Loe raamatut: «The Brodys of Lightning Creek»

CHAPTER ONE

“BE CAREFUL OF that box,” Lola Martinez called from behind the cash register as Finn Culver came in through the front door of the feed store. “It’s full of pottery.”

“Right.” Finn sidestepped the box blocking the aisle and barely kept from shaking his head as he crossed the store to his grandfather’s office. Two weeks had passed since he’d returned from overseas deployment, and he was still having trouble wrapping his mind around the changes that had occurred here during the year he’d been gone.

He’d left a dusty space containing the bare essentials for serious ranching and farming and come back to a full-blown Western gift boutique and coffee corner—thanks to his cousin’s new fiancée, Jolie Brody. The crazy thing was that his grandfather, Mike, who’d taught him his frugal ways, was good with it. No, he was great with it—because his friends hung around the store now, and he didn’t have to wait for Thursday-night poker to be with the guys. Business was booming, despite competition from chain ranch stores, and how strange was that when a year ago he could have fired a cannonball through the store and not come close to hitting someone?

“Hey, Finn.” Karl Evans, one of Mike’s best friends, hailed him from inside the office, where two of the three chairs that usually sat side by side in front of the small television had been swung around to face Finn’s desk. “We need an opinion.”

Finn gamely made his way to stand behind the chairs. He’d given a lot of opinions and settled a lot of bets since returning home. Debating and small-time wagering were a way of life for his granddad and his friends Karl and Cal Sawyer.

Karl looked over his shoulder at him. “We’re thinking of introducing Cal into the wonderful world of online dating. Which photo?”

On the desk were printouts of three hilariously unflattering photos of the missing member of the geriatric trio.

Finn’s face grudgingly split into a smile as he picked up the photo that made it appear as if Cal’s eyes had rolled back into his head. “You guys wouldn’t.”

“We’re just going to mess with his head,” Karl said with a laugh. “Teach him that it’s dangerous to miss buddy time.”

Finn pointed at the photo he’d just set down. “That one. Definitely.”

He left the two guys cackling and typing up Cal’s bogus profile.

“I have the grain order ready for approval,” Lola said as he came out of the office. She was an easygoing woman in her midforties who used to live next door to Mike. She was there temporarily until his cousin Dylan and his fiancée, Jolie, returned from Colorado, where Dylan was training in forensic biology. But with the way business was going, they could probably keep her on. He went to the counter and pulled the papers closer, reading through them slowly and making a checkmark by each item as he approved it.

“You okay?” Lola asked.

Finn glanced up in surprise. “Yeah. Why?”

“You seem...preoccupied?”

He jerked his head at the office door. “Just concerned that I might be the next guy in their sights for a prank.”

“Yeah. That wouldn’t be good. Those guys...they have too much time on their hands.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

* * *

“THIS IS A CUTE HOUSE and all, Molly, but what’s with these closets?”

Molly Adamson’s younger sister, Georgina, stood in front of the pint-size closet, holding a fistful of hangers and looking perplexed. At nineteen, she was a year older than Molly had been when the family moved from Eagle Valley, Montana, to Darby, Illinois, where her father had been tasked with reviving yet another failing store. Moving every year or two, depending on how long it took her father to work his magic or declare the store a bust, had been a fact of Adamson family life. But Molly had been lucky that the family had stayed in the Eagle Valley for three whole years, allowing her to finish high school there. It’d been the longest she’d ever lived in one place and probably the reason she was back. Eagle Valley was the closest thing to a hometown that she had.

Georgina set the hangers on the dresser and propped a hand on her hip as she regarded the space. “Didn’t people hang up clothing in the 1940s?”

“They probably didn’t own as much clothing as you do.”

“Point taken, but seriously, look at the size of this thing.”

Molly had to agree it was small, but other than the tiny closets, the house was perfect. Situated on the edge of town with a creek on the other side of the backyard fence and beyond that fields and mountains... It was more than she’d hoped for after making the decision to return. Housing options were limited in the Eagle Valley, unless you were rolling in money, which Molly definitely was not. Thank you, Blake. Her ill-fated relationship with an almost-pro ballplayer had played hell with both her finances and later her self-esteem, but it had also helped her to grow a backbone.

“I would have loved this closet when I was eight,” Georgina said. “Kid-size.” She tapped a finger on her chin. “Maybe I could build something. You know, shelving and stuff.”

Molly had seen that light in her sister’s eyes before. “Uh...give me a heads-up before you start knocking out walls, okay?”

Georgina flashed a smile. “I’ll probably be too busy with classes to do any serious renovation, but at semester break...don’t worry,” she said with a laugh. “I’ll have a plan in place.”

“Yes, I’d appreciate a plan.” Then it wouldn’t be like the time her sister had taken it upon herself to join her room to Molly’s by knocking out a space between wall studs with a hammer. Both girls had gotten a lesson in drywall installation and repair shortly thereafter, with Molly handling the brunt of the work, since she was sixteen and Georgina had been six. Their brother, David, who perfectly split their age span, being five years older than Georgina and five years younger than Molly, had enjoyed himself immensely, since for once he wasn’t the Adamson in deep trouble.

Molly walked down the hall to the kitchen, which was crammed with unopened boxes. She leaned against the door frame, letting her glasses slide down her nose as she regarded the room. Yes, she would make order of chaos, but she didn’t have much time, because her new job started in less than a week. Feeling a surge of adrenaline at the thought, she pushed off the door frame and opened the box closest to her and starting unwrapping her grandmother’s china and loading it carefully into the cupboards. Rain beat on the roof as she worked, a sound she hadn’t heard all that often in Phoenix, where she’d recently finished up her degree. Now it was a sound she’d been hearing for the past twelve hours.

“Need some help?” Georgina, apparently having given up on closet plans for the time being, drifted into the room. She opened a box without waiting for an answer and began unpacking kitchen utensils.

Finally, at nine o’clock, Georgina straightened from where she’d been kneeling next to the linen drawer and pushed her long dark hair away from her face. “Maybe I should go get us some takeout or something.”

“I don’t know how much takeout you’re going to find here. Maybe we should hit a grocery store instead.”

“Are you sure they’re open this late?” Georgina asked with a tiny smirk. “And that the sidewalks are still down, for that matter?”

“Hey, you’re the one who wanted to move with me to a small town,” Molly said as she looked around for her purse. Although Eagle Valley was bigger than it had been when she left a decade ago.

“I’m all over this small-town thing.” Georgina lifted a piece of packing material and handed Molly her simple brown leather purse. “But I was eight when we moved. There’s a lot I don’t remember.” And a lot that she did. She’d talked about it on the drive from Arizona to Montana, wondering what had changed and who still lived there.

Molly had been surprised when newly graduated Georgina had decided to move back to Montana with her and start postsecondary at Eagle Valley Community College. She’d also been glad for the company. She’d spent a lot of solitary hours while Blake had been on the road, blithely unaware that he wasn’t as alone as she was, so being alone felt different now. It reminded her of how stupid she’d been.

Georgina rolled up the rickety metal garage door, putting up her hand as a blast of water blew in. “You know, I used to like the rain.”

Half an hour later they were back with a carload of groceries. Georgina rolled down the garage door while Molly gathered as many bags as she could carry in one trip. She was starving, and the sooner the frozen pizza was in the oven, the better. She started for the steps leading up to the kitchen door only to stop dead as she came around the front of the car.

“What?” Georgina asked as she almost ran into her from behind.

“That.” Molly pointed to the far wall where water was starting to seep across the garage from under the edge of the door that opened to the yard.

Her cute house had a problem more pressing than closet space. Her cute house was flooding.

“Did the creek overflow?” Georgina asked.

“I don’t think so. It seemed pretty low yesterday.” Molly quickly climbed the steps and unlocked the kitchen door, set down the groceries and headed out to the back deck. The creek was still in its banks, but something was making the garage flood.

Using the small flashlight on her key chain, Molly walked around the edge of the house and shone the light on the concrete garage entryway, which was lower than the surrounding landscape and created the perfect place for runoff to flow. Water lapped against the bottom of the door.

“Damn. That’s at least three inches deep.”

“Poor design for sure,” Georgina muttered. “What do we do?”

Molly pushed her wet hair back. “We get out of the rain and cook our pizza.”

“Seriously?”

Molly shrugged as she led the way back to the deck. “We have nothing in the garage other than the car. The house sits a couple feet higher than the garage, so we ignore it until morning.”

When she and the real estate agent were going to have a chat.

But it turned out that the agent was on vacation for the next week and a half.

“I have half an inch of water in my garage from the storm last night and I want something done about it.”

“We’re a real estate office,” the woman on the other end said irritably. “You need a plumber.”

No. She needed to know why this situation wasn’t mentioned when she specifically asked about flooding and plumbing problems and was told there were none. “Have Mr. Hettle call me when he gets back, please.”

There was a hearty sigh on the other end of the line and Molly forced herself to stay silent. Not to apologize. It was hard to break that habit, but hitting her breaking point with Blake had changed her, helped her find her backbone, and people with backbones didn’t apologize so that other people would play nice with them.

“I’ll connect you to his voice mail.” Molly was abruptly switched over and after the greeting, she left a short message. One problem not solved. She glanced at her watch, then went to the closet to grab her dark blue blazer. Even though her job didn’t start for another week, she had to attend orientation meetings over the next several days. “Hey, George! I’ve got to go.”

“See ya.” Her sister’s voice drifted down the hall from her room, followed by the sound of hammering.

Hoping all the walls would be in place when she got home, Molly backed her car out of the still-damp garage, then stopped when she noticed the older man next door digging around his rosebushes. Molly rolled down her window.

“Excuse me,” she called. The man looked up, then set down his shovel and crossed his yard to the fence. “My garage flooded last night during the rainstorm... Do you know if the people who owned this place before me had the same problem?”

The man shook his head. “Flooded, you say.”

“Water filled up the entry leading to the side garage door. It’s receding, but if we get rain again...”

“Ah. There’s a drain in the bottom of that concrete slab. Yours must be clogged.”

A clogged drain. Easy fix. Suddenly the world seemed brighter and Molly smiled at him. “Could you recommend a good plumber?”

“If you don’t mind waiting. They’re building more houses on that hill near the lake and the guy I know is pretty busy, but he’ll get to you. Eventually.”

“Is there anyone else?”

“Probably not anyone you want to hire.” The old man cocked his head. “How ’bout I send my grandson around? He’s pretty good with that stuff and he’d fix you up for free.”

Molly started shaking her head, then again stopped. Small town. Helpful neighbors...why say no to that? “If he doesn’t mind. I’d prefer to pay him, though. I’d feel more comfortable that way.”

“Well, I don’t know if he’d take money, but I can ask him to stop by tonight after he gets off work and he can see what’s what. Does six o’clock work for you?”

“Yes. It does.” And she needed to get moving. “I have to get to a meeting, but thank you. I really appreciate your help.”

The guy raised a dismissive hand. “Not a problem. We’re neighbors. Mike Culver, by the way.”

“Molly Adamson. Glad to meet you, Mike.” She put the car in Reverse, waved to her neighbor, and backed out onto the street. If Mike’s grandson could help her out with this problem, then her biggest dilemma would be closet space. After the trauma of the past few years, she could live with that.

* * *

FINN HAD A BAD FEELING about this. Mike was a totally capable plumber, a master of the drain snake, so why had he asked Finn to take care of his neighbor’s problem? He assumed it was because she was female. Finn had no trouble meeting women, but the kind of women he dated weren’t generally the settle-down kind. Mike wanted him settled—not that he was actively matchmaking. No, he’d just been dropping heavy hints for the past two years.

Finn also suspected that Mike considered himself the mastermind behind his cousin Dylan hooking up with Jolie Brody, who’d worked at the store. Maybe now that he’d tasted success, he was moving on to his next targets—him and Cal.

The thought made Finn’s blood run a little cold.

The lights were off in Mike’s house when Finn parked in the driveway. Maybe his grandfather really was busy and didn’t have time to help the lady. Feeling slightly better, he started up the neighbor’s walk. The door opened before he reached the low porch, and a slim woman with straight honey-colored hair that fell just past her shoulders and heavy black glasses that gave her a sexy secretary look stepped out the door to meet him.

“Hi,” she said as she closed the door. “You must be...” Her eyes widened as her voice trailed off and Finn had to stop himself from looking over his shoulder to see what had frozen her expression. “Finn Culver.”

She said his name as if it was an accusation and he had the distinct feeling that he had just crossed that line into the twilight zone.

“I am.” He ran his gaze over her, looking for a clue. He sure as hell wasn’t wearing a name badge, so he had to know her from somewhere. Mike said she was new in town, but there was something about her that niggled at his brain.

“You don’t remember me.” The words were spoken in the same flat tone as his name.

Angular face, hazel eyes, really nice mouth, kind of wide and full. A few freckles. Big glasses. He was drawing a blank. “You seem familiar.” No lie there.

“It was a long time ago,” she said.

“What was?”

She folded her arms over her chest. “The mercy date.”