Hometown Sweetheart
Victoria Pade

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

About The Author

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

Copyright

Victoria Pade is a native of Colorado, where she continues to live and work. Her passion—besides writing—is chocolate, which she indulges in frequently and in every form. She loves romance novels and romantic movies—the more lighthearted the better—but she likes a good, juicy mystery now and then, too.

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…

Chapter Two

Wyatt was sitting in bed early Monday morning when he flipped his cell phone closed to end the conference call he’d just had with his brother, Ry, and his sister, Marti. They were both in transit—Ry from Canada and Marti from Mexico—but they’d been eager to know that their grandmother was okay. They’d also wanted to touch base with Wyatt about where things stood in the investigation of the family by the Department of Public Health and Human Services now that Theresa had been formally tagged as a person unable to care for herself.

After filling them in and answering their questions in regards to the caseworker they’d be dealing with in Missoula and the one he would now be working with in Northbridge, he was having some trouble getting that Northbridge caseworker out of his head.

And not only because Neily Pratt would be taking her turn at scrutinizing him.

The fact that his grandmother had mistaken the social worker for his late wife, Mikayla, was not a coincidence. There was a resemblance. Not a strong one, but if Mikayla had had a cousin, Neily Pratt could have been it.

The hair color was the biggest similarity—thick, lustrous russet-brown hair so deep and rich a hue it demanded attention. And there was something about the nose—thin and pert. And cute. It was just a first-glance sort of resemblance, but it was still there.

But unlike Mikayla’s sun-kissed skin, Neily Pratt was all peaches-and-cream. And she was shorter than Mikayla—even if Mikayla had ever worn the kind of tennis shoes the caseworker had had on.

Neily Pratt wasn’t as voluptuous as Mikayla had been either, although she did have curves enough for him to take notice of. And there was a big difference in their eyes, too. Mikayla’s had been hazel. Neily Pratt’s were a deep metallic blue that glimmered so beautifully he’d had trouble not staring into them.

Which he didn’t want to still be thinking about this morning.

Yet he couldn’t help himself.

And that shook him up a little.

But then his entire encounter with the social worker had shaken him up a little. And not because he was alarmed to be under the investigation of Human Services—he knew there was no abuse or neglect of his grandmother to be found because there was no abuse or neglect. But something had stirred in him the night before in response to Neily Pratt. Something that had him looking forward to seeing her again, to seeing her all cleaned up, to talking to her.

And that did alarm him. Because those stirrings could be the beginning of things he didn’t want to have anything to do with.

He shook his head and dropped it back to the headboard, disgusted with himself.

Why was this happening? He didn’t even know this woman. And he sure as hell didn’t want it to be happening. Not after what he’d gone through over Mikayla. Not after the last two years since her death.

Those two years had been beyond rough. They’d been so bad he’d worried that he wouldn’t ever see emotional daylight again. So bad that he’d worried that he might end up in the grip of the kind of depression that had a hold of his grandmother.

But somehow—he wasn’t sure exactly how or why—things had begun to smooth out. Slowly he’d realized that he was seeing emotional daylight. Only glimmers of it, yet even that had been such a relief, such a godsend, that he’d come to the conclusion that while life on his own might not be the way he’d thought things would be, the way he’d planned it, he didn’t ever—ever—want to risk falling into that darkness again. The darkness that came with the loss of someone he was devoted to.

The surest way to avoid it, he’d decided, was to stay on his own. Not to let anyone else get so close that losing her—either in death or just through things not working out—could put him anywhere near that darkness again. He’d decided that for the sake of his own mental health, it was better to accept things as they were.

So that was what he’d done—he’d accepted it. Then he’d found some small pleasures, some enjoyment to go with it. Just not with another woman.

Which was his plan for the future. Stay solo—that was it in a nutshell. And he was committed to it. Because a little transient loneliness, having his sister and brother and grandmother be the only family he had, was still better than what he’d been through since Mikayla.

It was still better than taking any risk of ending up like his grandmother.

And staying solo had been working for him. No other woman had so much as caught his eye or his interest, let alone stirred anything in him.

Until last night.

So, yes, he would have preferred it if he wasn’t looking forward to seeing the Northbridge social worker again.

Although he still didn’t understand why he was.

Maybe it was the resemblance to Mikayla. Neily Pratt wasn’t the spitting image of her but, still, maybe the resemblance was enough to trigger something in him.

But regardless of what was causing his eagerness to see her again, he was damn well going to fight it with everything he had.

“So make it quick,” he said aloud, as if he were giving the caseworker an order.

But he honestly hoped her work here would be done fast.

The faster the better.

And that then they wouldn’t have to have anything to do with each other.

Because nothing was worth risking being on the edge of that dark pit again.

“She’s having a sad day. Wyatt is sitting with her on the sunporch.”

Thanks to a hectic schedule, Neily didn’t get to the Hobbs house until late Monday afternoon. Mary Pat answered the door and let her in, informing her of Theresa’s mood and whereabouts once they’d exchanged greetings.

“I’ll go on back,” Neily said. “I know the way.”

The sunporch Mary Pat had referred to had probably been a greenhouse when the Hobbs place was built. It was a small space at the rear of the house, completely enclosed in glass—including overhead. Until the previous day’s fix-up it had had more broken windows than not, but those had been replaced and it was once again sealed off from the elements. So even with only the not-too-intense April sunshine to warm it, it was still a comfortable spot from which to look down over a portion of town.

That was what Theresa and Wyatt seemed to be doing when Neily reached the doorway.

She refrained from announcing herself, wanting to observe any interactions between the two before either of them knew she was there.

They were sitting in old wicker chairs facing away from Neily but angled just enough toward each other that she had profile views of them both. Theresa’s sadness was obvious—she sat with her head slumped, her expression gloomy, staring through the windows while Wyatt Grayson seemed to be trying to lift her spirits with a humorous story about a power-tool salesman.

There was nothing alarming in what Neily was seeing and yet she stayed quiet for a moment longer, her focus on Theresa’s grandson.

She told herself that her interest was only professional, that it had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that the guy was just too handsome to believe even dressed in a pair of plain tan twill slacks and a plaid shirt. It was his attitude toward his grandmother that she was observing, not the broad shoulders or the sun streaked through the dark-blond hair that gilded his starkly chiseled face.

But she couldn’t fault his attitude any more than she could ignore his good looks, and after watching him actually win a small smile from Theresa, Neily could tell that there was no tension between the two.

“Knock-knock,” she said from the doorway as if she’d just gotten there.

Wyatt Grayson immediately glanced in her direction, his gray eyes bright and alert as his grandmother merely continued staring blankly out the windows in front of them.

“Look who’s here, Gram—Neily,” he said, getting to his feet.

Theresa didn’t respond but still Neily went into the sunporch. “This is a nice place to be on a spring day,” she said cheerily.

“It really is,” Wyatt agreed the same way, as if it might inspire some enthusiasm from his grandmother. “It took some convincing but Mary Pat and I finally got Gram to come down and see for herself.”

Still nothing from Theresa, as if she was too lost in her own thoughts to even hear what they were saying.

Wyatt Grayson stepped between the chairs and came toward Neily. “I don’t suppose you’re here to see me so I should probably give you some time alone with our girl. But could I have a minute when you’re through?”

“Sure,” Neily agreed, trying not to pay any attention to the little thrill of excitement she felt at the thought that he wanted a minute with her.

“Can I get you something in the meantime? Tea? Coffee?” he asked.

“No, thanks. Theresa is all I need,” she answered.

“I’ll get out of the way then,” he said, reaching over the back of his grandmother’s chair to squeeze her shoulder. “That’s okay, isn’t it, Gram? If I leave you with Neily?”

Theresa’s only response was to pat his hand before her own fell limply back into her lap, all without glancing away from the windows.

Neily slipped between the wicker chairs and sat in the one he’d vacated. “We’ll be fine.”

He left then, but the heat of his big body lingered to warm the chair and Neily tried not to think about that—or like it—as she settled in.

“Hi, Theresa,” she said. “How are you doing?”

Theresa shrugged but didn’t answer, returning her gaze out the windows.

Neily checked the view, finding that the room looked down over an area of Northbridge that had been the first concentrated housing development in the late 1950s.

Finding nothing particularly noteworthy in that, she focused on Theresa instead.

“How do you like having your grandson and Mary Pat here?” Neily asked conversationally.

“They’re good to me,” Theresa answered without inflection.

“So you’re glad that they’re with you?”

“Yes.”

“What does Mary Pat do for you?” Neily inquired, still making certain that her questions sounded like a friendly chat rather than a probe into Theresa’s relationships.

The older woman shrugged. “Mary Pat does everything. She brings me my medicines when it’s time to take them. Fixes my food. Tells me when it’s cold and I should wear a sweater. Reminds me to brush my teeth or comb my hair when I forget. She’s my mother hen.” Theresa said all this in a flat tone of voice, never looking away from the windows.

“And yet you took her car keys and left her behind.”

“I had to. I had to come here. Even without Mary Pat.”

Neily heard Theresa’s belligerence threatening and so veered away from the subject. “What about your grandson? What kind of things does he do for you?”

Another shrug. “Wyatt, Marti, Ry—I don’t know what I’d do without them.”

“Marti is Wyatt’s sister?”

“Yes, and Ry is my other grandson, Wyatt’s brother.”

“They all visit you? Take care of you?”

“They worry about me. Fuss over me. Poor things—they could stay away but they don’t. They treat me like a queen. And here I am, causing them more trouble.”

“Have they said that? That you cause them trouble?”

“They never would. Whatever I want—that’s what they always say. That’s what they always do.”

“But you didn’t think they would this time? When you wanted to come to Northbridge?”

Theresa frowned. “I couldn’t tell them what I did,” she whispered.

Tears filled her eyes for a moment before she herself changed the subject this time, pointing in the direction of the houses that stretched out below them. “All of that belonged to my family, you know,” she said.

“All of what, Theresa?”

“The land where those houses are now.”

“No, I didn’t know that,” Neily said.

“Once upon a time, it was all Father’s. Then it came to me…”

“Really?” Neily wondered if there was any truth to this or if Theresa was drifting into one of her fantasies, the way she sometimes did. “I hadn’t heard that but I imagine it would have been a long time ago that you…what? Sold the land?”

Theresa didn’t answer; she merely went on staring down at the houses.

Neily tried again. “Is that what you want back—your land? Your father’s land?”

If Theresa heard her, she didn’t show it. Instead she said, “It was all ours. From here as far as you can see. Seems like so many things in life get lost.”

“Did you lose the land somehow?”

Again there was no indication that Theresa had heard her.

Instead the older woman said, “Loss…so much loss. Wyatt knows what that’s like. Marti, too.”

Neily tried yet another tack. “I’m sorry for whatever losses you’ve suffered, Theresa. Do you want to talk about them?”

“I don’t want to talk anymore,” she said, pushing herself to her feet then. “I need to rest.”

As if she were alone in the room, Theresa wandered out of it without another word.

Still, as far as Neily was concerned she’d accomplished her goal for today—to see if there had been any negatives to the arrival of Theresa’s caregiver and her grandson. There hadn’t been, so Neily followed the older woman out of the sunroom.

Mary Pat must have been watching for Theresa because the nurse joined her charge the minute Theresa reached the hall. Mary Pat tried to convince Theresa not to return to her bedroom, to go into the kitchen for tea instead. But Theresa insisted she needed to lie down, and the caregiver went along. Neily trailed them to the front of the house.

“That was quick.”

Wyatt Grayson’s voice came from the living room as Neily watched Theresa and Mary Pat climb the stairs. She turned to find him leaning negligently—and sexily—against the side of the archway, his hands slung in his pants pockets like a rodeo cowboy. It was slightly alarming that she could be struck all over again by the sight of him, but she was.

Still, she ignored the impact he kept having on her and said, “It was kind of quick, but I’ll take what I can get.”

“So maybe I can have two minutes instead of one?”

Surely he wasn’t flirting with her. But if he wasn’t, why was he smiling in such an enticing way?

Neily reminded herself that she was there on business, no matter how he smiled, and checked her watch. “I suppose I can spare two minutes before I’m due at my next home visit,” she conceded. “But if you need more—”

“Two will do,” he said. Then he got to the point—canceling the impression that he was flirting. “First I just wanted to say how much I appreciate everything that was done here—over breakfast this morning Gram was talking about broken glass and backed-up plumbing, about dust billowing out of the heating vents, about grime everywhere…Anyway, we got an even better idea of what kind of shape the place was in before yesterday and how much work had to have gone into getting it to this point, and I just had to say thanks again.”

“You’re welcome,” Neily said simply.

“I was thinking that maybe we could have a thankyou dinner for everyone who pitched in, but I don’t have any idea how to invite whoever that was.”

“If you name a day and time I can take care of it,” Neily offered. She didn’t care about herself, but she was glad that he wanted to show his gratitude to the rest of the volunteers.

“You’ll see to it that everyone involved gets invited?” Wyatt asked.

“I will.”

“Mary Pat and I were thinking maybe Wednesday night? Seven o’clock?”

“Okay.”

“Which brings me to my second question—I need to do some shopping for the dinner and to stock the house with more staples for us, too. Where do you do that around here? I didn’t see any kind of supermarket or—”

“No, there isn’t any kind of supermarket but we have the Groceries and Sundries—it’s reasonably well stocked. Plus there’s a butcher shop, a bakery—specialty stores…” Then, from out of nowhere her mouth ran away with her and she heard herself say, “If you’d like I could show you where everything is tonight and you could do some shopping—”

“That would be great,” he said before she could finish. Then, as if he, too, had spoken before thinking, he added, “If you’re sure. If your time is already stretched too thin or you had other plans—”

“I just have one more home visit and then I’m free,” she said, all the while telling herself to use one of the excuses he was giving her and not go through with something that wasn’t part of her job.

But did she backpedal and get herself out of what she knew she shouldn’t do?

No, she didn’t. Instead she got in deeper. “Most things are open until about eight. I could run home after this next appointment, grab a quick bite to eat, and be back at six-thirty or so…”

“Terrific—a tour by a native. That should give me the ins and outs.”

“Maybe you could persuade Theresa to go with us,” Neily said then, thinking that getting the older woman to leave the house would put this back in the realm of work.

“I’ll ask,” Wyatt said. “But no one will be more surprised than me if she goes.”

“Maybe if Mary Pat comes along, too?” Neily suggested.

Apparently that had been transparent because Wyatt’s smile turned quizzical. “Are you afraid to be alone with me? Because I’m harmless…”

Harmless maybe, but definitely not charmless.

“No, I’m not afraid to be alone with you.” She was afraid of these strange things that came to life in her when she was. “I just thought it would be good for all of you to see Northbridge and learn your way around.”

“I’ll do what I can to persuade Gram but I wouldn’t count on it. And if Gram stays, Mary Pat stays.”

Neily nodded. “Well, six-thirty one way or another then?”

“I’ll be ready. Unless you tell me how to get to your place and let me pick you up…”

“It’s just easier if I come get you.” Because then she could have the control and it could seem more like work than a…

A date?

No, this definitely was not—in any way—a date!

Then why was she so nervous?

To cover that up, she looked at her watch again and said, “I really should get going. I can guarantee that my next stop won’t be quick.”

Wyatt nodded, pushed away from the wall and went to the front door to open it for her, smiling still as if she’d thoroughly entertained him.

“I’ll see you tonight,” he said, his gray eyes never wavering from her.

“Tonight,” Neily confirmed. But for no reason she understood, she ducked her head bashfully as she passed in front of him to go.

And as she got into her car, she discovered that there was a small part of her that hoped that Theresa and Mary Pat would stay home tonight.

Chapter Three

Neily was well aware that when she’d met Wyatt Grayson Sunday night she’d been a mess, and that when she’d seen him earlier Monday afternoon she’d had a full day’s wear and tear on her clothes, hair and makeup. She wanted to improve on those two impressions the third time he saw her, so she skipped dinner Monday evening in order to devote every minute to her appearance before picking him up.

But it was only for her own sake, she told herself. For her own sense of self-esteem. Something about the man unnerved her in a way no one had ever unnerved her in the past. She had five brothers, for crying out loud—she hadn’t even been that awkward around boys when she’d been a girl. Yet there she’d been this afternoon, sounding like a shy kid.

And that just wouldn’t do. Especially not when she was in the position of judging Wyatt Grayson’s stability, his character, his demeanor. She needed some stability of her own, some sense of decorum and authority. None of that was conveyed by presenting herself looking like a chimney sweep or in her geeky teenager imitation today.

So tonight she was going to make sure she looked…good. But not to wow Wyatt Grayson. She was just trying to amend the two previous messages she may have sent.

There clearly wasn’t any reason to try to wow Wyatt Grayson anyway, she told herself as she changed into a fitted cashmere turtleneck sweater and the leg-lengthening, hip-slimming pinstriped slacks that she usually referred to as her first-date pants. There was no reason at all to try to wow him. He was an integral part of a case she was handling and that made any personal involvement a conflict of interest.

Yes, he was great-looking and charming, but there were a lot of great-looking, charming guys in Northbridge who didn’t do anything for her.

Even so, there was no denying that something about being around Theresa’s grandson had turned her into an airhead this afternoon and no matter what that something was, she had to get a grip on it and stop it.

“Stop it in its tracks!” she said to herself as she powdered her nose and applied some blush and mascara. Then she took her hair down from the clip that held it and brushed it before using a very large curling iron to smooth it and curve the ends under her chin.

But getting a grip on herself and on the weird effects caused by Wyatt Grayson didn’t worry her. Now that she knew that a simple touch of his hand or a little conversation or just being around him could knock her for a loop, she knew to go in steeled against it. And once she was steeled and ready for anything, there was no getting to her—that was something that being tormented by five brothers had prepared her for.

“So you’re nothing but another case to me, Grayson,” she said out loud as she finished with the curling iron and combed her hair to fall silkily around her face.

Besides, tonight she would have the advantage of being in her car, of walking around her town. And while they were in her car and walking around her town, her only goal was to do her job. To subtly get to know the man solely in his role as Theresa’s grandson in order to determine if he was a fit caretaker and guardian for the older woman.

Which meant that this was absolutely not a date.

Even if she did have first-date-like butterflies in her stomach to go with her first-date pants.

“You must think I’m an idiot,” Wyatt said later that evening as he and Neily sat at one of the bistro tables in the new coffee emporium that had just opened in Northbridge.

Neily took a sip of the hot chocolate they’d just been served. “Why?” she asked, having no clue what he was talking about.

“I drove up this street when I came in last night. I didn’t know it was all there was of Northbridge or that I hardly needed a tour guide to navigate it.”

Neily gave him a mock frown. “Are you calling us a one-horse town? Because we’re so much more than that. We’re a one-T town—there’s Main Street that runs north and south to South Street, which goes east to west to make the T. Turn left on South Street at the town square and you get to the college and the houses and farms and ranches in that direction. Or turn right on South Street to go to your place and the outlying houses, farms and ranches in that direction—”

“And don’t forget those four cross streets along Main—they’re teeming with at least six or eight stores and businesses,” he added, playing along.

“Plus we have a stoplight and now even this coffee shop,” she reminded.

“Just one coffee shop and just one stoplight, but who’s counting? You’re practically a metropolis.”

Again she pretended affront. “Didn’t you get everything you needed tonight?”

“I did,” he conceded over his own cup. “Although I noticed that there’s a lumberyard but not much in the way of a hardware store.”

“Did you want something more than the nuts and bolts they sell at the Groceries and Sundries?”

“No, it was purely a professional observation.”

“You’re the hardware police?” she asked, joking still.

“No, not the hardware police, but you do know we’re Home-Max, don’t you?”

He didn’t seem to be kidding anymore so Neily said, “Really? Home-Max?”

“Really—Home-Max. I take it you’ve heard of us?”

Home-Max was the chain of large warehouselike stores that sold all manner of building materials, lumber, home-improvement and remodeling supplies, large and small appliances, everything pertaining to lighting, lamps and wiring, as well as garden, patio, barbecue and landscaping equipment and machinery. The company had been in the news lately for sweeping the Western states with openings of new stores and doing newsworthy damage to their competitors.

“Of course I’ve heard of Home-Max, but, no, I didn’t know you—personally—are Home-Max.”

“Well, my family is,” he clarified. “My sister, Marti, my brother, Ry, Gram and I own them all.”

“Theresa didn’t tell me that,” Neily said as the information sank in.

“It isn’t as if she’s involved, and half the time she forgets that it is Home-Max now. She knew it as G and H Hardware—that was how it started, with my grandfather’s one-corner hardware store.”

“Your grandfather—Theresa’s husband,” Neily said to clarify.

“Right. He had the hardware store when they met. Just a small place he ran by himself. Gram had a little money and after they were married she put it into the store to expand it—that’s when it became G and H: G for Grayson, H for Hobbs, Gram’s maiden name, since Hobbs money provided for the expansion. When my grandfather died, the store went to my father—their only child. Things boomed with him in charge, and over the years Dad opened six other G and H Hardwares. We all worked them as soon as we were old enough. But when our mom and dad were killed in a car accident eight years ago, Marti and Ry and I were left in the hot seat.”

“How so?”

“The builder’s-warehouse type of stores had begun to hurt us. Business was dwindling, and we had a fair offer to buy us out.”

“Why didn’t you sell?”

“Mainly because of Gram. She hasn’t always been as bad as she is but her problems weren’t too much better eight years ago than they are now—she needed live-in care, and that’s expensive. The offer to buy us out wouldn’t have left her with enough to provide for that indefinitely, and if Marti and Ry and I went our separate ways, working for other people, we couldn’t be sure we’d be able to afford to make up the difference over time. And the thought of having to institutionalize Gram…Well, we didn’t want that. So we decided to gamble. To play with the big boys rather than sell out to them. We closed all but one of our stores, and turned the only remaining G and H Hardware into the first Home-Max. Then we went from there. And it just worked out.”

Neily was sure he was making it sound less complicated and stressful than it had been.

“You must have always been close to Theresa to risk everything for her sake.”

He shrugged. “Pretty close, yeah. And we just wanted what was best for her. Plus it seemed only fair that—since her money had helped begin things—we do whatever we could to keep them going. But it wasn’t for her sake alone. Marti, Ry and I wanted to go on working together, so it was for our sakes, too. We were all just lucky that we made it.”

Still Neily thought it was admirable that Theresa’s family had considered her contribution and made her welfare a priority. Neily was also impressed that rather than taking the easy way out of caring for a grandmother with special needs, Wyatt and his siblings hadn’t cut and run when the opportunity to do that had presented itself.

The more she learned about Wyatt, the more she leaned away from any thoughts of neglect.

And toward liking him.

They both had another drink of their hot chocolates before Neily decided to use his mention of Theresa as her opening to talk about the older woman. And keep herself from thinking things about Wyatt Grayson that she didn’t want to be thinking.

“So even eight years ago Theresa was basically in the shape she’s in now?”

He nodded, a sad, sober expression on his handsome face. “Gram has had mental-health issues as long as I can remember. She gets into severe depressions. She has times when she’s out of touch with reality, delusional—that’s happening more often as she ages. She was always fearful, and that developed into full-blown phobias—those are what started her being housebound and needing round-the-clock care, and why none of us can understand her doing what she did to get here.”

“And the memory issues?”

“Those are getting worse, especially her short-term memory. Sometimes she thinks that things that happened decades ago were just yesterday, and she forgets what did happen yesterday. She’s really a tortured soul.”

“Does she have a specific diagnosis?”

“A laundry list of them. And she’s on medications to treat them all, which helps to some extent. She’s also had therapy, but nothing has made a huge improvement.”

“I’m assuming the possibility of early abuse has been looked into?” Neily said.

“She’s denied that there was any of that. She makes her childhood sound perfect. Happy. She frequently says that she was the apple of her parents’ eyes, how much she loved them, how devastated she was when they died. I know that losing my grandfather caused more deterioration, and then losing my father brought on more still, so maybe there’s something to that.”

“And even when she talked about her perfect childhood she didn’t tell you anything about Northbridge or that she still had the house here?” Neily asked, finding it curious that Theresa had been so secretive about that.

Wyatt shook his head. “Like I said before, the only mention of where she grew up was a generality.”

“So she didn’t tell you that her family—her father—had owned land here?”

That seemed to surprise him. “No. You mean her father owned more than the house?”

“She told me today that he—and then she—owned the section of land you can see from the sunporch, where there are houses now.”

“Do you think it’s true?”

Neily shrugged. “I’ve never heard that, but it isn’t as if I would have heard about who owned land twenty years before I was born. I was just wondering if maybe that should be looked into. If it’s true, maybe that’s what she thinks she can reclaim.”

“Maybe that’s what was taken from her, you mean? Do you think someone stole it from her or swindled her?”

Neily shrugged again. “I don’t know. I suppose old land records could be checked into.”

Wyatt’s expression had gone from sad to intrigued. “Want to play detective with me?”

Neily laughed. “I don’t think that’s in my job description.”

“Might be fun, though,” he said with an alluring wiggle of his eyebrows.

Too alluring.

Neily reminded herself that she was supposed to be steeled against his charm. But apparently even early practice steeling herself against whatever her brothers threw her way was not enough when it came to resisting Wyatt Grayson.

Both of their cups were empty by then and noticing that seemed like an aid to her cause. Rather than respond to Wyatt’s it-might-be-fun-to-play-detective-with-him, she said, “We should probably go.”

Wyatt didn’t immediately agree. He went on looking at her, smiling as if he was enjoying the view. But he didn’t push the suggestion that she help investigate old land records and after a moment he stood and held her chair while she stood, too.

He’d already paid for their hot chocolates, and now he tossed a tip onto the table before he followed Neily out of the shop.

Don’t let him get to you, she told herself on the way to her car, which was parked at the curb a few doors down.

She slid in behind the wheel and started the engine as Wyatt slipped into the passenger seat. It didn’t help that when he did, he angled toward her and stretched his arm across the back of her seat. It also didn’t help that he was a big man and that he seemed to fill the interior of the car with hundred-proof testosterone.

“So what do you say?” he asked as she headed for South Street. “Will you help me out? I know Northbridge is small and you can probably just point out where I’d find land records, but you also probably know the city clerk—or whoever handles that kind of thing—and could make it easier for me to get access to whatever I need.”

That was all true.

“You could think of it as helping Gram—that is in your job description, right?” he added.

“Right…”

Saying that made it sound as if she were wavering.

She did want to know all she could about Theresa and what was behind the older woman’s flight to Northbridge. A complete picture could be helpful.

But it would mean spending more time alone with Theresa’s grandson. And while they had talked about Theresa, and while talking to Wyatt had given Neily more insight into him and his relationship with his grandmother—all of which qualified as information she needed to be gathering—she couldn’t deny that tonight had seemed less like work and more like an evening with a handsome, easy-to-talk-to, amusing and entertaining man.

It had seemed more like the date she’d been insisting to herself it wasn’t.

“Come on,” he cajoled as she pulled into the driveway of the Hobbs house. “Help me out. For Gram’s sake. And for the sake of your whole one-T town.”

Neily put the car into Park but left the engine running and glanced over at Wyatt. “For the sake of my whole one-T town?”

“What if some horrible, dastardly deed was done to Gram to wrench her land from her, and right in your midst is the rat who did it? Wouldn’t you want to know? What if the rat is your mayor or someone in some position of power, doing more dastardly deeds behind the scenes without anyone knowing? He or she could be embezzling funds or pilfering retirement accounts or selling bogus city bonds—”

“Those would be dastardly deeds,” Neily agreed with a laugh at his melodramatics.

“You are in charge of making sure any wrongs done against Gram are righted,” he pointed out.

The kind of wrong he was talking about was out of her province, but still, Neily was curious about whether Theresa actually had been a victim of some kind of wrongdoing, or if her mental state was further deteriorating.

Which gave her a reason to grant Wyatt’s request without admitting to herself that she kind of wanted to spend more time with him.

“All right,” she said as if he’d worn her down. “I’ll help you. But only to get a more complete picture of Theresa.”

Wyatt smiled slowly, as if he was pleased regardless of what was behind her decision. “Tomorrow?”

“Theresa is on my calendar for every day. But I have a full schedule and you’re last on it, so we’ll barely make it to the courthouse before it closes. That won’t leave us much time to look through land records.”

“Later in the day is actually better for me. I have to make some business calls and I’d rather get them in before we go.”

Neily nodded, knowing even as she did that the fact that she was already looking forward to the next day was a bad sign.

But she didn’t back out.

“Thanks for showing us around tonight,” he said then.

“Thanks for the hot chocolate,” she countered.

Wyatt leaned forward and although there was absolutely no reason to believe it was even likely, Neily thought he was going to kiss her good-night.

Shocked, she bolted up straighter and veered away from him just as he pulled his bags of groceries from behind her seat, obviously having been intent on only that from the beginning.

Of course he hadn’t been going to kiss her! Why would she ever have even thought that?

Wyatt settled his sacks on his lap and looked at her again, showing no sign that he’d noticed her overreaction.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

“You’re my four-thirty.”

Something about that garnered her a sweet, sexy smile.

“Shall I meet you somewhere?”

Maybe it would be better not to be in a car with him again.

“Records are all kept at the courthouse,” she said, explaining to him where that was.

“I’ll be there at four-thirty,” he assured her when she was finished.

“I’ll see you then.”

Wyatt nodded and she expected him to get out. But instead he sat there a moment longer, looking at her, studying her.

Then he smiled again, a mystery-man smile if ever Neily had seen one, muttered “Good night” and finally slid from her passenger seat, closing the door after himself.

She should have immediately put the car into gear and backed out of the drive. But she didn’t. She was too intent on watching the tall, well-built man carry his packages to the front door.

And despite the fact that she continued to remind herself that this had not been a date, and to chastise herself for even fleetingly thinking he might have kissed her, she couldn’t help fantasizing—just a little—about what it might have been like if it hadn’t been grocery sacks he’d reached for.

If it had been her instead.

Chapter Four

After two taps on the front door of a farmhouse outside of Northbridge early Tuesday evening, Neily opened the door and stepped inside.

“Miss Sela, are you here? It’s Neily.”

“I can see that. It’s you and some man,” came a wheezy voice from a chair in a corner of the living room to the left.

“Yes, me and some man,” Neily confirmed. “I just got an emergency call that you ran away from the hospital and no one knew where you were.”

“I’m where I told them I wanted to be. You knew where to find me. Couldn’t have been too hard for those numbskulls to figure out.”

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