Her Road Home Read online

  Today, she’d sat at the counter talking to Jesse long enough to get the coffee jitters.

  You don’t have to like asking for help with the house; you just have to do it. “Jesse, do you know Dan Porter, the shop teacher at the high school?”

  Jess refilled Sam’s cup. “Of course I do. Why?”

  “I’m looking into the possibility of using a couple of his students for a couple of weeks.” She lifted her damaged arm, then winced, and put it down. “Only till I heal.”

  “Oh, Dan’s one of the good guys. He got Teacher of the Year, back in ’09. Kids who aren’t going off to college need skills, to get a job. He’s helped out a bunch of them.”

  The clanging of the cowbell against the glass café door brought Jesse’s head up.

  “Hey, Nick.”

  Sam’s mechanic sauntered to the counter. “Hey, Jesse.”

  Sam leaned away. It wasn’t that he stood close. His presence itself seemed to crowd her, taking more space than his body. His scent enveloped her, an odd blend of smoky aftershave with an undertone of engine oil that shouldn’t smell pleasant, but did. He smelled like a blue-collar man. He smelled electric. He smelled like danger.

  He looked down at her. Not with the “hunting coyote” look. More of a “who are you, under the Biker Chick?” look. The open curiosity seemed kind and well-meaning. She wouldn’t have trusted just a look—faces were just masks men wore. But something in his loose posture, his sincere mouth, his quiet waiting telegraphed his question; she knew it as true as the skill in her hands.

  He slid onto the bar stool beside the one she’d begun to think of as hers. Her skin prickled with awareness. The hair on her arm rose, waving like a charmed snake.

  God, she hated this. She lived well by herself, but every once in a great while, her traitorous body craved touch. Not a jump-in-the-sack touch. Just a simple longing for human contact that was almost stronger than her ability to quell it. It hit at random—in line at a store, she’d be suddenly and completely aware of a stranger ahead of her. Time would slow. Details would come into sharp focus: working hands with heavy-boned fingers, dark hair on a tanned forearm, set off against a stark white cotton shirt. A core-deep ache would bloom in her chest and she’d have to fist her hands to keep from reaching to touch the pale, vulnerable skin at the inside of a stranger’s elbow.

  She shuddered, shivering the feeling off like a dog shakes off water.

  “You know, Jesse,” Nick tipped his chin to the pie safe next to the cash register “That pie looks familiar. In fact, I think it’s the twin of the one I found on my front porch this morning.”

  Jesse raised her pert nose and sniffed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Pinelli.” She turned to the kitchen window to pick up an order.

  “I do appreciate it, Jess, but I’m not in high school anymore. I can cook, you know.”

  Eyes straight ahead, Jesse swished by, a food-laden tray gracefully balanced on her shoulder.

  “Hey, Samantha.” He turned his attention back to her. “What did the doctor say?”

  She fingered her empty coffee cup. “Who needs a doctor? What I really need is a time machine to speed up the healing.”

  Nick gave her the hairy eyeball. He opened his mouth, but apparently thought better of it. “I’ve been checking online parts boards every day, but nothing new has come up for the Vulcan. From the look of things, this may take a while.”

  “That’s okay. As it turns out, I’m going to be here awhile.” She told him about her plan to buy, renovate and sell the house. “My Jeep will be here in a week or so, and I can return your car then.”

  “No rush.” Nick pulled a menu from the stainless clip at the edge of the counter. “Did you feel like the bomb, riding around town in the Love Machine?”

  Jesse walked by frowning, and gave her a barely perceptible headshake.

  Sam said, “Yeah, the bomb.” Nuclear bomb.

  A stout middle-aged man stopped on his way to the register, dollar bills in hand. “Hey, Nick, I thought you were coming by this morning. Are you picking up bread tomorrow instead?”

  “I don’t have a car at the moment, Bert. Can I make it Wednesday?”

  “Sure, that’ll work. I’ll leave the back door open at seven.”

  Jesse strolled up. “Nick picks up day-old bread at the bakery and takes it down to the homeless shelter once a week.” She glanced at Sam.

  Through the years, Sam had enough people try to set her up to recognize the matchmaker gleam. Sam ignored Jesse’s grin as an awful thought surfaced. “Did I take your car?”

  Nick looked up. “Nah. That’s my mom’s car. I don’t own one.”

  Remembering Jesse’s cue, she wasn’t going near that one. She closed her open mouth. “You run a garage that fixes cars, but you don’t own one?”

  “Nope. Don’t need one, most of the time. When I do, I just use one of the shop’s loaners.”

  Ah, an opportunity! “Why don’t I swap your mom’s car for another loaner? I’d hate to have something happen to—”

  “Nah, you keep it as long as you need. It needs to be driven now and again.”

  He snapped the menu closed and ordered a burger with fries from Jesse, then turned his attention back to Sam. “So where are you from? Originally?”

  “Ohio.” Sam felt speared, by his interest and his gaze, as the moment spun out. Caffeine zinged along her nerves.

  He cocked his head. “That’s odd.”

  “What?” Her tone teetered on bitchy. “A woman shouldn’t ride a motorcycle? Shouldn’t be on the road, alone? Shouldn’t have a man’s job? What?”

  His open smile disarmed her. “I’m just surprised anyone would want to travel so far from home.”

  She examined the dregs of coffee in the bottom of her cup. “Well, not everybody grew up in Mayberry, Opie.”

  He chuckled, but it didn’t sound happy. “And not everywhere that looks like Mayberry, is.”

  Hmm. Maybe, like Jesse, there was more to Nick than bedroom eyes and a great smile. “So, tell me how a guy who doesn’t own a car came to own a tow and repair shop?”

  “I’ve been a mechanic for a long time. I came into some money about eight years ago.” His eyes sidled away. “I bought the shop from Bud Proctor, who was retiring. I added towing—” he looked up, and winked at her “—and wrenching on injured classic babies, which I do for pure love.”

  Damn, he’s good-looking. But it was his focused interest that made her hop from the stool and make a hasty exit.

  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.” Rea
lizing 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!�
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  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.