Chapter 9 #3
“Danielle has always been a special child. Change is excruciating for her. She has ordered her world around her just so, and when something doesn’t go the way she wants or expects it to, she .
. .” Tatiana shook her head. “She has a hard time coping. It takes much effort to adjust, and that is putting it mildly. That’s why I haven’t told her there’s a good chance we’ll have to move.
I don’t want to upset her yet if there’s any hope we can find a way to stay.
” But her voice held little hope indeed.
“I hope to hear back from the executor any day now.”
“That makes sense,” Elsa said, wishing she could encourage her more. “The executor may have good news for you, after all.” And if he didn’t, it would be even more important to find that aviary.
Luke climbed down the ladder, hammer hooked through a loop in a short apron tied about his waist. A handful of shingles poked out the top of the apron pocket.
“You happened to have all that in the truck?” Elsa asked.
“No self-respecting salvage dealer goes anywhere without his toolbox and extra supplies. The shingles are a bonus, though. I had these left over from another job Tom and I did on the side. So they don’t match your originals up there.
” He wiped his forearm across his brow. “It may not look pretty, but it gets the job done.”
“A roof that doesn’t leak is a beautiful thing no matter what it looks like.
” Beaming, Tatiana rose and stretched out her hand to shake his.
“I thank you. Mrs. Van Tessel had a fellow in her employ to do these kinds of repairs, but when he left, she decided it best not to hire another in his place. Finances were lean after the master died. Those of us who stayed were willing to tighten our belts to help her make ends meet on the estate. We stayed for the missus and the land, not for the pay.”
“Do you know why Mrs. Van Tessel didn’t sell some of her paintings instead of bequeathing them to museums?” Luke asked the other question burning in Elsa’s mind.
“Oh, she did. She sold the ones her husband preferred. The ones she kept meant too much to her to even consider parting with,” Tatiana explained, then added, “I’ve kept you too long, I suspect.”
Luke was still in his wet clothes, after all, and they both had more work to be doing at the mansion.
“Thank you for the dry clothes, Tatiana.” Elsa pushed carefully out of the rocker and accepted Luke’s support to help her down the stairs. “We’ll visit again soon, all right?”
“I do hope so.” Tatiana smiled, and her eyes pinched at the corners. “Thank you all for making this a lovely day.”
Elsa squeezed her hand in parting.
At the end of the day, Luke beckoned Elsa toward the truck. “How about we give you a lift?”
“To the train station? That would be great, if you don’t mind. I don’t know why the taxi I requested this morning hasn’t come.” She’d arranged for him to arrive an hour ago. At least she’d gotten more work done while she waited.
“We can do better than that. You’re going our way. We offer door to door service. You wouldn’t have to walk more than the distance from the curb to your building, and bingo, you’re home.”
Tom finished loading something into the back of the truck and slammed the doors shut before coming around to join her and Luke. Barney trotted alongside him.
“I would have offered last week, too,” Luke went on, “but you didn’t know us then. I figured you’d be too smart to get into a delivery truck with two men you’d only just met.”
“Especially when one of us looks like him,” Tom ribbed Luke, who seemed to take it in stride.
Elsa returned their smiles. By her count, today marked only the fourth day they’d all been at Elmhurst together. She still didn’t know them well, yet, but she’d like the chance to change that.
As she peered through the window at the back seat, Barney jumped through the side door and stretched out on it, ears perked up, as if asking who would sit with him.
She chuckled. “Are you asking me to ride in the back of your truck with that hairy, bright-eyed thief? For twenty-four miles?” She was only half teasing.
“Actually, I may warm up to him yet. But I admit to being prone to motion sickness.”
In answer, Tom climbed in and sat next to the dog, then patted the empty seat in front of him. “All yours, Elsa. Let’s shake a leg, huh?”
She looked from him and Barney to Luke and was strangely touched by this threesome who had been through so much together and now made room for her.
She could likely handle travel by train and taxi back to the Beresford even after wearing herself out today, but these men offered more than a simple mode of transit.
“I’d be foolish to refuse time spent in pleasant company,” she said. “I accept. Thank you.”
“Who said anything about it being pleasant?” Tom joked.
But it absolutely was. The ride home was peppered with talk of work at Elmhurst, then ventured to stories of Barney’s past adventures at other estates. She loved seeing the unlikely camaraderie between these two men.
“I never asked how inconvenient it will be for you to bring me to the Beresford,” Elsa said. “Do either of you live anywhere near the Upper West Side?”
“We live in the Upper West Side,” Luke said, “which means we’re practically neighbors.”
Tom named a corner only a handful of blocks from the Beresford.
“That area is full of brownstones from the last century, isn’t it? What a beautiful area.” Elsa remembered the treelined streets and uniform sandstone rowhouses.
“Some parts are more beautiful than others these days,” Luke admitted.
“In fact, the place we live in now had fallen into disrepair long before it went into foreclosure. Soon after I returned from war, my father heard about it from one of his real estate contacts and sent me out there to salvage for his warehouse.”
“The real estate agent didn’t mind you tearing out the best pieces?” Elsa asked. “Wouldn’t that make it harder to sell?”
Luke shook his head. “Believe me, no one was going to buy this place.”
“No one but Luke,” Tom said on a laugh.
A smile curled on Luke’s face. “Bought it for a song. My father wasn’t too happy when I told him, either.
He’d been planning to get some original mantels, banisters, and paneled doors.
He could have made a lot of money on those if I had ripped them out of the house as I’d been tasked to do.
But I couldn’t stand the idea of gutting the old dame even further.
She’d been ill-used for years, and I knew I could fix her up, give her back her dignity. ”
Tom leaned forward from the back seat. “And?”
Luke cast him a sidelong glance over his shoulder. “And I also couldn’t stand the idea of living with my parents again in their Gramercy Park home. I had been on my own for years and couldn’t go back.”
Elsa could understand that. Living in one’s childhood home as an adult—especially after experiencing independence for years—would be a huge adjustment.
She angled in her seat to look at Tom. “You live near Luke?”
“Very.” He grinned. “We’re housemates. He’d already moved in by the time I got back from Europe, and he offered me a place.
I couldn’t pay much for rent, but he said that was no problem as long as I pitched in to help him fix the place up.
I didn’t know it at the time, but it turned out to be training for the kind of work I do for his father’s company now. Sure kept me busy and worn out.”
Luke squinted through the windscreen at the lowering sun. “All part of the plan.”
His tone was light, but Elsa believed there had been purpose in that plan, indeed.
Not only had Luke given the young veteran a place to land, but he’d given him work.
All-consuming, virtually never-ending work that yielded tangible results, job training, a shared goal, and a way to stop the tremors, which she’d noticed he suffered from only when his hands were idle.
“Come to think of it, he still keeps me busy and worn out.” With a crooked smile, Tom lit a cigarette.
The smell sent Elsa’s stomach churning. “Oh, I’m sorry, Tom, but would you mind not smoking until after you drop me off? The smoke will make me carsick for sure.”
He promptly put it out. “No problem.”
Luke raised an eyebrow at her. “He doesn’t obey me half so well.”
“You don’t ask nearly so nice!” Tom piped up from the backseat. Barney snored beside him.
Ignoring the jibe, Luke said, “Say, you should ride along more often. How’s tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow I work at the museum. But Wednesday?”
“Wednesday,” he agreed. “And every day after that you need it.”
Nodding, Elsa smiled at the road ahead.