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CHAPTER FIVE
TWO WEEKS LATER, Sam packed her belongings. After extracting a promise from Mr. Raven to visit her, with new house keys tucked in her pocket, she drove to the house. Pulling into the driveway, she stared at it. Her house. For a while, anyway. She pictured it complete—a stately grande dame, holding dignified court over the tan hills that bowed at her feet.
She was itching to get back inside, to see if her idea of a loft would really work.
Her fingers ached for her tools as she looked forward to mindless hours spent restoring a windowsill, to listening to the old house whispering its secrets.
Why this house should stand out from her other projects, she couldn’t say. Perhaps the secret would be revealed in the renovation.
Sam gathered as much stuff as she could with one hand, navigated the weed-choked sidewalk and climbed the steps to the front porch. She looked out over the sleepy hills. Puffs of eucalyptus-scented breeze touched her face and fat honeybees droned in the overgrown shrubbery at her feet. No traffic noise, no human voices—only the sounds of spring, and the countryside drowsing in the heat. Sam closed her eyes, feeling the edges of the hole in her chest where the restlessness usually lived. Peace stole in. Her mind quieted.
“Come on, Crozier, start hauling ash.” Realizing that her father’s words were literal in this case, she smiled, dropped her stuff, unlocked the door, and went in search of a broom. She was attempting to clean out the pieces of ceiling in the dining room with one hand and a sling, when the sound of a large truck laboring up the hill disturbed the quiet.
She walked to the front parlor and looked out the tall front windows to see a moving van towing her Jeep, turn in the drive. She directed the men to put her single bed in the front parlor, along with her boxes of clothes and sundries. Most of her furniture would go into storage for the duration of the renovation.
Last off the truck were her red toolboxes. After rolling them into the kitchen, the movers left. For a half hour, Sam indulged herself, pulling and closing the long flat drawers, hefting mallets, rearranging hardware, stroking her father’s antique hand plane. The world tilted to a more familiar axis and the ground settled under her feet. Traveling was fun, but nowhere was home until her tools arrived.
I so miss you, Dad. With a last lingering caress, she closed the drawer and got to work.
She spent the rest of the weekend settling in. After driving the Love Machine to town for much-needed supplies, Sam did a good cleaning of the bathroom, the kitchen and front parlor, her chosen bedroom for the duration of the remodel.
Surveying the roof, she judged the framing solid, but everything else would go—from the sheathing out. She took measurements and visited the lumber company to order supplies. Her body hurt just imagining the labor involved. She pictured herself, on the roof, trying to tear off sheathing with one hand.
Dammit! She liked working alone. Liked knowing at the end of a job that the satisfying result was hers alone. Others may not realize after Sam had moved on, that the mark left behind was hers, but she’d know. And that had always been enough.
But wanting didn’t make it so. Given her injuries, she’d have to get help. She’d curse the accident, but if not for that, she wouldn’t have found this great house. Reluctantly, she decided to stop by the high school on Monday.
You can always bite the bullet and pay through the nose for professionals if students turn out to be a hairball idea.
Nursing a cup of coffee on her porch after dinner, Sam imagined pioneer wagons carrying tired families coming over the hills. How would they have felt, after facing unbelievable hardships on their way west, seeing this beautiful land for the first time? The view from her porch probably hadn’t changed much since then, and she liked that.
The self-satisfied purr of an expensive engine disturbed her reverie. A sleek black Mercedes convertible slowed, and then pulled into her drive. Her muscles snapped to attention like guard dogs on a leash.
Probably a lost tourist. She set her cup down.
The driver glanced in the rearview mirror and smoothed his hair before climbing from the car’s cream leather interior, a bottle of wine in his hand tied with a blowsy scarlet bow. Squinting into the low sun, Sam recognized the man who’d hit her motorcycle that day in the rain. She stood.
He found the edge of the sidewalk in the weeds and, head down, followed the trail in the tall grass. As he neared, he looked up with a broad smile. “I’m here to officially welcome you to Widow’s Grove.”
She felt the house’s empty rooms at her back. “How did you know where I live?”
“Well, now, that tells me that you didn’t grow up in a small town. When I heard a biker chick bought the old Sutton place, I knew it had to be you.” Smiling, he bowed over the bottle of wine like a maître d’, awaiting a diner’s approval.
Sam tucked her good hand in her back pocket. “Thank you. But I don’t drink.” She did, but she wasn’t telling him that.
His smile went a bit stale. “That’s okay. You can save it for your housewarming.” He extended his hand. “We never had the chance to be properly introduced. The name’s Brad Sexton.”
Not knowing what else to do, she took his hand and gave it a quick shake. “Samantha Crozier.” She let go. He didn’t.
“I just wanted you to know how very sorry I am for the accident.” He gave her hand a gentle squeeze, then let go. His bored-with-my-life, family-man eyes took a tour of her body. “You look like you got the worst of it.”
She wrapped her good hand around the arm in the sling, covering her chest. “I’m fine.”
He glanced up at the house. “I used to play in this place as a kid. Sure looks different than I remember.”
Sam studied his faded-handsome face. He looked like a former high school quarterback, gone to seed. Middle-age thickness had crept up from his waist to his heavy jowls. Age and easy living had begun to assault the skin at his neck.
But his eyes, when he glanced back to her, seemed innocuous. “Mind giving me a tour?”
Her shoulder muscles tightened as the sound of “no” moved from her brain to her lips. She’d always been a lousy judge of character—trusting those she shouldn’t, and spurning offers of friendship from well-meaning people. It was as if some internal compass constantly pointed her in the wrong direction.
But Brad didn’t see her hesitation, because he’d turned and walked through the open front door.
“Hey!” Shrugging off the ice-water trickle of déjà vu at the back of her neck, she hurried inside.
She stepped to the doors of the front parlor and pulled them closed, hiding the tortured pillows and rumpled sheets of her narrow bed. When she turned back to Brad, there was a flash of something at the back of his eyes. Something oily. Her stomach twisted, remembering that her closest neighbor was a quarter mile away.
Maybe it was just her uneasy brain, superimposing the past on the present.
He walked to the stairs. “Donny Sutton and I used to slide down these banisters.” He patted the newel post. “I remember when his mother ordered that window.” He tipped his chin to the ornate fleur-de-lis etched in the tall glass window at the stair landing. “His dad bitched up a storm about it. Must’ve cost a pretty penny, even back then.”
When he bent to place the wine on the top step of the landing, a late afternoon sunray caught his diamond-studded wedding ring and threw dancing sparks up the shadowed wall of the staircase.
“I want to thank you for this. It’s not often you get to walk into your past.” His face formed a mask of sincerity.
Maybe it wasn’t a mask. Maybe she was wrong, this time.
“Could I see the upstairs? Donny and I spent a lot of time in his room, conspiring on world domination.”
“Um. I guess.”
He stepped back, gesturing for her to lead. She pictured him watching her butt as she climbed, and waved him on ahead.
“Old man Sutton died about ten years ago, and his wife, two years later.” His voice echoed in the narrow space as he turned at the landing and started up. “Donny and his sisters have fought over this place ever since.”
Sam stayed well back, not wanting to watch his pudgy rear end struggle up the stairs, but not able to stop herself. On her way by, she grabbed a screwdriver from the window ledge and slipped it in her back pocket. The weight of it there somehow felt right.
He was huffing by the time he reached the top landing. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this....” He wandered down the hall, opening doors as he went.
“Don’t go in that one!”
He stood at the doorway of the ruined room. “Wow. Donny sure would be pissed to see his room now.”
He wandered down the hall. Sam closed the door to the room.
“Oh, my God.” His voice echoed from the large bathroom at the hall’s end.
Sam hurried, wondering if he’d hurt himself on something. She had liability insurance, but sure didn’t want to have to use it.
He stood in the center of the bathroom, pointing. “The black-and-white checkerboard tile, the old claw-foot tub, the light fixtures. It’s all the same!”
She touched the scarred molding of the doorway. “I’m going to keep it as original as I can.”
He took a step closer.
Even without looking, she felt the brush of his glance, against her skin.
“Can you imagine the hours Donny spent in here as a teenager, whacking off?”
At the low, creepy tone, her head jerked up, though she knew what she would see. The concentrated, unfocused stare. Ruddied cheeks. His lips glistening, as if he’d just licked them.
She stood in flash-frozen shock, her heart fluttering in scared-rabbit beats. Not again.
His eyes roamed, lingering, as if he already possessed her. He addressed her breasts. “You know, I’ve got money. You could have a sweet deal, here.”
Shaking her head, she took a step back.
His pudgy fingers, reaching to touch, shattered her taut stillness. She ran.
Her feet pounded a hollow beat on the old wood of the hall. Halfway down the stairs, a knife of pain in her ribs forced her to stop. Her chest and shoulder screamed, but her lungs trumped everything. She leaned over, taking small breaths, trying not to throw up.
She hadn’t heard him coming, but he was there, hands all over her. Her body jerked away in an involuntary spasm and she stumbled to the landing, her brain spinning in freewheeling panic. Random thoughts pinged inside her skull. Snips of memories. Nothing useful.
Off balance, she threw out her good arm to keep from plunging headfirst into the wall. She spun to face what would come next.
A small voice whispered, You knew you’d end up here again. The forgotten-familiar weakness of lassitude pulled at her. Give up. You know it’ll go easier if you do.
The smell of nightmare-sweaty sheets drifted from the open collar of her shirt. The stench of fear.
He must have sensed victory because, face flushed and breathing heavy, he took the last step to the landing.
Sam stepped back. He’s stronger. No one is going to believe—her back hit the wall. Something clinked and bumped her butt.
Triumph-laced adrenaline zipped through her, cutting off the little girl’s whisper midsentence. Jerking the forgotten screwdriver from her back pocket, she held it in front of her like a madman in a slasher film. “Get. Out.”
His flat shark eyes gauged her resolve. “Now, you don’t want to be that way.” He reached out a hand, but jerked it back when she thrust the screwdriver at the exposed veins of his wrist.
“You’ve totally misunderstood my intentions. I don’t mean to hurt you.” His lips peeled back from his teeth, but it wasn’t a smile. “Unless you want me to.”
Her stomach heaved in a hot, greasy wave. “This may not kill you, but it could take out an eye.” The blades of rage in her throat made the words come out ragged, torn.
He hesitated, absently touching the skin of his forearm. His fingers stroked the hair, smoothing it in gentle circles.
He was imagining stroking her—Sam knew it as clearly as if she’d read his mind.
And maybe she had.
Their heavy breathing echoed loud in the hushed stairwell. Time spun out to a thrumming wire of tension. The tension sprung from different sources, with different motivations, but it paired them in a dark dance—one they both knew.
Sam stood, waiting for his next move.
Brad sighed, his lips twisting into an entitled pout. Straightening, he sucked in his gut and hiked the waist of his expensive dress slacks. “The guys at the club told me a biker chick had to be a lesbian.”
“Get the hell out of my house.” She pointed the screwdriver down the stairs. “Now.”
“Guess I lost that bet.” Hands raised, he eased past her, not turning his back until he was out of range. He took the last three steps to the entryway.
Sam followed him, screwdriver at ready. “The only thing I sleep with is a snub-nosed Colt.” He stepped through the open door. “You ever come back here, you’ll find out its sex.”
“Shit, I knew better.” He walked through the door, then turned and looked down his patrician nose. “Stray dogs may be fun to play with, but they’ve got no manners.” He shot his cuffs, squared his shoulders and walked down the porch steps.
Gravel shot from the tires as he backed out. When he hit the asphalt, the car surged and fishtailed, tires squealing for purchase.
Still shaking, Sam watched from the top step of the porch. What was it about her that made men think they could get away with that shit? There must be some kind of mark on her forehead that only perverts could see—something that told them it was safe to approach. Many times, she’d studied her face in the mirror, trying to make it out. But she only saw what everyone else did—cursed, unwanted beauty.
The car disappeared over the hill. She waited until the sound faded, then her knees gave out and the screwdriver fell from her hand. Clinging to the support post, she sank onto the wooden step. Shivers ran from her neck through her body in pulsing, shivery spasms. She hunched over her knees, staring at the ground, her thoughts years away.
Some untold time later, she stood, rubbed her sore buns, straightened her shoulders and went back to work. Mulling over the past was a waste. If you never put it down, you wouldn’t stand a chance at moving beyond it. Just because that philosophy hadn’t worked to date, didn’t mean it never would.
She couldn’t afford to contemplate the alternative.
CHAPTER SIX
NICK LOOKED UP from the computer screen. The late afternoon splashed window-shaped sunshine over his polished waiting room floor. No new Vulcan parts for sale. Hell, there had to be junked Kawasakis all over the country—just his luck they’d be owned by the technologically challenged.
Not that it would break his heart to see the biker chick as a fixture around here.
Gold hair, full lower lip, her long and elegantly boned face. He liked her small shoulders and long legs, in denim. But even a killer body could easily be dismissed, once you had an eyeful. Instead, Nick’s attention snagged on the air of mystery that surrounded her like a gossamer shawl. It was more than her odd career and her mode of transport. He sensed she had walls. He got a vague sense of them from her conversation, but their true magnitude lay in what she didn’t say.
Intriguing. He thought about calling her. But with what? Non-progress on her bike?
Wake up, dude, you’re dreaming. She’d made it clear she was gone as soon as the remodel of the Sutton place was complete. And he was in Widow’s Grove to stay.
But regardless of the facts, Samantha Crozier remained a puzzle his brain wouldn’t put down. He wasn’t even sure why he’d offered her his mother’s car, that first day. He hadn’t had that car out except to keep the battery charged since—well, since forever.
Sure, she was gorgeous, but it was more than that. Other beautiful women had needed loaners and it never occurred to him to offer them his mother’s car. He sensed that Sam didn’t need help often, and wouldn’t have asked for it if she did. That made him want to help.
He looked up at the sound of the door opening. He sat up straight and watched his puzzle walk in, a neon daisy keychain dangling from her fingers.
“I’ve brought the Love Machine home.”
“Hey, Sam.” Nick ripped off his horn-rimmed glasses, stuffed them in the lap drawer and slammed it closed. “Good timing. I’m starving. Want to go to lunch?”
She walked to the desk and dropped the key in his hand. “Sorry, I can’t. I’ve got to get back to work at the house.”
He snatched his blue jacket from the back of the chair. “Come on, Sam, let me take you to lunch.”
“Thanks, but I’m just walking down to Jesse’s. She’ll run me home.”
