Hearts of Avon Page 3

each other and to living in a way that Beth would be proud of.

  Ben looked back to the painting of a sunset over the ocean he had been working on. A sailboat was in the painting’s center. He had painted its sails extended fully in the wind, and was about to work the red on his brush into the horizon when Mason interrupted his thoughts again.

  “It’s the girl. You know that, don’t you?” Mason asked Ben in his gruff voice. “I saw her with you on the beach yesterday. Is she local?”

  Ben laid his brush down on his palette. “No. She’s here for a few weeks to help her aunt paint the outside of her house.”

  “She’s beautiful. Be careful, it’s hard to start a relationship and then have her leave. And she could see what you have together in a totally different way than you do.”

  “We’re friends, that’s it, and I would make it work if I ever fell for a girl from out of town. You know I’m not a guy who’d take advantage of a girl and just use her while she’s here.”

  “It’s not her I worry for, Ben, it’s you. I don’t want to see you fall for her and watch her break your heart when she leaves.”

  Knock! Knock! Knock! The sound from the house’s front door interrupted them.

  Ben put his brush down on the painting palette, careful to keep its bristles clear of other paint so that he wouldn’t taint the red hue he had worked to achieve on its tip. “I can take care of myself,” he told Mason while rising to go to the door. “Thank you for caring though.”

  Soon he was at the door, with its cool copper handle in his hand. As he opened it, sunlight flooded in and he smiled to see Caroline’s beautiful smile as she greeted him. Her hair blew in the breeze coming off the ocean down the beach. He ran his hand through his hair, not expecting that she’d be there.

  “You said if I needed you, to come, right?” Caroline grinned. “Well, I need you… that is, if you don’t mind getting some paint on your hands.”

  He was excited. Maybe she does like me. “I don’t know. I’ll think about it.” He smiled and shut the door, waiting a few moments before reopening it. “Sure, why not? But make no mistake, you’re going to owe me. Let me go tell my dad and change in to some scrub clothes. Care to come in while you wait? I have some prime orange juice in the fridge.”

  Caroline stepped in out of the heat and followed him up the stairs. He caught Mason’s eye roll and smile as he stepped into the main level of the house.

  Mason stood. “And who is this lovely lady?” his father asked while coming over to them and reaching out to shake Caroline’s hand.

  “Caroline. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Are you Ben’s father?”

  “Call me Mason. But yes, he’s my son. Come here and let me show you something.”

  “Mason!” Ben called back as he made his way to his bedroom. “I’m sure she doesn’t want to see those!”

  A few minutes later, Ben emerged from his room wearing tattered jeans and a t-shirt that already had paint spots up and down them. He wore them while helping paint the local church the summer before.

  “You never told me you were an artist!” Caroline called back to him as she stood by his easel, admiring the painting he was working on. “How do you do this? Your dad showed me your paintings. You have a lot of talent.”

  Ben didn’t like praise. It had never been something he was comfortable with and he found himself wishing Mason hadn’t shown off his work. “It’s nothing, just something Mason and I do in the mornings,” he said humbly while walking beside her and looking at the sunset he was painting.

  “Don’t be so modest,” Mason chimed in while lifting his brush from his own canvas. “We sell them in different galleries throughout the Outer Banks, and Ben’s usually bring in more than mine.”

  Caroline held out her hand, almost touching the canvas where the boat was, out in the middle of the water. Ben had begun to paint the figure of a girl there, on its deck. “It is so beautiful and real looking,” she said while lowering her hand.

  “I could paint something for you,” he said, not really knowing where that had come from. Then he saw something out of the corner of his eye. One of his smaller paintings, about the size of his hand, lay on a table beneath a shell lamp close by. In it was a dolphin jumping through the waves as the sun set in the distance behind it. He actually painted the piece after seeing a dolphin when he went out on a local fishing boat. Ben went over to the table and picked it up. “What do you think of this one until I can paint something new?”

  Caroline took it in her hands and he felt her fingers softly touch his as she did. The sensation sent a shiver through him.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said. He could see her taking in its vibrant hues. “Thank you so much, Ben. I know just where to hang it in my room, and I would love to have any other painting you’d do.”

  “I would be honored.” Ben took his paints and covered them to keep them from drying out. She had such attractive eyes. “From what you’ve said, I’d say you’re getting a rather large painting out of me today already!” He winked. “Should we go get to work?”

  Soon they were out on the beach walking toward Caroline’s Aunt’s house. The sun beat radiantly in the sky overhead and a nice wind curved around them. Ben couldn’t help but notice Caroline’s beauty as the wind curled through her hair.

  She walked up the beach as a wave pushed up the shore. “I really like the name of your house. The Seaman’s Watch, why did you choose that?”

  Ben looked out over the ocean. “We actually renamed it. It used to be called ‘Seagull’s Perch’ before my mom died. Mason decided on ‘The Seaman’s Watch’ because, even though mom’s not lost at sea, he spent so many days and nights after she passed just sitting on the porch watching the sea, somehow hoping she would return to us. I like to think that in a way she has returned through our paintings. She was the painter, not Mason, but we’ve dedicated so much for our lives to this because of her.”

  “How did she die?” Caroline asked. “That must have been so hard.”

  “I was young, barely nine, and my mom died of cancer. By the time we knew what she had, the disease had already almost taken her from us. I love her deeply. You take the hard things in life and turn them into something positive, you know. And someday I know I’ll be with her again.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment while walking. He felt tears welling up in him but they never came.

  “I’m sure she was a wonderful woman.” Caroline looked to him. “She has an amazing son. That has to be partially in thanks to her. You have a great heart, Ben.”

  As they came to The Ocean’s Whisper Suzie was already outside with a pair of heavy-duty ladders and large buckets of pastel-yellow paint. A small pile of paint rollers and brushes were beside her.

  “Your painters are here!” Ben called to her as they approached.

  -- --

  John sat in his car, parked in a covered parking space beneath the house beside The Ocean’s Whisper. The house was for sale and apparently deserted. He was sure that he would be unnoticed here. With his hands to his temples, John closed his eyes and consumed the anger surging through him. His head throbbed in pain. “You are mine.” He opened his eyes, staring at the wooden slates on the wall before him. You cannot leave me, Caroline. I own you.”

  He took the key from the car’s ignition and thrust it in his pocket before moving his hand to the car seat beside him and his grandfather’s old shot gun. Its metal barrel was chill to the touch and the wood on it was worn with age. He opened the car door slowly, not making a sound, and stepped out into the garage. With his gun in one hand, he reached over and grabbed his beer with the other. A container of ammunition was in his back jean pocket.

  Where to look for the key?

  With a plotted, careful walk, John went up a curving flight of stairs leading to the house’s door, knowing that realtors would often leave the spare key in a box so that they could show the house to potential buyers. He looked around the door frame and quickly realized there was no
box there. He went down the stairs.

  The storage room?

  Soon his hand was on a splintered door to the side of the house. It creaked as he opened it and a group of stray cats scattered inside. Metal tools and wires lay sporadically on the floor. Sure enough, in the edge of the room’s darkness, was a plastic key box hung on a nail in the wall. The box was already busted open and the key lay on a ledge close by. He wasn’t the house’s first unwanted visitor. He took the key, closed the storage room door and made his way back toward the stairwell.

  As he closed the main door of the house, John locked it and looked out its glass. The pane stretched the length of the door frame. He would have to avoid the kitchen that the entranceway opened in to, just in case someone did enter the covered garage.

  “Hello!” he called through the house, hearing his voice echo through its barren halls. “I’m here to see the house!”

  Nothing. There was no response. As he had assumed, he was alone. And if there was a homeless person here hiding… well, he had his gun. The air was humid and dense as he moved.

  The stairs creaked as he ascended them toward the house’s upper rooms, and as he reached the top of the wide stairwell he took in sunlight flooding through the windows of the different rooms. Before him was a room with windows facing Caroline’s aunt’s house.

  He approached cautiously, careful to stay out of the window’s view. Hatred