#FirstChapterFriday from The Night Gardener
Architect, Dane
Lovell takes an off-season vacation in an old New England mansion, hoping to
ease his broken heart, and spark his imagination. Impressed by the pretty
gardens, he’s surprised by the sinister atmosphere of the river than winds
through the estate. Dane settles down to his vacation and tries to immerse
himself in his drawings. 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’s the estate
gardener and brings with him not just passion and a love affair for Dane, but a
strange, spine-tingling mystery.
Who is Zachary, and what will happen when Dane finds out?
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 mid-afternoon. 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
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