Idling at a red light, the 454 engine made the long hood tremble. Tuxedo black, the original color.

George wished he was seventeen, cruising Main on a Friday night with one of those cute cheerleaders who’d always ignored him. But he was a couple of years from forty. It was a Thursday morning, a workday. And his passenger was a prissy little fluff ball with no brain to speak of. He groaned at the memory of his mother dressing her little dogs in sweaters this time of year.

The light changed. Letting out the clutch, he unleashed the beast. The bass vibrato bounced off the brick buildings, waking a laugh from deep inside him.

Then unhappy thoughts intruded. Mel might have swiped some valuables already, or she might have thrown one of her legendary tantrums. Worse, the kid might have used her angelic smile to win Letitia’s trust and pave the way for some con game.

He slowed for the turn onto South Jackson. Daisy put her paws on the window and peered out, shivering with so much excitement that her leash shivered with her.

“Calm down, dummy. You don’t live on this street anymore, okay?”

She let out a faint yip.

Maybe he should count his blessings. Daisy was the quietest dog his mother had ever adopted. If he had to be stuck with the surviving dog, at least she wasn’t one of the loudmouth yappers.

He downshifted, turning into the familiar driveway, and the growl of the engine made him grin. He finally owned a muscle car—a ’70 Chevelle SS 454, no less—and he’d wangled his way back into the garage that Calv had been so rudely evicted from. They had plenty to work on too, from brakes to wiring problems to upholstery.

George’s smile fell away. Mel sat on the porch steps, knees together, feet splayed out, a cigarette in one hand and a Coke can in the other. She turned her head, giving the car a faint smile—of mockery or approval? He couldn’t tell. She gave no sign that she recognized him.

He cranked the window down. “Hey, Mel.”

She squinted at him through a blue haze of smoke. “George? What are you doing here?”

“That’s what I’d like to ask you. Letitia let you spend the night?”

“Tish, you mean? She sure did. She’s nice.” She glowered at him. “I can’t believe nobody wanted to be honest with her about the McCombs.”

He tried to bury the defensiveness welling up inside him. “We hashed it out, last night. Part of it, anyway.”

“So, why are you here?”

“Dropping off my project car. I don’t have a garage so she’s letting me rent hers.”

Leaving her Coke on the steps, Mel stood and sauntered across the shaggy lawn. She was wearing baggy jeans and a Detroit Pistons sweatshirt, very different from the semi-Goth styles she’d favored for a while. He hoped they were borrowed, not swiped, from Letitia’s closet.

“Doesn’t look like a project car,” Mel said.

“Nice paint job, isn’t it? I bought it that way, but there’s still plenty of mechanical work to keep me busy.”

“You? Doing mechanical work?”

“I’ll rely on Calv’s expertise.”

“Poor Calv. I bet he doesn’t know what he’s in for.” Trailing her cigarette-bearing hand across the trembling hood, she crossed in front of the car and went to the passenger door.

“Lucky for you, I didn’t see any ashes falling on that pretty paint job,” he said when she started to climb in. He’d smiled when he said it, but she scowled at him anyway. “No smoking in my car, please. Or around it.”

“You grumpy old grump.” After one more pull from her cigarette, she dropped the butt and ground it out with the heel of her shoe.

“Don’t litter, please.”

“I’ll pick it up later.” After nudging Daisy to the floor, she climbed in. “Cute dog.”

“You want her?”

“I can’t afford dog food. I can’t even afford Mel food.”

“You haven’t had steady work lately?”

“Jobs are scarce. Especially after, you know, the big stink about the missing cash.”

He frowned, trying to remember the particulars. She’d worked at a produce stand and later at the Howards’ chintzy little gift shop downtown, but both places let her go because the money kept coming up short. She’d blamed it on her lack of experience. Nobody bought it.

He let the car crawl forward on the rutted lane that curved around the side of the house. The kitchen window shook with the car’s passage, making sunlight shimmy on the glass.

He tried for a relaxed and patient tone, like an uncle dishing out advice. “Well, I hope you’ll find a good job and prove that you’ve turned into a reliable and law-abiding adult who respects other people’s property.”

She bristled. “I haven’t taken anything that isn’t mine.”

There she went again, proclaiming her innocence and irritating the patience right out of him. “Just keep your mitts off Letitia’s things, all right?”

“Why do you call her that? She calls herself Tish.”

George frowned. The nickname seemed too familiar, but he preferred it to Letitia, which always made him think of carpetbaggers.

“And why do you think I’d steal her things?” Mel started playing with the knobs of the radio, trying in vain to make it come on. “Everybody always thinks the worst about me. Everybody but Grandpa John. He loved me when nobody else did.”

“Your parents loved you. They still do.”

“You wanna bet? They don’t want me. They never did. They were your age when I was born. Forty.”

“I am not forty.”

“You’re close, anyway. Would you want a baby that messed up your life like that? I was born when Stuart was already in high school.”

“Have you forgotten how they showered you with everything your little heart desired? The playhouse? The pony? The electric car?”

“Ooh, I loved the car. I remember racing the mail truck down the street.”

He tried not to smile. “I heard about that.”

“All that expensive stuff, though, you know what that was all about? They felt guilty for not wanting me, so they tried extra hard to act like they wanted me. But then, every time they spent too much money on me, guess who they blamed?” She splayed her hand over her chest. “Me. The oops baby.”

“Mel, you have a wild imagination.”

She didn’t answer. He could only hope she would think about what he’d said.

He pulled the car around the line of camellias. The garage came into view, flooding him with memories. When he was a kid, his uncle had practically lived there, tinkering on cars and sharing his expertise. But when Rue Zorbas caught her brother drinking around her young son, she’d banned Calv from the premises. She’d meant it too. She didn’t relent until shortly before her death—years and years after he and George had started spending time together again. Once her son was an adult, she hadn’t had much say in the matter.

Stopping the car in front of the right-hand door, George savored the engine’s throaty roar one moment more before shutting it off. It ticked placidly in the silence like a black dragon settling its shiny limbs for a power nap.

Mel didn’t move. She only sat there frowning. Scheming, probably.

“How are you and Letitia getting along?” he asked.

“Too soon to tell. I conked out last night before she got back from your place, and when I got up this morning, she was asleep on the couch with a book on her stomach.”

George had a good idea which book that was.

“So, was it fun to explain about the McCombs?” Mel asked.

“What do you think?”

“There you go again. Grumpy old—”

He got out, slamming his door on the rest of her commentary. Proceeding to the garage, he then unlocked the sliding door and shoved it to the side. “We’re in, Calv,” he said under his breath.

Mel climbed out, bringing the dog, and followed him around to the trunk of the car, the way she used to follow him and Stuart long ago. Daisy lolled happily in her arms, wagging her tail. If she’d been a cat, she would have been purring.

That gave him pause. Daisy was a wreck at the shop and upstairs, but perfectly happy at the house. Maybe it was the location, or maybe she trusted women but didn’t trust men. With rescue dogs, you never could tell.

After opening the trunk, George pulled out a socket set and a small toolbox filled with screwdrivers and pliers. He placed them against the interior wall and went back for more, the small tools neatly stored in toolboxes and the larger ones loose. The pry bars clinked and clanked against the cement. Finally he added the electric drill he’d bought himself for Christmas, still in its orange plastic case.

“That’s a lot of tools,” Mel said.

“This is only the first load. Calv’s bringing—” George shut himself up when he imagined her strolling into a pawnshop with one of the expensive power tools that the old man had scrimped and saved for.

When he had finished emptying the trunk, George slammed it shut. “Now I’d better put this baby to bed and lock her up tight.”

“A car like that isn’t cheap. Did your mom leave you a ton of money?”

“It’s no Maserati. It’s only a Chevelle, and it still needs work.”

“You didn’t answer my question, George.”

“And I don’t intend to.”

Letitia’s voice floated across the yard. “Melanie? Where are you?”

“I’m out here harassing George,” Mel called. “He deserves it.”

Letitia stumbled around the camellias, looking like she’d slept in her clothes. Yep. She had. She was still wearing the black shirt she’d worn when she stormed up his stairs with war in her eyes.

She stopped short and stared at the car. “That explains it. I thought we were having an earthquake or something.”

He squelched a proud smile. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I didn’t mean to sleep in.” Running a hand through her messy hair, she looked back and forth between them like someone who’d been asked to keep an eye on a rat and a snake simultaneously. She settled on Mel. “Did you sleep all right?”

“Yes, thanks.” Mel smiled, all innocence and charm. “Sorry about eating all the ’cue last night. I couldn’t stop.”

“It’s okay. By the time I got back from George’s place, I didn’t feel like eating.”

Mel’s smile changed to a sympathetic pout. “Of course you didn’t. It’s terrible the way you had to drag the truth out of him.”

“That’s enough, Melanie.” He turned to Letitia. “Did you read the pertinent parts of the book?”

“I certainly did. Several times.” She put her hands on her hips. “I can’t believe it. It’s like the whole town has conspired to keep me in the dark.”

“How long have you been in town?” he asked. “And you’ve hatched a conspiracy theory already? You persecute easy.”

“I what?”

“Stop fussin’, y’all,” Mel said. “George, can I take the car for a spin? Please?”

“No. You may not drive it. You may not touch it. Understand?”

“Just one little touch.” She reached out and caressed the fender, watching from half-veiled eyes for his reaction.

He folded his arms across his chest and kept his mouth shut.

Something was brewing in Letitia, though. She glared at him and opened her mouth as if she were about to commence arguing with him. Then she pushed her hair out of her eyes and faced Mel instead, leaving him feeling slighted.

“Tell me the truth,” Letitia said. “Did you really steal a Corvette?”

“No!” Mel jutted her chin. “No way. It was my grandpa’s. He’d just died, and taking the car out made me feel like—like he was still around. I brought it back without a scratch, but my dad whipped me anyway. That made me so mad. I was too old for whippings.”

George raised his eyebrows. “A whipping is better than being charged with grand theft auto when you weren’t even legal to drive.”

“It’s not theft when you take what’s yours. Grandpa John always said he’d leave me the car when he died.”

“He was only teasing,” George said gently.

Mel swung her head stubbornly from side to side. “No, he meant what he said, but my stupid, selfish father wanted the car, so he took it. He’s the thief. Oh, I forgot. Duncan Hamilton isn’t my father anymore. He’s my ex-father. Ask him if you don’t believe me.” She deposited Daisy in George’s hands, turned around, and stalked toward the house.

He sighed. “She accuses Dunc of taking whatever he wants, but she does the same thing. Was anything missing this morning?”

“I hope not, but I don’t intend to take inventory every day,” Letitia said. “I can’t live that way.”

“No, you can’t. She needs to stay somewhere else.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t know, but you don’t want her under your roof. Not with her history of stealing.”

“But where’s your proof? Your suspicions aren’t necessarily based on facts. What if you’re wrong? And as for your smart remark about how I persecute easy—”

“I apologize for that,” he said hastily.

“Thank you, and I apologize if I’ve overreacted to that nonsense about the McCombs, but there must be another side to that story. I’ll let you know when I find it.” She turned around and rushed off, disappearing behind the camellias before he could corral his scattered thoughts.

It was possible that those old McComb stories were highly exaggerated, but the Mel stories were recent, and he’d heard them from reputable citizens soon after they’d happened. She had a lot of pluck, coming back to town. And now, if she thought she had nothing left to lose, there was no telling what she might do. Especially if she heard about Dunc’s plans for the Corvette.

George climbed into the car again, putting the dog on the passenger seat. The Chevelle made a glorious racket when he drove it into its new, temporary home. With the dog straining against her leash, he padlocked the door behind him. He sure hoped Letitia kept her keys where Mel couldn’t find them.

Standing at the parlor window with that awful book in her hand, Tish watched George walk down the sidewalk toward Main with the dog padding reluctantly behind him. Daisy looked mournfully over her shoulder, then sat. The leash went taut.

George stopped short, picked up the dog, and started walking again. He kicked a rock, sending it into the street, and picked up his pace.

Tish explored her hair with her hand, and it was as tangled as she’d feared. She hadn’t brushed her hair or her teeth. She’d just run outside looking like a nightmare, and there was George. With his thick, wavy, dark hair and his crazy-fast car.

Her dad had grown up in the Motor City, and he’d given her a pretty good education about Detroit’s finest products. She knew what a Chevelle Super Sport could do.

Zero to sixty in about six seconds, probably. The thought gave her a peculiar feeling in the pit of her stomach. She didn’t like fast cars.

The floor squeaked behind her. She caught a whiff of cigarette smoke mixed with shampoo—her shampoo. Tomorrow, maybe, they could hit Target and buy Mel some necessities.

“You’re too nice to be a McComb,” Melanie said. “Thanks for letting me borrow the clothes.”

Turning, Tish studied Melanie—or Mel, as she preferred. “You’re welcome. We can round up some more clothes later. Some things that fit you a bit better,” she said, eyeing how baggy the clothes were on Mel.

Mel moved closer to the portrait. They seemed to be sizing each other up—Nathan and Letitia with their deep-set eyes staring out of the past, and the skinny, big-eyed waif regarding them solemnly from the present. Crooks, all three?

But it was far easier to picture Mel as a demure young miss in a gown from the Civil War era, her brown hair bound back in a snood. Her face was as lovely and delicate as Olivia de Havilland’s when she’d played the fictional Melanie on the silver screen.

“Maybe they did some bad things,” Mel said, “but people can change. People can be sorry for what they’ve done, you know?”

“I do. But being sorry doesn’t always repair the damage.”

Tish sat on the couch and looked around her half-unpacked living room. She’d hoped to spend the day working on the house and enjoying it—but now she shared it with a stranger she couldn’t trust. She couldn’t enjoy it anyway, though. Even the doorknobs reminded her of Miss Eliza Clark’s tall tales.

Tish held up the book for Mel to see. “Have you ever read this?”

“No, I’m not much of a reader.”

“In this case, I’m glad.”

“Pretty bad, huh?”

“Very. If it’s true.”

“But maybe they weren’t as horrible as everybody says.” A small smile warmed Mel’s face. “Maybe I’m not horrible either.”

“But George tried to talk me out of letting you stay, and he must have his reasons. He’s known you all your life, hasn’t he?”

Mel’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Yes, but he doesn’t know the new me. Please let me stay. Please. I’ll pull my weight. I’ll scrub toilets. I’ll wash windows. I’ll do anything, but I don’t want to be on the street again.”

The tears were very nearly contagious. Putting the book down, Tish regained her composure. “Maybe I can help you out for a little while, if you’ll meet my conditions.”

“What are they?” the girl whispered.

“Without getting into fussy details, pretend I’m a strait-laced, old-maid schoolteacher. No, a Sunday school teacher. Anything that would offend an uptight, old-maid Sunday school teacher is something you can’t do. No alcohol, no drugs, no men in your room.” Tish inhaled a whiff of tobacco that reminded her of a crucial rule. “And no smoking in the house.”

“Oh. Sorry. Okay.”

“And you’ll look for a job, and you’ll help with the groceries when you can.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“And you’ll help around the house and the yard.”

Mel nodded with enthusiasm. “I love to work outside.”

“But this is the most important thing. You’ll try to make things right with your parents.”

Mel’s tears spilled over. “You think I haven’t tried already?”

“Of course, but you need to try again. And again and again. Will you do that?”

Mel didn’t answer right away, but maybe that was a good sign. She was giving the question serious thought. She frowned, she worried her lower lip with her teeth, and finally she nodded.

“With my mom, it might work,” she said. “My dad, though, he’d rather not see me again. Ever.”

“Will you at least try, though? You don’t know how long he’ll be around. Don’t miss your chance.”

Mel gave a slow, reluctant nod.

“All right, then. You can stay. But be on your best behavior. And please, always be honest with me? Please?”

“I will. Thank you.” Mel grabbed her in a fierce hug. “I’ll make you proud.”

“That’s what I want to hear.” Tish gave Mel’s shoulders an encouraging squeeze but stepped away again quickly. At such close range, the smell of smoke nearly made her ill. “I’m going to sit on the front steps and enjoy the sunshine for a few minutes before I get to work. You can join me if you’d like.”

“Sounds like fun. I love fresh air. I love having room to breathe, you know? Do you mind if I smoke?” Mel grabbed the matches from the coffee table. Pulling a smashed pack of cigarettes from her back pocket, she headed for the front door. The hinges creaked when she opened it.

The fruits of his thievery … elegant doorknobs and sturdy door-hinges.

But that was then. This was now. Tish wasn’t responsible for Nathan McComb’s wrongdoing—if it was even true. His reputation had put a damper on her excitement about living in the house he’d built, though. She might as well pin a scarlet C for carpetbagger on her shirt. That was how people saw her—especially if they thought she’d taken unfair advantage of Silas Nelson when he was desperate to sell. She was a villain who’d swooped in from the North and cashed in on his troubles.

Joining Mel on the porch, Tish pondered her policy on cigarettes. Never having lived with a smoker, she’d never had to consider a no-smoking rule. For that matter, she’d never had to hide her valuables either.

Hiding important papers and her jewelry was only sensible, but hiding the napkin rings seemed miserly and mean. They were symbols of hospitality and festivity. She’d always used them when she invited friends over and wanted to set a pretty table. But they would never grace her table again if someone stole them and pawned them.

Who was she kidding? An anonymous someone didn’t worry her. Mel did.

Tish sat on the top step and far to the left, hoping to escape the smoke, but a faint breeze wafted it right into her nostrils. Blowing it out again, she gazed down at the neat part in Mel’s clean, shiny hair. A new wreath of smoke drifted up and hovered over the girl’s head like a halo.

This was not the way Tish had pictured her new life in Noble.