A Conard County Courtship. Rachel Lee

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ