Loe raamatut: «Hometown Sweetheart»

Chapter One

“You said you had a plunger and you knew how to use it—I just took you up on it.” Neily Pratt teased Charlie, the plumber she’d known for as long as she could remember. Charlie was only one of many townsfolk in Northbridge, Montana, who had just spent their entire Sunday working on the run-down old Hobbs house, a brick mammoth at the top of the hill at one end of South Street in the heart of Northbridge proper.

The house had been deserted until a week ago when its longtime owner, Theresa Hobbs Grayson, had somehow managed to steal the car of the live-in nurse who cared for her and make her way from her current residence in Missoula to her former hometown. Once she’d reached Northbridge, she’d abandoned the car at the ice cream parlor, walked the remaining block and a half to the house and slipped in through the cellar door.

Suffering from mental illness, Theresa had spent a few days undetected before she was discovered. When local police had entered the premises, she’d run for an upstairs bedroom, locking herself in. In her disturbed state of mind, she had hysterically refused to leave either the bedroom or the residence itself, saying that she was there to get back what was taken from her. The police had been forced to call in Human Services. Which, in Northbridge, meant sole social worker Neily Pratt, who was now overseeing Theresa’s welfare and, for the time being, staying with Theresa at the old Hobbs house.

Neily’s brother Cam joined her on the front porch where she was saying thanks and good-night to everyone as they left.

“Are you doing okay here alone?” Cam asked as he stood beside Neily and waved to someone heading off down the hill. Cam was one of the local police officers, and he, too, had done what he could today to make the house more livable.

“I’m fine,” Neily assured her brother, knowing he was concerned for her safety. In her line of work Neily had encountered people who could be a danger to her, but she didn’t believe the sweet seventy-five-year-old woman was one of them.

“Have there been any more scenes like the night we found her?” Cam persisted.

“The only time Theresa gets really difficult is when I say anything about her leaving the house. As long as I don’t mention that, she’s a lamb. So for now it seems better for her and easier for everyone else if she stays here while we figure out a long-term plan.”

“Well, at least the place is cleaner and there aren’t any more fire hazards. And the kitchen sink is unclogged and all the broken windows have been replaced,” Cam observed.

“Thanks to you and our local Good Samaritans banding together to help me today. I especially appreciate the windows—we may be having a warm April but it still gets cold at night, and cardboard taped over gaping holes isn’t a lot of help.”

Neily and Cam exchanged a few final words with the electrician who came outside at that moment. Then the man went to his van parked in the driveway.

“Anyhow,” Neily continued, “I haven’t seen even a hint that Theresa is violent. Her mood is up and down, she’s confused more than not, but she isn’t a threat to anyone. I’ll never understand how she made it here on her own—she must have been really determined. But now she mostly just sits silently in the rocking chair in the master bedroom.”

“Like she has all day today—I never saw her.”

“No one did. She didn’t want to see anyone. But I didn’t want her alone in the bedroom the whole day either—”

“So you hired a companion.”

“Only after I promised Theresa that it wouldn’t be anyone who had known her in the past. I have no idea why that was such a big deal, but it was.”

Out came three more volunteers—including sixteen-year-old Missy Hart, Theresa’s companion—and after another round of gratitude and good-nights, Cam said, “Theresa’s okay inside alone?”

“She’ll still be sitting in the rocking chair when I go up to her—that’s why I told Missy she could leave. I have a hard time getting Theresa to even come out of the bedroom, and since she’s been in a panic at the thought of seeing anyone she used to know, she won’t come out for sure until I let her know the coast is clear.”

“Any early opinions on our geriatric runaway?”

Neily didn’t consider it a breach of confidentiality to tell her brother what she knew because Cam had already been involved with the case.

“Theresa’s physical exam showed no indications of mistreatment—and she isn’t claiming any when I can get her to answer my questions. She’s well fed, well dressed, clean. All in all, she’s sound of body, if not of mind. The caseworker in Missoula has done some preliminary checking of the caregiver and the grandson who are coming sometime soon. So far they’ve been cleared to take over again temporarily when they get here. Under my supervision, anyway. The rest will take interviews and assessment—I’ll do that here with Theresa and with whoever comes to be with her.”

“But mentally, Theresa is really…off,” Cam said kindly.

“She has a lot of issues, yes. Memory for one—she keeps forgetting who I am and calling me Mikayla. When I ask who Mikayla is, she can’t—or won’t—tell me. She does seem to like Mikayla, though.”

Against the tide of cars, trucks, vans and people on foot streaming down the hill, an SUV Neily didn’t recognize made slow progress toward the house.

“If that’s another reporter coming here, I might get violent,” she told her brother with a nod at the approaching vehicle.

There had been a public search for Theresa in Missoula. Once she was located in Northbridge, reporters had begun descending on the small town in search of a follow-up story, and they’d become a nuisance.

“I’ll check it out and get rid of them,” Cam offered. Then, with a glance at Neily as he headed down the porch steps, he said, “You should wash your face—it’s full of fireplace soot.”

The last group of volunteers came out of the house right then, though, and Neily remained on the porch to say good-night to them, merely brushing blindly at her face in hopes of cleaning it as much as possible.

By the time that last group had left, Cam was back—with guests who seemed shocked by their first glimpse of the house.

“Not a reporter,” Cam informed her as the man and a heavyset woman followed him onto the porch. “This is Theresa’s grandson, Wyatt Grayson, and her caregiver, Mary Pat Gordman.”

Wonderful. And I’m a mess, Neily thought.

She’d known even before her brother’s earlier comment that her clothes were soiled and her shoulder-length, chocolate-colored hair was falling shaggily from her ponytail. It certainly wasn’t how she normally presented herself professionally. And if that wasn’t bad enough, one glimpse of Theresa’s grandson only made Neily more self-conscious because she guessed him to be her own age—and he was eyepoppingly handsome.

Not that it mattered under the circumstances, but it definitely didn’t make Neily happier to be unkempt herself. It made her feel at a disadvantage.

There wasn’t a thing she could do about it, though, so she pretended nothing was amiss and in her most professional-yet-friendly tone of voice, she said, “Hi, I’m Neily Pratt, Theresa’s caseworker.”

The caregiver hung back but Wyatt Grayson stepped up to meet Neily, standing tall, confident, broad-shouldered, and just muscular enough for the khaki slacks and navy-blue sports shirt he was wearing to give evidence to the fact that he probably worked out.

And then he took a real look at Neily and did a double take.

Do I look that bad?

“I’m sorry about—” she waved her hand up and down in front of herself “—this. We’ve been cleaning decades of dirt today.”

Wyatt Grayson shook his head as if he were dumbstruck. “No, it isn’t that,” he muttered. Then the darkblond eyebrows that matched his hair rose from a V into twin arches and he said, “You just look something like—”

“Someone named Mikayla?” Neily guessed. “Because Theresa keeps calling me that.”

“Mikayla,” Wyatt Grayson repeated, his deep baritone voice echoing with something Neily couldn’t pinpoint. “Yes. Mikayla.”

No wonder Theresa kept getting confused then.

But Wyatt Grayson didn’t explain who Mikayla was, leaving Neily still curious as he recovered himself and held out a hand for her to shake. “Good to meet you, Miss Pratt.”

“Neily,” she amended.

She didn’t know why, but she was uncommonly eager to accept that handshake. And once she had, she was also far too aware of every detail, every nuance of the meeting of his skin with hers, of the feel of that hand closing around hers—big, warm, strong, adept…

It was one of the oddest things she’d ever experienced.

But noticing all she was noticing about that simple handshake—and liking it—had no place in this so she ended the contact in a hurry.

Cam spoke up then, while Wyatt Grayson continued to study Neily with intense pewter-gray eyes.

“I have to get to the station, Neily,” Cam said. “My shift starts soon. Unless you need me…”

“No, go ahead,” Neily answered her brother, despite the fact that Wyatt Grayson’s scrutiny was beginning to make her uncomfortable. She was grateful when he turned to say goodbye to Cam.

But given the opportunity to do some scrutinizing of her own when Wyatt Grayson wasn’t looking, Neily couldn’t seem to stop herself.

His gleaming, sun-streaked dark-blond hair was cut short on the sides and slightly longer on top where he wore it in a natural disarray that gave him a casual, devil-may-care look. He had a perfectly shaped, straight nose. His lips were a little on the thin side but had a sort of sexy quirk to their corners. The bone structure of that photogenic face was a sharply defined collection of angles and hollows composed of high cheekbones, lean cheeks and a sculpted jawline. Plus there were those eyes! Sultry gray that she’d already seen reflect silver one minute and blue the next.

But none of that was a factor in anything, she reminded herself. He could have male-model good looks—and, actually, he did—but it wouldn’t—couldn’t—affect her assessment of him as one of his grandmother’s guardians.

“Why don’t we go inside?” Neily suggested after her brother headed for his car.

“How is my grandmother? Is she okay? The social worker in Missoula said she was no worse for wear, but her mental state is fragile and she isn’t exactly young. Even so, this was an amazing thing for her to do—my brother, sister and I still can’t believe she did it.”

Neily judged it a positive sign that he was so concerned for Theresa. She led him and the caregiver into the house.

“The Missoula caseworker didn’t mislead you. Theresa is okay as far as I can tell—not knowing anything about how she was before this,” Neily said. “‘None the worse for wear’is probably accurate.”

“I want to apologize for no one in the family getting here immediately when authorities reached me on Thursday,” Wyatt Grayson said as Neily closed the door behind them. “My sister was in Mexico dealing with a fire in a factory we have down there. She hated leaving at a time like this, but it was an emergency situation and we needed someone there. My brother was with the police in Canada—someone had read about Gram’s disappearance and thought he’d try to cash in on it by calling in a ransom demand, and we had to take it seriously. I was alone in Missoula with all the commotion of the search there. Once I was told where Gram was, it seemed like Human Services bogged down Mary Pat and me with so many questions and so much red tape that it was as if they were purposely tying us up in Missoula to keep us from rushing down here. It’s been a nightmare.”

“I’m sure,” Neily said.

She didn’t tell him that he was right, that the caseworker in Missoula had purposely delayed him until it seemed relatively clear that harm wasn’t likely to come to Theresa through contact with either him or with Theresa’s nurse. “Once the police realized that your grandmother was here, I was brought in and I’ve been looking after her ever since, so there wasn’t any hurry.”

“Still, I wouldn’t want you to get the wrong impression—we’ve all been crazy-worried about Gram and would have been here in a heartbeat if we could have.”

Neily led the two new arrivals from the entry into the living room.

“Where is Gram?” Wyatt Grayson asked, glancing around in search of his grandmother.

“Why don’t you and Ms. Gordman—”

“Mary Pat,” the larger woman said, her first words.

“Why don’t you and Mary Pat have a seat and I’ll try to get Theresa down here to see you? She’s been in the bedroom all day and I’d like her to come out if she’s willing,” Neily told them.

Neither the nurse nor the grandson accepted the invitation to sit, and Neily’s impression was that they were both too concerned about Theresa to relax. That, too, seemed like a good indication they truly cared for the woman.

Neily excused herself and retraced her steps to the entryway, climbing the stairs to the second level.

She knocked lightly on the door of the master suite but didn’t wait for a response from inside. She’d already learned that more often than not Theresa was too lost in her own world to even hear the knock.

Neily had predicted that Theresa would be sitting in the rocking chair and that was exactly where the older woman was, rocking back and forth as if the motion soothed her, staring at nothing in particular.

Theresa Hobbs Grayson was a relatively small woman—a full four inches shorter than Neily’s five-foot-four-inch height. But she was somewhat rounder than Neily, who didn’t carry many extra pounds. Theresa’s salt-and-pepper-hued hair was cut short and neat, and while her gray eyes didn’t hold the luster and life and different play of colors that her grandson’s did, it struck Neily that Wyatt had inherited his own sparkling gray eyes from his grandmother. Along with his good looks, because Theresa was an attractive older woman.

“Theresa?” Neily said quietly when she didn’t show any notice that Neily had come into the room.

“Mikayla?” the older woman said when she did glance up.

“No, remember? It’s Neily.”

“Yes—Neily. I made that mistake again, didn’t I?” the older woman said vaguely.

“Your grandson Wyatt is downstairs,” Neily told her, watching closely for the woman’s reaction.

It was another positive sign that Theresa brightened at that news—her eyes, her face, even her posture perked up.

“My Wyatt?” she repeated happily.

“And Mary Pat…”

“Mary Pat, too?” Theresa asked as if that were the frosting on the cake.

But then she sobered and became pensive again. “They haven’t come to make me leave, have they? I can’t go away from here. I won’t. Not till I get what’s mine!”

“I know. And, no, your grandson and Mary Pat aren’t going to make you leave. They’ll be staying here with you.”

“They will?”

That sounded pleased and hopeful rather than fearful—something else Neily took note of.

“Will that be all right? For them to stay here in the house with you? Even if I leave?”

“Oh, yes. And they’ll help me. I know they will. They’ll help me get back what’s mine. My Wyatt takes care of everything while Mary Pat takes care of me. They’re very good to me, my little darlings.”

“Would you like to come downstairs and say hello to them?”

“To Wyatt and Mary Pat and no one else?”

“Everyone else is gone. And the house looks so much better—you should see the good things that were done today while you were up here.”

“I’d like to see Wyatt and Mary Pat.”

“Let’s go down then.”

Theresa had no problem rising from the rocking chair or accompanying Neily down the steps. And the moment she caught sight of her grandson and caregiver, she passed Neily to hurry into the living room and hug them both like a child thrilled to see her loving parents after a separation. Clearly the older woman had no fear of either Wyatt Grayson or Mary Pat Gordman. It helped to confirm for Neily what the Missoula caseworker had said—that it was okay to turn Theresa’s daily care over to them again while her situation, living conditions and ability to live at least somewhat independently were looked into.

“Oh, my dears, my dears! I’m so glad to see you!” Theresa was gushing. “But, Wyatt, where are Mikayla and the baby? Didn’t you bring them? I still haven’t seen that baby!”

Neily’s interest got even stronger as she watched Wyatt Grayson’s expression tense before he said, “Remember, Gram—Mikayla and the baby died.”

Theresa pressed her fingertips to her cheeks on both sides of her face. “I’m sorry! I forgot again. I’m sorry, Wyatt, I’m sorry.”

“Me, too. But it’s all right. We’re just glad we found you. You gave us all the scare of our lives.”

“I had to get back here,” Theresa confided as if she were telling a secret. “This is where I was born, you know,” she added, motioning to their surroundings.

“We knew you were born in a small town near Billings,” Wyatt said. “But that was all you ever told us. We didn’t know the name of the town or that you still owned a house here.”

“The lawyer pays the taxes. I think he pays to have someone look after it, too. Grampa had it arranged that way for me years and years ago and it’s been happening automatically ever since. But I needed to come back now. I needed to, Wyatt!” Theresa said, suddenly sounding desperate and on the verge of getting upset.

“It’s okay, Gram. We’re just relieved that you’re safe.”

“Safe. I’m safe. I’m a bad person—you don’t even know it—but I’m safe…”

Neily had seen this happen several times the last few days—Theresa drifting off while talking, things creeping into what she was saying that didn’t make sense. In her brief experience Neily had already learned when that happened, talking to the older woman any further was futile. Pressing her only agitated her and nothing concrete or informative could be garnered from that point on.

Her grandson must have known that himself because he didn’t push her.

Like a small child, Theresa moved to Mary Pat’s side then, looping her arm through the nurse’s. “I want to go to bed now. Will you read to me while I fall asleep, Mary Pat?”

The nurse patted Theresa’s arm, tucked her in closer to her bulky side, and said, “I brought the book we started last week.”

“I hope you didn’t read any without me.”

“Not a word,” the nurse assured her.

Wyatt told Mary Pat that he would bring in her suitcase while she was getting his grandmother to bed, then he said to Theresa, “I’ll come up and say goodnight in a few minutes.”

“Yes, in a few minutes,” Theresa echoed before the nurse took her upstairs.

Neily and Wyatt Grayson watched Theresa and her nurse until they were out of sight.

“So,” Theresa’s grandson said then. “Are we all just going to be housemates?”

Neily turned to face him, recalling again how bad she looked and wishing even more, now that they were alone, that she’d somehow miraculously gotten cleaned up in the last few minutes.

“I won’t be staying now that you’re here. I’ll be leaving Theresa to you and Mary Pat,” she told him.

“We’ve at least passed muster that far?” he asked with a wry smile that—as difficult as it was for Neily to believe—made him even more drop-dead handsome.

Before she could answer, he said, “I know that once something like this has happened with a person who can’t take care of themselves, and Human Services has been called in, the situation and the people involved are called into question. I’m not thrilled about it, but we don’t have anything to hide and you’re just doing what you have to. We all want the same thing—what’s best for my grandmother.”

That attitude made Neily’s job much easier and she appreciated that.

“That is all we want,” she confirmed.

“And for now you think it’s best if we stay in Northbridge?”

“Theresa seems to have worked pretty hard to get here.”

“I’ll say. Ordinarily we have trouble convincing her to leave her house in Missoula. And she never leaves home alone. She hasn’t in years. She also hasn’t driven a car in years—I’m surprised she remembered how to do that. Of course, like I said, we still can’t believe she did any of this.”

“But now that she has, she feels strongly about staying here. I’ve conferred with the caseworker in Missoula and the Northbridge doctor who’s examined your grandmother, and we all agree that for the time being it’s probably better not to rock the boat.”

“We don’t have a problem with that. Whatever makes Gram happy, we’ll accommodate.”

“Good.”

“But you won’t be staying?”

“No, but I’ll visit every day until we get this all sorted out.”

“Fair enough. Anything you’d like to ask me now?”

Who Mikayla was and how she and a baby died…

But Neily wasn’t sure if that really pertained to Theresa, so she refrained. “It’s late. You probably want to settle in. And I’m wearing at least an inch of the dust and dirt we cleaned up around here today, so I think everything I need to discuss with you can wait.”

“We,” he repeated. “I saw that big group of people coming out as Mary Pat and I were coming in—were they part of that cleanup?”

“They’re people who live around here. They all came in today to help out.”

“Can I pay them?” Wyatt asked.

“That’s not how things like this are done in Northbridge—when there’s a need, people lend a hand to help out.”

“That’s really nice,” he said with a surprised arch of those eyebrows again.

“It is nice,” she agreed.

Then she caught herself staring too intently at him and decided it really was time to leave.

“I’ll just get my overnight bag from the den,” she said, clueless as to why her voice had suddenly gone quiet.

“I don’t have any idea what the layout of this place is, but it looks pretty large from outside. Couldn’t you have taken a bedroom upstairs?”

“There are five bedrooms upstairs, so, yes, I could have. But I couldn’t take the chance that Theresa might slip out so I slept downstairs. With one eye open most of the time,” she added with a weary laugh.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized again. “I really would have gotten here before if I could have.”

“It’s all right. You’re here now and after a shower, my own bed will feel that much better tonight.”

And why did it seem so risqué to be talking about her bed to this man?

Once again, Neily had no answer for what was going on with her except maybe that she was really tired. Maybe that caused some kind of weird vulnerability to hunks from out of town.

She gave him her business card, and he gave her his cell-phone number. As they left the living room and crossed the entry to the den, she offered a brief summary of the layout of the house.

Then she grabbed her overnight bag from the den and took it with her to the front door.

“I would have been able to rest better tonight even here,” she said, “because today I had our local contractor put keyed dead bolts on the front and back doors, and locks on the windows, too, to keep Theresa from slipping out—just in case.” Neily handed over several keys. “As long as Theresa doesn’t have access to these you shouldn’t have to lose any sleep over that now.”

“I at least want to pay for whatever materials were used,” Wyatt said at her mention of the dead bolts.

“I’ll let everyone know that.”

“And please let them know how grateful I am—”

“That, too.”

Neily opened the oversize front door to go out.

“I should get our suitcases and then lock us all in,” Wyatt Grayson said, following her onto the porch.

But once they were in the cool late-evening air he glanced around at the now quiet street and apparently realized that his SUV was the only vehicle in sight. “Where’s your car?” he asked.

“I walked.”

“Let me take you home, then,” he said insistently and as if he should have somehow known that and offered earlier.

“Thanks, but it’s a short walk and I’m sure you want to get back to your grandmother.” And Neily was looking forward to a stroll through the cool spring air, hoping it would clear her head of the image of his eyes changing color almost like a hologram….

They both walked out into the yard. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” Neily said. “But if you need anything or have any questions before I get back, don’t hesitate to call—middle of the night or not.”

“Thanks.”

Neily headed away from the house as Wyatt went to the SUV parked in the driveway. And while there was no call for it, she found herself glancing over her shoulder at him one last time.

He’d opened the rear of the vehicle and was hoisting luggage, his big, muscular body not straining in the slightest.

And at the sight of it, Neily’s mouth went dry.

This is a first, she thought.

In her years as a social worker she’d felt compassion, pity, commiseration, sympathy, empathy, sadness, even grief and anger in conjunction with the people she’d dealt with.

But what had just happened with Wyatt Grayson had never happened to her before.

Never—ever—had she felt some kind of…

What?

Surely it couldn’t be attraction.

And yet when he glanced over his shoulder at her as if he couldn’t help himself either, something warm and bright flip-flopped in the pit of her stomach.

That couldn’t go on! she told herself.

But still her hand rose in a wave that almost felt flirtatious.

A wave he returned.

The same way…