Brady slowed down when he came to the turn that was familiar but not.
The trees along the drive had grown taller, their canopies thicker, and newer, smaller trees sprouted out of the ground between them. He couldn’t tell if the flowers his mother had planted at the sides of the property entrance were still alive under the layer of snow covering everything or if the forest had reclaimed the flowerbeds she’d spent so much time tending.
One thing he could tell was the neglect of the driveway. Even with the snow he could see tall grass grew on what was once a gravel track. He’d have to fix that. It shouldn’t be too hard but he’d need to wait until spring to do a proper job.
Having four-wheel drive helped navigate what amounted to off-road conditions but he still brought the truck to a crawl as he bumped along. Inch by inch he made his way toward the house he’d always thought of as home.
Even when it had resembled a war zone.
It had been all he’d known for his first fourteen years. Strange how almost as many years away couldn’t change that deep sense of connection. The home Hank had given Brady and his mother had been a sanctuary compared to the house he slowly made his way toward and yet, this one would always be home in his heart.
Excitement and trepidation mixed together to make his nerves dance, his chest tighten.
He expected to find the place rundown, especially since no one had lived here for weeks, and he had no idea if his father or Marcus had looked after the place over the years. Throw in the storm that had swept across the mountain Christmas Day and he wouldn’t be surprised to find snow had caved the roof in, and no doubt the pipes would be frozen.
Power would be an issue too. He had planned for the possibility of camping out. Good thing he didn’t mind the cold and he’d come well equipped for both the freezing temperatures and being out in the open.
The back of his truck was packed with gear. He had everything he needed to spend a night or more outdoors. He would have to figure out what repairs he needed to do fast though. They were due to get another round of snowstorms next week.
Roof and pipes would be first. Windows, doors, walls. Probably should put a generator on that list too. He didn’t think the one here would still run. Lots of work to do before spring arrived.
Two months.
Roughly two months to get his life in order before he took his first set of adventurers into the mountains. Brogan and Quinn shut their operation down through the winter months but everything fired up again the last week in March. Day treks, overnighters, and the longer camping trips happened March through October.
Brady had jumped at the chance to work at Wild Encounters. He’d heard a bit about them from people he’d guided at his old job. It wasn’t until his mother had died last year that he’d even entertained the idea of coming home. But when he’d heard of the job opening and that his father was no longer sovereign, he couldn’t apply fast enough.
He’d accepted the position only days before he received the call about his brother.
The news hadn’t changed Brady’s desire to come home. If anything, it had grown greater—more urgent.
There were so many ghosts that needed to be put to rest. Discovering his father’s body lay in the cold-storage unit alongside Marcus had been a shock. He hadn’t felt anything either way about the demise of the man who’d raised him. Probably because Malcolm Connelly had very little hand in making Brady the man he was. That had been all his mother’s doing. And the man she’d sought refuge with all those years ago.
Brady smiled when he thought of Hank. He’d never met the man before that day, but the relief coming off his mother when they arrived on Hank’s doorstep had been obvious. He knew they’d found someone they could trust.
Hank, according to Brady’s mother, was an old friend. It took a few years for Brady to fully figure out what kind of old friend Hank was.
They’d been lovers before. And after.
In the years following their arrival, Hank had proven time and time again his love for Brady’s mother as well as Brady. If he were honest, Brady would admit to wishing more than once that Hank was his father, that they’d always lived on the farm in Nebraska.
When Hank died in a freak accident out in the fields, Brady had felt as though part of himself had been ripped away. To say his mother had been devastated was understating it. She’d curled in on herself and left the work she’d once shared and enjoyed with Hank to their employees.
Brady still couldn’t believe how much Hank’s place was worth or that he’d left it all to him and his mom.
Things had been different after the accident; his mother barely talked, never smiled, and as her health deteriorated, Brady knew he’d be saying goodbye to her soon. On her death bed, she’d made him promise to find his brother. Make peace with Marcus.
He still wasn’t sure what she’d hoped to achieve by extracting that promise but it was too late now to keep it. Then again, he stared through the windshield as his childhood home came into view; maybe he could find peace for himself. Put some ghosts to rest and make a future here, in the house where he’d been born.
Surprise filled him when he pulled up in front of the house. The place wasn’t nearly as rundown as he expected. If he didn’t know better, he’d think someone still lived here. Except there was no smoke coming from either of the chimneys and if someone was here they’d have at least one fire roaring to warm the place up.
Turning off the truck, Brady climbed out and looked around. Other than the layer of snow covering everything, the whole area had a lived-in feeling. He supposed it had been lived in until a few weeks ago. From what Sheriff Turner had told him in their one brief phone call, Marcus had been here, teaching at the high school, until early December when he’d kidnapped the sovereign’s mate and been exiled from the pack.
Brady didn’t have all the information on that yet, but he planned to meet with the sheriff and find out exactly what had happened. He’d thought about asking the sovereign except Brogan was his boss and that didn’t seem like the right thing to do this early in his new employment. He wanted to keep those areas of his life separate for now. They were bound to mix eventually but he wanted to make sure nothing got tangled in a way that could affect either his job or his place within the pack.
With a deep breath, Brady shook off his thoughts and moved toward the house. Shin-deep snow made the walk slow; not knowing what might lie beneath that layer of white slowed him further.
He paused at the bottom of the steps. It wasn’t anxiety he felt, more a buzz of anticipation. These next steps were the first of his future.
Coming home had been the plan. Finding his mate here, in the mountains he’d spent years yearning for, to find she was someone he’d loved as a kid…
Ren.
Memories bombarded him.
She’d been his best friend—his everything—when they were younger. He’d let her boss him around, let her lead him into trouble. Now that he’d seen her again, he couldn’t fathom how he’d survived all these years without her.
It had cut him deep to leave and not look back, not try to contact her. The one time he had tried, his mother had nearly had a heart attack and made him promise to never do it again. Told him to forget about everything and everyone to do with Whispering Springs.
He’d tried to follow her wishes. He really had. Except forgetting Ren had been impossible and now he knew why. They might have been too young to understand their connection in their youth but they were both well aware of what it meant now.
The question was what they’d do about it.
She hated him.
He couldn’t blame her.
Except…he couldn’t accept that. Wouldn’t. If it took him every breath until the day he died, Brady would work to change her mind.
He’d give her every reason to love him again.
But first he had a house to check and a list to make.
He bounded up the front steps and it wasn’t until he reached the top that he thought about what a foolish move that was. The house might look lived it but that didn’t mean it was sound. He could have broken a leg if one of the steps had given way under his weight.
With a little more care, Brady crossed the small porch and reached for the door. He wasn’t sure why he expected it to be unlocked but he twisted the handle and pushed the door open anyway.
Frowning, he eyed the mechanism and realized it was a simple door handle without a lock at all. The back of the door didn’t reveal a deadbolt either so there was no way of locking the front door. A glance down revealed something more unexpected. A metal plate with a hole at one side covered the threshold.
Brady stepped inside and pushed the door closed to inspect it more closely. What he discovered confused him a little. No deadbolt but there were two heavy duty slide bolts with padlocks. One at the bottom of the door that corresponded with the plate at his feet and another bolt at the top that fitted into a solid steel bar that spanned the doorframe.
A thought struck him and he opened the door again to recheck the outside. Frowning, he wondered how Marcus had locked the front door when he left the house. The only way to lock it was from the inside. And why would his brother need such heavy duty locks?
The door was the least of his worries though, and he headed into the living room to see what condition it was in. The fireplace was stacked ready for a match so he assumed the chimney was clear but he’d take a look when he climbed onto the roof to be sure.
Each room proved the same. While the furnishings were old and a little worse for wear, they’d do for now. Every window was nailed shut prompting more questions he didn’t have a clue how to answer, and there was even some non-perishable food in the small pantry in the kitchen.
After living in the huge farm house Hank owned, Brady had some ideas of what he wanted to do with this place to improve it. First he needed to make sure the roof wouldn’t collapse on his head.
Back in the kitchen he discovered where the deadbolt was. Marcus must have been coming and going through the backdoor, not the front. Although there was another set of steel bars and slide bolts with padlocks there as well.
Nailed shut windows, padlocked doors…
What the hell had Marcus been up to?
The answer to that question might not be something Brady wanted to know. Maybe the sheriff could give him a few answers.
He found the shed locked tight with yet another set of steel bars and padlocked slide bolts. He’d need to see about getting the keys or cutting them off. Catching sight of a ladder half buried beneath the snow alongside the shed, he dragged it out, and shouldering one end, continued to drag it through the snow to the back of the house where the roof was lowest.
Steadying the thing took time because he had to dig out snow to find solid ground but once he did, he was up the ladder and on the roof. He kicked snow off with his boot to see what condition the tiles were in.
“Damn.” He gazed over the slope. “It’s a fucking brand new roof?”
Down on his knees, Brady scraped away more snow and found the same thing. New shingles.
Marcus must have replaced it recently. His brother might not have updated any of the furniture or appliances but he’d made sure the roof held up. Which meant the chimneys were probably clear. Just in case an animal had found its way into one, Brady climbed to each and used the flashlight on his phone to check.
He wasn’t a chimney sweep but he was smart enough to work out no animals had found homes inside them. Rubbing his cold hands together, he thought about starting the fire in the living room so he could defrost, then he remembered he needed to check the pipes and see if the old generator still worked.
It was going to be a long afternoon being wet and cold.