Sweet Talkin' Scoundrel by Tess Oliver

rest of the cabinets. The kitchen of Underwood Manor was as large as some people’s houses. Long, straight counters topped with gunmetal gray granite lined two of the walls. There was a massive island in the middle topped with a striped butcher’s block and lit by two glass pendant lights. And, like the rest of the house, the kitchen was immaculate.
    Katherine opened the cabinet. A small chalkboard with handles, or ham radio names, written on it was hanging on the inside of the door. She was Wildthorne One and Marcus was Two. Becky and Janice took up Three and Four. Katherine picked up the chalk and wrote my name next to Wildthorne Five. “Now, it takes a little training to use this radio, but it is our only surefire form of communication from the island.”
    “Actually, I won’t need training. My parents used a ham radio just like this whenever we lived too far from civilization.”
    Katherine’s face was generally stiff and without much emotion, but her eyes rounded as she looked at me. “My, you are full of surprises. That’s wonderful. Then I won’t need to show you anything. Naturally, in the case of an emergency, Marcus or I would be the one to make contact with the mainland. But in the event that both of us are incapacitated, then you would step in.”
    The heels of her always formal shoes clacked across the floor as she motioned for me to follow her to a door on the far side of the kitchen. It was easy to see she’d spent her childhood and teens in private prep schools where slouching or shuffling of any kind would have earned you a reprimand.
    “This is the cellar door.” She reached in and flicked on a light that illuminated a deep, rather sketchy looking staircase. “We don’t need to go down there right now. It’s dreadfully cold and dusty. But all of our emergency supplies are in clearly marked boxes, including a self-inflating dinghy.” She graced me with one of her rare, slight smiles. “Something tells me you already know how to operate one of those too.”
    I shrugged sheepishly. “What can I say? I had a highly unusual and adventurous upbringing.”
    “It seems to have given you a broad, accepting outlook on life.” She smiled inwardly at the compliment, almost as if there was some secret reasoning behind it. Her emphasis on accepting seemed to be the key to her reaction. But, as usual, I was confused by the woman. She was as difficult to read as her son. Thankfully, Becky was the complete opposite, a typical preteen always ready to tell you what was on her mind. I preferred Becky’s style.
    “I was told the shoreline around the island makes it too dangerous for a boat.”
    “That’s correct. It was one of the reasons my husband’s family bought this island. It was, in a sense, its own fort. But in an extreme emergency and with the right circumstances, a person could make it safely off shore in the dinghy.”
    Katherine closed the door. “I think that about covers it. Hopefully there will never be a need to use any of the survival gear, but my husband, Jack, always liked to be prepared.” It was her first ever mention of her husband.
    I knew that Becky’s dad had died when she was very young, five at the most and I now knew that his name was Jack and that he had always been prepared for emergencies. But that was the extent of my knowledge about the man who owned the island. I was never someone who liked to pry, but I decided it wouldn’t be wrong to know more about the man. I was, after all, living under his roof and teaching his only daughter.
    “Becky mentioned to me that her father died when she was a little girl.”
    At first Katherine’s only response was a curt nod, sharp enough to send her smooth hair forward. She discretely pushed it back from her face. I chided myself thinking I’d just taken a big misstep and would more than likely be sent packing, but instead, a glint of emotion, an expression I couldn’t quite discern, flashed across her face. It almost looked as