Free The Guest House by Erika Marks Page A

hoping something here will inspire me.”
    “Or some
one
.” Jim winked. “I bet there are a few old flames here you might like to start a fire with again, am I right?”
    “Hardly.” Cooper pushed his glass at Jim for one more pour, his last, he decided as he watched Jim fill it to the top. Hot or not, he’d sleep well now. “No, I think you have me confused with Hud.”
    “Your brother did do some damage in this town, didn’t he?” agreed Jim. “I was more like you. Too nice for my own good, frankly.”
    Cooper smiled. “Oh, I’m sure you made your mark on a few hearts.”
    “Pencil marks. Easily erased, I assure you.”
    “I never really knew any girls in Harrisport,” Cooper said. “Most of the people we ever knew here were summer people like us. They came when we came and left when we left. I
did
ask Alexandra Wright to photograph the house for the historic registry application. You probably never knew the Wrights. They’re a local family. Builders.”
    “Oh, I knew ’em.” Jim grinned, his gaze drifting wistfully toward the window. “Your daddy was in love with Edie Wright a long time ago. Though she was Worthington then.”
    Cooper frowned. “You must be thinking of Hud and Alexandra.”
    “No, I’m thinking of your daddy and Edie,” Jim said firmly, glancing up to see Cooper’s dubious expression.
    “Dad never told me about that.”
    “He didn’t tell a lot of people. Heck, I probably shouldn’t have, either,” said Jim, winking as he corked the bottle, “so let’s just forget I did and call it a night.”
    “Oh, no sir.” Cooper tugged the bottle from Jim’s hand and set it back on the table. “This is a writer you’re talking to. You don’t just drop a bomb like that on a writer and call it quits.”
    Jim chuckled as he rose. “Sorry, son. This old man’s up way past his bedtime.”
    “Fine,” said Cooper, rising too. “But be warned: I’m not letting you off the hook. There’s a story there, and I plan to hear it.”

Harrisport, Massachusetts
    July 1966
    T ucker Moss steered the red convertible with one arm draped across the back of the plump leather seat. Up ahead, the long stretch of sun-speckled pavement would turn abruptly to rutted dirt and he’d have to draw his hand down to the gearshift, but for now, he could relax and let the sea air tumble through the car’s interior.
    He loved these winding roads, loved the way the roadster took them. Never mind that in a few months this road would be impassable without a plow. He’d be back in Charlotte and stuck to a desk at the firm by the time snow fell wet and heavy here. But on this thick and humid day, winter was a thousand years away. There was only the moist, salty smell of the air, and the hot sun slicing through the trees, gloriously blinding. For just a while, he might have been anyone, free to do anything he wanted.
    “Ten bucks says your old man calls me Joe again,” Jim Masterson shouted across the convertible’s front seat, his North Carolina accent nearly lost in the roar of the wind.
    Tucker smiled at his college roommate and shouted back in his own similar drawl, “And ten bucks says you don’t correct him.
Again
.”
    “Hey, I don’t want to be rude,” Jim defended, pushing his glasses higher with the pad of his thumb. “He
is
your father.”
    As if he’d ever let me forget it
, Tucker thought. This wasn’t the first time he’d envied Jim Masterson his life: a father who was as agreeable to a son who wanted to follow in his legal footsteps as to one who wanted to run off and join the circus. No wonder Jim was always such an optimist. It was easy to hope for the best when you never knew what the worst might be.
    “Hey, watch out.”
    Jim pointed to a girl on a bicycle who appeared at the edge of the approaching curve, dressed in dungarees rolled to midcalf and a checkered shirt, a fat red braid swinging under her straw hat. She navigated the bike along the soft shoulder one-handed, her