A String of Beads (Jane Whitefield, #8)(62)
Chelsea had always hated the mailbox where she and Nick had lived, because it epitomized for her the fact that she and Nick lived out in the sticks. She had to trudge all the way down the gravel drive in rain or snow to retrieve a few bills and a pile of garish ads for things she wouldn’t buy in a million years. But in this neighborhood, the mailboxes at the ends of long driveways symbolized the ownership of a big house on a vast piece of land.
Daniel Crane drove along the road, and then turned right into one of the driveways. The surface looked like cobblestones, but she knew that the stones must be some modern imitation, partly because every stone was identical and perfectly level. As he drove along the driveway’s big curve, she caught herself trying to look ahead of the sweeping headlights to see what came next. First thick shrubbery for privacy from the road, then neat plantings of bright dahlias, hydrangeas, and rock roses, then the trunks of tall pine trees, and then a lawn like a golf course. The house itself was one story, a sprawling, plain dark brown building that she only now realized was natural wood. There was a narrow opening between wings of the house, and through it she could see a Japanese garden that seemed to be surrounded by glass.
Crane stopped the SUV in front of the entrance, where she could see the garden beyond the opening by the dim light coming from the house’s interior through the glass wall. “Just give me a few minutes.” He undid his seat belt and let it retract.
“Beautiful house,” Chelsea said.
He turned to look at her. “Want to take a look inside? I feel weird leaving you sitting out here alone.”
She hesitated, thinking about sitting here alone in the dark while he went inside. “Sure,” she said. She unlatched her seat belt and put her hand on the door handle, but he was there opening the door before she could go anywhere, offering her his hand.
She was glad she’d taken it when she stepped to the pavement. Her high heels were uncertain and a little wobbly on the stone driveway. She followed him as he opened the front door and punched in the alarm code on the keypad on the wall. He flipped a few switches and various parts of the house lit up.
The right side of the living room was the glass wall she had glimpsed from the front. The light out there was from small spotlights along the edge of the roof, and it showed her a big boulder with water trickling from a natural depression at the top, down its side into a tiny pond and recycling to flow down continuously. There was a bed of fine gravel raked into patterns to circle dark volcanic-looking boulders in a seemingly random arrangement, with a few twisted evergreen shrubs. A simple wooden bench beside the garden was where she could imagine herself sitting on a warm day reading.
Recessed lights in the living room ceiling lit floor-to--ceiling bookcases built into one wall filled with books and the occasional small sculpture or ceramic. Others threw softer beams of light on a semicircular arc of couches arranged as a conversation area around a low, round table.
But Crane was already across the room and disappearing under an arch into a wide gallery. “Make yourself at home,” he called over his shoulder. Chelsea lost sight of him, but had the impression that he turned to the right somewhere on his walk, and then had the sense that his office must overlook the Japanese garden from the side.
She walked across the living room, looked through a matching arch that seemed to end in the kitchen, where she could see gleaming stainless steel, and a couple of unlit rooms that opened on either side of that gallery.
Chelsea stood still and stared at everything, shocked. The house looked like it belonged to a celebrity who had incredibly sophisticated taste. The pictures on the white walls were mostly not of anything, just beautiful colors smeared or dribbled or painted on in stripes with so many layers that they seemed to be deep enough to fall into. There were smaller ones, drawings or watercolors, mostly of girls, a few of them just girls’ faces or girls not naked. She loved this house. It looked like something in a magazine.
She walked along the bookcases identifying tall art books, architecture books, thick collections of essays about opera, classical music, or philosophy. She had never imagined Dan Crane was interested in any of these topics. She had an urge to take some of the books down and look at them, but she could see that they had been arranged so precisely that he would know if she disturbed one, and might not like it.
She heard a door closing somewhere in the distance, and then Dan’s shoes on the hardwood floor. She looked toward the arch and saw him reappear, carrying a half-inch-thin soft leather briefcase. “This house is gorgeous, Daniel.”
He tossed his briefcase on the nearest couch and said, “Come on. I’ll give you a quick tour.”
“Can we start in the kitchen?”
He looked surprised. “Sure. This way.”
The kitchen was exactly as she had guessed—huge and airy, with granite counters, a big island with sinks and overhead ventilation hood. There was a Sub-Zero refrigerator, a nine-burner stove, a double oven. Everything was gleaming and spotless. She was sure Dan Crane never cooked here, but someone certainly could. He led her out and opened a door on the corridor, and she saw a big television screen and some identical leather chairs with end tables beside each of them. “Screening room.”
As she went with him from room to room she couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to live here. The woman who had this house would live with Daniel Crane, of course, and that wasn’t something that appealed to her at first thought, but tonight she had begun to think that she had judged him too soon. She had been aware from the beginning that he had money. He owned the company where Nick had worked, so obviously he’d have more money than Nick. What she hadn’t known before was that he had such good taste, such a rich imagination, such an appreciation for beauty. He had a lively inner life that she had never suspected.