The return...

Vanessa Welling never planned to leave home...until her family fled in shame in the wake of the financial catastrophe that shattered their town—and her father’s will to live. If it weren’t for the wreck of a house she just inherited, Vanessa wouldn’t have come back, either. And attractive contractor Tim Dawson and his young son are making it even harder to put the Wyoming town behind her once and for all.

Tim has heard the stories. But Vanessa did nothing wrong and shouldn’t spend the rest of her life paying the price. Can’t she see the positive effect she’s having on the single father and his son? That they have the right stuff to build a future? And Conard County is the perfect place to start over!

“Already?” She frowned faintly. “Here or the motel, huh?”

“Well, I have a guest room if you’d rather. No problem for me.”

The offer was out before he knew it was coming, and then Matthew seconded it. The idea of having someone new in the house seemed to appeal to him.

Vanessa’s hesitation seemed obvious. Matthew was already running on about how they could read his library book together, but she had drawn away. He could feel it. Pulled back into herself.

“Look,” he said finally. “I’ll guide you to the motel if you want, but like I said, mostly truckers and transients stay there. This house is okay if you want to stock it up. I was only thinking about you being here alone if the blizzard gets bad. You’d be stuck, and the phones aren’t working.”

He could swear she felt torn in a bunch of different directions. But then she surprised him.

“If you’re sure I won’t put you out…”

That settled it, he decided. A night or two. As soon as she’d made her decisions about the house, she’d drive away.

Matthew was ecstatic. Tim watched him with a faint smile, but once again reflected on how much that boy must miss having a mother. He hoped a couple of days wasn’t long enough for him to fit Vanessa into that role.

* * *

Conard County: The Next Generation

A Conard County Courtship

Rachel Lee

www.millsandboon.co.uk

RACHEL LEE was hooked on writing by the age of twelve and practiced her craft as she moved from place to place all over the United States. This New York Times bestselling author now resides in Florida and has the joy of writing full-time.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

She never expected to find a man in the house. Vanessa Welling stood on the wet sidewalk between two low banks of melting snow and looked at the house she owned but didn’t want. The hatred and pain that rose in her had been planted nearly twenty years ago by the man who had lived in that house, the man who had destroyed her family, and she’d like to set a match to the whole place.

She’d tried to get out of it, had argued with the lawyer who had called her to tell her it belonged to her. Unfortunately, Bob Higgins had deeded it over to her before he died in prison, and the really odd thing—to her, at least—was that he was free to do that even if she didn’t want it. She couldn’t refuse it. She couldn’t give it back, and right now she was responsible for the taxes on the place. She would remain responsible for them and any code violations or fines until she managed to dump it.

Her stomach burned, her eyes felt hot in her head and everything she had tried to bury was rising sickeningly inside her.

Had that man thought this was some kind of atonement? Because it wasn’t. No house could give her back her father or the years lost to his alcoholism. No house could give her back everything else that had been ripped from her at a tender age, wounding her in ways that remained with her.

She had never wanted to see this town again. She remembered how her father felt the people here must be judging him, thinking him a fool for having lost his ranch and every bit of savings to Bob Higgins. His bitterness had branded itself in Vanessa’s heart, and her mother hadn’t done much to erase it. Belinda Welling had been quieter in her response, but despair had filled her days. Her husband’s alcoholism had overwhelmed her, and Vanessa felt that in many ways she had had to raise herself.

Now here she was, owner of the house that had belonged to the beast who had destroyed everything, and she had to at least see to fixing it up enough that she could sell it. Get rid of it. Remove any demand that she ever return here.

The street was quiet, but it was early on a Monday afternoon. Kids in school, parents at work and weather less than hospitable.

The key in her hand felt acidic, hot, as if it would eat a hole in her palm. She wanted to fling it into the snow.

Just get it done, she told herself. Just walk in there, face the memories that lurked and would probably pounce to remind her that this had once been a favorite place of hers to visit. She’d arrange whatever needed to be done, then get the hell out of this town before the whispers started, before people began to ask each other if that was Milt Welling’s daughter and hadn’t he been a fool to trust that Higgins guy with everything he owned?

As she walked up toward the porch, freshly laid salt crunching beneath her feet, she felt a sharp gust of icy wind. After twenty years she had no intuitive understanding of the weather around her, but to her that gust spoke of an approaching snowstorm, as did the clattering of leafless branches on the trees that lined the street.

Or maybe she was imagining it. Why not? She was walking toward the door of a house that had populated her nightmares. All that was missing was some spooky, threatening music.

How over the top could she go, she wondered as she leveled the key at the lock and felt a small burst of self-amusement puncture her anger and apprehension. Bob, the man who had ruined her family, was dead. He couldn’t hurt her anymore. And leaving her his house? Probably his final laugh at someone else’s expense, not an attempt to atone at all. That would fit.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t stolen money from anyone else. He’d just stolen more from her father. As in everything.

Just as she turned the key in the lock, the door opened and she stood face-to-face with a tall man wearing a khaki work shirt, dusty jeans, work boots and a loaded tool belt slung around narrow hips. His eyes were the same gray as the leaden sky above, his face perfectly chiseled and showing some faint smile lines around his mouth and crinkles at the corners of his eyes. His dark brown hair was tousled and dusty. Um, wow?

“Hi,” he said, his voice deep and pleasant. “Something I can help you with?”

Well, this was totally unexpected. This was her house, yet there was a stranger in it. Could he help her? But then her memory kicked in. Hadn’t the lawyer said something about sending someone to look over the condition of the house?

She found her voice at last. “I’m Vanessa Welling. Who are you?”

His dark eyebrows lifted, then he smiled. “Ah. I guess Earl didn’t tell you he’d hired me to check out the place, and he told me he didn’t expect you before the weekend. I’m Tim Dawson. I’m a building contractor—Earl sent me. If you want, I can wait outside while you look around. Or just come back another day.”

Why should he do that? But then she realized he must think that she might be uncomfortable about entering an empty house occupied by a man she’d never met before. She ought to be, but strangely she wasn’t. Anyway, if anyone should leave, it ought to be her. She didn’t want to be here at all.

The door still wide-open, both of them poised to leave, Vanessa shook her head a little and thought that her life had turned into a series of vignettes written by someone else from the minute Earl had told her she’d inherited this house. Nothing had run in its usual course since then.

“No,” she said. “You’re working. Frankly, I’d be happy never to see the inside of this place.”

“I heard from Earl you didn’t want it. That stinks.” He stepped back, giving her space to enter if she chose. “It always bothered me that someone could just deed a property to someone else even if they don’t want it. Never understood that one.”

“I’m still trying to wrap my brain around it.” Hesitantly, she stepped through the door into the wide foyer. It had once been an elegant house, but it had been a long time since anyone had lived here. Some of the wallpaper was peeling. “How bad is it?”

“The place got winterized before the previous owner...left, so there’s surprisingly little damage to important stuff. Plumbing still works, in other words. No broken pipes. Right now I’m finishing up work on the heater to see if I can get it operating again. It’s an old model, but I don’t imagine you even want to consider a new one.”

“Not if I can help it. I don’t want to live here, I just want to get to the point where I can get rid of it without having tax liens and code violations follow me through life.”

“I can see that. Well, I was just going out to my truck to get a valve, so take a look around. I’ll be happy to answer any questions I can.”

She watched him walk out the door, thinking that it was criminal that a man that good-looking had walked into her life in the last place on earth she wanted to be.

She watched him cross the street to a white truck with small lettering on the side. That explained why she’d never guessed someone would be in here.

Then she forced herself to turn and face the inside of the house. To face memories that should have been good but had turned to ash.

* * *

Vanessa Welling was a pretty woman, Tim thought as he crossed the wet street and opened a compartment on the side of his pickup. Maybe more than pretty, but since she was clearly unhappy at the moment he couldn’t be really sure. Right now, she was simply a catalog of externalities: auburn hair, mossy-green eyes, a bit on the tiny side.

Earl Carter, father of the local judge, was a font of history when it came to this county, especially the ugly legal parts. The story of how Bob Higgins had managed to rob the Welling family blind was the stuff of novels or movies...except according to Earl, this kind of thing happened all the time. Con men, con jobs—and the Wellings hadn’t been the only ones robbed. Apparently, a number of others had fallen for Higgins’s financial planning business, to their detriment, but only the Wellings had lost more than a retirement fund.

Sad story. Vanessa would have been a kid when it all happened, but from what Earl had said, she remembered enough to be filled with loathing. Imagine inheriting the house of the man who had ruined your family. Tim couldn’t make up his mind if Higgins had been diabolical or regretful.

Anyway, Vanessa had a problem to deal with, and he’d bet she wanted to make her decisions and get the hell out of Conard County as fast as she could.

Shame, because he’d like to get a chance to know the woman behind that haunted, heart-shaped face. Not that it mattered, really. Just a reaction to a new face. He had his hands full enough raising a seven-year-old boy whose mother had died. A change of pace might be nice, but it would be transitory.

He was just crossing the street again with the valve he wanted in hand when a black Cadillac pulled up. It was an older car, kept in scrupulously good shape by its owner, Earl Carter. Earl pulled up against the curb on the far side of the street and rolled his window down. “She’s here?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“I just got her message.” Earl, a pleasantly plump man who was awfully popular around town for a lawyer, shook his head faintly. “Sorry, I didn’t think she would be here so soon.”

“It’s not a problem. But she’s clearly not happy to be here.”

“No kidding. I’m sorry I couldn’t find her a way out. Is she inside?”

“Yeah. I just came out to get a valve for a gas line.”

“I’ll go in with you. Two strange men in one day might be too much.”

Tim almost laughed. They would still be two strange men in the otherwise empty house with her. Hardly likely to make her feel easier, except that Earl slightly resembled a teddy bear. The years and some beer had given him a bit of a belly and softened his face. He looked kindly by nature.

“Well, come on, but she was looking as if she wanted to burn the place down.”

“Probably does,” Earl said, climbing out. He might be the last man in town who wore a business suit routinely. Even his own son, the judge, often wore jeans under his judicial robes.

“Let me call inside first,” Tim suggested. “Let her know we’re both here. This can’t be easy for her.”

“It’s not,” Earl said. “Not at all. Bet she hits the road just as quick as she can.”

“Maybe.” He wasn’t about to predict what anyone else would do. Dangerous game, that.

“She didn’t want this place,” Earl mused, pausing on the walk before heading for the porch. “She may change her mind, though. With a little work, this house will become prime real estate. Great location, good size. She should make a pretty penny if she shapes it up.”

“Sure, we sell so much prime real estate around here.” Tim’s tone was dry. Given the kind of work he did, he knew how sluggish the market was locally. Nothing new for this town. Boom or bust. Right now, it was more bust.

“Cut it out, boy,” Earl said. “We’ll get that ski resort and this house would make a good bed-and-breakfast.”

“Now that’s prime optimism,” Tim answered. “That ski resort has been a pipe dream forever. I’d bet the landslide finished the idea, even if Luke is back to checking the geology for a developer.”

“Someone’s paying him,” was Earl’s answer. “So someone is interested in doing it.”

Someone had been interested in the possibility of a resort on the mountainside Tim’s entire adult life. So far nothing had been done beyond clearing a few ski trails, a small investment in downtown improvement with brick sidewalks and Victorian lampposts, and a survey of the hotel site. Then the landslide. Tim just shook his head and wondered if being an eternal optimist was part of how people survived around here. He tended to lean toward optimism himself, despite everything. He had a kid to think about.

“Let’s get going,” he said. “I need to finish work on the heater in time to go pick my son up.”

Earl glanced at him. “He doesn’t walk home?”

“Not when a blizzard is in the forecast.” Tim nodded toward the sky. “Rapid temperature drop this afternoon. Whiteout conditions.”

“You don’t say. I should pay more attention, I guess.”

Tim smiled as they climbed the porch steps and he opened the door. Earl was a gadabout when he wasn’t being a damn good lawyer. Why would he pay attention to the weather report? He could get to his son’s house or Mahoney’s to have beer with friends. Unless court dates had to be postponed, the effects of bad weather on Earl would be minimal.

Opening the door and leaning in, Tim called out, “Ms. Welling? It’s me, Tim, and I’ve brought your lawyer with me. Earl Carter.”

As he and Earl crossed the threshold, he heard hurried footsteps from the back of the house. Still wearing her jacket, with her hands stuffed in her pockets, Vanessa managed a smile.

“So you’re Earl Carter.”

“One and the same.” Earl smiled. “Lots of time on the phone, but nothing like face-to-face.” He stuck out his hand, and Vanessa freed hers to shake it. “Well, what do you think?”

“About the house? Besides the fact I don’t want it? It needs work, Earl. I supposed Mr. Dawson knows how sound it is generally, but paint is sagging on some of the walls. Sagging! I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before.”

“Bad paint job,” Tim remarked. “Old paint. Lack of care. Nothing that can’t be fixed.”

“This place looks like a headache,” she said frankly. “I wish you could have stopped Bob Higgins from doing this to me.”

Earl shook his head. “He did this all on his own. I never knew about it until he died. Then everything landed on my desk.”

“It landed on me like a ton of bricks,” she said. “I never wanted to come back here. Never.”

Tim decided it might be a good time to step out of the conversation. “I need to go put this valve on the heater so I can get it up and running again. It’s getting cold in here. There’s a pot of coffee in the kitchen. Why don’t you two help yourselves?”

He headed down to the basement, acutely aware that without heat, given the coming cold, this place could suffer a lot of damage now that he’d turned on the plumbing again. Eventually that heater should be replaced, but he had a feeling Vanessa Welling wouldn’t be the one to do it.

* * *

In the chilly kitchen with Earl Carter, Vanessa pulled out a chair and sat at a table she remembered all too well.

“Bet you remember this house,” Earl remarked.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” She really didn’t. Good memories had been turned into a nightmare by the man who had inflicted this house on her, and she had little desire to look back.

“You used to play with the Higgins kids, didn’t you?”

She looked at him. “I think I said I didn’t want to talk about it.”

“You did,” he acknowledged. “But I don’t want to talk about your memories. That was a lead-in to how you’re sitting here. After Bob Higgins was arrested, his wife took their two kids and left. I got to wondering why she didn’t sell the house at some point, then I learned why. She never owned it. It was his, lock, stock and barrel.”

“That fits,” Vanessa said tautly. The guy didn’t even take care of his family. He’d made sure everything was his, even their house.

“So, anyway, I only looked into it to find out how it had come to you. When you said you didn’t want it, I hunted his ex-wife up and suggested that you might be willing to give it to her. She was as interested as you were. Didn’t want to even think about it. So here we are.”

“So he ruined everyone’s lives.”

“That’s how it looks. She’s remarried. Even changed the last name of the children.”

Vanessa nodded slightly and looked down as Earl put a mug of coffee in front of her. That looked better than anything she’d seen since arriving here. Well, except for Tim Dawson. “I hate this, Earl,” she said, reaching out to grip the mug in both hands for its warmth.

“No better man than Tim Dawson to take care of it for you. He’ll be quick, he won’t overcharge and he won’t do more than you want and need him to do.”

She raised her gaze to his. “But what about selling it?”

“We’ll get that done somehow, too. We haven’t got the busiest real estate market, but a house like this, reasonably priced, should sell. And you can afford to price it reasonably, because your only sunk costs are going to be for basic repairs and taxes.”

She hadn’t thought about that, and it made her feel slightly better. She could sell it for a song, then it wouldn’t be her problem anymore. Or maybe she could even find a place to donate it, once she was sure it was safe. A house left basically abandoned for twenty years might have all kinds of safety problems. No termites, though, according to Earl. That had been the first thing he had checked out.

So...it would be okay, she told herself yet again. Lately that had become a mantra.

Earl let her have some silence, for which she was grateful. She was still trying to deal with the mess of emotions coming back here had awakened in her. She had a lot to be angry about, a lot to be sad about, and feelings she had put away long ago had all surfaced with her return, with having to deal with this house.

The past had become present, through no choice of her own, and for the first time she considered just how much she hadn’t been able to get over. No, it seemed more like she had plastered over all the cracks and the plaster was giving way. She’d even started having bad dreams again.

Some things were better left buried, and she wished all of this had remained in its grave. What the hell had Bob Higgins been thinking? He’d had no conscience about robbing her family into abject poverty. Why would he have gotten one at such a late stage in his life?

Chilly air stirred suddenly, and she heard a distant whoompf that probably indicated Tim had started the heater. Considering that he had the water running now, that was an excellent thing.

A minute later he appeared, wiping his hands on a rag that he jammed into the back pocket of his jeans. “All set. They make much more efficient models now, but this will do. It shouldn’t break down, anyway. And when you’re ready to go, I’ll winterize the house again.”

He grabbed some coffee of his own and joined her at the table.

“I was just getting ready to leave,” Earl announced. “I have a three o’clock meeting. If you need anything, call me.” He handed her a business card along with a warm smile, then walked out.

When Vanessa remained silent, Tim spoke. “I guess this hit you like a ton of bricks.”

“To put it mildly.”

He just shook his head, unsure what he could say. “I’ve got to run soon as well. I need to pick up my son from school. I’ll bring him back here so we can have some time to discuss what has to be done and whether you want to do any more than that.”

She nodded. “How old is your son?”

“Seven. Anyway, we’re going to be getting a sharp temperature drop anytime now, and I don’t want him out there walking in subzero temps.”

“I’d forgotten.” If she’d ever really known. “It can change fast, can’t it?”

“Very fast. And we’re just sliding into winter, so nobody’s really ready. Blizzard tonight, maybe. If you can stand it, you might want to stay here rather than at the motel. We can get you some food in so you don’t have to hoof it or drive to get a meal. The thing about the motel is that it’s used mainly by truckers and transients. You might feel safer here, much as you hate it.”

“I’ll think about it.”

He stood. “I’ll be back in fifteen or twenty minutes...unless you’d rather I didn’t come back.”

For once since getting here she didn’t feel like hesitating. “No, come back. I’d like to meet your son.”

He nodded once with a smile, then left the kitchen. She listened to his boots cross the foyer, then the front door opened and closed.

Earl had done his best, Tim was a nice guy and maybe she could survive this trip after all.

But the thought of being snowed in here? She shuddered. There’d be no way to avoid the memories then.

* * *

From what Earl had told him, Tim guessed this visit had to be a painful one for Vanessa. Although she’d been a child his own son’s age when her family’s life had fallen apart, she probably remembered enough to find it uncomfortable to return. While it was old news, when Bob Higgins had died in prison, people had recalled his life and crimes, and inevitably Tim had learned something about the man.

He’d apparently set himself up as an investment adviser and had a few impressive pieces of paper framed on his office wall. He’d even been licensed by the state. Everyone knew him, most people liked him and it hadn’t taken him long to get his business rolling.

It must have rolled well for ten or twelve years before it caught up with him. Tim didn’t understand exactly how the scheme had worked, but Bob had persuaded people to entrust him with their money to invest, and most had only given him amounts they never needed back, or if they needed to pull something out, they’d been able to.

But Vanessa’s parents had been different. They’d thought their investments were growing so well that Bob Higgins had managed to persuade them to give him even more, promising them a fortune. They’d mortgaged their ranch and had learned the bleak truth when they needed money from their investments to pay that mortgage.

Tim didn’t pretend to understand how it all had worked or why Higgins had persuaded the Wellings to mortgage their ranch. Maybe because he was getting to the point where he needed money to pay clients a return?

Regardless of it all, the Wellings had left town, and Bob Higgins had been exposed and sent to jail.

But he could see no earthly reason why the man would have deeded his house to Vanessa. No good reason.

He joined the line of parents waiting in their vehicles at the elementary school. The temperature had begun to drop, and the teachers were blowing clouds of fog when they spoke and hurried the children along. Cheeks quickly brightened to red, and there was little of the usual horseplay. The cold had shocked the kids, too.

Tim started to smile as he watched his son, Matthew, race toward the truck. The boy reminded him of his mother, Claire, with his round face, a splatter of freckles across his nose, and a dark blond hair. Every time Tim saw him, he felt an ache for Claire.

Leaning over, he unlatched the door and threw it open for the boy. Matt scrambled in then used both hands to close the door. As usual, Matt did everything at top speed.

The door was open long enough, however, for Tim to feel the dangerous cold deepening outside. If the forecast held, they might need to close school tomorrow. Occasionally it grew too cold to expect children to walk to school or to bus stops.

“How was your day, kiddo?”

“Okay,” Matthew answered. He grinned as he struggled to buckle himself in, showing off the two new front teeth that were emerging. He’d just outgrown the child seat, but was still having trouble with the regular seat belt.

“Just okay?” Tim asked.

“Well, Orson turned green around his neck and got all ruffed up.” Orson was an exotic lizard who lived in a large aquarium. “Ms. Macy said something must have scared him. That was probably Tommy. He kept banging a penny against the tank.”

“Why did Tommy do that?”

Matthew shrugged. “I guess it was fun. Everybody was pretty mad about Orson, though. He doesn’t bother anybody.”

“I don’t imagine he does. Lots of homework?”

“Not much. Two work sheets.”

At last able to pull out of the line, Tim drove back toward the Higgins house—although he supposed it was the Welling house now—and listened to Matthew’s cheerful recounting of the day and his pride in bringing home his very first library book from the school.

It wasn’t as if Tim hadn’t been taking him to the public library all along, but the school library was something special.

“Where are we going, Daddy?”

“Back to the house I’m working on. There’s a lady there now—she owns the house. So...”

“Company manners,” Matthew said with a sharp nod of his head. “Is she a nice lady?”

“I think so, but I just met her before I came to get you.”

“She’s not a witch?” Matt asked, scrunching up his face and making his small hands into claws.

“What have you been reading?” Tim asked, eliciting a giggle.

“Fun stuff. Ms. Macy says I’m too young for Harry Potter, though.”

“Oh. Did you want to read it?” He suspected Ms. Macy’s objection arose more from what some parents around here thought of children reading about wizards and magic.

“Joey’s brother did. He loves it.”

“Well, I’ll see what I can do about getting a copy from the library. You can try it and see.”

For that he received an ear-to-ear grin.

Occasionally when he talked with his son, Tim felt a nostalgia for his own childhood, when everything had been simple and magical. Other times, though, when Matt was having a problem of some kind, Tim was more than glad to be so much older. He suspected that feeling would grow when Matthew hit his teens.

This time he pulled up right in front of the house. Vanessa had parked in the narrow driveway, so there didn’t seem to be any reason to leave curb space. Especially with the temperature dropping so rapidly.

Matthew started to pull his backpack out with him, and Tim stopped him. “You won’t need that until we get home.”

“But I want to show the new lady my library book!”

Tim let him go but wondered if Vanessa would be pleasant, bored or annoyed. Matthew wasn’t her child, after all, and for all he knew she had little patience for youngsters. Still, how annoyed could she be over a library book?

“Company manners,” he reminded Matthew as they walked toward the front door.

“I know, Dad.” The boy’s tone was a touch exasperated, making Tim smile faintly. How fast they tried to grow up.

Vanessa was still sitting in the kitchen with her coffee. Apparently she’d felt no urge to explore the house. Sooner or later, she would have to do a walk-through with him. He could understand her being angry with Higgins, but the house? No, she hadn’t wanted it, but surely she didn’t have anything against the house. It was an inanimate object.

“Ms. Welling, this is my son, Matthew.”

She had lifted her head at the approach of their footsteps, and now she managed a faint smile. “Hello, Matthew. If you want, you can call me Vannie.”

“Vannie?” he repeated as if memorizing it. “I got a new library book. Wanna see?”

Kids, thought Tim. They got through the rough spots as if they weren’t there, skipped over the awkwardness of first meetings and just accepted everyone as a friend.

“I’d love to see,” she answered. Her expression remained pleasant and her tone neutral. Okay, she’d be polite.

“We can’t take too long, Matthew. Vannie’s going to need to get some groceries before the snow starts.” He looked at Vanessa. “The cold out there will snatch your breath.”

“Already?” She frowned faintly. “Here or the motel, huh?”

“Well, I have a guest room, if you’d rather. No problem for me.”

The offer was out before he knew it was coming, and then Matthew seconded it. The idea of having someone new in the house seemed to appeal to him.

Vanessa’s hesitation appeared obvious. Matthew was already running on about how they could read his library book together, but she had drawn away. He could feel it. Pulled back into herself.

“Look,” he said finally. “I’ll guide you to the motel if you want, but like I said, mostly truckers and transients stay there. This house is okay if you want to stock it up. I was only thinking about you being here alone if the blizzard gets bad. You’d be stuck, and the phones here aren’t working. Cell phones can become unreliable when the air’s full of blowing snow.”

He could have sworn she felt torn in a bunch of different directions. But then she surprised him.

“If you’re sure I won’t put you out...”

That settled it, he decided. A night or two. As soon as she’d made her decisions about the house, she’d drive away.

Matthew was ecstatic. Tim watched him with a faint smile, but once again reflected on how much that boy must miss having a mother. He hoped a couple of days wasn’t long enough for him to fit Vanessa into that role.

Chapter Two

Vanessa hoped she hadn’t made a mistake. Tim Dawson seemed like a laid-back sort of guy, however attractive, and his son was a trip. It ought to be okay for a few days.

But honestly, the thought of being stuck alone in Bob Higgins’s house because of a blizzard had been more than she could face. As she’d sat there, waiting for Tim to return with his son, memories had clamored, and maybe the worst part was that they were so confused.

So much for thinking she’d dealt with the past and put it away. The house had dug it all up again. It would have been okay if the memories had been bad, but the thing was, they were good memories, which made Bob Higgins’s betrayal all that more difficult to deal with.

When she stepped outside to follow Tim to his house, the icy air astonished her. The temperature had fallen that fast? She wore what she’d thought would be an adequate wool coat, but it wasn’t enough.

She hurried to get into her car and out of the wind. Matthew had told his father he wanted to ride with her, but before she could say anything Tim had squashed that. Good. She liked the kid as much as she could, having only just met him, but she was far from being ready to drive him around. Also, she knew next to nothing about children.

Maybe she should have gone to the motel. The town had only one, it seemed, and the reviews hadn’t been exciting. Truckers and transients? And what if she got snowed in there?

She shook her head at herself. She wasn’t usually a ditherer, but then she’d never faced a situation quite like this before. Not as an adult making her own decisions.

A town she had nearly forgotten that held secrets about her family that might cause people to judge her. Her dad had certainly thought so. A house from the man who’d destroyed her family. She couldn’t imagine staying there by herself to deal with the good memories that refused to jibe with later reality. Worse, the bad memories from later were more sharply engraved on her mind. She didn’t want to relive her dad’s deterioration and death. All that bitterness. Her mother’s despair.

She hoped Bob Higgins had gone to hell, then caught herself. She didn’t wish that on anyone. But that was the problem with being back here. Having thoughts like that. She was going to face a very ugly part of herself until she was able to walk away.

Tim lived right around the corner. He pulled into a paved driveway that left enough room for her to pull in beside him. She was relieved she wouldn’t be blocking him in or leaving her car on the street to interfere with snowplows.

From the outside, the two-story house appeared tidy—freshly painted white, black shutters all in good condition. A side door led into a mudroom, and from there into a warmly decorated kitchen, painted yellow with sunflower decals along the soffits. A woman’s touch.

“Your wife won’t mind?” she asked, a belated concern. It almost embarrassed her that she hadn’t asked earlier.

“I’m widowed,” Tim said as he bent to give Matthew a friendly pat on his behind and sent him to put his backpack away. “Homework before dinner.”

“Okay, Dad, but I still haven’t showed Vannie my book.”

“After the work sheets are done, okay? She’d probably like to put her suitcase in the spare room and settle a bit.”

Matthew looked at Vanessa and grinned. “I don’t have much homework.”

“Then I’ll have to hurry my settling in.”

Matthew dashed off, leaving Tim and Vanessa alone for a moment.

“He’s cute,” Vanessa offered.

“He’s also endlessly energetic. Don’t let him bug you too much. Come on, I’ll show you your room.”

Miserable as she had been by herself at the Higgins house, now she felt a desperate need for a few minutes alone. With her emotions all topsy-turvy, she needed just a little time to let them settle.

Closing the door behind her in the guest room seemed like a sure way to get that done. Tim brought in her suitcase, told her where to find the facilities, then left her alone in a lovely room.

She suspected he cherished the memory of his wife, because little enough had been done to erase a woman’s touch. No man had chosen those white ruffled curtains or thought to put an embroidered oval doily on the top of the mirrored dresser. A comforter decorated with forget-me-nots covered the queen-size bed, and matching rugs scattered the polished wood floor.

Definitely his wife’s choices, she thought, along with the pale lavender paint on the walls.

So he hadn’t changed a thing. That told her something about his grief. Then she thought of his son, the boy without a mother, and reluctantly her heart went out to them both. The fact that she didn’t make relationships didn’t mean she didn’t care.

It was the relationships that could frighten her. But for Tim and Matthew...that wasn’t enough to unnerve her. She didn’t intend to be here that long.

She enjoyed a few minutes by herself, changing out of her traveling clothes into more comfortable green fleece, pants and thick socks. Then she decided it was time to go out and face the world of Tim and Matthew. Hanging around in her room might seem rude to Tim after he’d been awfully nice to invite her to stay here.

As she passed the dining room, she saw Matthew hunkered over some papers, chewing on a pencil. He flashed her a grin and went back to work.

She found Tim in the kitchen, washing and patting down a whole chicken. “Can I help?” she offered automatically.

“No need. Just have a seat at the kitchen table. Coffee?”

“No, thank you. Maybe some water?”

“There are bottles in the fridge, and glasses in the cabinet beside it if you want one. I’m a bottle drinker, I’m afraid. Anyway, apologies for not getting it for you, but my hands are covered with chicken.”

“I don’t expect to be waited on,” she assured him. “It’s kind of you to give me shelter from the storm. Honestly, I didn’t want to stay alone at the house, and Earl’s and your description of the motel made me uneasy.”

Tim nodded as he placed the chicken in the roasting pan beside the sink. “You’d probably be okay there, but you aren’t going to want to have to cross the highway in a blizzard this cold just to get to the truck stop to eat something. Anyway, with this weather moving in, they’ll be packed...and so will the truck stop diner.” He flashed her a smile. “My house is so much nicer.”

“It is,” she agreed readily. “Your spare room is beautiful. Your wife?”

“Yeah.”

She watched him oil the chicken then wash his hands again, wondering if mention of his wife was off-limits.

When he was done prepping the chicken, he washed his hands again then leaned back against the counter as he dried them with a towel. “My wife passed six years ago. Pulmonary embolism, if you can believe it. Out of nowhere. Matthew has absolutely no memory of her. I can’t decide if that’s good or bad.”

“I wouldn’t know,” she said carefully. “I am very sorry for your loss.”

He tossed the towel to one side. “You get used to the most incredible things. Anyway, yeah, she decorated most of the house. Your room was her pride, though. It wasn’t often she could find everything she wanted that would match.” He rested his palms on the counter behind him. “What about you?”

“Me?”

“People you’re in a hurry to get back to?”

“I work at a natural history museum, and they told me to take whatever time I needed.” Indeed, they’d been very kind. But she was also acutely aware that she hadn’t answered his questions. He’d been straightforward with her, and she felt she needed to give him something in kind.

“My parents are both dead, and there’s no one else.” And never would be. No risks of that nature. She’d seen the price up close and personal, as they said.

He didn’t press the issue but instead turned to pop the chicken in the oven when something beeped. “We eat early around here. Better for Matthew. Tonight we’ll have broccoli with cheese and boxed stuffing to go with this. I hope that sounds good.”

“It sounds great.”

He got himself a bottle of water from the fridge. She still hadn’t gotten one for herself, so he placed one in front of her with a glass.

“So what do you do at the museum?” he asked.

“I help connect dinosaur bones. Unfortunately, they’re rarely discovered as a complete kit. Weather, erosion, what have you, have scattered and mixed the bones. So my job is to figure out what they are and which ones belong where.”

“Do you assemble them?”

She shook her head. “Not unless there’s an extraordinary find. No, mostly we catalog and put them away for safekeeping and later study. It’s not like we know everything.”

“Matt would probably love a trip to see dinosaur bones.”

She smiled. “I’m sure he would. And this summer there’ll probably be several digs going on around this state. Wyoming is a great place for fossil beds. He could see someone pulling them out of the ground...if he has the patience.”

“I’ve read about that. Just never thought about taking the time. Guess I should.”

A silence fell, and she felt awkward about it. With people she knew, silences could be allowed, but she didn’t know this man that well. “You don’t have to entertain me,” she nearly blurted.

He lifted one corner of his mouth in a half smile. “That goes both ways. Besides, once he finishes his homework, Matthew will take over the entertaining. You’ll probably be begging to go to your room for some solitude.”

A laugh trickled out of her. “I’ve hardly met him, but he seems high energy.”

“I’ve often wished we could tap some of that energy for ourselves as we get older. It’s amazing. He can wear me out sometimes.”

“All kids are like that, right?”

“I would worry if one weren’t.” He glanced at his watch. “Want to move into the living room? I’ve got an hour before I need to start the rest of dinner. We could check in on how bad the storm will be.”

She was agreeable and followed him into another tasteful room. His wife was a living presence here, she realized. In a good way. She had created a comfortable, lovely home.

He flipped on the wide-screen TV to the weather station. Whatever else had been in the programming had given way to a nearly breathless description of the storm that bore down on them, complete with advice not to travel and to stay inside if possible.

“These are going to be killer temperatures,” the woman reciting the weather said. “Not a time to decide to make snowballs, kids, or a snowman. You could leave your fingers behind.”

“Or worse,” Tim said. “Do you remember when you were a kid living on a ranch?”

She looked at him. “Earl’s been talking?”

“Earl knows darn near everything. Like the sheriff. I’m fairly certain he doesn’t share things that are personal. Is it some kind of secret that you lived on a ranch?”

She shook her head but felt the memories jar her again, just as she thought she’d managed to put them away once more. “I just don’t remember very much of it. I was seven when we moved away, so all I have left are snatches. Why?”

“I just wondered how many cold mornings you stood at the end of your road waiting for the bus. Do you remember those?”

“One or two,” she admitted. “It was just me, of course, but when it got really cold my dad would drive me to the stop and we’d wait together. Once the snow was so deep he couldn’t drive me, so he forged ahead of me so I could walk.” She smiled faintly, enjoying the good memory of her father. “I remember how the snow was practically up to his waist. Behind him I was walking through a tunnel.”

Tim smiled. “We don’t often get snow that deep right here. It tends to fall farther east because of the mountains.”

She nodded, not really caring. Her only agenda was to get this house out of her hair and go home. Then she remembered Matthew. “He’s taking a while with his homework. I thought he said it was just a little bit.”

“Compared to what he usually has, it probably is. But he knows I’m going to check it, and he doesn’t want to be sent back to fix his mistakes.”

That drew another smile from her. “He’s a cute kid.” And he was. He could have been included in a Norman Rockwell painting.

“I think so. Of course.” He looked toward the windows, as it sounded as if someone had thrown sand against them. “Ice pellets. It’s begun. I need to go pull the curtains to keep this place warmer.”

He closed the ones in the living room first, a deep burgundy that complimented the dark blues in the furniture and was picked up in the area rug centered on the floor. She sat by herself with the TV weather running at a quiet volume, the forecaster clearly happy to have something interesting to report.

The journey that had brought her here was certainly an odd one. She’d never expected, nor had she ever intended, to see this town or this county again. Not because anything so bad had happened to her, but because of the aftermath of what had happened to her family.

All she remembered of that time was having to move, leaving most things behind, but also leaving her friends behind. She remembered having friends back then. Not the kind of reserved friendships that came later in her life, but she’d known other people, other kids. Whisk—they were gone.

Changing schools, changing lives and listening to her father’s endless bitterness. He’d turned some of that bitterness on this town and county, on the people he had known here, people he was sure were making fun of him or looking down on him.

After that move, and several others that followed, Vanessa had begun to feel like a visitor in her own life, ready to move on at a moment’s notice.

But she didn’t want to think about that now. Anyway, she’d been round and round about it all for years before she decided to put it away. The past couldn’t be changed, and concentrating on it seemed like a waste of time.

So coming back here? That seemed like a step backward, a step in a direction she didn’t want to go. Being here would resolve nothing, but it had sure stirred up a lot of unpleasant feelings and memories.

Whatever had Bob Higgins been thinking? Once upon a time she’d called him “Uncle Bob” and played with his children in that very house. Then her father had told her endlessly and repeatedly what an awful man Uncle Bob was, how he’d stolen everything from her family. She’d learned to hate him.

Now that house. It didn’t make sense, and she guessed she would never understand. She just had to find a way to dump it as quickly as possible. Get back to her normal life.

All of a sudden, Matthew came bouncing into the room. “All done! Daddy says it’s okay so I can come talk to you.”

She shook herself out of her reverie and summoned a smile. “You were going to show me your book.”

“Later,” he said decisively. “Daddy says you work with dinosaur bones. Are they really big?”

She liked his enthusiasm. “Some are huge. As long as this room. The ones I like best are the small ones, though.”

“Why?” He scooted onto the other end of the couch.

Why? How to explain that to him. “Everyone loves the big bones,” she said slowly. “And they’re easier to find most of the time. But the little ones are like a secret.”

That made his eyes shine. “Do you find out the secret?”

“Sometimes. Has anyone ever showed you a picture of the bones in your foot?”

He shook his head.

“Well, there are lots of tiny bones in your foot. Your foot wouldn’t move very well without them. But someone looking at them if they were scattered around might put them together and finally figure out how your foot works.”

He nodded, looking very intent. “So it’s like a puzzle?”

“Exactly. Sometimes I make mistakes and put pieces from different puzzles together, and I have to figure out what’s wrong. But when I find enough of the pieces of the same foot puzzle, I know how the dinosaur’s foot worked.”

“Do you do that all the time?”

“Once in a while.”

“I’d like the small pieces, too,” he decided. “More fun. But the big pieces?”

“More exciting for everyone,” she agreed. “Youngsters like you are always coming to the museum to see the big dinosaurs we’ve managed to put together. It can be wild to stand on the floor and look up, up, up to see the head of the dinosaur. It makes me feel very small and very glad there aren’t any more dinosaurs around.”

He clapped his hands with delight. “I wanna do that sometime.”

“I’m sure you can,” Tim remarked, entering the room. “We’ll take a trip and do that.”

“Goody!” Matthew was satisfied. “Now can I show you my book?”

“Of course,” Vanessa answered.

Matthew skipped from the room, and Tim said, “If he’s imposing, let me know.”

“He’s not.” She had to smile. “His excitement is refreshing. Too bad it’s winter. There’s an escarpment about a hundred miles from here where they’ve been making some incredible finds. Closed until spring, of course.”

“I feel almost ashamed for not knowing about that dig.”

She laughed, warming to him. “It’s not making the news like the weather is. Most paleontologists work in obscurity unless something really big or new is discovered, and even then it rarely catches the eye of the mainstream media. You’d need to keep up with journals.”

“Well, I don’t have a lot of time for that, between work and child. Does a dinosaur fascination last long?”

She blinked, surprised. “In what way?”

“I mean, do kids stay interested long enough that summer can get here and I can take him to the dig?”

She laughed, shrugging. “Some kids stay fascinated for years. Others are in and out of it in a short time. The dig won’t necessarily be all that interesting for him at his age, though. They might have a few things laid out on a table, but unless they’re working on pulling a big piece out of the ground, it might seem dull to him.” She hesitated, then said, “Listen, if it’s okay with you, I can send him some materials from the museum. One of them is a wooden puzzle, where you have to put the pieces of bone together and made a 3-D model. It’s really popular.”

“Thank you.” His smile grew wide. “I’m sure he’d love that.”

“Consider it done.”

How easy it was to talk about her work. But it had always been an easy topic for her. Working in a museum suited her in more ways than one. It certainly helped keep her largely by herself. Yes, she had a few girlfriends, but it wasn’t the kind of closeness that would cause her to grieve if she had to move on.

Casual relationships. That was all she had, and she was content that way. Sometimes she wondered if she were just an oddity, or if she were broken in some way.

But at nearly thirty, it hardly seemed to matter. Not when she was content with her life.

Until that damn house.

* * *

Matthew bounced back in with his library book. Tim was curious to see what he’d chosen, so he sat on the far end of the sofa from Vanessa and let the boy sit between them.

It turned out to be a book of jokes, some of them well beyond the youngster’s comprehension, but he seemed fascinated by all the knock-knock jokes. Tim could have groaned. He knew Matthew’s memory for things that interested him, and he suspected he was going to be treated to knock-knock jokes for months. Or at least until Matthew found a new interest.

“Maybe it’s time to get Harry Potter,” he said.

Matthew immediately forgot his joke book. “Really?”

“Really,” Tim said. He’d vastly prefer listening to summaries of the day’s reading of Harry Potter than a slew of bad jokes.

“I’ve read Harry Potter,” Vanessa volunteered. “You’re going to love it.”

Matthew beamed. “I think so. Ms. Macy thought I was too young.” He frowned suddenly. “I don’t think it’s in the school library.”

“Maybe not,” Tim said. “It’ll be in the public library, and if not, we’ll go to the bookstore and get it.”

“Why wouldn’t it be in the public library?” Vanessa asked.

“Some people can’t tell the difference between fiction and reality,” he said. “Surely you remember the uproar back when about kids reading about witches and warlocks?”

“I didn’t pay much attention. I was too busy reading.”

He laughed. “Surely the best way to handle it.”

They endured a few more bad jokes. Tim didn’t mind Matthew reading them. He was, after all, reading. What he dreaded was the possibility that the boy might still find them funny and worth repeating a long time after he’d returned the book.

“Time to get the rest of dinner going,” he announced. “Matthew, can you set the table?”

“The good table?”

“Of course. We have company.”

Once again, Matthew dashed off to carry out his assigned task.

“You shouldn’t go to any trouble for me,” Vanessa protested quietly.

He shook his head a little. “This is a learning experience for Matthew. Plus, he likes being able to help. So, wanna come supervise me while I make boxed stuffing and frozen veggies? I might mess up otherwise.”

The way he said it made her laugh, and she gladly followed him back into the kitchen. The rattle of ice against the windows was audible in there, and Tim felt a snaking draft.

“That cold air is the heat coming on again. It’ll get warm soon. Boy, it sounds miserable out there.”

“It certainly does,” she agreed. “And thank you for your invitation to stay here. I’d have been miserable in the Higgins house.”

“The Welling house now,” he reminded her. “And you’re more than welcome.”

* * *

It was her house now, but as she watched him finish the dinner preparations, she felt an urge to share something with him, maybe so he could better understand her reactions. “Did Earl tell you what Bob Higgins did to my family? And to others around town?”

“Something about an investment scam?”

“Yeah. I don’t get exactly how he did it, but he got people to give him money to invest. Periodically he’d pay out to them, especially if they had a need, but somewhere along the way he must have spent too much money to keep up the pretense that he was actually investing it. That’s when he talked my father into mortgaging the ranch, promising him that his so-called investment fund would not only pay him enough to meet the mortgage payments, but would give him extra. Bob was my dad’s lifelong friend. I don’t think it ever entered his head that Bob was conning him.”

“God, that’s awful. I don’t understand people who steal from others, especially when there’s a trusting relationship involved.”

“I don’t get it, either.” And it was a primary reason she found it so hard to trust. “It was especially hard on my father. He’d lost everything, we moved away and gradually he became an alcoholic. We moved again several times when he lost jobs and then...well, the alcohol killed him.”

“My God! I’m so sorry, Vanessa.” He’d stopped mixing the stuffing, and the vegetables were still waiting beside a microwave container. After a moment, he visibly caught himself and returned to his tasks. “I can’t imagine how awful that had to have been for you.”

“Eventually you don’t feel it anymore. Anyway, I think the stress killed my mother. She was awfully young for a heart attack.” She sighed, watching him move with the grace of a man in great shape doing the minor little things of mixing the stuffing, starting the microwave, putting a pat of butter on the bowl of frozen broccoli.

A man who could handle everything, she thought. Construction, fatherhood, cooking...he had a full plate, all right. Much fuller than hers, which seemed to be mostly filled with her own melancholy memories right now.

She missed her dinosaur bones. They spoke to her, too, but in ways that excited her. People didn’t have that effect on her. She couldn’t trust them to tell a true story, unlike the bones, which couldn’t lie.

And that probably made her neurotic, she thought with an unexpected tickle of amusement as Matthew erupted into the kitchen. That boy was like a human power plant. “I think I did it right.”

“I’ll check in a moment,” Tim answered. “Did you get yourself a glass of milk? And did you ask Vannie what she’d like to drink?”

Vanessa suspected this was a new stage for the boy. He looked a little surprised, then said, “I get to do the drinks?”

“You can carry a glass of milk into the dining room, can’t you?”

That big, engaging grin. “Sure.” He turned to Vanessa. “You want milk, too?”

“I’d very much like a glass of water, thank you.”

She was charmed, enchanted, and so very glad not to be riding out this storm all alone at the Higgins house.

Matthew was just tall enough to reach the bottom shelf of the upper cupboard by stretching, and he pulled out two glasses. He stuck his tongue out and bit it while pouring one glass half-full of milk, clearly taking great care. The other was more easily handled at the sink. Then, carefully, he picked up both glasses and carried them away.

“You must be very proud of Matthew,” she remarked. Tim had pulled the stuffing from the microwave and replaced it with the frozen broccoli. The machine hummed quietly.

“I am,” he agreed. He fluffed the stuffing with a fork, the recovered it with a glass lid and faced her, an easy posture leaning back against the sink. “I keep hoping Claire would feel the same.”

“Your wife? I’m sure she would.”

“Well, he’s not perfect. He has his moments.” He straightened. “I promised to check the table setting. Be right back.”

Then she was alone in the kitchen, and alone with her own thoughts. Inevitably she wondered if there hadn’t been something she could do about that house that wouldn’t have involved her. Odd, when her memories of being there were so sketchy, that it should have such a strong impact on her.

Uncle Bob. Aunt Freda. She never heard what happened to Freda and the girls, other than that they’d left Bob behind when his misdeeds came to light. And Earl had said that Freda had changed the girls’ last names. Like her family, they’d fled from destruction wrought by one man without a conscience.

Because he couldn’t have had a conscience. He’d used every one of his friends in a horrible way. Her dad had just suffered the biggest losses.

Then Tim reappeared as the microwave dinged to announce the broccoli was ready.

Time for dinner.

* * *

By the time Tim decreed bedtime for Matthew, they were able to pull back the living room curtains and see a world turned into a white whirlwind that reflected the interior light.

“Not a good night to be out,” Tim remarked. “I hope everyone heeded the warnings.”

Matthew, Vanessa had noticed, had grown very quiet since helping to clear the table and load the dishwasher. He hadn’t spoken at all.

“Are you feeling okay?” she asked him.

“He’s feeling just fine,” Tim said drily. “He’s hoping I didn’t notice that he failed to go upstairs when I said it was bedtime.”

“There’s no school tomorrow!” Matthew protested.

“Maybe, maybe not. We don’t know for sure yet. Either way, it’s bedtime for buckaroos, and yes, you can read.”

Matthew tried slumping his shoulders and dragging his feet, but when that didn’t get a response, he perked up and ran up the stairs.

Tim just shook his head and smiled. “There’s some decent coffee in the pot if you want some. Sorry I can’t offer dessert.”

“I’m not used to it. It was a great dinner, though.”

“Thanks. Just the basics. Anyway, I need to go up and tuck him in, make sure he doesn’t skip important things like brushing his teeth. Make yourself at home.”

She did just that, curling up sock-footed on the end of the couch with a scientific journal she’d pulled out of her carry-on bag.

The house had central heating, so it must have been her imagination that it was getting colder. The coffee she’d brought in here with her helped only a little.

So she tried to bury herself in the most recent paleobiology publication. She didn’t have an advanced degree, but she possessed an unquenchable curiosity about vertebrates of the past. She’d lucked into a great career field, because one of her professors in a class she’d taken just to round out her core requirements had noticed something about her and encouraged her.

She’d be forever grateful to him for that gift. And with time, she’d grown knowledgeable enough that her lack of advanced education had mattered less and less, although she picked up a course from time to time.

Tonight, though, concentrating on a morphology study didn’t hold her attention. Well, of course not. She’d been going through quite an emotional earthquake since Earl Carter had called her with the news.

Lowering her head, she tried to force herself to pay attention, but the words on the page just seemed to swim in front of her. Maybe she should try reading it on her laptop, where she could magnify the print.

But there was something she’d always loved about holding a journal, the way it felt, the way it smelled, the brand-new unread pages. She viewed each one with a fresh excitement that she didn’t at all feel when she read online.

So she kept trying, wondering how long it took to put a little boy to bed—and wondering why she should care. She was in a cozy place with nothing to worry her, at least until sometime tomorrow.

Between one breath and the next, she drifted off with the journal in her hand and her head on the overstuffed arm of the sofa.

* * *

Tim had one of those revelations that only a parent could have. When he helped Matthew get into his pajamas, he discovered the boy was wearing four pairs of briefs.

“What’s this?” he asked, genuinely curious. “Why so many?”

“You told me to put on new ones every day.”

Apparently, he’d left out an important part of the instructions, Tim thought as laughter rose in him. He quelled it, funny though this was, because another thought occurred to him: the boy couldn’t have been bathing. He wouldn’t have worn all those underpants if they were wet.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “And how do you handle your socks?”

“New ones every day. I was going to tell you my shoes are getting tight, too.”

Tim could easily imagine that they were, even though they were almost new. “So how many socks do you have on each foot?”

“Four.”

“What started all this?” he asked, genuinely curious.

“When you were doing the laundry and said I hadn’t worn enough underpants or socks for a week. Fresh ones every day.”

Tim remembered that conversation clearly. Oh, man. “I left out part of the instructions, kiddo. The part about taking off the dirty ones before you put on fresh ones. Come on, let’s get rid of all these in the hamper and put you in the shower.”

Tim wondered if he’d ever learn how literal a child could be. Probably not. He’d keep making these simple mistakes until Matthew grew up enough to fill in the blanks.

With his son showered, dried and in fresh pajamas, Tim scooped him up and carried him to bed. God, it felt so good to have this boy in his arms. He smelled sweet and just so right. Not much more of this, though. One way or another, Matthew was going to get too big, and from what he’d seen of slightly older kids, he’d be lucky to snag a hug.

But for now he took pleasure in the moment and just wished Claire could share it, too.

Sometimes he felt his wife around, as if she peeked in on them, as if her love still existed. Maybe it did. And maybe, like an angel, she kept watch over Matthew. He certainly hoped so.

Though it had been six years since Claire’s unexpected passing, he still missed her. Missed all the little things they had shared, which in retrospect seemed a whole lot more important than the big things.

Glances over breakfast that seemed to warm the air. Shared looks of understanding that needed no words. Being able to reach out and just hold her hand. Those little things had turned into a huge gap in his life.

He wanted no replacement for Claire. He didn’t think it was possible, and he wasn’t looking. Most especially he didn’t want to upset Matthew’s life. His son seemed to have adapted quite well to the fact that he didn’t have a mother, unlike his friends.

Whenever someone pressed Tim on the subject—and yes, he knew they did out of some kind of concern—he simply said that was for later. After Matthew was grown. Safely down the road and something he didn’t need to think about now. Not when he had his son to concern him, and not when he was still aching with loss.

He was learning that you never stopped grieving. It just softened with time. Or became like a comfortable old friend, always there, never gone. At least it didn’t cripple him the way it once had. He could pause, absorb and acknowledge the pain, then keep going.

Matthew made that essential.

Downstairs, he found Vanessa curled up on the couch and sound asleep. He thought about moving her to her room then decided against disturbing her. If she woke up on her own, she could go to her room then. In the meantime, she looked comfortable, and it wouldn’t be the first time that sofa had been a bed.

Out in the kitchen, he opened his laptop and logged in while he brewed fresh coffee. He had more jobs than the Higgins house. There were a couple of remodel and repair jobs he’d promised to email estimates on by Saturday, and he needed to finish them.

He paused a moment, thinking of the woman sleeping in his living room. What a cutie, he decided. A lovely woman, and she’d handled Matthew’s sometimes overwhelming energy well.

Then he returned to work. Two things in his life, mainly. His son and his work. Everything else paled beside them.

Chapter Three

Vanessa awoke in the dark. All the lights in the room were off, and in a faint spill of light coming from elsewhere, she needed a couple of seconds to orient herself. Tim Dawson’s house. Conard County. Oh, God.

She sat up, rotating her shoulders and neck to ease the stiffness, and put her slightly crumpled journal to one side. How rude of her. The man had given her shelter, served her a fine meal, and she’d responded by falling asleep on his sofa while he put his son to bed?

Well, maybe he wasn’t terribly offended. She guessed she’d have to wait until morning to find out. She could hear the blizzard now, howling outside as if it were alive. She was so glad she wasn’t alone in that ruin of a house she’d inherited, or at the motel where she’d be stuck in one room alone, probably listening to the more regular patrons celebrate the weather with whiskey.

In fact, though she didn’t drink often, a whiskey didn’t sound too bad to her, either.

She rose, grateful she’d changed into comfy fleece earlier, and stretched every muscle in her body. There was nothing quite like a good stretch. Feeling better, she headed toward the light, which was coming from the kitchen, and was surprised to see Tim at the kitchen table, computer in front of him and stacks of paper surrounding him.

He looked up at once and smiled. “Good nap?”

“I was so out of it,” she admitted. “I’m sorry I fell asleep on you.”

“I don’t remember inviting you here to be entertaining. You obviously needed the sleep.”

“And I really could use some water. My mouth feels so parched. Oh, God,” she added as the thought struck her, “was I snoring?”

“If you were, I didn’t notice. Do you want the chilled bottled water? Or would you rather have something else? I finished the coffee, but I have soft drinks—all the diet variety, I’m afraid—or I could make hot chocolate.”

“Right now just water would be great.” Moving by instinct, she found the glasses in the upper cupboard beside the sink. “You want any?”

“I’m fine.”

She chose to get water from the tap and drained a whole glass before she left the sink, then filled it again halfway and ventured to join him at the table. “Working?”

“Yup. Almost done.”

“Don’t let me disturb you.”

Sipping her water, she closed her eyes, listening to the sounds of the storm outside, and the sounds the house made in response. A gust of wind could cause the slight creaking from somewhere upstairs. If snow was falling, it was mixed with ice that rattled against the window glass. Without even looking she was grateful not to be out in it.

Or, frankly, by herself.

For some reason, being in this town had made her feel isolated. Maybe because she’d left behind the friendly faces of her coworkers and her immediate neighbors in her apartment building.

Maybe because since she’d arrived, she’d met three strangers and knew very little about any of them. Matthew probably couldn’t be included in that, though. There was little doubt as to what he thought about anything.

But Earl, even though she’d talked to him a number of times on the phone, was still a stranger. And for all she was sharing Tim’s house tonight, she knew very little about him except he was a contractor, he had a son and he’d lost his wife.

Just an outline. But what did he know about her? That she worked with dinosaur bones in a museum, that her family had lost everything to Bob Higgins and that she didn’t want this house that had fallen into her lap.

He probably wondered why that was. Not everyone would look at a free house as a problem, even if it did need work.

She had to admit she wasn’t sure herself why she was reacting so strongly. Yeah, the man had cost her family everything and turned them into wanderers. Yes, her father had drunk himself to death, but that had been his choice, not Bob’s. She’d suffered because of what had happened nearly twenty years ago, but this seemed to go beyond bad memories.

Maybe it had bored a hole in her soul, somehow.

With a snap that startled her eyes open, she heard Tim close his computer case. “Done,” he said. “For now, anyway. When the numbers start to look like fish swimming through a tank, it’s usually a good time to stop.”

She liked his ready sense of humor. She envied that it seemed to come so easily to him. She wasn’t a very humorous person herself. In fact, if asked, she’d probably classify herself as...too reserved, she decided finally. Not sour, but reserved.

“So, about your house,” he said. “It’s structurally sound. A couple of roof rafters could use replacing because they got wet at some point, but there’s no dampness up there now. You could probably let those skate.”

She nodded, feeling unready to discuss this, but knowing she couldn’t evade it indefinitely. After all, she’d come back to take care of it, and an inheritance from Bob that she hadn’t turned down was the last of his savings. She figured since he’d dumped his white elephant on her, she needed the money to fix it up and pay the taxes. She just hoped it was enough. Lowly museum assistants didn’t make huge salaries.

“To make the house interesting to a buyer, there are some basic things we need to do. Caulking. The weatherizing in the windows and doors is cracked, unattended for too long. The attic fan is dead. The floors sag and are weak in a few places.” He stopped. “I don’t want to overwhelm you. The question is, do you want to pull it together just enough to hopefully attract someone by marketing it as a major fixer-upper? That’ll cost you a pretty penny in terms of what you can make off it, and frankly, with the amount of cosmetics it needs, that might not even work. You saw the paint sagging on the wall. I don’t like that.”

“It’s ugly,” she agreed.

“It’s more than ugly. It might be lead based.”

Her heart lurched. “I thought that was illegal!”

“It is now. But it was only in 1978 that it was banned in housing. Now how many walls do you think got painted over with latex or oil-based paints and never stripped?”

Her mind was dancing around as if she had hot coals inside it. She didn’t want to hear this. Want to or not, she was stuck with it. “We should knock it down and clear the lot.”

“Maybe. I’m going to have an inspector check the place out first.” He popped open his computer. “I reckon if there’s lead, knocking it down and clearing out the remains will cost as much as a basic fixup and getting rid of as much lead paint as we might find. And—here’s the important thing—unless you can sell that empty lot, you’ll still owe taxes as if the house was on it.”

She was flummoxed. “Really? Really?”

“Best and highest use.”

That did it. Vanessa put her head in her hands and muttered, “I want my dinosaur bones.”

“Earl mentioned that you wanted to donate the house, but ask yourself if it would be ethical to give it to a church or preschool before we deal with any health threats.”

Her head snapped up. “Of course not!”

He smiled. “Good.”

Then his question struck her. “You certainly didn’t imagine that I’d pass that lead paint along, especially to children.”

“In this world,” he said slowly, “you never know. I’ve had people come to me who wanted to cover a multitude of sins with fresh paint or linoleum.”

“So Bob Higgins wasn’t the only con artist around here.”

“I wish I could say he was.” He rose and stretched his arms, making her acutely aware of his flat belly. “Let’s go back to your bedroom. No, I’m not sending you to bed, but I want to be sure you know where everything is and feel free to use it.”

This time, having escaped her self-absorption, she knew instantly that this room had once been the master bedroom. Those forget-me-nots and the colors were his wife’s choices, she had realized earlier, but now they took on meaning that almost made her squirm.

“Private shower, too,” he remarked, pointing to a closed door.

She wanted to ask outright but caught herself. No point in prodding this man’s wounds. She ought to understand that herself. “Where do you sleep?”

“Upstairs, just down the hall from Matthew. He used to have nightmares and be scared there was something under his bed.”

She suspected that was only part of the reason, but it was good enough. “I hope he’s outgrown that.”

“Mostly. It still happens occasionally. So, when we can get out into the world, do you want to go over your house with me? I can make a list of the absolute essentials, but I still need your input.”

She nodded slowly. “I’m still trying to figure out why I hate that house. I know why I didn’t want to come back to this town. My dad spent his last years vilifying this place. But the house? I vaguely remember having fun there as a child.”

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