The Carriage House Read Online Free PDF Page A

“Any idea where this Tess Haviland’s from?”
    â€œHer car had Massachusetts plates.”
    â€œWhat kind of car?”
    â€œRusted Honda.”
    Harl nodded knowledgeably. “City car.”
    Andrew watched as a few yards off, Dolly found a rung with one foot, then the other, lowering herself out of her tree house. On the second rung, she turned herself around very carefully and leaped to the ground, braids flying, crown going askew. She let out a wild yell, ran to Andrew and jumped on his lap with great enthusiasm. She was a solid girl, sweating from her adventures, bits of leaves and twigs stuck in her socks and hair. Her crown hadn’t flown off because it was anchored to her head with about a million bobby pins. She and Harl had put it together in his shop. The Queen of England couldn’t have asked for anything gaudier, never mind that “Princess” Dolly’s jewels were fake.
    â€œWhat’s up, pumpkin?”
    â€œI can’t find Tippy Tail. She won’t come out.”
    If he were an expectant cat, Andrew thought, he wouldn’t come out, either. “Did you call her in a nice voice?”
    Dolly nodded gravely. This was serious business. “I used my inside voice even though I was outside. Like this.” She dropped to a dramatic whisper, demonstrating. “Come, kitty, kitty, come.”
    â€œAnd she didn’t come?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThen what did you do?” Harl asked.
    â€œI clapped my hands. Like this.”
    She smacked her palms together firmly and loudly, which didn’t help the pounding behind Andrew’s eyes. “That probably scared her, Dolly,” he said.
    She groaned. “Princess Dolly.”
    Andrew set her on the grass. He was beginning to get a handle on this princess thing. “Do you make everyone call you princess?”
    â€œI am a princess.”
    â€œThat doesn’t mean everyone has to call you Princess Dolly—”
    â€œYes, it does.”
    Harl scratched the side of his mouth. “You don’t make them bow and curtsy, do you?”
    She tilted her chin, defiant. “I’m a princess. Harl, you said the boys should bow and the girls should curtsy, that’s what people are supposed to do when they see a princess.”
    Andrew suddenly understood the summons from her teacher. It wasn’t just about crowns. He shot Harl a look. “You got this started. You can finish it. You talk to Miss Perez.”
    â€œWhat?” Harl was unperturbed. “She’s six. Six-year-olds have active imaginations. I thought I was G.I. Joe there for a couple years.”
    â€œSix-year-olds don’t make their classmates bow and curtsy.”
    â€œI don’t make them,” Dolly said.
    Harl was doing a poor job of hiding his amusement. As a baby-sitter, he was reliable and gentle. Andrew never worried about his daughter’s safety or happiness with his cousin. But Harl had a tendency to indulge her imagination, her sense of drama and adventure, more than was sometimes in her best interest.
    â€œI’m taking a walk down to the water before I start dinner,” Andrew said to her. “Do you want to come with me, let Harl get some work done?”
    â€œCan we find Tippy Tail?”
    â€œWe can try.”
    She scrambled off toward the front yard ahead of him. Andrew got to his feet, glancing back at his older cousin, remembering those first months so long ago when Harl had come home from Vietnam, so young, so silent. Most people thought he’d kill himself, or someone else. Andrew was just a boy, didn’t understand the politics, the limited options Harl had faced—or the low expectations. His cousin had defied everyone and become a police detective, and now an expert in furniture restoration and a keeper of six-year-old Dolly Thorne.
    He and Andrew had each defied expectations, fighting their way out of that need to keep on fighting. Andrew had worked