That was lucky. She wouldn’t want to miss any Fire games. “As I lack a TV, furniture, dishes, and cookware, it may be sometime before I entertain. But I’ll be there.” Haley climbed back into the driver’s seat. “Thanks for coming to get me.”
With a single nod of approval, Patricia lifted her suitcase and stalked into Mallory Mansion.
Haley shifted into gear and headed toward home. Although a small town, crossing Foothills’ sprawl was a bit of a trek thanks to large land parcels. Abutting a national park to the north and a national forest to the east, its residents were made up of those that sought the beauty and solitude of raw nature.
Her home lacked the expansive views or rambling trails like so many Foothills homes, but it was comfortably nestled in the forest on the outskirts of downtown. The two-acre property was as serene as she remembered. Settled just off the road in a mature neighborhood, it could easily be a showpiece, with its sharply angled roof in the alpine fashion, natural brown cedar siding, and the sort of entry that cried out for brightly colored shrubs and porch rockers.
Not that she had any of that yet. The driveway was rough with potholes, the porch covered in nearly a decade of leaves, the shrubs overgrown, and the trim no longer the cheery blue she remembered.
Yet she felt a long-awaited, almost foreign sense of normal wash over her.
Opening the car door, she stepped onto the gravel drive and looked up at her new home. Old home. The home she’d grown up in. She could picture Grady and Ryder sprinting in the front door after a long day at school, dumping their homework under the entry table and racing upstairs for a much-needed break from the many activities Patricia kept them all involved in. Haley would still be in her ballet tights and leotard under her flowered dress, chasing behind her half-brothers for a break of her own.
Until the day her dad came up to her bedroom and dropped to the edge of the bed, burying his head in his hands.“Hale, your mother and I are getting a divorce.”Her heart had shattered. Leave her brothers? Her friends? Foothills?
Tears flooding over her cheeks, she’d begged.“Dad, I don’t want to go. I like it here.”
“Home will always be here for you. This was your grandparents’ home. My first home. One day, it will be yours again.”His gruff voice still rattled about in her mind.
What would he have said, seeing her wasting her life away with Nate? Being the perfect housewife neither Patricia nor he had raised her to be? He’d intended for the move to help her to fulfill her own dreams. Not that she had ever been interested in glam and status, but she’d been good at it.
Sliding the key into the lock—well, jamming it through the pollen-encrusted receptacle of a deadbolt—she entered her home. Haley was immediately knocked back by the foul scent of a death.
Ew, she squealed, dancing up and down, never feeling like quite so much the spoiled city girl she’d become as she laid eyes on nature’s housewarming gift. Smack dab in the middle of the great room floor was a raccoon in full rigor mortis.Uck, disgusting.She pinched her nose and glanced around for signs of carnage, but it was just the one body. And one was more than enough.
The slate tile of the foyer was hardly visible through the inch-thick layer of dust, almost slippery as she walked over it in her Frye booties. The stairs to the right were fuzzy with cobwebs coating the carpeted steps. A dilapidated cardboard box sat on the landing halfway up. To the left, the dreaded raccoon carcass had taken up residence where a coffee table should be in the middle of the great room. Near him, the river-rock fireplace extended floor to ceiling with a time-shined hearth where she used to warm her back on cold mornings, but was now littered with dried leaves. On the opposite side of the immense room, the kitchen was in no better shape, with outdated pink tile that was marbled white and brown with dust. Above, the timber beams were sturdy, the ceiling an eggshell white and stain-free.
The inspector she’d sent out had ensured the bones of the house were in great shape. The plumbing had been questionable from years of disuse. So, she’d had the plumbing tuned up, electricity certified, and HVAC updated before daring to move in. Months of waiting for home, liquidating her former life, and cutting off all ties to her social circle.
Sighing with her whole body, she accidentally inhaled odor-of-raccoon again. The house needed a lot of… love.
And, apparently, an exterminator to figure out how the hell the raccoon had gotten in. She dashed out to the garage and came back with the splinter-handled shovel they’d used to fill chuckholes back in the day. When Patricia was at work, because that sort of thing should be hired out. For all Drake’s snobbery, he had at least grown up in the rural town and appreciated the merits of manual labor.
Damn, she’d missed Foothills. Nate had been snootier than Patricia, and lacked the feminism. His wife was not to cook or clean. He could provide all the means, so she might… what? Sit on her ass and wait for him to get home?
Certainly not to hit the gym, as muscles weren’t feminine. Nor raise children, not until they were at least thirty-five or forty. Shopping. Days at the spa.Argh.
Forcing her eyes open and refraining from squealing like a terrified rodent herself again, Haley scooped up the stiff carcass and backed carefully out the front door. Shovel extended as far from her as possible, she looked around for a garbage can.
No can. Crap, she forgot about setting up the garbage service. Crap, internet. Paying bills shouldn’t be left to the little missus; too complicated for her inferior brain.
How had she let herself slip so far into the perfect lifehe’dimagined for her?
She set down the shovel. Its stiff body rolled off the blade and onto the ground. Cringing, she almost pitied the poor thing with its mouth frozen open, its little fingers open as if someone had walked in on its private moment. Under the massive Doug fir at the far side of the property, she dug a deep hole and rolled its mangy carcass into the grave.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Holding it with her fingertips, in case a fragment of dead raccoon germs had magically flown onto her hands, she held the phone away and read the message from Grady.
Welcome home, Sis. Settling in okay? I know you said no, but please consider staying with us until the house is habitable?
She had missed her brothers. Nate had always been so busy with work, and didn’t like her traveling without him, so she hadn’t come home much over the last few years. She texted back,Thank you for the offer, but I need this. Dead raccoons and all.
I get it. If you need anything, supplies, breakfast, a vacuum, extra arms… exterminators, let me know, ok?
She messaged back.I know. Thank you. Bring me dinner tomorrow? And a vacuum would be the best housewarming present ever.She dropped the shovel back in the garage and eyed the kitchen and living room. Yikes. Going to be like a night in a haunted house, without the ghosts. Hopefully, Mr. Raccoon had gone peacefully.
Absolutely. Hope you don’t mind, I let Trace know you were coming home.
Aw, of course he did.I’m so glad you did. Send me her number?
