Laurel Heights (Haunted Hearts Series Book 1)

by Denise Moncrief

  Why did that embarrass her? Surely she’d had men hit on her before. No doubt she and Rand... No, he didn’t want to think about them together. The mental picture made his stomach churn.

  “You didn’t go out with him?” He hoped she hadn’t.

  “Are you kidding? I don’t go for men with beer guts.” She shivered.

  He covered his mouth to keep from chuckling.

  Laurel huffed. “Stop laughing at me.”

  He was trying to stuff his mirth back into his laugh box when she burst out with another observation.

  “You’re a jerk, you know.”

  She was about to storm off in angry protest when he grabbed her wrist. He didn’t want her to go back into the house. He enjoyed the way her eyes flashed with fire when something had riled her. She flinched and reacted as if she’d been snake bit, yanking her arm away from his grip and rubbing her wrist.

  Chase backed up with his hands in the air. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I thought we were both laughing at that obnoxious cop. I was actually...you know...enjoying our conversation.”

  She sniffed and relaxed a little. “He is annoying, isn’t he? What’d he want?”

  He stiffened. “He wanted to know why I was in town.” This discussion could lead where he didn’t yet want to go.

  “You told him you were working for me, right?” She asked as if telling the cop he worked for her was all it took to avoid looking suspicious.

  “Of course.”

  “What else did you tell him?” Her eyes glowed with a million unspoken questions.

  “My name.”

  Would she ask the obvious question?

  “The one you told me or the real one?”

  “Brennan,” he answered without blinking an eye. Not an answer to her question.

  “Do you think he knows your real name?”

  Chase’s answer seemed to matter to her as much as it did to him. She couldn’t possibly know who he was, could she? Surely not. If she had known, she would have tossed him out on his butt already.

  “He didn’t appear to.” He held his breath.

  Was it time for the truth? If she asked him his real name, it wouldn’t be long before she discovered the reason for his presence on her property.

  She nodded. “Good.”

  That was it. That was as far as she was going to pursue the subject. Laurel had a gleam in her eyes as if she knew how far the discussion had gone and that she had stopped before she had said too much. He almost let his relief show because he didn’t want to leave Laurel Heights yet.

  “Is there any reason the cops are looking for you?” she asked.

  “No, not anymore.”

  Understanding flickered in her eyes. So many questions she could have asked. She nodded before she turned and walked away.

  ****

  Laurel peeked between the curtains of the kitchen window and stared at the door to the garage apartment. Chase had finished chopping down the wisteria hours ago and had finally climbed the stairs to the apartment. He’d been inside for such a long time that she feared he’d fallen through a rotten floorboard and landed in the garage below.

  She had no idea what was in the garage. She didn’t have a key to the padlock. Every time she considered taking a pair of bolt cutters and busting the lock, apprehension overwhelmed her. Seeing the strange light through the window on the night the man died down the road had not made her any more comfortable about forcing entry into the structure.

  She wasn’t sure if the garage scared her because it was a garage or because it sent off some sort of strange vibe that made her skin crawl every time she walked past it to get to her car. No way she was ever parking in the dilapidated building.

  She spotted Chase leave the apartment and shut the door behind him, gently as if he thought he might break the door from its hinges. She followed his slow progress down the stairs, across the yard, and up the porch. The frown on his face told her what he was going to say before he even knocked on the door. The garage was uninhabitable. But that was okay with her. Remodeling the apartment for him to live there wasn’t her end game anyway.

  She drew in a deep breath and counted to ten before she flung the door open. “It’s really bad, isn’t it?”

  When he had gotten back from town, he had seemed so disturbed by his encounter with Sam Richards that she had decided to stall the discussion of how much it would take to fix up the apartment. Instinctively, she knew remodeling it was hopeless, but she had pushed Chase to consider the project anyhow. After his inspection, he must think her neurotic or unreasonable...or just plain flakey. Suddenly, his opinion mattered, and Laurel wished she hadn’t been so manipulative.

  “I can’t stay there tonight. I’m not sure I can stay there next week either. It needs a lot of work. It’s as bad as I remembered it.”

  “This wasn’t your first time in the apartment?”

  She’d never asked him to go inside. Why had he been up there without her permission?

  “No. I thought you knew that. How would I know the place was infested with mice otherwise, Laurel?”

  The scowl on his face defied her to ask for further explanation. It was unusual for him to stare into her eyes. He usually avoided direct eye contact. He might look right at her, but he’d turn his eyes away quickly. Life in prison had probably taught him that keeping his eyes averted avoided conflict.

  Well, his intense stare didn’t scare her. She wasn’t that easily intimidated. Bring on the confrontation. “Why?”

  “I was snooping.”

  “Well, now I know, don’t I?”

  Maybe Chase is the one sneaking around my house in the middle of the night.

  Was Chase in her garage the night the woman ran over someone on the highway? In retrospect, Chase’s arrival on her front porch seeking a job right after the accident seemed a little more than coincidence. She had been looking and looking and looking for help, and suddenly, he was available. Had he been on her property even before he knocked on her door asking for work?

  The idea bothered her. In the short time Chase had been working for her, she’d come to rely on him, not just for the work he did, but also for the daily dose of interaction with him, no matter how strained their conversations might be.

  “You’ve never, ever snooped before?” He grinned as he deftly turned their conversation about nosey behavior back on her.

  “Well…”

  She had snooped. She had peeked inside the glove box of his truck once, hoping she could discover his real name. The expectant expression on his face pushed her to be truthful.

  “Oh, all right. Yes, I have.”

  “You find anything?”

  Had he somehow read her mind? Or maybe he had seen her snooping in his truck. “No.”

  He smiled. “Didn’t think so.”

  She blinked at him and pushed down the desire to smack the smirk off his face. She needed to divert his attention away from her indiscretion. “You can use one of the downstairs rooms until the apartment is finished.”

  The smile remained plastered on his face, but his words were anything but cheerful. “I don’t want to do that.” His refusal wasn’t convincing.

  If he had been snooping around her place before he had asked for a job, then maybe he was angling to move into the house with her. Maybe his hesitance was only an act to gain her trust, but what did he really want? She’d never know unless she gave him some leeway to reveal his intentions.

  Panic leeched out of the place where she stored her bad memories. Trust was an issue with her, but she didn’t have to trust Chase if she could guess what his motives were. What was the saying? Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer. If Chase was an enemy, he was a good-looking enemy, but she knew from prior experience that good looks often masked the devil in disguise.

  Whether he was trying to manipulate her or not, having someone stay in the house with her at night would be a great relief. She might even get some sleep. “Please.” She hate
d to resort to begging, but if that’s what it took to get him to agree to move into the main house, that’s what she’d do.

  His resolve appeared to crack. “Are you sure someone was in your house last night? Suppose it was just your imagination? Why don’t I look around?”

  “You won’t find anything. He would have made sure he left nothing behind.”

  “He? He who? Do you think you know who was here?”

  Oops. She had phrased her observation badly. Was she losing ground in her argument?

  “No. Of course not.” Her reply sounded a little too hasty, even to her ears.

  She bit her lip to keep from expounding on her denial. She suspected Rand had sent someone to track her down and force her to give up what she didn’t have. She still didn’t know what he meant. The codes? What codes?

  “I’m not sure I want to help you unless you tell me the truth.”

  “If someone’s been in my house, I wouldn’t know who it was. That’s the truth.” And it was. Rand could have sent any number of his subordinates to harass her.

  Chase’s penetrating gaze made her squirm. “I’ll only stay tonight if I find evidence that someone’s been breaking into the house.”

  Had she thought the whole thing through before she uttered her impulsive suggestion? If he was the one sneaking around her place at night, might bringing him into her home be a dangerous move?

  ****

  Chase scoured the house from top to bottom. When he had finished his search, he wasn’t at all surprised to find no evidence anyone had broken in. That didn’t mean there had been no intruders. No matter. He’d move into the house anyway because Laurel might not offer again.

  He found her in the front room painting and watched her as she moved the roller up and down the wall, wondering why she had decided to paint the room that color. It wasn’t red and it wasn’t orange. Somewhere in between. Her choice mystified him.

  “I’ll stay in the room on the other side of the stairwell.” It was the smallest room, and as far away from her bedroom as he could get.

  She lowered the roller into the drip pan and wiped her hands on a cleaning rag. “You found something?”

  “No. I changed my mind.”

  She seemed to study him hard as if he were an alien.

  “Really?” Her tone was skeptical and a bit sarcastic.

  His about-face seemed to have rattled her, but he didn’t want to explain his reasons. “Really.”

  “Why?”

  He sighed. She had a right to ask. Laurel Heights was, after all, her house. Deciding what he was going to do in her home was kind of heavy-handed.

  “I wouldn’t mind some home cooking.”

  His response appeared to confuse her, as well it should. He was trying to push them past the awkward question of his presence in her house. The issue needed to be settled quickly so they could move on.

  “Okay.” She dragged the one word out into fifteen syllables...at least.

  “I’m getting tired of bologna sandwiches for lunch and fast food for supper.”

  Her shoulders relaxed, and she pushed a tendril of dark blond hair behind her ear. “Whatever.” She returned to her interrupted painting.

  “I think I’ll go finish clearing out the brush by the side of the garage.”

  “Sure. Fine.” She had migrated from irritation to indifference in a matter of seconds. “I’ll call you when dinner’s ready.” It was a dismissal, of sorts.

  He puffed out his cheeks and considered coming clean, telling her everything. Over the last few weeks, he’d observed her and concluded she didn’t deserve Rand’s harsh opinion of her. But then his brother was no saint. No doubt he had treated Laurel horribly. One day Chase might get enough nerve to ask her about her life with Rand.

  He studied the side of her face as she worked the roller up and down the wall, obviously pretending she didn’t know he was still in the room. A soft light filtered through the curtains and illuminated her features, making her seem so... He sighed. Why was he thinking about Laurel that way? When he had finished the job at Laurel Heights and had gotten what he wanted from her, she’d hate him.

  Chapter Six

  When Chase wandered into the kitchen for supper, the food had already been served. The small dining area was barely big enough for the oval table. He had noticed two leaves in the hall closet. With the inserts, the table would expand to serve ten guests. As big as the house was, the floor plan didn’t include a formal dining room. Laurel’s plan was to make a new doorway and convert the front alcove into a dining space for serving her guests. Then maybe the humongous table would fit.

  Why had Laurel’s Aunt Celeste bought such a large table for such a small space? Chase appreciated the warm golden glow of the solid oak. She had a good eye for quality.

  Laurel had already set two places, so he pulled up a chair and unfolded the fancy dinner napkin, making a point of placing it in his lap like a civilized human being. “Smells good. Is that fried chicken?”

  She wasted no time passing him the platter heaped with various chicken pieces. A bowl of mashed potatoes and another bowl of steamed broccoli finished the meal. He reached for a glass of iced tea. A typical southern meal prepared by a California girl. Interesting. “This looks good.”

  She smiled. “Does the meal remind you of home?”

  Her question startled him with the iced tea halfway to his lips. Did she think he was from the south? He checked his accent. No. He tried hard to sound as if he came from nowhere. Perhaps a bit of Alabama had creeped into his diction without him realizing it.

  Maybe fried chicken was her definition of a home-cooked meal. He had requested home cooking, but not because that’s what he had grown up eating. Maybe she was subtly digging into his background. He had made a point never to mention where he came from.

  “Not much reminds me of home.”

  Her eyebrows drew together over the bridge of her nose. “Do you have problems with your memory?”

  At this point, he could tell her anything. He had left his past a blank canvas for her to fill in the details as she chose. He decided the truth might play better than a badly constructed lie.

  “No, I’ve had problems finding a home. When I was a kid, I was pretty much passed around.” His voice resonated with the bitterness he thought he’d left behind years ago. Why had the resentment flared again?

  “Passed around?”

  “Foster homes. Six of them.” He kept his voice as even as possible. No emotion. Controlled. He didn’t want her to see the depth of the pain that still haunted him. Yes, he guessed his resentment had never really dissipated. He had just ignored it for years.

  When his father remarried, he’d abandoned Chase and his mother, preferring his life with his new wife and his new child, Rand. Chase’s mother died when he was eight, and he was placed in foster care until his father could come get him. His father never came. After he had turned eighteen, he was on his own.

  “So do you have a home now?”

  He laughed at the idea. “I’ve lived in four different states since I was eighteen. The most time I ever spent anywhere was Alabama. I wander around. That’s what I do.”

  Why did he have to sound so pathetic? He wasn’t looking for sympathy. He’d actually liked Mobile. Stayed in Alabama for six years. Put some roots down there. Tragedy shattered that life. Yeah, he carried a lot of resentment.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” she mumbled.

  “Don’t be sorry for me.” He didn’t want pity.

  His sharp reply seemed to dismay her.

  “Okay... So what needs to be done to fix up the apartment?”

  He wiped his mouth on the napkin, glad that she had willingly moved away from the subject of his hard past.

  “I did a quick and dirty estimate of how much it would cost. It’s going to be expensive.” He retrieved his notes from his jeans pocket and handed the paper to her.

  She puffed out her cheeks. “I keep throwing money into this place like
it’s a bottomless pit. I’ve already spent a fortune, and I don’t think it’s any closer to being ready for business than when I first started renovations.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ve done the best I could.”

  “I’m afraid I needed a team of construction workers instead of one handyman.”

  He laughed, relieved that she hadn’t accused him of dragging the project out, even though in a way he had. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

  “How much do you think all this will cost?”

  “You’re looking at ten, maybe fifteen thousand dollars. The plumbing and electrical wiring need to be redone. The whole thing probably should be gutted down to the studs and rebuilt, but that would probably cost at least twice that much.”

  She sighed and put her hand on her cheek. “I don’t have that much extra in the budget.”

  “I don’t mean to pry, but can’t you get a bank loan or something? Can’t you get the money from somewhere?” Surely, she hadn’t gone through all of Rand’s drug money yet.

  “Bank loan?” She laughed. “No.” Tears glistened in the corners of her eyes like she might cry. “All I have to work with is my inheritance from Aunt Celeste.” She seemed to stumble over the family title. “That’s running out quickly. Unless I get some paying guests soon, I’m going to need a job.”

  “You don’t have any other source of income besides your inheritance?” He suddenly hated himself for asking a leading question with such a sharp tone.

  Her puzzled expression informed him he’d been too abrupt. When would she become suspicious?

  “No, when that money runs out, I’m tapped out. I didn’t bring any money with me when I left…” She stared past him toward the wall of kitchen cabinets behind him.

  “Where’d you come from?” He held his breath.

  How would she answer? With the truth or a convenient lie?

  “California.”

  So she’d opted for the truth.

  “Long way from here.”

  She met his eyes again. “Yes, it is.”

  “You ever want to go back?”