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“Finally,” Abra Charles mumbled when the house came into view.
Exhausted from the five-hour drive on top of the six-hour flight, and with a snowstorm nipping at her back bumper for the last thirty miles, Abra turned the rental car into a winding and blessedly plowed driveway, after spotting the house number on the crooked mailbox on the road.
A quick glance at the dash clock and the 1 a.m. display barely registered in her tired and travel-fogged brain.
Traffic had been slow and miserable the entire way from New York. Why her assistant booked the flight to LaGuardia instead of the closer Boston Regional airport was a mystery. Abra was going to have a serious discussion with the girl once her brain fatigue cleared.
But for now, she wanted something hot to drink, quick to eat, and to sleep for the next twelve hours in a comfortable bed.
In that order.
Total darkness engulfed the house as she came up the drive. The one hundred year old Victorian silhouetted against the snow sky looked menacing and creepy, as if it’d stepped off the pages of one of her books and come to life. A covered carport abutted the house on the far side of the driveway and Abra pulled the rental under it. Once she turned the ignition switch off she couldn’t see a darn thing in all the unnerving dark.
“Remind yourself again,” she pulled her phone from her purse and hit the flashlight icon, “Why you thought renting a house out in the boonies instead of staying in town with the folks was such a good idea.”
The reason she needed time alone popped into her head with her next breath.
“Oh...yeah.”
On a sigh filled with resignation, she alighted from the car and landed flat on her ass as her foot ice-skated on the frozen blacktop. The thin yoga pants she’d worn to be comfortable on her travels did nothing to bar the cold from icing her skin. The thought of being treated at Dickens Memorial for butt cheek frostbite had her biting back the curse desperately wanting to shout through her lips. Reaching up, she gripped the door handle with her free hand, got her footing, and pulled into a standing position.
Her hind end throbbed like a mother and stung even more from the frost particles seeping through her pants.
“Welcome home, Abracadabra,” she muttered to the silent night.
When she was certain she wouldn’t take another spill, Abra let go of the door handle and reached across the front seat for her purse.
Thankfully, she hadn’t dropped her phone. With it gripped in her naked hand she cursed her lack of gloves and hat, two things she didn’t own and forgot to buy and bring with her in her haste to leave home. Who needed fur-lined gloves and a wool cap when they lived in Las Vegas? Sin City wasn’t exactly rife with snow and frigid temps at any time of the year. Her typical daily wardrobe consisted of old T-shirts, flip flops, and the aforementioned thin yoga pants, not down jackets and thermal, all-weather boots.
But she wasn’t in Vegas right now. She was in rural New England in the dead of December. Temps below zero, brutal wind shifts, and mountainous piles of snow were the norm here from late October to April, something she knew well since she’d grown up in the region.
After tugging her oversized suitcase and computer carryall from the trunk, she slung the bag over her shoulder so she could hold her phone in one hand to light the way, and gingerly made her way to the front porch steps, a silent prayer of thanks they’d been de-iced playing on repeat in her brain.
Her backside could only take so much torture.
The key to the rental house was under the welcome mat, exactly where the rental agent’s last email stated it would be. With stiff, shaking hands growing more numb by the second, it took Abra two tries before she managed to aim the key into the lock, and another three before she got the partially frozen locking mechanism to turn.
The moment she stepped over the threshold the realization the inside of the house was no warmer than the outside hit her like a snowball square to the face. Her breath billowed in a cloud of frost around her with each exhale.
Stomping her feet to get some circulation back into her toes, she found the light switch on the wall and flipped it. Perched on the Chippendale table in the entranceway, Abra spotted an envelope with her name written across it. She opened it and read the brief instructions from the realtor about the house and how to regulate the heating system, which was turned to low while the house stood vacant.
“Why couldn’t you have heated it up for me?” she asked the empty room, through teeth chattering and clacking like mariachi band castanets.
But she knew the answer. She hadn’t contacted the realtor about her change in plans to arrive two days ahead of the scheduled agreed upon time. He hadn’t known he needed to make the house warm and inviting tonight.
Probably the same reason her assistant had booked her flight to land in New York instead of Boston. Switching her arrival time, Abra had to accept whatever booking availability the airlines offered. Flying commercially in December was always a crapshoot since so many people left for winter vacations or planned to come home for the holidays from all over the country. Changing travel plans at the last minute subjected her to seat, and flight, availability.
With another sigh accompanied by a TMJ-cracking yawn, Abra found the temperature control on the wall, noted the set temperature of 55 degrees with a shiver, and reprogrammed it to seventy-five. Somewhere from the bowels of the house, the system groaned once, rattled like skeletal bones on parade, then rumbled to life.
It would take some time for the huge and rambling structure to come up to a livable temperature, so Abra kept her coat on, rubbed her hands together to spark some life back into them, and went in search of the kitchen. A cup of decaf coffee would do nicely to thaw her insides while she waited for the house to warm to a life-sustaining temp.
Since the cost of the rent included electricity, she had no qualms about turning on every light she passed. By the time she reached the kitchen at the back of the house, the entire downstairs was lit like the Vegas Strip at midnight.
When she’d contacted the realtor about leasing the house through the Christmas holiday and into the New Year, Abra knew she’d need to set the place up to her own specifications once she arrived. That included grocery shopping. While she could eat anytime she wanted at her mom’s diner, driving into Dickens three times a day didn’t sound appealing. There were things she wanted stocked in the house so she could have access to them at any time of the day or night. Since she never wanted to stop working when on a roll, it was easier to have available items on hand. She’d sent the realtor a detailed grocery list and he’d promised to have them delivered before she arrived. Since she’d forgotten to email him her change in arrival plans, those items were missing when Abra searched the kitchen.
The owners of the house, the proverbial New England snowbirds, were currently spending the winter season in Florida. They’d left a pantry filled with canned goods and not much else. Sucking down a can of pork and beans at almost two in the morning wasn’t in the least an appetizing thought. The refrigerator housed a box of teabags (who put those in the fridge?), a half dozen bottles of Perrier and a twelve pack of local beer. Abra preferred her coffee black, liked her water flat, and never drank beer, local or otherwise.
That cup of something warm with a quick snack was going to have to wait until she could get to the grocery store in the morning.
“I wonder if the local inn has any vacancies for the night?” she asked, aloud, then shrugged. If she weren’t so bone-weary tired she’d seriously consider getting back in the car to find out.
The house remained too cold for her liking so she kept her outerwear on as she dragged her suitcase up the wide and winding stairs to the second level to find her bedroom. The realtor’s note said she could use the master if she wanted to since it had an adjoining bathroom.
Even if he’d told her she couldn’t, Abra had planned on procuring the master for her own since she figured the biggest and most comfortable bed would be found there. She deserved it for the price she was shelling out for the privilege of staying here for the month. Besides, the owners would never know she’d taken over their sleeping space. By the time they got back to town after the spring thaw she’d be long gone, and any trace of her would be eradicated.
The hot water took its time winding through the ancient pipes, rattling and moaning when she turned on the taps. The first trickle that managed to drop from the faucet was a decided golden mustard color. She turned the flow to full and within seconds the water cleared.
“If this was one of my books, none of this would bode well for the heroine,” she told her image in the mirror above the sink.
While the water continued to spew and warm, Abra unpacked her essentials: toothbrush and paste, face creams, hair stuff. After lining them up all in a row on the sink counter, she found a stocked linen closet in the hallway and pulled out several towels and washcloths. Once the water finally – finally – came to an acceptable temperature, she pulled back her hair and washed her face clean of the travel makeup she’d applied – Jesus – almost eighteen hours ago. Then, in an attempt to chase age-related wrinkles and lines away, religiously creamed her face like she did every night before bed.
Teeth brushed, hair as well, she debated slipping into the sleepwear she’d packed. Suddenly, too tired to even stand upright any longer, she decided to crawl under the down comforter fully clothed. It wasn’t the first time she’d fallen into bed with her clothes on and, thankfully, Frank wasn’t here to deride her about sleeping in them. He had a tendency to, when she lost track of time while working and crashed, dressed as she was, when fatigue overcame her. Nope, Frank was currently three thousand miles west of Dickens, probably having drinks at the Monte Carlo and flirting with the croupier while he gambled away the money she’d been forced to give him.
The rat bastard.
The bottom sheet was shiver-cold when she settled on it. Thankfully, she’d had the foresight to leave her socks on. Fetaled on her side, with the comforter pulled up over her ears, Abra’s last thought before sinking into a deep, exhausted sleep was to wonder if the town grocery store delivered this far out.
~~~~
CONSCIOUSNESS RETURNED slowly, and with it, a sense of bewilderment. Bright, blinding sunshine blasted through the window across from the bed and streamed straight into her eyes.
That wasn’t right. Her bed didn’t face the window but sat in front of it so the morning sun rose behind her.
Another thing wrong was the canopy. Her bedroom was the very definition of modern, the ridiculously expensive decorator she’d hired had insisted on it and worn her down until she’d agreed. When had the colonial four-poster canopy been switched out with her king sized bed which boasted neither headboard nor foot?
Reality exploded through her the moment she forced her eyes all the way open.
Not Vegas. Not my house. Not my bed.
Dickens. The rental house out in the sticks.
“Damn.”
She raked her hands down her face then slammed them back onto the comforter.
What was the time? There wasn’t a clock anywhere in the room.
“Where did I leave my phone?”
Jet-lagged from the time difference and lack of caffeine, she sat upright then rubbed her tired eye sockets with her knuckles.
A fuzzy coating of dry saliva slicked over her tongue. She swallowed and smacked her lips a few times to elicit some moisture production.
After tossing off the covers she staggered to the bathroom, took care of business, then brushed her teeth to rid her mouth of bad morning breath, downing two full glasses of cold water afterward.
A quick glance in the mirror confirmed she looked like something even a feral cat would have sidestepped with disgust.
Bracing her hands on either side of the sink she asked her reflection, “You thought running away from your comfortable, familiar home was such a good idea, why, again?” The answer popped into her muddled, coffee-needing brain.
“Oh, yeah. Right.”
With another headshake, she decided the best course of action to counteract the jet lag was a shower and then to change into something that hadn’t been worn and slept in for over thirty-six hours. She was halfway unclothed when the banging started.
“What the—”
It was coming from somewhere inside the house.
Tossing her shirt back on without her bra, she made her way to the second floor landing. The banging came from below her.
Gingerly, she crept down the staircase, one hand holding the rail, the other fisted.
Where had she left her cell phone?
The kitchen.
On the first level she stopped, peeked around the corner into the living room and found it empty. The dining room, too. She checked the front door.
Closed. But...hadn’t she locked it last night? It wasn’t locked right now.
The back of the house came next. As she passed a door in the hallway she hadn’t noticed the night before, the pounding seemed louder.
As soundlessly as she could, she turned the knob and cracked the door open a bit.
A set of straight wooden stairs heading downward confirmed they led to the basement. A naked bulb hanging from the ceiling, lit at the bottom of the stairs, provided sparse illumination into the underbelly of the house.
The banging continued. A muttered oath split the air.
Okay, there was someone else in the house.
Every scene she’d ever written about a heroine trapped in an empty, secluded house, flashed across the front of her mind. With it, every deathly scenario she’d conjured from her imagination.
Not good. Not good at all.
Her purse sat on the kitchen table. She carefully made her way to it, hoping the floors wouldn’t creak and give her away. A house this old was bound to squeak and moan with the slightest provocation. When she had her phone, she swiped it to the screen saver page. Nothing happened.
“Damn.”
She’d forgotten to charge it before falling into bed and now it was dead.
Was there a landline anywhere in the house?
The banging stopped for a second and she cocked her head to listen. A clamor of glass shattering split the air.
What to do, what to do?
Here she was, alone at God only knew what hour, out in the most secluded part of town. The notion she should have paid more attention to those self-defense classes she’d sat in on as research for her last book blew through her head.
Think, Abra, think.
A butcher block of knives rested on the kitchen counter.
Armed is always better than unarmed.
She pulled one out, held it against her thigh.
Opening the basement door as if she was trying to disarm a live bomb, she slid through it and took a step downward. When the stair didn’t give her away by groaning, she stepped down another, then another until she could crouch down a bit and see into the basement proper.
A man, large and tall—exceptionally so—swept glass from a windowpane with the head of a hammer. The window looked too small for him to have crawled through, so how had he gotten into the house?
Abra took another step down and, in the next second, lost her balance as her foot miscalculated the depth of the step. She flailed out but wasn’t quick enough to grab onto the handrail before she tumbled straight down to the concrete basement floor, her butt bumping on each riser until she landed, once again, flat on her ass at the bottom. Still sore from last night’s tumble on the ice, she couldn’t prevent the ear-piercing scream of pain she let out.
“What the hell?” The man turned, surprise covering his face. He moved toward her.
“Don’t come any closer,” Abra shouted. She shot her free hand up in a halt stance. “I’m armed.” She pointed the knife at him, which by some miracle hadn’t dropped from her hand when she’d fallen.
The man stopped in his tracks, glanced down at it, then fisted his hands on his hips, his brows tugging together across his forehead. “What are you gonna do? Butter me to death?”
Abra took a good look at the knife for the first time. It wasn’t the steel edged stiletto she thought she’d chosen, but had a flat, wide head, perfect for spreading jam and not skewering an intruder. She had to give him praise-points because most men in her experience didn’t know the differences among everyday cutlery. Ask them about a hunting or pocketknife, and you’d get a different response entirely.
The man shook his head. “Who are you?”
“Since this is my house shouldn’t I be asking you that? How did you get in here, because I know for a fact I locked the door last night.” A slight fib, but he didn’t need to know it.
She tried to pull herself to a standing position using only her free hand so she could keep the knife brandished in the other. It was awkward at best since she had no core strength to speak of.
Warm, strong arms slid around her waist and hauled her up as if she weighed no more than a passing thought.
He stared down at her, his head tilted to one side, his hands once again fisted on his hips as soon as she stood, surefooted.
“Since I know for a fact this isn’t your house,” he said, “you must be the renter Jimmy Marley mentioned. The one who’s supposed to arrive tomorrow.”
Despite the fact Abra loved a good sarcastic throwaway line, she didn’t appreciate being the subject of said mockery. While she swiped at the dust now covering her from chest to knees she said, “I had a change of plans and that still doesn’t explain who you are or why you’re in my house, breaking a window.”
“Window was already broken. Marley hired me to fix it, gave me a key to get in to do so.” His gaze dragged down her torso. “Before you arrived.”
Suddenly, Abra was hyper-aware of her bra-less state. Half naked and alone in a big, old, creepy house, with a guy who knew the difference between everyday cutlery, wasn’t the way she saw her morning starting. With her brain still on Vegas-time, her nerves frayed, and her body screaming for coffee, this was a worse case scenario if ever she saw one.
Tall, gray, and built-like-a-tank continued to stare at her as if she had two heads, possibly, three.
“You stay here,” she ordered, flourishing the butter knife at him again. “I’m going upstairs to make a call to confirm you are who you say you are.” She squinted up at him. “Who are you?”
He shook his head, and if she wasn’t mistaken, rolled his eyes. “Colton Bree.” He didn’t offer his hand.
She bobbed her head once. Not exactly a serial killer moniker, but Theodore Bundy was an innocuous sounding, milquetoast name, so you never knew.
“You stay here,” she said again, then, because it was never a good idea to turn your back on a potential murderer, she made her way up the stairs, backwards, the knife still wielded in front of her.
“Okay, you are who you say you are,” she told him ten minutes later after plugging in her phone and calling the realtor, James Marley, who’d been flummoxed she’d arrived early. Once she hung up with him she put her bra back on. Her thirty-eight double D’s were one of her favorite assets, especially since they were natural and not silicone, but she was selective about who got to see them unfettered, and this Colton Bree wasn’t a member of that select group.
In all honesty, the group was limited to the two men she’d married then divorced, and the one she’d walked away from before the vows could be recited.
Bree nodded as he measured the width of the small window.
The basement was frigid cold now due to the uncovered windowpane, the cold air blasting through the opening. Abra shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. Tall, gray and rude didn’t seem to be aware of the chill in the air. Garbed in a faded blue flannel shirt, the cuffs secured around his long arms, and a dark blue Henley-like shirt under it, he looked more appropriately dressed for the weather than she was. Well-worn jeans fit him nicely, covering his trim hips and dropping all the way down his longer-than-a-mile legs to a pair of work boots she thought might have been new when she’d been a college student.
She hadn’t paid much attention to his face while she’d sat square on her ass looking up at him, more concerned about her safety than perusing his appearance. Assured now he wouldn’t try to murder or rob her, she paid a little more attention to the details that went into his features.
A thick shock of totally gray, severely cut hair covered his head. The sides were shaved short, the top a smidge longer and standing straight up at attention.
Was he ex-military? The haircut screamed Hoorah.
He was used to the outdoors, evidenced by the tan color of his face, neck and hands. Deep lines embedded the skin fanning from the outer edges of his bright blue eyes all the way to his temples, which told her one of two things. He either smiled a lot to cause those deep crevices, or he never wore sunglasses.
Remembering the vexed eye roll he’d tossed her, she’d bet it was the latter because she couldn’t see a smile cracking his face if she tried.
“It’s freezing down here,” she said. “When do you think you’ll have the window fixed?”
“Have to get the replacement glass. Should be done by later this morning.”
He wrote something on a tiny notepad then pulled the tape measure from the top to the bottom of the pane. Repeated the writing motion. Never looked at her once.
Abra didn’t have it in her DNA to stay silent.
Leaning a hip against the stair rail, she kept her arms around her waist and asked, “How did it break?”
He shrugged and for a hot second the stretch of his broad shoulders against the whisper-soft flannel shot a bullet of awareness straight through her.
“Old house. Things break.”
He went back to being silent.
So. Not the talkative type.
“I’d offer you some coffee but there’s only tea in the house. I have to get to the grocery store this morning. I can make you a cup if you’d like. There’s no milk or cream though.”
“No, thanks. Don’t drink either.”
“What?” The word exploded from her. In all her memory she couldn’t remember ever meeting someone who didn’t like a cup of strong coffee or tea in the morning. If not for the jolt of caffeine she required each day she wouldn’t be able to concentrate or function. Corpses had more energy than she did if she didn’t have wake-up-caffeine. “Why not?”
Another shrug while he stuck his tape measure back in the ancient toolbox nestled at his feet. “Gave up coffee a while back. Don’t miss it.”
“Do you drink soda, then? I know a few people who get their morning wake-up-hit from a bottle of Diet Mountain Dew.”
He shook his head and fiddled with rearranging some of the tools in the box.
“How do you possibly function in the morning without caffeine?”
“Don’t need it.” For the first time since she’d come back to the basement he looked over at her. “I get a natural kick from being upright each day.”
Stunned into silence, she merely gaped, open mouthed and wide eyed at him.
A gust of frigid air burst through the window and sent a violent shudder zipping up her spine. She hugged herself even tighter.
“Okay, well, I’m going to let you work. It’s too cold down here for my blood. Let me know when you leave, okay?”
He nodded.
She had the strangest sensation he was checking out her butt as she made her way back up the stairs.
The temperature in the kitchen was thirty degrees warmer than in the basement, thank goodness. Praying she’d missed something the night before in her cursory glance of the kitchen stock, Abra opened all the cabinets again, and the refrigerator, saying a silent prayer for a canister of coffee to magically appear.
Nope. Tea, pork and beans, and cans of pea soup were it.
She had two choices. Drive into town and grocery shop now, or head over to her mom’s diner for breakfast and a blessed cup of the best coffee in New England.
The first choice would have taken her thirty minutes, tops. It would give her the better part of the day to work, something she needed to do. That was the reason she’d come back here, wasn’t it? Fled all the distractions and...issues behind, in Vegas, to hunker down in Dickens for a month to finish the book she’d promised would be completed January first?
The second option, a stop at Dorrit’s Diner, afforded her a hot, cooked, mouthwatering breakfast in minutes, plus some face time with her mom.
And there was the dilemma. Abra knew she’d get sucked into spending the better part of the morning answering Amy’s questions and then those of the townspeople who all congregated at the diner each and every day for gossip and grub.
“Decisions, decisions.” She tapped her fingers on the countertop.
First, though, all the water she’d drunk was begging to come out so she slipped into the little powder room off the kitchen and took care of business. Done, she flushed and went to wash her hands when the toilet made a gurgling sound, then the water backed up from the tank into the bowl.
“Damndamndamndamn!”
The water spilled over the rim, wetting her unshod feet and continued spurting like Old Faithful. Jumping out of the way, she tossed the hand towels on the rack over the flood then ran from the room for something to mop up the leak. The pantry closet had food but not cleaning supplies. She scoured through the drawers for something- anything. Spotting a turkey baster, she figured ‘what the hell?’, grabbed it, then ran back to the bathroom.
The water had sopped through the hand towels. She plunged the baster into the still running toilet, squeezed, then emptied the contents into the sink. After five or six repetitions, she realized she was engaged in a never-ending battle.
“What the—” Bree stood in the doorway, hands on his hips again, a look of disbelief on his face.
Abra would have sighed with relief if she weren’t so frustrated. “The toilet won’t stop running.”
“Turn the flow valve off.”
“The what?”
Shaking his head, he leaned over her, bent and reached behind the toilet to fiddle with something sticking out of the wall. The toilet ceased running.
“What did you do?” She bent in the same direction as him and wound up head butting him on his way back up.
“Ow.” She slammed her forehead with her palm. “I can never understand why men do that in movies and wrestling. Hurts like a futhermucker.”
He simply stared at her. When his gaze slid to the turkey baster, he shook his head. “You planning on making a turkey at this hour?”
Abra dug down deep for calm. “I was trying to suck as much of the water up as I could before it flooded the bathroom completely.” Glancing down at the saturated towels and quarter inch of water spilling over the floor, she added, “Moot point, now.”
“Where’s the plunger?” he asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
With another head shake and something mumbled she didn’t catch, he left her with the mess.
Abra carefully walked to the doorway, removed her wet socks, then ran upstairs to the hall closet. Armed with a half dozen large towels, she tossed them all over the sodden floor.
“Looks like I need to add laundry detergent to my grocery list,” she muttered as she moved the towels around with her feet to get the water pooling in the corners.
“Always talk to yourself?” Bree said from behind her.
She gasped, startled, and lost her footing, sliding on a wet piece of cloth. As he had before, his hands shot out and held on to her upper arms to keep her from once again banging down flat on the floor.
“I thought you’d gone,” she said once he let her go.
He gave her a puzzled frown as he pulled a plunger from his back pocket.
“Do you always carry one of those around with you just in case you happen upon a stopped-up toilet?”
Her feeble attempt at levity was, apparently, lost on him, evidenced by the way the Venetian blind-like slats on his forehead furrowed even deeper. He waved his hand to get her to move out of the way, which she did, then he set to work plunging the toilet. The action sent a waterfall of liquid cascading over the rim of the toilet once again.
Abra kept the curse wanting to unleash, retained.
A sudden gurgle, then a loud whoosh echoed around the room, and the toilet emptied.
“Don’t be flushing any female products down here,” he told her, the tops of his ears going pink as he bent and turned the valve again. The sloshing indicated the water started to refill in the tank. “These old pipes can’t take anything else but toilet paper. And small amounts, not big wads at a time.”
Abra stood there, surprisingly charmed at his embarrassment. The man had to be on the south side of forty, was probably married – maybe divorced since, hey, no ring. It was a certain bet he’d come across female products a time or two in his life, so to be uncomfortable by naming them was utterly enchanting.
And wicked alluring.
Stepping with caution over the sodden towels, he gave her a curt head bob and said, “I’m gonna go get the glass for the window. Try not to break anything else while I’m gone.”
Her back went stick-straight. Tugging her shoulders back, the force sending her 38 double Ds pushing forward in all their glory, indignation doused her voice. “For the record, I didn’t break the window.”
His gaze cut to the toilet, then back to her.
“That wasn’t broken, merely clogged. And not by me.”
Silently, and with another headshake, he quit the bathroom. Twenty seconds later she heard a truck engine turn over. She flew to the front door and peeked out through the frosted glass. He’d hopped into an ancient red pickup with a side logo of a hammer and toolbox that read Mr. Fix It along with a phone number.
“Mr. Fix It, my ass,” she mumbled. Then, because the said area throbbed a bit, she rubbed a hand over it and sighed.
“What I wouldn’t give for a decent cup of coffee.”