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“I’ll bet you aced it.” She gazed up at him adoringly. “You’re so smart.”
The way she stared at him gave him the creeps. Heck, most of the time she gave him the creeps. Felicity wore violet-colored contacts, circled her eyes with black liner and painted the lids with purple eye shadow. She wore black clothes nearly all the time and had ever since eighth grade, when she had gotten on some Goth kick. And that dagger tattoo on her neck turned him off completely, as did the small fire-breathing dragon circling her left wrist. She sure didn’t look like a preacher’s kid. Judging by her appearance, you’d never expect that her parents and older sister seemed pretty much normal.
“You don’t have any other exams today, do you?” Felicity asked.
Seth picked up his backpack off the floor and flung it over his shoulder. “Nope. I’m through for today.”
“Want a ride home?”
“Is your mother picking you up?” he asked.
“Nooo…” She dragged the word out, exasperation in her voice. “Don’t you remember? Charity got a new car for her eighteenth birthday last month. She won’t mind giving you a lift.”
His grandparents’ house was a good eight-block walk, one he made almost every day. Nana dropped him off at Dunmore High each morning, having overruled Granddad’s objections, something she seldom did. But his grandfather had expressly forbidden Nana to pick him up in the afternoons. He considered doing that would only coddle Seth.
He had overheard Granddad say to Nana, “You and Elaine spoil that boy way too much. He’ll never be a real man with his two grandmothers hovering over him the way y’all do.”
If today had been just another warm and sunny May day, he’d have opted to walk instead of considering catching a ride home with kooky Felicity and her sister, Charity. But it had been raining cats and dogs for the past hour, and he didn’t look forward to getting drenched in the downpour.
“Sure, thanks,” Seth said. “If you don’t think Charity will mind.”
Felicity lit up like a Christmas tree, as if his agreeing to accept a ride home had been an answer to her prayers. Yeah, okay, so he knew she liked him. She’d sort of had a thing for him for nearly a year now, even though he’d never done anything to encourage her. The last thing he’d ever want to do was hurt her feelings, but sooner or later he was going to have to tell her to back off.
“Come on.” Felicity grabbed his arm. “We’ve got to hurry. Charity will be waiting out front, and she can’t stay parked in the tow-away zone forever.”
They barely made it out the front door before Felicity popped open a huge black umbrella to shield them from the rain. She led him to the late-model Chevy, a reliable, sturdy vehicle that most teenagers wouldn’t be caught dead driving. She opened the back door and said, “Get in.”
Once he and Felicity were inside, Charity pulled out of the tow-away area, not glancing back at them or saying a word. It was only after Felicity had closed the umbrella and Seth had fastened his seat belt and looked forward that he noticed the girl sitting in the front seat with Charity. He knew, without seeing her face, who she was. His heartbeat accelerated. His face flushed. And his penis came alive.
Damn! Get that thing under control.
While he concentrated on how his body was reacting to the beautiful Missy Hovater, she turned around and smiled at him.
“Hi, Seth.”
God, she knew his name!
Don’t be an idiot, of course she knows your name. Her father took your dad’s job. He’s the minister where you andyour grandparents go to church. You’re in Sunday school class with her.
“Hi, Missy.” His words came out sounding like a frog’s croak.
When Missy laughed, the dimples in her cheeks deepened and her eyes sparkled.
Felicity punched him in the ribs and giggled. “What’s up with that voice? Were you trying to do an imitation of a bullfrog?”
Shit!
Oh, damn!
I shouldn’t even think those words. It’s wrong to curse, even in your mind. And I shouldn’t be fighting a hard-on. Sins of the flesh. Stay chaste. Don’t think evil thoughts. Oh, God, help me.
Seth didn’t know which was worse—being concerned about his numerous sins or the red flush no doubt covering his face. It was hell being sixteen—well, almost sixteen—and no one except another teenager could possibly understand how he felt right this minute. His grandparents certainly wouldn’t understand.
“Yeah,” Seth managed to say in his normal voice. “I’m practicing for tryouts for the school play, The Frog Prince.”
When everyone laughed, even the quiet, shy Charity, Seth relaxed.
He could feel Felicity watching him, but he couldn’t manage to take his eyes off Missy. She had to be the prettiest girl he’d ever seen, every feature on her face perfect, and her body was bad, really bad. He hated to admit it, but the first thing he had noticed about her, after her gorgeous face and mane of blond hair, was her big boobs. He might be a preacher’s son and the grandson of a church elder, but he was human and couldn’t help it if a girl’s breasts fascinated him.
Felicity leaned against him, her long, straight black hair brushing his arm, her actions demanding his attention. When he glanced at her, he realized she was practically in his face.
“Why don’t you come home with us?” Felicity asked. “Mom will fix us all lunch, and then you and I can study for our American History test together.”
“I don’t know.” Think of some excuse other than your grandmother is expecting you to come home. “I sort of promised Tyler that we’d hang out together later today.”
“So call him and invite him over. Mom won’t mind. She loves for us to have company, doesn’t she, Charity?” When her sister didn’t respond, Felicity punched the back of her sister’s seat.
“Uh, no, Mother won’t mind at all,” Charity said.
“I’m going home with Charity and spending the afternoon,” Missy told him. “I don’t like to disturb my father when he’s busy working on a sermon.”
“I…uh…sure, thanks, I’d like to have lunch with y’all.” Liar. You don’t want to have lunch with all of them, only with Missy. “But I need to give Nana a quick call, so she won’t worry. You know how grandmothers are.”
Seth fumbled in his pocket and managed to retrieve his phone without dropping it. Please, God, let Nana answer and not Granddad. Nana wouldn’t give him a hard time about not coming straight home. He understood that Granddad was strict with him for his own good, just as his own dad would have been. But sometimes he wished his grandfather could remember what it was like to be nearly sixteen.
Cathy looked at the address written on the notepad: 121 West Fourth Street. This had to be a mistake. That was the address for the old Perdue house. Hadn’t Mona mentioned something about that house being empty, that it had been up for sale for nearly six months? Maybe someone had bought the place, and the new owner needed interior-decorating advice, an extra service they provided at Treasures of the Past Antiques and Interiors.
“Is something wrong?” Ruth Ann Harper asked. “You have the strangest expression on your face.”
Cathy forced a smile. She liked Ruth Ann, who was married to Lorie’s cousin, the local First Baptist Church’s minister. Ruth Ann had been working part-time helping Lorie with the antique shop while Cathy had been at Haven Home.
“No, nothing’s wrong. I was just puzzled by the address. I didn’t realize anyone had bought the old Perdue house.” Cathy looked right at Ruth Ann. “Are you sure you wrote down the correct address?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“And Lorie told you to ask me to meet with the client at four-thirty this afternoon at this address?”
“Yes.” Ruth Ann looked puzzled. “When she phoned from the auction in Fayetteville, I told her about the gentleman who had called and asked if y’all could help him with decorating his house. He said it was an old Victorian, that he was having some restoration work done on the place and he didn’t know anything about decorating.”
“Did he happen to tell you his name and if he and his wife would be meeting with me or…?”
“He didn’t mention a wife. And come to think of it, he didn’t give me his name. I think he thought I knew who he was. How, I don’t know. Local gossip, maybe.”
“I see. And you told Lorie which house it was? You mentioned the address to her, right?”
“Well, actually, no, I don’t think I mentioned the address. I just told her what the man had said, and she told me to ask you to meet with him since she wouldn’t make it back from the auction by four-thirty.”
“Oh.”
“Is there a problem of some kind?”
Cathy shook her head. “No, no problem at all.” She checked her wristwatch. “I’d better leave now since it’s already four-twenty. Would you mind closing up today? It would save me from having to come back instead of going straight home. Seth is coming for dinner tonight.”
“He’s such a fine young man. So well mannered and friendly,” Ruth Ann said. “He was at the house today for lunch. He came by with my girls and their friend Missy after exams. I think my youngest has a major crush on him. And God knows he’d be a wonderful influence on her. I’m afraid Felicity is going through a rebellious stage.”
“Good for her.”
Cathy didn’t realize she had spoken out loud until she saw the surprised expression on Ruth Ann’s face. Her dark eyes widened, and her mouth opened in a half-smile/halffrown, as if she was uncertain how to take Cathy’s comment.
“I’m sure you don’t have anything to worry about with either of your girls, not with the wonderful example you and John Earl have always set for them. I just think it’s good to allow teenagers to think for themselves and for them not to always be expected to do everything their parents want them to do.”
“Actually, I agree with you. Despite the slight embarrassment Felicity’s tattoos, outlandish makeup and black attire cause us, John Earl and I believe that allowing her the freedom to express herself will help her grow up to be her own person, a young woman we’ll be quite proud of.”
“You’re very wise. Your girls are so lucky to have a mother like you.” Cathy took the car keys out of her purse, hung the strap over her shoulder and headed for the back door. “See you tomorrow.”
Ruth Ann waved as Cathy left the shop.
She paused beneath the metal canopy over the door and looked up at the gray sky. The morning’s heavy rain had left puddles of standing water. The light drizzle falling now wasn’t discernible to the eye, but when she walked toward her parked SUV, she felt the light moisture misting her face.
With her consent, her in-laws had sold Mark’s Lexus and put the money in Seth’s college fund, and they had given Cathy’s ten-year-old Jeep Cherokee to Elaine, who had stored it in her garage.
“I had it serviced for you when I found out you were coming home,” her mother had told her. “I wasn’t sure if you’d be driving, but I assumed you would. After all, you wouldn’t have left that place if you weren’t completely well, would you?”
Ignoring the comment about her mental health, Cathy had simply said “Thank you, Mother,” taken the keys and left. One of the many truths she had accepted while at Haven Home was the fact that Elaine Nelson would never change. She couldn’t change her mother, but she could change the way she reacted to her.
Cathy slid behind the wheel, started the engine and sat there in the alley behind the antique shop. During the eight days she had been back in Dunmore, she had met and survived several challenges. Not allowing her mother to intimidate her had actually been easier than she’d thought it would be. But facing her in-laws had not been easy, nor had accepting the fact that she would have to regain her son’s trust before she could fight the Cantrells for custody. One of the lesser challenges had been forcing herself to pretend she didn’t hear the whispers or notice the curious stares when she attended Sunday morning services yesterday. And whenever a customer commented about her year away and how horrible it must have been in that place, she simply forced a smile and told them it was wonderful to be home and back at work.
Of all the challenges that she had known she would face and could deal with, helping the new owner decorate the old Perdue house had not been one of them.
You can do this. It’s just a house. Mr. and Mrs. Reaves are both dead. Maleah lives somewhere in the Knoxville area. And Jack…
She gripped the steering wheel with white-knuckled strength.
“Jackson Perdue.” There, she’d said his name aloud, and the earth hadn’t opened up and swallowed her. God hadn’t struck her dead. “Jack.” She spoke his name softly.
Cathy wasn’t surprised that Jack and Maleah had sold their mother’s house, considering how much they had both hated their stepfather and how quickly they had both left home when each had turned eighteen. They had returned briefly for their mother’s funeral five years ago. She had caught a glimpse of them, from the back of the church, when she had slipped in and sat in the very last pew. She hadn’t spoken to either of them at the church and hadn’t gone to the cemetery or to the house.
Cathy put the SUV in reverse, backed up and drove down the alley to the side street. On the short drive from Main Street, where their shop was located, to West Fourth, she wondered about the people who had bought the old house. Were they a young couple, middle-aged or elderly? Were they locals or people from another town or even another state?
When she parked in the gravel drive at 121 West Fourth, she noticed the door to the carriage house stood wide open. The interior of the in-need-of-repair structure was bare to the bones. Apparently the new owners had already started clearing out things in preparation for the renovations. She got out of the Jeep and searched for the owner’s vehicle, but didn’t see one. Was it possible the potential client had forgotten about their appointment? If no one was here, she could wait for them, but not for long. Seth was coming to Lorie’s tonight for dinner. Nothing, not even a rich client, was more important.
As she made her way to the sidewalk, her leather high heels marring up in the wet ground, she inspected the threestory house, one of several Victorian painted ladies that still graced the downtown streets of Dunmore. How dark and dreary this place looked, the gray paint peeling, the faded white shutters in need of repair, the wide porch empty. She rang the doorbell.
Seconds ticked by and quickly turned into minutes.
She rang the doorbell again.
Silence.
Apparently no one was at home. Should she go or should she wait?
Before she could decide, a sheriff ’s car zipped into the drive and pulled up alongside her SUV. She turned and watched as the tall, muscular man in uniform emerged from the Crown Victoria.
As he approached the front porch, Cathy’s chest tightened. Her heartbeat accelerated. With slow, easy strides, he came up the walkway. His hair was darker now, a rich sandy blond, and just a tad longer than a regulation military cut. When he stepped up on the porch, he removed his sunglasses, squinted and stared at her.
“Sorry I’m a few minutes late,” he said, then stopped dead still when less than six feet separated them.
He was the same and yet different. Older, broader shouldered, harder. And battle scarred. The boyish smoothness of his handsome face was gone, replaced with an imperfect roughness.
“Hello, Jack.”
He stood there speechless, staring at Cathy Nelson. No, not Cathy Nelson—Cathy Cantrell, Mark Cantrell’s widow. He had figured that sooner or later he’d run into her, considering that Dunmore was a small town. But he sure as hell hadn’t expected to react this way—as if he’d been hit between the eyes with a two-by-four.
As a teenager, Cathy had been a pretty girl in her own shy, sweet way. But the woman standing there, her bluegreen eyes fixed on his face, her mouth open in shock as if she’d seen a ghost, was more than pretty. She was beautiful. Her long brown hair, flowing freely around her shoulders, shimmered with damp highlights caused by the misty rain. Her body had matured. Her breasts were fuller than he remembered, and she was slimmer. Not skinny, just trim.
“Hello, Cathy.”
She surveyed him from head to toe, taking in his deputy’s uniform. “I—I wasn’t expecting to see you. I thought you and Maleah had probably sold the house.”
“I thought I left my name when I called. Maybe I didn’t. I guess you hadn’t heard that Mike Birkett hired me as a deputy. I’ve moved back to Dunmore.”
“Permanently?”
He nodded. “Possibly. Depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“If the deputy job works out.”
“Yes, of course. You’ve left the army?”
“Yeah.”
She glanced at the porch and front of the house. “And you’re going to restore this place?”
“That’s the plan.” When he moved toward her, she backed up as if she were afraid of him. Odd. “Why don’t you come on inside and take a look? I can put on some coffee, or, if you prefer, there’s beer in the—No beer. As I recall, you don’t drink. Unless your tastes have changed.”
She stepped out of his way as he retrieved the key from his pocket and headed for the front door. “I wasn’t sure who would show up,” Jack said. “I sort of thought it would be Lorie.”
“Lorie’s at an auction in Fayetteville.”
Jack held open the front door. “Come on in.”
When he noted her hesitation, he forced a wide smile, hoping to put her at ease. Apparently at least a part of the shy young girl he had once known still existed inside the adult Cathy.
“How about some coffee?” Jack asked. “We can go in the kitchen and talk. I can explain what I want to do to this old place, and you can tell me what you think.”
“All right.” After she entered the house, he came in behind her. Then she followed him to the kitchen. “If you’d prefer working with Lorie, we can reschedule. I’ve been away from the business for nearly a year, so I might be a little rusty.”
