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wrenching sobs. She didn’t seem strong enough to cry so hard, he thought. He could feel her sobs echoing through his chest, and he had to fight down the knot in his throat.
    She was hurting—not physically, but with the kind of pain that comes from confusion and broken dreams and mourning a lost future. He could understand that all too well. He could understand her need to be held. He couldn’t understand his own overwhelming need to hold her, but even as his brain tried to decipher it, his arms tightened around her and his lips brushed against her temple.
    “Shhh … you’re too tired to think straight. Let’s get you settled in. Well talk about it in the morning,” he murmured, not even aware that he had included himself in her dilemma.
    Even though he whispered something about going inside, he made no move to leave the porch. He simply rocked her gently back and forth as the mist swirled around them and the sea crashed in the distance. He knew a strange contentment in holding her, but he didn’t question it. For the first time in a long time something was soothing the ache in his heart. He didn’t dare wonder why.

They entered the house through a back door, passed through a corner of the large dark kitchen, and went into an old-fashioned pantry, where Bryan opened what appeared to be a tall cabinet set into the wall. Rachel followed him, mute, as they went up a dusty, unembellished servants’ staircase, a place hung with cobwebs and bare light bulbs dangling from thick black cords in the ceiling.
    “I’m sorry about breaking down that way,” she said, embarrassed now that the tears had dried. “I don’t ordinarily do that kind of thing.”
    “That’s okay. You don’t ordinarily get chased out the house by your mother either,” Bryan said. “Careful on this step. Stay to the right. Dry rot, you know. You have to watch for stuff like that in these old houses.”
    Rachel glanced down at the crack in the wooden tread as she bypassed the step altogether, wondering how much of the rest of the house was rotting away. She had hoped to get by without investing much in repairs before they sold the place. What money of hers she had managed to keep out of Terence’s slippery hands wasn’t going to go far. Her mother had been running an antiques business for several years, and then there was the money from her father’s police pension fund, but their expenses were going to run high. She had to consider Addie’s medical bills, the deposit on an apartment in San Francisco, and their day-to-day living expenses. She had no idea how Addie had taken care of her money recently. If Bryan Hennessy was an example, she had been squandering it with a lavish hand.
    A ghostbuster. Rachel shook her head.
    They exited through a door that blended into the paneled wall of the second-story hallway.
    “Here we are,” Bryan said softly. He put on a pleasant smile and slid the hidden door shut with the toe of his battered sneaker. “Just like in the movies, huh?”
    Rachel took in little of her surroundings. Her normal curiosity had been diluted by the circumstances of her visit. Maybe in a day or two she would find it interesting that the house had a secret stairway and real mahogany paneling, that the floor in the foyer below was made of imported Italian marble. Right now none of that penetrated her senses. Nor did the musty smell of old carpets and draperies. For the moment it was all she could do to put one foot in front of the other and follow Bryan Hennessy down the hall.
    “Don’t read too much into your mother’s reaction tonight,” he said quietly, slowing his long strides and turning to regard her with a serious expression. He carried a suitcase in each hand and his faded blue shirt was stained dark from her tears in spots across his chest. “You took her by surprise. She doesn’t handle surprises very well.”
    Rachel thought of Terence and Addie’s reaction to him, and she smiled sadly as she reached up to