bet,” Jess said and handed her back the empty glass.
Might as well cut to the chase. “Did you find out anything about what we found on Tuesday?”
He paused for the briefest second, as if trying to remember Tuesday. “I know where that box of books came from, if that’s what you mean.”
“You do? All right!”
Jess shoved the tip of the shovel into the paper sack, carefully drawing out some powdery, white material and tossing it into the wheelbarrow. “Just like you figured,” he said, “Sky Lake Variety Store, right there on the box. Didn’t see it till I was putting it back inside last night.”
Jane frowned. “They were your dad’s books?”
“No. They were in boxes in the storeroom when we took over. My dad gave them to the library.”
“And the letter?” she pressed. “What did you do with it?”
“I’ve got it.”
“You’re still carrying it around? I thought you were going to give it to the librarian.”
“I couldn’t,” Jess said. “She started her holidays this week. Her replacement wouldn’t know anything about it.”
“So? Did you show it to anyone else?”
“Like who?”
“I don’t know.” Didn’t he have any imagination? “Your parents, maybe. Someone who might have known the Frasers.”
Jess stirred the contents of the wheelbarrow. “I didn’t show it to anyone.”
“Oh,” said Jane. “Maybe I should just let Nell see it, then.”
“Go ahead. It’s all yours.” He set the shovel down and drew the letter out of the pocket of his jeans with two fingers.
Nell was in the kitchen washing lettuce, laying each leaf out on a clean tea towel she’d spread on the counter. At Jane’s invitation, she sat down to read the letter which Jane unfolded for her on the kitchen table.
When she was through, Nell removed her glasses, shaking her head. “I agree. Whoever Eugenie is, she sounds frightened.”
“Sounded, you mean,” Jane reminded her gloomily. “This letter is 68 years old.”
“That’s true. So whatever she was afraid was going to happen, either did, or didn’t.”
“We don’t even know if the storekeeper was able to help her or not.”
“Or if she ever got the letter,” Nell added.
“Well, Jess just told me that the book came from the storeroom of his father’s store,” Jane pointed out. “So we know the letter got that far.”
“There’s really nothing you can do now, dear,” Nell said kindly.
“Maybe not. But I’m still curious.”
At lunchtime, at Nell’s request, Jane carried a plate of chicken sandwiches covered with plastic wrap around to the side to Jess, only to discover he’d gone down to the dock. She found him dangling his legs in the water, his jeans rolled up to his knees.
“She didn’t have to feed me,” Jess growled when he saw the sandwiches, but accepted the plate Jane handed him anyway.
His dark hair curled up at the back of his neck, and he had missed a streak of white paint above the elbow of his right arm. Seeing the paint made Jane feel she had the advantage, that she knew something about him he didn’t want her to know: he wasn’t nearly as tough as he thought he was. She walked on out and pretended to check the rope that held Nell’s boat, wishing she could do it without making the dock bounce so much. She shouldn’t have eaten that second piece of chocolate cake at supper last night.
“You swim off this dock?”
Jane turned back towards him. “Of course,” she said.
“Drops off kind of fast, doesn’t it?”
“This is the deepest side of the lake.”
“And you must be one heck of a swimmer,” said Jess.
“I am,” said Jane, dragging her foot in the water and making a deliberate pattern with it on the dry planks of the dock. “And I learned to swim right here.”
Swinging his legs out of the water, Jess rested the weight of his upper body behind him on his hands and squinted up at her. “Must be nice to be a rich kid and get to lie around the cottage all summer,” he said.
It occurred to Jane that he was trying to start an argument. “A rich kid? Is that what you think I am?”
“Well, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m not. And you know something? I think you have an attitude problem.”
“So what’s it to you?” he challenged.
“Nothing. But it must get in the way of making friends.”
“So who said I needed friends?”
Jane glared at him. She had half a mind to give him a shove, send him sideways off the dock into the lake. “From the very first time you spoke to me, it was like you were looking for someone to fight with,” she said. “What did I ever do to you? For your information, I started spending summers here the year my parents split up. My grandmother looked after me then, and now my mother counts on me to sort of keep an eye on her. Until you came along, I helped her with some of the heavy work too.”
They seemed to have locked eyes in a furious stare, and to Jane’s surprise, it was Jess who looked away first. “Don’t sweat it,” he muttered, and bent to work the legs of his jeans back down over his shins.
Jane turned to leave.
“Here, you forgot something.” But when Jane reached for the empty plate he held towards her, he made a little gesture to jerk it back again. Jane gripped it firmly, with a sigh of exasperation.
“You really get steamed, don’t you?” Jess said, as she turned from him. “Okay, so I have an attitude problem. Maybe I’m working on it.”
“You need to.” Without waiting for him to get to his feet, Jane walked quickly back up to the cottage.
She spent the rest of the afternoon indoors, tidying the stacks of photo albums on the shelves in the living room, re-arranging the collection of battered duck decoys that circled the room, watching the top of Jess’s head through the side window and wondering what it was that made him so angry.
Jane dropped by the kitchen later, where her grandmother was figuring out what she owed Jess for his afternoon’s work. “So what d’you think his problem is, anyway?”
“His problem?”
“He’s got a chip on his shoulder
