Page 90 of The Treasure House

“Power’s back,” Jake said sleepily. He’d pulled the throw blanket over us. We were packed tightly together on the couch, my leg thrown over his.

“We really should have gone to bed. I have a king-size bed in there.” He yawned.

“I like it here,” I said, propping myself up on an elbow and watching him as he crossed the room to turn the light out. He was unselfconscious naked, but who wouldn’t be with a body like that?

“I like that you like it here.” He leaned over and kissed me. “I might just clean off the table before Hazel realizes she can reach the chicken.”

“I can help.”

“Nope.” He pushed me back when I made to stand and tucked the blanket around me. “You want some coffee while I’m up?”

“It’s the middle of the night,” I protested.

“Nope. It’s almost dawn.” He reached for his phone and showed me the screen.

I yelped. It was six-thirty. “I have work!”

He laughed. “And you have plenty of time. No school run, remember?”

I sagged back against the couch. Oh. That took a good hour of craziness out of my morning.

“I’ll make you breakfast, and you can watch the sunrise with me, then go home and get ready for work.”

The sunrise was something to see from Jake’s place. The storm had passed but the harbor was still windswept and tempestuous. We dressed and put our coats on and took our coffee out on the balcony in the frosty fresh morning.

I turned my face into the wind and enjoyed the briskness of it. Everything smelled like rain and pine. My skin tingled from the cold, and from Jake. He wrapped an arm around me from behind and held me tight against him as the eastern sky blushed pink around the edges of the gray banks of clouds. The first gulls took wing and I heard the long haunting cry of the loons.

“They’ll be gone soon,” Jake murmured, dropping a kiss on my head. “Once they’ve flown, we’ll be in winter for real. It always makes me sad.”

Coral and pink rays struck loose from the clouds, sending bars of light across the choppy harbor. I sighed and leaned back against Jake, thinking it was one of the prettiest things I’d ever seen.

“Do you often watch the sunrise, or are you a late sleeper?” I asked him.

“Ah, we’re back to the questions. I usually watch the sunrise. My bed is there.” He pointed at another set of French doors further along the balcony. “So even if I sleep in, I can see it. Lately I’ve been getting up and taking the dog for a run. If you head down to the beach the morning after a storm, you’ll find driftwood washed up. There’s nothing a dog likes more than chasing thrown driftwood.”

The mention of questions reminded me. “I did have something I wanted to ask you,” I said, turning within the circle of his arm to look up at him. “I found some old postcards and letters in the house.” I described them to him. “Do you know who F is?”

“Well, I’d have to look at them to be sure, but I’d guess the F stands for Freddie.”

“Freddie?” I lit up. “Freddie who?”

“Freddie de Marche.”

“De Marche? Like your cousin Perry next door to me?”

“Yeah,” Jake said slowly. He was looking at me with an expression I couldn’t read.

“He was writing to Marly, wasn’t he?” My imagination had run wild since I’d read the letters. “Was it a tragic romance? I mean, she was the last person to live in the house, and I’m yet to come across any happily ever after photo albums or his and hers monogrammed towels. There’s really nothing in that house that seems to belong to him, except for the postcards. Did he break her heart?”

“Marly wasn’t the last person to live in that house,” Jake said, confused.

“She wasn’t?” I asked, shocked. “But everyone calls it Marly’s place.” All the imaginings I had about my house wobbled like a tower of cards. I’d built a whole image in my head of Marly, the old lady of the culch.

“Well, it was Marly’s place. She got the family shares in it and she used it for a summer place. But she never lived there.”

“She didn’t?” I couldn’t hide my disappointment. “Then who did?”

Jake pulled away and a cloud fell over his face.