Then, when she’d least expected it, along had come Bud. He’d fallen in love with her—an act that she still considered nothing less than a miracle—and he’d given her a family. His son, J.D., called her Mom, and J.D.’s kids called her Grandma. That, she’d discovered, was one of the sweetest words in the world.
She and Corinna talked of little things as they drove the short distance outside town, to the lane that led to old Hiram’s cabin. It was a lovely day, so they’d rolled down the windows. The forest scents carried into the car on the breeze were sweet and fresh, and made her breathe deeply more than once.
“The last time I came out here, Hiram said if I ever came back again, he’d call Sheriff Ingles to haul me away,” Corinna remarked as the cabin came into sight.
“I’m sure his great-granddaughter is much friendlier.” Under her breath, Agatha added, “Of course, a polecat would be much friendlier.”
Naturally Corinna heard her. Though she tried not to smile, the corners of her mouth twitched anyway.
There was a station wagon parked in front of the cabin, and a pair of redheads on the porch. The woman looked up from her magazine, the girl from her dolls, and watched as they parked, then got out.
“Good afternoon,” Corinna called. “I’m Corinna Humphries, and this is my sister, Agatha Grayson. We wanted to stop by and say hello and welcome you to Bethlehem.”
The woman set aside the magazine and stood up from the rocker to meet them at the top of the steps. “Hi. I’m Nolie Harper, and this is my daughter, Micahlyn.”
Agatha hefted the basket from the rear seat, then opened the lid for Nolie’s inspection when she reached the porch. “We brought some goodies—cookies and brownies and a few things to make this evening’s dinner easier.” She beamed at the little girl standing shyly half-behind her mother. “Do you like cookies?”
Micahlyn nodded.
“What’s your favorite kind?”
“Peanut butter.”
“Well, you’re in luck. That’s my favorite kind, too, so I included two bags of them. If it’s all right with your mother, would you like one now?”
Micahlyn peered up at her mother, who nodded.
“Why don’t you show me to the kitchen, Micahlyn, so I can put these things in the refrigerator, and then we’ll dig out those peanut-butter cookies.”
“It’s inside.” Releasing her grip on her mother’s skirt, Micahlyn held the screen door open for Agatha, then skipped ahead of her through the living room and into the kitchen.
“You have the prettiest red hair,” Agatha remarked as she set the basket on the counter, then unpacked it. The perishable food went into the refrigerator. The rest she left on the counter for Nolie to put where she wanted, except for the peanut-butter cookies. Those she handed to Micahlyn, who took one, then carefully rezipped the plastic bag.
“Do you know I had hair that color when I was young?”
Micahlyn’s gaze darted upward, and her eyes widened. “What happened?” she asked around a mouthful of cookie.
Agatha laughed. “I got old.” Her hair color had faded, her eyesight had dimmed, and her hearing wasn’t what it used to be. But she wouldn’t trade this time in her life for youth or anything else. She was too happy.
With Micahlyn leading the way, Agatha returned to the porch, where Corinna had taken a seat in one of the two rockers and Nolie had moved to the rough-hewn bench. Agatha seated herself in the second rocker and turned her attention to the conversation.
Corinna was telling Nolie about old Hiram, not that there was much to tell. His early years in Bethlehem had been fairly unremarkable, until his wife had run off, and with another man, no less—something simply not done fifty years ago. She’d left their daughter, Betty Lou, behind, to be raised by her angry, bitter father. First chance Betty Lou had gotten, she had run off, too. She’d been sixteen at the time.
She must have found happiness elsewhere, Agatha reflected with some measure of satisfaction, for Nolie spoke fondly of her.
After visiting for well over an hour, Agatha and Corinna were saying their good-byes when the sound of a slamming door drifted down from the distant cabin. Agatha shaded her eyes against the afternoon sun and just made out the back end of a vehicle parked on the far side. “You have a neighbor.”
The surprise was so evident in her voice that both Corinna and Nolie laughed. “Agatha’s convinced nothing goes on in Bethlehem without our knowing it,” Corinna said. “However, I must admit, I’m also surprised. We hadn’t heard a word about anyone moving into that cabin.”
Nolie gazed that way a moment, her arms folded across her chest. She seemed to choose her words carefully when she responded. “The opportunity to rent it to a man from Boston came up before I’d decided to move here myself. It seemed a good idea at the time.”
Agatha looked at her sister. “Perhaps we should drop in and say hello.”
“It would probably be best if you didn’t,” Nolie replied rather quickly. “He’s a very private man. He prefers to be left alone.”
Agatha raised her brows. “Sounds mysterious.”
“He’s the bogeyman,” Micahlyn piped in. “He’s big and scary and tried to drag me off to his cave, but I ran fast and got away.”
Her mother looked faintly embarrassed. “He has long hair and a beard, and he frightened her the first time they met. But he’s not the bogeyman, Micahlyn, and you’ve got to stop saying so.”
Corinna looked from the cabin to Micahlyn to Nolie. In the careful manner that meant she was treading lightly, she asked, “Are you comfortable with him for a neighbor?”
“Oh, sure. Like I said, he prefers to be alone.”
Nolie’s words were confident, but Agatha thought her smile and shrug lacked the same assurance. She didn’t seem frightened, but rather . . . uncertain. Presumably, the man from Boston lived alone down the road. Could it be he was young and perhaps handsome in addition to single?
When she mentioned as much to Corinna as they began the trip back into town, her sister gave her a wry look. “Let’s not go playing matchmaker for someone we just met, Agatha.”
“But why not?” Agatha smiled her sweetest and most innocent smile. “After all, Corinna . . . we do it so well.”
Chapter Three
AFTER WRAPPING A TOWEL AROUND HIS WAIST, Chase left the bathroom for the bedroom, a steamy fog following him. He’d just discarded the towel across the bed and pulled on a pair of faded old jeans when movement outside the uncurtained window caught his attention.
He was about to have company. Nolie Harper was walking down the dirt road straight to his cabin, and trailing twenty feet behind her was Micahlyn. The kid dragged her feet, obviously tagging along against her will. In contrast, the mother moved easily, her skirt swinging with every sway of her hips. Her hair was pulled up on top of her head in a style that should have looked messy but instead just looked soft, and her feet were bare beneath the long skirt, and somehow that managed to look . . . intimate.
Grimacing at the thought, he started to fasten the button-fly of his jeans, and found to his annoyance that the denim was stretched tighter now than it had been two minutes ago. It didn’t mean anything, he reminded himself. She wasn’t his type. He’d just been alone too damn long. Any woman would have that effect on him.
His best bet would be to stay out of sight and wait for her to go back where she belonged. So his truck was parked at the side of the cabin. So the front door was standing open. He wasn’t sure of much in life, but he’d bet next month’s rent that she wouldn’t invite herself inside when her knock went unanswered.
Then she walked past his bedroom window, and the wind chose that instant to blow through the screen, bringing with it the smell of flowers and spices—of woman. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to see what she wanted. It didn’t mean he had to be friendly, or invite her in.
By the time she walked up onto the porch, Chase was standing half in the hallway, half in the living room, pulling a T-shirt over his head. With
the lights off and the shades pulled to block the evening sun, the room was gloomy enough that she couldn’t see much without pressing her face right up to the screen. She didn’t.
Her first knock was tentative. Micahlyn’s whine, coming from somewhere in the distance, wasn’t. “He’s not home. Let’s go, Mama.”
“In a minute, babe.” Her second knock was louder, and made the screen door rattle on its hinges.
He stood motionless, debating between stepping forward into the living room and retreating into the hallway. Indecision was a new thing for him. From the time he’d started college, he’d known what he wanted, and he’d done what it took to get it. He’d been single-minded and driven . . . and now he couldn’t decide whether to answer a knock at the door.
“Come on, Mama, it’s gettin’ dark. Let’s go home.”
“Micahlyn, it’s nowhere near dark. You know who you’re starting to sound like? Laura, from your Sunday school class in Whiskey Creek.”
“Huh-uh! Laura’s a crybaby, and nobody likes her ’cause all she does is whine.”
“And lately that’s all you’ve done.”
Their voices were so different from what he was accustomed to—soft, Southern—and their rate of speech was slower than the rapid clip prevalent in Boston. Nolie, with her woman’s voice, talked the way she walked. Easily. Lazily. Comfortably.
She knocked one last time, and was turning to leave when the weaker side of him won the debate. He crossed the living room in silent strides, braced one hand on the doorjamb, and bluntly said, “What?”
She’d pasted on a smile when she turned back to face him. “I was willing to pretend you weren’t home and go away.”
When he offered no response, she lifted the shopping bag she carried. “I’m doing my Little Red Riding Hood impersonation, carrying a bag of goodies through the woods to Grandma’s house.” The smile wavered uncertainly. “That’s this cabin. My great-grandfather built it for my grandmother to live in when she got married. Unfortunately, she ran away from home when she was sixteen and wound up in Arkansas.”
For a moment he simply looked at her through the screen—soft hair, pale skin, bare feet—then grudgingly he asked, “Which is the unfortunate part? That she ran away or that she wound up in Arkansas?”
“Hey, that’s my home state you’re criticizing.”
He’d never felt sentimental about home. All he’d wanted from Bethlehem was to be away from it. And now he’d gone from prison back to Bethlehem again. It was hard to say whether that was an improvement. “If it means so much to you, why aren’t you there?”
“Because this is my new home. Have you eaten supper?”
Warily he shook his head.
“We got a welcome visit today from two ladies in town, Miss Agatha and Miss Corinna. They brought us more goodies than we could possibly eat, so . . .” She held up the bag again, this time offering it to him.
He hadn’t noticed the car parked beside hers that afternoon until he’d already stepped outside, and then he’d made a hasty retreat, not only closing but locking the door behind him. At the time, he hadn’t had a clue who was visiting. Now that he knew it was the Winchester sisters, he was glad he’d hidden like a coward. They were the next-to-the-last people he wanted to know he was back. They knew everyone and everything, and what they knew, others soon found out.
When Nolie rattled the bag, he opened the screen door with a squeak and took it without coming anywhere near touching her—not on purpose. Not because he wanted to avoid touching her. Just because that was the way it happened.
As soon as he unfolded the top of the bag, the aromas of cinnamon rolls and cookies made his mouth water. Over the years, between church, school, and holidays, he’d eaten probably a couple hundred of the Winchester sisters’ rolls and double that number of their cookies. They were the best.
“The sweets are on top,” Nolie said. “Underneath, there’s some great salads and ham and bread, warm from the microwave. I-I included utensils.”
Because she hadn’t been sure he was civilized enough to have his own?
Now all he had to do was thank her, step back a few feet, and close the door in her face. He could eat alone. Could spend the rest of the evening alone.
Instead he stepped out, letting the screen door bang behind him, and sat down on the top step. After a moment, Nolie sat at the opposite end, as if she wasn’t sure of her welcome. Fair enough. He wasn’t sure she was welcome, either.
He fished out the ham and bread, made a sandwich, and took a bite before speaking. “If you’re Little Red Riding Hood, I guess that makes me the Big Bad Wolf.”
She smiled, chasing away the uncertainty and looking so damn . . . feminine, but Micahlyn didn’t give her a chance to respond. From fifteen feet away, with a couple of Barbie dolls clutched to her chest, she fixed a scowl on him that reeked of hostility. “The Big Bad Wolf eated Little Red Riding Hood.”
The temptation to bare his teeth at the kid was strong, but he managed to resist by taking another bite of sandwich. His silence seemed to encourage her.
“And then the hunter came and killed him.”
Tough luck, kid. No hunters around here. And the only thing he wanted to devour at the moment was his sandwich and, maybe, a cinnamon roll.
“Micahlyn, why don’t you go play, babe?” Nolie suggested.
Micahlyn looked around, then wrinkled her nose, making her glasses bob precariously. “In the dirt? With bugs?” She sniffed haughtily. “I’d rather go home.”
“Then go. Stay on the porch, so I can see you from here.”
“That’s not home. Home is with Grandma and Grandpa.” Giving another of those sniffs, she took another look around, then marched off to sit on a log laid out at the edge of the road.
Nolie lowered her voice. “Sorry about her. She’s usually much more pleasant than this.”
“When she gets her way?” The comment was out before he could think better of it, and he could actually see the defensive-mother stiffness spreading through Nolie.
After a moment, though, it faded, and she smiled ruefully. “Yeah, I guess so.” Then she gave a sigh that seemed to come from way down inside. “She was only two when her father died and we moved in with his parents. He was an only child, so she’s the only grandchild. They spoiled and coddled and babied us both, which was just fine with her, but . . . I couldn’t take it anymore.”
Moving her feet to the second step, she rested her elbows on her knees and her chin on her hands. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. My in-laws are wonderful people and they were there for me when I needed them most after Jeff died, but . . .” With a shake of her head, she let the words trail off.
In the silence that followed, he finished the sandwich, dug into the bag again, and came up with a bag of cookies. He took a chocolate chip for himself, then offered the bag to Nolie. She looked at it a moment before shaking her head. The movement renewed the scent of flowers and spices that stirred a hunger in his gut as if he hadn’t just eaten.
But didn’t he know better than most that not all hunger was for food?
As he munched the cookie, he watched Micahlyn, still sitting on the log, hugging her dolls, and looking angry and . . . pitiable. He knew from experience how hard it was to have your life turned upside down. He was still having trouble dealing with it, and he was a grown man. She was only five years old.
Peripherally he saw Nolie tilt her head to the side, then he felt her gaze on him. “It occurs to me that we’ve been neighbors for nearly a week, and I don’t even know your last name. I don’t know anything about you.”
“Is that so.”
“I come from a place where everyone knows everyone else.”
“I come from a place where everyone minds their own business.”
His flat tone didn’t discourage her. “Okay. You are renting my house. That qualifies as business.”
“I’m not. Lorraine is.”
By sheer will Nolie kept her expression relatively
open and unthreatening, while inside she was annoyed . . . and curious. Technically, he was right—the lease was in Lorraine Giardello’s name, and there was nothing in it prohibiting her from letting someone else live in the cabin. Still . . . “Is Lorraine your wife?”
He continued to stare off in Micahlyn’s direction. “Nope.”
“Girlfriend?”
He gave the slightest shake of his head.
“Mother? Sister? Aunt? Fourth-grade teacher?”
That earned a snort. “Miss Agatha was my fourth-grade teacher.” Then abruptly he looked at her, his face flushed a dull crimson. “Forget I said that.”
Oh, yeah, that was likely. So Chase Whatever was from Bethlehem. How interesting . . . and how odd, that he was hiding out only a few miles from town. Obviously he was hiding, or else the Winchester sisters would have known he was living there. That, even more than his general reclusiveness, would explain why he’d done such a quick U-turn when he’d come out of the cabin that afternoon and seen that she had company.
There were a dozen questions she wanted to ask, starting with, Do you have family in town? But he looked irritated, angry, even a bit anxious, so she pushed them all aside. “How long did you live in Boston?”
She got the feeling he didn’t want to say another word, but after a time, he replied in short, clipped tones. “About eight years.”
“I’ve never been there. Until we came here, I’d never been anywhere. Maybe when Micahlyn’s a little older and can appreciate it more, I can take her. I’d like to see the USS Constitution and Paul Revere’s house and the Old North Church.” Without missing a beat, she went on. “Is there really a Lorraine, or did you invent her so no one would know you were here?”
“Lorraine’s very real.”
Something about the way he said it made the muscles in Nolie’s stomach tighten—maybe the slight emphasis he put on very, or the increase in warmth in his voice. Whatever it was, she had little doubt that the woman was real, and was important to him.
So why was she in Boston when he was here?
A breeze drifted in from the west, tickling loose strands of hair across her neck, carrying the combined fragrances of soap, detergent, and fabric softener. She’d noticed as soon as she’d seen him that he’d apparently just gotten out of the shower. His wet hair was slicked straight back, and frankly, it was impossible to miss that the offensive odors were gone. Now if he would shave and cut his hair—she’d always preferred the clean-cut look—even Micahlyn would forget his derelict look when they’d met.
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