The Art of Inheriting Secrets(48)

“I love her for that,” Samir said. “She sounds like someone I would like.”

“You would have liked her. She had a very dry wit and a taste for the absurd. I miss her so much it’s like there should be a new word for it, something besides lonely or grieving or—”

His hand, warm and steady, fell on my shoulder.

I swallowed, blinked away the ready sudden emotion, and brushed hair out of my face. “If it is a treasure hunt, I don’t know the first clue. I’ll have to figure out what that is.”

“You found the first clue already, though, didn’t you?”

“Did I?”

“You’re here, so you came to the place she wanted you to find.”

“Of course.” I looked through the window to the manor. “I wonder where the next one is. In the house?”

“Maybe.” His hand fell away, leaving a cold spot where it had been.

“I just need more information of all kinds.” I paused, frowning. “There are a lot of missing details, and they’re all a big jumble at the moment. Until I understand what she was thinking, I can’t unravel it.”

“We should make lists, a chart, maybe. If you want help, that is.”

“Yes, please.”

“Good. Now, let’s go back to town. I’m famished.” One long-fingered hand settled over his belly. “Do you need anything from the hotel?”

“No, thanks.” I was so weary of the single room and the sound of karaoke. Closing the door behind me, I said, “I do need to look for a place to stay. I really miss cooking for myself.”

“Talk to Helen Richmond. She knows everything.”

“The bakery woman?”

“Yes. And have you ever tried her carrot cake?”

“No.”

“Trust me: that’s a treat you don’t want to miss.”

We drove to his cottage. It seemed straightforward enough until I sat next to him in the small car, and I found my head filled with the scent of him, grass and twilight and earth. I was unexpectedly overcome, noticing his wrists and the shift of muscles in his forearm as he moved, the shape of his thighs. It made it hard to talk, to think of anything to say that wouldn’t be completely idiotic, so I stayed quiet.

I was no innocent. I knew my way around courting and rituals and how to play it cool, but in all my life, I’d never simply breathed the smell of another human being and wanted to scramble out of my clothes instantly. It made him seem dangerous. It made me feel unstable.

“Is everything all right?” he asked.

“Fine,” I said brightly.

Inside his cottage, he said, “I won’t be a minute. Make yourself at home.” From his phone, he swiped an app, and the stereo came on, playing something bluesy, easy. “This okay?”

“Yeah. Great.”

The cat came running, stopped a moment to greet me and allow himself to be petted, then dashed into the hallway.

Where Samir was shedding his clothes. Taking a shower. It made me dizzy to think of it.

Enough. I tucked my hands behind my waist and browsed the shelves of books. Some of it was what a student of literature would have collected, classics and modern literary novels, British, Indian, and American writers.

But there were also old genre paperbacks, mostly science fiction and horror; history of various eras; a lot of military history; and many novels. I noticed a lot of magic realism—Salman Rushdie and Gabriel García Márquez and Alice Hoffman. I tugged down Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate, a small book with an art deco cover, and a wave of warmth spread through me—it was one of my favorites, magic realism centered on food and sex. Leafing through the pages, I revisited the pleasure of the reading, feeling myself on a foggy winter day in San Francisco drinking hot chocolate. I loved that he had it on his shelf. I would have to remember to ask him about it.

Ah, reading. The best of all things. I tucked the book back in its place.

And there, on the end, were three hardcover novels with paper dust jackets written by Samir Malakar. I kept my hands tucked behind my back. The titles seemed literary. I wondered which one had been first.

From the doorway, he said, “It’s all right. Go ahead.”

He stood on the threshold, drying his hair. His skin was still damp, and a clean camp shirt clung to his shoulders. His feet were bare, and like his hands, they were long and graceful. I looked away. “Which one was first?”

“Long Days.”

I took it off the shelf. The cover was artful and abstract, but instead of a serious tone, it had a cheery sort of art that signaled a comedic novel. Something eased in my shoulders. Of course he would write comedy. Flipping to the jacket copy, I read a summary of the story about a young man running wild in the freedom of London but finding his way back to himself. I looked at the back flap, and there was Samir, much younger, looking back at me with his very cheery smile. His hair was quite short, and he’d not yet grown the goatee, but he was utterly and perfectly beautiful and couldn’t have been more than twenty-five.

“Will you let me read it?”

A slight shrug. “If you want to.”

Reluctantly but with respect for his actual wishes, I closed the book and set it back on the shelf. “Not until you really don’t mind.”

A softness between us then. “Thank you.”