The Guest House by Marks Erika

Author:Marks, Erika [Marks, Erika]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2013-06-04T00:00:00+00:00

Harrisport, Massachusetts

July 1966

Hank watched Edie coast down the driveway on her bicycle just after eight thirty on Monday morning. It was the third time in a week that she’d arrived late to work. What was more, she didn’t even look particularly concerned as she sailed through the rows of trucks and hopped off her bike, setting it against her usual tree. A part of him wanted to stand in the guest house doorway so she couldn’t slip into the crew unnoticed this time, to force her to explain her recent tardiness, not to mention her carefree expression. She knew her father’s rules—which were his, Hank’s, too. It confounded him: Here she was, always complaining that the guys didn’t take her seriously, didn’t let her take on the challenging jobs, and yet she had no compunction about gliding in to work a half hour late, not bothering to give an explanation, clearly not thinking he deserved one.

But who was he kidding? She didn’t have to give her reasons for being late getting to work and for acting distracted the entire time she was there; Hank knew. It was Moss.

It shouldn’t have bothered him—it clearly didn’t bother the rest of the crew, who Hank often feared were relieved not to face Edie Worthington’s fiery temper at eight o’clock in the morning because one of them might have implied she was too short/weak/small/slow/take your pick to handle something, and suffered a speech trimmed with more obscenities in one breath than a single man might use in a whole day.

No, it shouldn’t have bothered him, but it did. Why? That was the part that Hank couldn’t get a fix on. As her boss, it bothered him professionally. Who could argue with that? But there was another side to it, something far less logical, something closer to disappointment than frustration. As long as he’d known Edie Worthington—and he’d known her for years now—she’d never taken an interest in a summer guy. While Hank had watched plenty of local girls, sisters of some of his best friends, fall headlong for a wash-ashore, Edie had proudly declared that she would never date a boy from away.

Until this summer. Until Tucker Moss.

Hank didn’t see what was so special about the guy, frankly. Sure, Moss had money, but so what? And okay, he dressed well and carried himself like his too-good-for-everybody old man—or at least tried to. But since when had Edie given a shit about all that?

He thought about Missy Murphy, how she’d arrived dressed like she was heading for a yachting party, and all he could think was what Edie must have been saying about those open-toed shoes of hers, or Missy’s crisp white sailor shorts. There he was, getting a surprise visit from one of the most sought-after girls in Harrisport, and he was worrying about Edie Worthington’s opinion. It hadn’t been this way before. Until the beginning of this summer, until Edie had joined their crew, Hank had never much thought about Edie except as

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