The House on Creek Road

Liz pulled over, as far off the road as she could get. If she parked in the field that was already bumper-to-bumper with cars her escape route might be cut off by people arriving later. She pulled down the sun visor for one last check of her appearance. The view in the small rectangular mirror wasn’t reassuring.

Pretending not to notice the curious faces that had turned her way, Liz lifted a monster salad bowl from the back seat. She could sense anxiety in the air, and restrained excitement, as if people were waiting to see the queen or Santa Claus at the end of a long parade and thought someone might get in their line of vision. Was she the source of all that feeling or had it just been too long between parties?

There was a barrier between herself and the people who’d come to welcome her, and she didn’t know how to cross it. She didn’t want to cross it.

Dear Reader,

I decided to come home to my own province for my second novel. You tend to think of somewhere else, anywhere else, as being a more romantic setting than the place where you live, but it struck me a while ago that the history, geography and population of Manitoba are so varied I could write for the next twenty years without leaving these borders and find a different background for each story. “Three Creeks” is the original, discarded name of a town near mine. It was satisfying to rescue it and give it to my fictitious town.

In The House on Creek Road Elizabeth Robb (a cousin of Susannah Robb from Into the Badland—Harlequin Superromance #1053) returns to Three Creeks to help her grandmother sort through a lifetime’s worth of belongings before selling the family farm. She has mixed feelings about spending time in this rural area dominated by her family and by an incident she can’t forget. Her grandmother’s new neighbor, Jack McKinnon, catches her eye and her imagination right away, but he has a secret that might hurt them both if he can’t keep it hidden.

So many people helped with this book, answering questions and telling stories about rural life, explaining the mysteries of old houses, describing what Jack might be doing with computers and how Liz might make children’s books. Writing a book to deadline for the first time had its challenges. My thanks to Superromance editor Laura Shin whose humor and skill and confidence-building I so appreciate, and to my husband, who, when I was discouraged by the things I don’t like about small-town life, took me for coffee in an old, tinceilinged building in a beautiful, peaceful town not far away, reminding me of the things I like best.

Sincerely,

Caron Todd

P.S. I’d love to her from readers. Please write to me at P.O. Box 20045, Brandon, MB, R7A 6Y8 or ctodd@prairie.ca.

The House on Creek Road

Caron Todd

To my grandmother, who always won at double solitaire.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

“ANYTHING?”

His new partner shook his head. “You never know with these old houses. Nooks and crannies everywhere. Did you get into his files?”

“Nope.”

“We could take the laptop with us.”

“Just to let him know we were here? No, thanks.” A suggestion like that made him wonder. Was this guy dumber or more reckless than he looked, or was it a test? They’d been working together for a week, but they might as well have been standing at opposite ends of the morning bus for all they’d got to know each other. “Anyway, a laptop’s too easy to lose. Not a good place to store something really valuable.”

“Maybe he destroyed it, just like he said.”

“Never.”

“You’re sure?”

“I know him.”

There was a short silence. “We can look again.”

“Right. And when he gets home, he can give us a hand.”

The little guy from town, sniffing and gurgling as usual, came down the stairs from the second floor. “He’s supposed to see an implement dealer in Brandon next Friday. It’s a couple of hours both ways, never mind looking at equipment.”

As hard as it was to believe, the farm seemed to be the real thing. “Friday it is. We’ll have all day. If it’s here, we’ll find it.”

A POOL OF MURKY LIGHT CUT A FEW feet of gravel road out of the darkness. Liz reached over the steering wheel and wiped her already damp sleeve through the condensation clouding the windshield. Trembling beads of water stood on the glass, then slid, in little zigzagging streams, to the bottom. In seconds, the fog began to form again. She cracked open the window. Crisp cold air, full of the smells of fallen leaves and field fires, flowed into the car.

She must have taken the wrong road. Some people might have an internal compass, but she didn’t. North was wherever she was pointing, west and east were always changing places. The turnoff had felt right, though. Her body had seemed to tell her to turn, as if her cells remembered the way even if she didn’t. Since then, not a single landmark. Just miles of bush and empty fields, and the odd furry thing darting in front of the car, evidently sure where it was going. So much for cells.

Liz glanced at the clock on the dash. Two hours since she’d left the lights of the city behind. It felt like ten. If Susannah had been navigating, they’d be warm in their grandmother’s kitchen by now. They had planned to come together, one last visit for old times’ sake, after Susannah had finished her season’s digging for bones and Liz her new children’s book. But Sue had looked up from her fossils long enough to fall in love with the man digging beside her, and instead of coming home to Three Creeks with her cousin, she’d gone off to the Gobi Desert with her new husband. It wasn’t old times without Sue.

“Now, what’s this?” Liz slowed almost to a stop. A few dots of light to her left suggested a house set far back from the road. She could just make out a scraggly grove of bur oaks. It was the Ramsey place! She’d done it, after all. Five minutes stood between her and a gallon of tea.

No need to worry about fogged windows now—she could drive this last section of road blindfolded. A clear view and five minutes of October night air might be safer, though. Liz held one finger on the switch that had seen so much action over the past couple of hours, and the driver’s window hummed all the way down. Above it, she heard another sound. She turned to look. A car was coming right at her.

Her stomach lurched. She wrenched the steering wheel to the right, and floored the gas pedal. Her car surged forward and sideways. The rear tires bit into loose gravel and the back end began to skid. Just a little, then sharply. She heard herself swearing softly even before she saw the deer. On the side of the road. Deep in the ditch. Everywhere.

They bolted. All but one. Sides heaving, knees locked. At the last moment, it leapt away, the white of its raised tail flashing once before it disappeared. The car slid past the place where the deer had stood and came to a jolting stop when it met a rock at the crest of the ditch.

Liz sat, trembling, her hands clutching the steering wheel. Where was the other car? It had come out of nowhere. No headlights. No horn. She fumbled for the recessed door handle. Cold air hit her legs when she stepped out of the car, and her heels sank into soft gravel. Heels. They’d seemed just right in Vancouver.

“Is anybody there?” Rustling noises came from the ditch. Small, slinking noises. Liz moved closer to the middle of the road, to the smooth track where tires had worn away the gravel. “Hello?”

She walked a short distance on legs that still wobbled, reluctant to go further than her car’s headlights reached. She peered along the road and into the ditches on either side, trying to distinguish in the shades of darkness, shrubs from rocks from empty space. There would be a glint from metal or glass, if a car had crashed. A smell of burning rubber, or the sound of an engine still running. The other driver must have gone. The new neighbor, maybe, the pumpkin farmer who’d bought the Ramsey place last year.

Everyone was all right, then. That was the main thing. Even the deer was all right. She had been so sure it would die, that it would come through the windshield, sharp hooves flailing at her head, and she would die, too. There were always deer on the roads in fall. They wandered from field to field, grazing on stubble and hay bales, gorging themselves before winter. She had forgotten.

The car door was wide open, and at last the windshield was completely clear. Liz buckled up, then eased her foot onto the gas pedal. The wheels turned, and there was a skin-crawling scrape of metal against rock as the car ground forward. A glitch in her happy ending. She’d never damaged a car before, not enough to notice, anyway. Had she got the extra insurance? Twelve dollars for peace of mind, the clerk at the rental desk had said. She must have got it. Still, they’d be angry.

At jogging pace, she drove until she came to a bend where the road curved to follow the largest of the three creeks. For anyone reading a map, it was still Creek Road from here on in, but locally it had always been known as Robb’s Road. It was narrow, darkened by Manitoba maples that filled the ditches and nearly met overhead. When they were children, it had seemed like part of their own land. They’d walked or ridden their bikes or horses right down the middle, surprised, and a little indignant, if cars came along raising dust and expecting space.

The woods thinned, and the house came into view. Her grandmother had made sure she couldn’t miss it: two stories of light glowed through the maples and elms in the yard, tall narrow windows and a wide front entrance beckoning. As she turned into the driveway something emerged from the lilac bushes, a large, slow-moving shape that divided into two as it drew nearer. Black labs. There had always been black labs at Grandma’s, quiet dignified dogs who kept a careful eye on visitors. If they knew you, their dignity fell away and they brought sticks and fallen crab apples for you to throw. These two didn’t know Liz. They trotted just ahead of the car, out of the way, but watching.

“This is so weird,” she whispered. An odd, disjointed feeling had come over her, as if there were a fold in time, as if the past and present occupied the same space. She could see herself at five, at ten, at fifteen…all coming up the driveway with her now, all greeted by the dogs. Like the Twilight Zone. That couldn’t be good. The Twilight Zone never had a happy ending.

The driveway was empty. Relief mixed with disappointment. She’d half expected her entire family to be waiting, arms outstretched. Not that it would have been as big a group as it used to be. The family wasn’t replacing itself with its old gusto, and not everyone chose to farm and live along Robb’s Road these days. Even her parents had retired to White Rock, just an hour south of her apartment, close enough for Sunday dinners.

Liz lifted her overnight bag from the passenger seat. There were two larger cases in the trunk, filled with clothes and presents and sketches to show her grandmother, but she’d leave them until morning. Now all she had to do was get safely past the dogs. She pushed open the car door. “Hey there, big fellas.”

“Bella! Dora!” The dogs pricked up their ears and bounded toward a small figure on the veranda, by the side door. “Elizabeth, you’re not afraid of the dogs, are you?”

“Grandma!” Liz hurried to the house. She let her bag drop to the ground and gently wrapped her arms around her grandmother. Bella and Dora stood quietly, reserving judgment. “Of course I’m not scared.”

“They’re Flora’s granddaughters.” Eleanor’s voice was muffled by Liz’s shoulder. “You remember how friendly she was. By tomorrow they’ll think they’ve known you forever. Now, come in—you’re shivering. Didn’t the heater work?”

“It was the fan. I had to leave the window open to see. Then your new neighbor came crashing out of his driveway without headlights and nearly ran me off the road—” Her grandmother gave an anxious exclamation. Liz wished she hadn’t said anything. “I’m completely fine. Nothing to worry about.”

Just inside the door, she stopped. A man sat at the kitchen table drinking tea, a stranger with unblinking silver eyes. He put down his cup and stood, one hand outstretched. “Jack McKinnon. The neighbor.”

His voice was warm and medium-deep. Now that she was closer to him, she could see that his eyes were light gray, not silver. They looked watchful. Like the dogs, suspending judgment. She smiled, but his expression didn’t relax. “The car was going the other way, toward the highway, so I suppose it couldn’t have been you.”

He lifted her overnight bag onto a chair. “You think it came from my driveway, though?”

“It must have. Nothing else intersects with the road there. I hope it wasn’t somebody causing you trouble.”

“Boys up to no good on a Friday night,” Eleanor said. “They’ll settle down once hockey starts.” She exclaimed when Liz gave a sudden shiver. “You’re chilled to the bone! No wonder, with your sleeve so wet. Let’s get you out of this coat.” She pulled while Liz shrugged her way out of the sleeves. Jack McKinnon took the coat and hung it on one of a series of hooks by the door.

Eleanor patted an armchair beside the woodstove. “Come sit by the fire.” She shook out a crocheted afghan that had been folded over the back of the chair, multicolored squares edged with black. “Wrap that around you, and we’ll get a hot drink into you. I should have told you to stay in the city overnight, or to take the bus out. You’re not used to country driving anymore.”

Liz pulled the afghan up to her chin. The wool was itchy, but it was warm enough to be worth it. “Please don’t worry, Grandma. Why don’t you sit down? You and Mr. McKinnon.”

“Can I help, Eleanor?”

“If you’d just bring over a cup of tea? Clear, unless she’s changed her ways.”

The neighbor appeared in front of Liz, holding out a cup three-quarters full of a liquid so dark she couldn’t see the pattern at the bottom. Eleanor liked her tea strong. No loose leaves, no added flavors, no subtle blending of green and black, just plain tea strong enough to stain the cup and your teeth and keep you up half the night. Liz handled the cup carefully. It was the special-occasion Spode. She hadn’t seen it since all the hullabaloo after her marriage.

She pulled her mind away from the memory. Her grandmother and Jack McKinnon bustled around together, arranging two more chairs and a small table near the stove, bringing cups and cream and sugar. Eleanor had hardly changed since her last visit to Vancouver. She looked a little smaller, a little thinner, but her short white hair was still permed into gentle curls, and she wore the style of dress she always had: knee-length, belted, three-quarter sleeves. She sewed them herself, apparently from the same pattern each time. This one was cornflower blue, one of her best colors. The kitchen was the same as it had always been, too. Nothing seemed moved or worn or different in any way, as if the room had been turned off when Liz left fifteen years ago, and had just been turned back on now.

One thing was different. The neighbor. Liz never would have expected to find such a perfect man in her grandmother’s kitchen. He was just the right height, tall, but not so tall that you’d get a stiff neck looking up at him. He moved almost gracefully, handling the china with long, narrow fingers, the fingers of a surgeon or a violinist, strong but precise in their movements—

Enough of that. At her age, hovering near the brink of her mid-thirties, it was time to stop idealizing every man she met. Past time.

“Did you want the pie and dessert plates by the fire, too, Eleanor?”

“If there’s room on that little table…”

So who was he, if not a graceful violinist or a neurosurgeon in hiding? Liz tried to limit herself to observable fact. He wore blue jeans and a high-necked navy fleece top, open at the throat. There was a touch of gray in his almost black hair and a suggestion of lines, laugh lines and frown lines, near those peculiar eyes. Calluses had formed on the palms of his hands, so he didn’t just play at farming. About thirty-five, she guessed.

Graceful, but strong. With long fingers that touched things so lightly and carefully that her mind inevitably wandered… It couldn’t be helped. Those were facts, too.

When the tea and dishes were arranged to Eleanor’s satisfaction, she and Jack joined Liz by the stove. “Are you warm yet, Elizabeth?”

“Toasty. Thanks, Grandma.”

Jack looked at her over his teacup. “Eleanor tells me you’ve come to help her organize her things before the move.”

Liz nodded. “I’m still having trouble picturing you in an apartment, Grandma.”

“You won’t once you see it. It’s really very nice. All the suites are on the ground floor, with doors leading to tiny private yards. Tenants can plant flowers and vegetables, if they want. Isn’t that a thoughtful touch? It’s almost like a house, except there’s help if you need it. I’ll be very comfortable.”

“But it’s in town. And it’ll be so small.”

Eleanor smiled. “Exactly. With no stairs to negotiate.” She topped up their cups even though they were nearly full. “We have to decide what I’ll take with me, what I’ll give to relatives, what I’ll sell or donate…we have quite a job ahead of us, I’m afraid.”

“If you need help with the heavy things, give me a call,” Jack said. The silvery eyes turned back to Liz. “Was it a rough trip?”

“Just long.” His steady gaze made her self-conscious. She tucked some frizzy strands of hair behind her ear, but they jumped right back. “With an aggressive breeze coming through the window half the time. And I nearly hit a deer, avoiding the car that came out of your driveway.”

Eleanor’s cup clattered onto its saucer. “I’ll shoot those useless creatures myself one of these days, I really will!”

“The alfalfa field across from my house attracts them,” Jack said. “I counted more than thirty out there last night.”

“And each one doing its best to get hit by a car. You have to keep your eyes open out here, Elizabeth. Deer, porcupine, skunks…your brother nearly went off the road avoiding a chipmunk the other day. A chipmunk.” Eleanor’s worried irritation faded. “No sense getting our blood pressure up. You must be hungry, after all you’ve had to contend with. Will you have some pie? It’s your favorite.”

Eleanor removed the cover from the serving dish, revealing a ten-inch pie, an appealing shade of burnt orange with visible specks of spice. She lifted a wedge onto a dessert plate, balanced a fork on the side and handed it to her granddaughter. “Jack baked it himself, from his own pumpkins. He has a lighter hand with pastry than I do.”

The violin-playing neurosurgeon could bake? “It looks delicious.” Liz lifted a small forkful of pie to her mouth. Two pairs of eyes watched her chew. She realized some kind of review was expected. “It’s wonderful. So spicy and creamy.”

“And he’s going into blueberries. Soon there’ll be blueberry pie, too. Next year, Jack, or will it take longer?”

“There might be a small crop the first year.”

Liz wondered at her grandmother’s proprietary tone. She sounded as if she had some stake in this stranger’s plans, as if a member of her own family were trying something new and needed encouragement. “Blueberries can be difficult to grow, can’t they?”

“I guess I’ll find out.” He didn’t seem worried about dealing with complications. “I’ve planted a hundred of a lowbush variety that’s supposed to be hardy. If they do well, I’ll put in more.”

“You found a good location,” Eleanor said. She leaned toward Liz with a pleased expression. “He’s going to plant Christmas trees, as well.”

Liz looked curiously at the man next to her. Although he gave no sign of it, he must be a bit of a romantic to choose those crops. “Sort of a holiday express.”

“That’s right.” He emptied his teacup with two big gulps and pushed back his chair. “Your granddaughter looks exhausted, Eleanor, and she’s still shivering off and on. I’ll be on my way, so she can get settled in.” He took his coat from one of the hooks by the door. After all that arranging of tables and dishes, it was a sudden departure.

Eleanor pushed herself out of her chair. “You’ll have to come to dinner soon, Jack. Maybe Elizabeth will prepare something for us both.”

“I’m not much of a cook, Grandma.”

“A little practice will fix that.”

“Mr. McKinnon won’t want to be my guinea pig.”

“Just let me know what evening is good for you, Jack.”

“I’ll do that. Thanks for the tea, Eleanor. Good to meet you at last, Ms. Robb.” He strode through the door, the dogs on his heels.

Liz watched them go, three silhouettes and a small, bobbing light. He’d stayed as long as courtesy demanded and left as soon as he could. Had he emphasized the words at last? He wouldn’t suggest, half an hour after meeting her, that she ought to visit her grandmother more often…if he had, though, she couldn’t disagree. Letters and phone calls, and even invitations to Vancouver, weren’t adequate replacements for time at home. She wasn’t going to make dinner for him, that was certain. She had a way with scrambled eggs and toast, but her grandmother would expect something more impressive. A lot of pots would be involved, and some of them were bound to burn.

Eleanor turned from the window. “I don’t like it when Bella and Dora go out at night, but they always want to follow him. He sends them back when he’s nearly home.”

Liz began clearing dishes to the sink. “He visits often?”

“Oh, yes, he always has, right from the start. I invite him for dinner, or he brings something he’s baked. He’s lonely, I think, working and living on his own in a strange place. I enjoy hearing about his plans. Of course, he hasn’t yet convinced people around here he knows what he’s doing.”

The grain farmers and ranchers around Three Creeks couldn’t be blamed for a little skepticism. The growing season was hardly long enough for pumpkins to ripen, and no one in the area had ever tried to grow blueberries or evergreens commercially, not that Liz had heard, anyway. She remembered city people showing up in the area occasionally, pipe dreams in tow. They settled down or sold as impulsively as they’d bought and disappeared. “What do you know about Mr. McKinnon, Grandma?”

“You sound suspicious. It’s not like living in Vancouver, we don’t have to be careful of our neighbors here.”

“I’m just curious.”

“I can’t say I know very much about him. He told me he had his own business in Winnipeg. Something with computers, but he decided he didn’t want to do it anymore.”

“You mean he sold computers? Or was he one of those people you call to solve all your problems, like when you pour coffee on your laptop?”

“I have no idea. He doesn’t seem interested in talking about it. He’s looking ahead.” Eleanor picked up a tea towel and began to dry the dishes Liz put in the drainer. “Two weeks will go so quickly. Can you stay longer? Everyone wants to see you.”

Liz’s stomach gave a flip. “Everyone?”

“Well, all the Robbs and all their off-shoots, of course. Jean Bowen and Marge Sinclair both told me they want to have you over for coffee, and Daniel, you know, Daniel Rutherford—”