven.”
A small frown put a crease between her eyes. “Jackson …
have you mentioned Zachary to the guy leasing the cottage?”
Jackson pursed his lips. “Dane Lovell’s the guy’s name,
and no I, er, I forgot.”
Janice stood. “I don’t think you forgot. I think you
chickened out. Dinner’s ready. I’ll dish up.”
Jackson gazed after her. He heaved a sigh. Zachary…
****
A TV sat on a shelf in a breakfast nook at the end of
the kitchen. Dane ate his sandwich as he caught the evening news. He made
coffee as he listened to the weather report, and then he brought his laptop to
the big pine table in the main part of the kitchen, and booted it.
Dane opened the folder on the desktop marked Emmet and clicked on the file. His
architectural design software opened it. He scrutinized the drawing for a few
moments.
The design was finished. He could email it to Emmet.
That way he could concentrate on his other project, his secret passion. He
closed the file and opened his email program. Wi-Fi included was one of the attractions
listed for the cottage. He emailed the file with a short note for Emmet to go
ahead and take over the deal.
Dane loved designing buildings, but although architecture
was his first love, it wasn’t his only love. Dane wrote. He wrote mystery novels
under a pen name. A few months ago, Dane’s ideas dried up. At first, he didn’t
worry, thinking the break-up was to blame, and then as time galloped by with
not a word written, he admitted to himself that he had a real problem. He
figured a total change of scenery might help both his melancholy and his
writers’ block.
The email sent, Dane closed the mail application and
sat back in the chair to stare at the screen. He waited for words to perform
magic in his head the way they used to, but it didn’t happen. Instead, lovely
houses built in his imagination. He pushed away from the table. The chair
scraped on the flagstone floor. A sigh escaped him as he stood to get another
cup of coffee.
He shivered in the cool evening breeze that entered
through the open window over the kitchen sink. With a fresh cup of coffee on
the table, he went to the bedroom he’d chosen to sleep in and found a sweater.
He picked up his favorite sketchbook and pencils as the need to draw filled him…
Dawn filtered through the slim gaps at the sides of the
blinds. Birds sang their morning song. Dane stretched and considered the
drawings he’d worked on all night.
“Time to snatch a little sleep,” he told himself. He
stripped off the sweater and left it on a chair as he passed on his way to take
a shower.
Copyright E.D.Parr 2017 Evernight Publishing
The Night Gardener
Architect, Dane Lovell takes an off-season vacation in an old New England mansion. One night, the sound of the back door smashing open in the wind and rain shocks Dane from his work.
Spooky, gorgeous, and enigmatic Zachary Yarrow has brought logs for the fire. He brings with him not just passion and a love affair for Dane, but a strange, spine-tingling mystery.
Amazon global link http://a-fwd.com/asin-com=B06XH4TFSS
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