Chapter One
Tessa Harris slammed the tailgate of her rented pickup truck and glanced around the worn yard. It was strange being back here. The small town of Willow Landing in southern Utah was the last place she thought she’d ever set foot in again. The house she never expected to see the inside of as an adult, though it had remained a strong presence in her memory over the years, was even more worn than it had been during her childhood. The trees were overgrown, and several branches grew over and brushed the roof of the small ranch-style house. The grass, what little there was of it, was mostly brown. There had been little rain, so the rest of the dirt between the dead grass patches was cracked. The house itself was in only slightly better shape than the yard, but Tessa saw the potential of what the house could become.
Tessa picked up one of the boxes she had removed from the truck and headed for the covered porch, or at least that’s what she thought it was called. The space was narrow, not much of a porch really, but a couple of rusted chairs sat under the overhang where one could sit, assuming the chairs would hold weight, which she doubted, and gaze out toward the dead lawn.
She remembered well back when flowers bloomed in front of the brick wall that acted as the porch railing. The house itself had always been the dull faded brown color it was now, but most of the paint had peeled and cracked. The roof needed new shingles, and she hoped nothing else. If the wood that held up the roof was rotted, then the cost to fix it would double.
But Tessa wasn’t worried about fixing up the exterior of the house. Her brother Simon had a contractor lined up to handle residing the house in a pretty light blue she had picked out and putting on a new roof in light gray, so only the inside of the home remained her problem. And what a problem it was. She smiled, thinking about how it would all look when she was done.
As Tessa entered the house, she touched the old, worn walls that had once been painted white. They were dingy now, fingerprints and who knew what else stained them. The light fixtures were also old and dingy, their once-brassy shine a distant memory. The majority of the glass globes were broken, and many of the bulbs burnt out. The fixtures made the interior look even more worn than the old paint did.
The kitchen wasn’t in much better shape, though the old cabinets made Tessa’s heart race a little bit. It would take some work to get off the layers of paint, but they were original to the house, and once restored, would add some much-needed charm. And there were hardwood floors under the threadbare carpet, and they too, once restored, would be a major selling point. She had pulled up a few corners, and they seemed to be in good shape for their age.
While gazing around the forlorn kitchen where she had set the box, she heard a vehicle pull into her drive. Not bothering to even get upset this time, she headed for the front door. She had had several visits over the past couple of days from one Deputy Boyd Thomson. She supposed it had been too much to hope he had forgotten who she was. But she had not been that lucky. In fact, the knowledge that her old childhood nemesis was now a cop had come as a shock, as much as it had dismayed her. And while he had towered over her looking incredibly smug, he had made it clear that he wanted her gone. She had listened to him and had taken deep breaths until she was once again calm. By his fourth visit, she had barely blinked when he had written out a citation for disturbing the peace. She’d simply taken it and watched with relief as he left.
But it wasn’t Boyd this time blocking her drive; it was the chief himself.
She watched dispassionately from the porch while the man unfolded himself from the SUV. She had known Mason Slade was Willow Landing’s Chief of Police. His father, Donald Slade, had been chief before him. Word was Donald had retired a year ago and that was when Mason took over the position. It was one of the first pieces of gossip she’d heard when she hit town.
Tessa first noticed how tall he was. Mason had always had a good ten inches on her, but in his uniform and hat, it looked more than that. His chest was broader, his legs were wider than she remembered from her early teen years, and the belt wrapped around his waist showcased that he was one very fit man. There was no paunch or gut on him. The tailored fit of his uniform left very little to the imagination.
“Good afternoon, Tessa.”
Tessa took a step off the porch and headed back toward the boxes she’d left on the ground by the truck. “Good afternoon, Mason. What brings you out here? Or should I guess which one of my many fans called you out here?”
Mason took off his hat and sunglasses to get a better look at Tessa Harris. She didn’t look all that different from when she’d been fourteen, though she’d filled out into a more feminine shape in the hip and breast area. Definitely no mistaking her for a child any longer, despite her small stature. Her hair was still a shade somewhere between blonde and red, her skin still fair with prominent freckles sprinkling her cheeks.
Tessa sighed and leaned her hip against the truck when he didn’t speak. “So I take it you want me to guess. I vote my neighbor Philip Degrassi called you again. What was it this time? More loud music? Did I vandalize his yard? Kidnap his dog?”
Mason took a step toward her. She had a sheen of sweat on her chest, and he watched as a droplet ran between her breasts. She was wearing an old tank top that had seen better days. Her long hair was tied back in a ponytail. Now that he was closer, he also remembered her bright blue eyes, the shade of a clear summer sky. They were currently glaring at him.
“No, not your neighbor, though his complaints have been varied over the past couple of days.”
Tessa grabbed a box and started for the house, her voice trailing after her. “Well, then who?”
Mason picked up one of the boxes and followed.
Tessa almost bumped into him when she met him at the front door. She took the box from him. “I didn’t give you permission to enter my home.”
“That you didn’t. Just giving you a hand.”
Tessa was forced to look up at him when he didn’t take a step back. His dark brown hair was cut almost military short, and his dark brown eyes bore into hers. She remembered those eyes, eyes that she thought could see all her secrets. Not wanting to be intimidated by him, or those chocolatey eyes, she pushed past him.
Mason followed her back to the truck. “Deputy Thomson said he had to cite you for disturbing the peace. He also said you threatened old man Degrassi and his dog.”
Tessa gritted her teeth and turned to face Mason. “His word against mine, though I suppose my word doesn’t mean much. But I plan to fight that citation. I was nowhere near here when he claimed I was blasting music. I was two towns over at the bank. I guarantee you I’m on their security cameras. And as for him and his dog, I’ve got better things to do. His dog is a very large Rottweiler that weighs almost as much as I do, and Degrassi outweighs me by a hundred or more pounds. If anyone threatened anyone, it was him threatening me.”
Mason had dismissed the threat accusations when Boyd had come in complaining loud enough for everyone to hear that Tessa Harris was a nuisance and should be run out of town. What did surprise him was hearing about the bank. That wasn’t in the report Boyd filed. “Why didn’t you tell Deputy Thomson you were at the bank?”
“Deputy Thomson and I go way back. He wasn’t going to listen to me any more than you are. And even if he had, it wouldn’t have mattered. He would have found a different excuse to write that citation.”
That rankled. “I uphold the law, Tessa; I don’t break it. Want to tell me your side of the story?”
Tessa’s eyes narrowed as she saw Mason go on the defensive. She’d obviously hit a nerve, but really, what did he expect? She didn’t trust him any more than she trusted anyone else in this town. But it also wouldn’t do her any good to antagonize the police chief. “Fine. Degrassi came over the day I arrived. That was two days ago. He told me I’d be sorry if I didn’t pack up and leave. I suppose he couldn’t exactly pick me up and throw me out of town, so he’s bent on either running me out or getting me arrested.”
Mason nodded. Degrassi wasn’t known to be the most honest of men, but he was known for holding grudges. Degrassi and her father had gone quite a few rounds back in the day, and Mason would bet Degrassi wasn’t thrilled to have the daughter back. Honestly, no one was, including himself. He and his father had thought themselves rid of all the varied members of the Harris family, but here was little Tessa, the youngest of the clan, back and already the center of trouble.
Mason gestured to the boxes from a big box store. “The local hardware store could have supplied everything you need. Why did you go two towns over to get them?”
“Now see, I tried to do that, but I was thrown out of the hardware store about five minutes after I entered. Then I remembered that Degrassi and old man Baxter are friends. My money wasn’t welcome.”
Mason picked up the receipt from the box. She had been an hour away when the most recent phone call came in. John Baxter, who ran the hardware store, said that Tessa had helped herself to some tools from his store without paying for them. At the alleged time, Tessa hadn’t been there. But still, he had to make sure.
Tessa saw him frowning at the receipt. “What?”
Mason pulled a list from his pocket. “Do you have these things here?”
Tessa took the list, noticing he kept his hands clean and his nails trimmed. She shook her head. “I didn’t buy anything from the store.”
“John Baxter didn’t say you bought the stuff. But he does say the items went missing.”
Tessa paled, the paper slipping through her fingers. “He said I stole them.”
Though not a question, he nodded. “I need to check the premises.”
Tessa felt a flicker of anger, but the ember died out. She didn’t have the energy left to fight. “Look around. You won’t find the items. What’s in these boxes will match my receipt.”
Mason saw her energy fade, and her shoulders sag. For the first time, he noticed how thin she was and saw the faint bruising under her eyes that spoke to either a lack of sleep or a lack of nutrition. If her frayed jeans and worn shoes were any indication, he’d guess a little bit of both.
Mason picked up the paper from where she had dropped it. “I’m sorry, Tessa, but I have to look.”
Tessa simply nodded and grabbed another box. Mason took the receipt and went through her purchases. He went through her rented truck, her worn-out dark blue Honda that sat on the gravel drive beside the house, and then followed her inside.
“Needs some work.”
Tessa set the last box down while Mason finished searching the house. “Simon inherited the house after Aunt Sylvia passed. With all the nearby resorts and tourist traffic around these parts, Simon asked if I wanted to tackle a remodel. I think he’ll get a pretty penny for it once it’s spruced up.”
Mason, who had gone through all the supplies she bought and didn’t find a single stolen item, was curious. The supplies were not of someone doing a little home renovation, but of someone who knew what she was doing. “Is that what you do? Fix houses?”
Tessa wiped the sweat that had gathered on her forehead. The house had central heating and air, but the air conditioning hadn’t worked for years. Simon had a man coming at the end of next week to take care of that. “Sort of. Mostly I do house painting. But I’m handy with flooring and other minor repairs. Simon has a contractor coming to do the roof and siding and to redo the baths. I can’t seem to get the hang of plumbing.”
Mason turned and leaned up against the kitchen counter. Her brother Simon was about his age, maybe a year or two younger. Back when they were kids, they were not what you’d call friends. Mason was surprised to hear Simon had the money for those kinds of repairs. The best anyone figured, he’d end up in prison like his father. “I haven’t seen Simon since I left for college. How is he?”
Tessa’s eyes narrowed, and her hands fisted at her side, prepared to defend her brother. “He’s fine.”
Mason decided not to pursue the conversation on her brother. “All right, Tessa. I don’t see a single item on the list here. And I’m guessing if I call the bank, I’m going to find out you were there. I’m going to drop the citation. And I’ll have a chat with Degrassi. Okay?”
Tessa gaped. She had half expected to be hauled in anyway. “You believe me?”
Mason kicked away from the counter. “Let’s just say I understand. There’s a lot of bad blood between your family and this town. People are not happy you’re here. But you have as much right to be here as they do. Keep your nose clean, and you and I won’t have any trouble.”
Tessa didn’t respond, but apparently Mason wasn’t waiting for one. He let himself out of the house and headed back to his SUV. She watched as he put his hat back on. Tessa found her voice. “Thank you, Chief Slade. You won’t have any trouble.”
“Let’s just keep it Mason. I always did like the way your cute Southern accent said my name.”
Tessa stared after him as he got in the SUV and drove away. That had almost sounded like he was flirting with her. But since even the idea of that was absurd, she dismissed it. And she supposed her accent was a bit out of place. She’d been born in Alabama, and no matter how long she’d lived in the Midwest, the accent had remained with her, though muted with time.
Once he was out of the drive, Tessa turned to look through the trees. She could just barely make out Degrassi’s house. He was on his front porch staring her way. She couldn’t make out his expression, but she imagined he had been standing there hoping to see her hauled off to jail. Though tempted to wave at him, or perhaps flip him off, she turned her back instead and went inside. Right now all she wanted was to get something to eat and prop up her feet. She’d been running around since dawn, and she had a big day ahead of her tomorrow. Tomorrow she was going to start stripping paint off the cabinets. And from the looks of them, that was not going to be an easy feat. But since the kitchen was the heart of a home, that was the place she wanted to get started.
Hours later, she was curled up in the old bed in what was considered the master bedroom but found she couldn’t sleep. Shortly after Mason had left, she had sent a quick text to her brother to let him know she had all the supplies purchased and was ready to get started. She also wanted to let him know that while he was doing the siding and roof, he should probably do the windows as well. His negative reply had been expected, but with persuasion, he had finally agreed to it. He trusted her judgment and told her to do what she needed to do but to take it easy on his wallet. She had smiled to herself, sent him a message back telling him no chance, and then had lain down to try to sleep.
Now staring at the ceiling where she could tell there had been some water damage, she thought about how strange it was to be back in the house she had spent a good part of her childhood in. Aunt Sylvia had been a saint, and Tessa hoped there was a reward for her in Heaven for having put up with all she had over the years. Tessa had been eight when her father, Randy, had lost his job, which in and of itself wasn’t exactly significant. But because he’d been fired from almost every job he’d ever had, he found it impossible to find a new one. He had cursed up a storm, then informed his small family that they were moving in with his sister.
Her mother, Janine, had cried, which just angered her husband. She hadn’t wanted to leave her home, which then sent Randy on a tirade. Her brother Simon had been silent about the move. He knew not to cross their father when he laid down the law. Tessa had cried, but she had done it silently in her bed. She and Simon had to share a room, so he had heard her tears. He had come over, picked her up, and let her sleep with him that night. She took comfort in his presence. And because Tessa adored her brother, she had believed him when he told her everything was going to be okay.
But things were not okay. They had lived with Aunt Sylvia for four years. She and Simon had continued to share one of the three bedrooms. It had been the smallest one in the house. Over the course of those four years, Simon had become a different kid. He no longer let his little sister sleep in his bed; he started missing curfew and had been caught drinking and vandalizing property.
When she turned twelve, her father had finally gotten tired of living with his sister and bought a small house across town, though to this day she still wasn’t sure where he’d gotten the money to buy a house. Then things had gotten worse. Her father was drinking all the time. Her mother was a shell of the woman she had been and went about taking care of her family on autopilot; there but not participating. Simon went from vandalism to outright theft. He got into fights in school, one of the most notable fights being with Mason Slade. Chief Slade had arrested her brother for that fight, and many more times after that. Every time the chief called saying Simon had been arrested, her father cursed the chief, cursed his son, and cursed life in general.
Tessa rolled over on her side. She was grateful Simon had not ended up like their father, as everyone had predicted he would. But they didn’t know the Simon she knew, the one who cuddled his baby sister. The one who held her when she cried. And while he might have gotten derailed for a time, he had eventually gotten back on track. It had taken their father’s arrest to get him to see the error of his ways. For Tessa, it had been a blessing the day Chief Slade, accompanied by officers from the neighboring city, took her father away.
She, Simon, and her mother moved back in with Aunt Sylvia. It was Sylvia’s influence that helped Simon get back on track, telling him he was the man of the family now and had a duty to them. Their mother let Sylvia take care of her children while she hid away from the world.
Tessa sighed and flipped onto her stomach. When Simon left to join the Army, Tessa had been left alone. Sylvia started spending more and more of her time with her boyfriend and was never home. Janine never left her bedroom, and Tessa had been starving for company. The day she turned eighteen, she ran off with her boyfriend. Timothy and she had been friends since shortly after she moved to town. He had been one of the other children who had been tormented by their classmates. Everyone knew her father was a loser who couldn’t hold down a job. She wore old clothes that didn’t fit, and she had been very unkempt. For Timothy, his father was the town’s garbage man, and his mother worked in the school kitchen. The children were not kind to him.
In hindsight, her and Timothy’s plan to move in together and start a new family wasn’t one of her better ideas. And it had been her idea. But he had been the only person, besides Simon, who seemed to care about her. But life had beaten the two of them down pretty quickly, and what had started with such enthusiasm had turned into a nightmare.
Tessa punched her pillow and tried to relax. She supposed it was understandable that she would be bombarded with memories, lying alone in her aunt’s house with the ghosts of those memories trapped in the walls of the old home. And seeing Mason Slade probably hadn’t helped. Though where she expected hostility, she had gotten reasonable. He had listened to her side of the story, had done his job without destroying her property, and had dropped the citation against her.
She couldn’t help but notice he had aged well. She was a few years younger than her brother, and Simon was only a year behind Mason. She had just turned thirty-one, so she knew Mason was thirty-six. Thirty-five would have been very young to become police chief, but she supposed having a father who had the job before he did made the transition easier. And Mason had always been a take-charge type of person. He played almost every sport in school, had gotten a full-ride scholarship to some fancy college, and studied law and law enforcement. Shortly after that, he’d entered the police academy. He had always been an overachiever, so being chief at thirty-five was probably inevitable.
She knew he had left town for a while and had been a detective at a major city police precinct before moving back home to take his father’s job. She had to admit he looked the part. The short hair, the tall, muscular build, and his intimidating presence were probably all prerequisites for a police chief, even in a small town. Though the town wasn’t so small anymore, what with the tourists and the nearby resorts to police. She imagined he was a busy man. So it begged the question, why had Mason shown up at her home today? Over the past two days, she had only seen Boyd, and he had been less than friendly since their history was long and colorful. In a school full of bullies, Boyd had been the ringleader. It still surprised her that anyone would let him wear a badge. But perhaps his unprofessional attitude and the threats he had issued had more to do with her than with his job.
But regardless of Boyd, or even Mason, Tessa was going to stick it out. She owed her brother, and this was a simple enough way to repay him. She would have to find some way to deal with Degrassi and keep her fingers crossed that she wouldn’t find Boyd or Mason at her doorstep again.
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