Present Day. Honey Ridge
A skeleton in Honey Ridge was big news. Big, terrifying news.
Valery wiped disinfectant across the dining room tables as Grayson related the discovery. He did not look happy, but he couldn’t know the turmoil bubbling in her head.
“A skeleton? At the mill? What kind of skeleton?” She tried to keep the panic from her tone.
“Human, apparently, though we only scratched the surface of the bones before we stopped digging.”
Human bones. Dear God. Valery shivered.
“How can you be sure? Do you know who it—” She paused, hand to her throat as her mind tumbled with the horrible possibility. Nine years of deep, unspoken fear rose up to choke her.
Grayson lifted a calming hand and softened his tone. He must have seen her anxiety. “Too early to know, but we shut everything down the minute we realized we’d struck bone. That’s the law.”
“You’ve already called authorities?”
“Immediately. Trey Riley from the Honey Ridge Police Department was on-site when I left, stringing yellow police tape all over the place.” Grayson didn’t look too happy about that. “The coroner should arrive sometime this afternoon to give his assessment. The bones will be exhumed and examined, and after all that, we should have some better answers.”
Valery carried the disinfectant into the kitchen. She had no heart for cleaning at the moment, but then she never did.
Forehead furrowed, Grayson followed. He was troubled by this unexpected turn of events, though he wouldn’t know how much more frightening the news would be to her. And Julia.
“Trey’s a good friend. I’m glad he’s there.” Glad and terrified. Trey’s thoughts would match hers. He’d suspect the worst.
Heart beating erratically, she washed her hands and ran a glass of water. Her throat had gone drier than talcum powder. “How long before they know something solid?”
“No idea. Days. Weeks. Trey couldn’t say.” Grayson didn’t look happy about that either. She understood, though probably for different reasons. The waiting was the hardest part. Waiting and not knowing.
Eyebrows lifted in question, she offered him the tumbler. He took it with a nod of thanks.
Before she could reach for another glass, a car door slammed out back. Valery’s heart slammed into her rib cage.
“Oh, my goodness.” She rushed to the window, thirst forgotten, to press her fingers against the pane. “I hope she hasn’t heard.”
“Valery? Are you okay? Is something wrong?”
She turned and saw the worry in his expression. Worry and bewilderment.
“Julia will be upset if she’s heard about the—the...bones.” The word “body” was too hard to say, too human, too fresh on the minds of everyone in her family.
No body was ever found. Honey Ridge boy still missing.
So many headlines and news reports that had gradually faded away, revisited only on that awful anniversary.
The grief and heartache her sister had endured back then was unbearable. Not that she ever forgot, not even for a second, but Julia had learned to keep moving and had at last found some measure of peace and pleasure with Eli. Now, once again, Julia would be reminded of the abduction and the fact that Mikey had never been found.
“Julia. Mikey. She’ll think—” Valery left her guest standing next to the refrigerator and rushed outside, letting the screen door slap shut behind her.
From her expression, her sister had already heard, and Valery was too late to ease the shock. As Julia exited the car, her face was as white as the marble angel hovering over Mikey’s Garden.
In her haste to reach her sister Valery’s flats slipped on the loose gravel. She slowed, drawing a breath to calm her jitters. Julia needed support, not hysteria from her. She could be shaken on her own time.
“Is it true?” Julia asked.
“What did you hear? Who told you?” She wanted to throttle the big mouth, whoever it was.
“We stopped at the store. The Sweat twins were there. They said a body was found.” Julia’s hand clutched at the neck of her blouse, a blue silk that made her eyes as clear as summer. At the moment, those eyes were clouded with a grief so deep only another who’d lost a child could understand.
Valery didn’t let herself go there. She was here to bolster and reassure, not wallow in her own guilt.
“No.” She put a reassuring hand on her sister’s arm. That her hand trembled was beside the point. “That’s wrong. Not a body. Bones. They aren’t even positive the bones are human.”
Maybe the last was a fudge on her part, but Grayson wasn’t a forensic expert. He couldn’t know for sure.
Eli, darkly handsome in a white shirt and a green tie that matched his eyes, slid an arm around his wife’s waist. With his quiet strength to bolster her, Valery’s sister seemed to relax a little.
“But the bones could be—human. It could be Mikey.”
Tenderly, Eli drew Julia against his sturdy chest, murmuring sweet reassurances that left a lump in Valery’s throat. Thank God, Eli and Julia had found each other. Thank God, Eli was here.
Julia pressed her face into the crook of his neck for several long moments. Valery could hear her drawing in slow, deep breaths. Then she lifted her blonde head with quiet dignity and gave one hard head bob. “I’m fine. I’m okay.”
Her bravado was more painful to watch than if she’d gotten hysterical.
“Let’s go inside. Grayson Blake is in the kitchen. He was there. He can tell you more.”
As they approached the back door, Grayson pushed it open and stood aside to let them in. Nice guy. Concerned about others. So rare.
“Is she all right?” he asked quietly.
“She will be. She’s strong.” But Julia hadn’t always been strong, and the memory of her shattered, depressed sister worried Valery. She might not survive a setback.
“I didn’t realize. Didn’t think.” Grayson followed them into the dining room where he quickly pulled out a chair for Julia. “I’m sorry.”
Julia offered him a quavering smile as she sat. “What can you tell us, Mr. Blake?”
“Grayson. Please.”
Valery didn’t want to hear the story again. Bodies under the mill. Bones. Dead people.
Not Mikey. Please, God, not Mikey.
“I’ll get you some tea.” She rushed out of the dining room, feeling stupid for offering tea when her sister’s worst nightmare might be coming true.
They’d always believed Mikey was alive somewhere. At least, they’d tried to believe. Julia clung to hope as tenacious as the mysterious antique marbles they found around the inn. But Valery didn’t believe in benevolent angels as Julia did. Since meeting Eli, Julia had found her faith again. She had hope. She believed. Valery feared she never would.
The worst had likely befallen her nephew, and guilt was like a cancer gnawing away at Valery’s insides.
“Tea. How stupid.” She gave the refrigerator door a vicious yank. The contents rattled.
As she poured golden peach tea over a tall glass of ice she wanted a shot of bourbon so desperately her hand shook. She even considered adding a jigger to her tea but resisted. Julia was upset enough. Smelling alcohol on Valery during business hours would send her over the edge.
She stalled as long as she could while Eli’s quiet voice reassured his wife, and Grayson added his knowledge of the unexpected grave site.
She didn’t want to go back in there and face her sister, knowing what she did. Neither could she allow Julia to fall back into the depression that had almost taken her life. Buying and restoring the inn had saved her sister’s sanity and probably her life, whether a benevolent angel hovered over the rooms or not.
Valery Carter was her sister’s keeper. She owed her that much.
She took a shaky drink of Julia’s tea and guzzled the pretend Jack Daniel’s.
Leaning against the brown granite counter, she drew in deep breaths to steady herself. Then she poured a second glass of the sweet beverage, put on her sister-will-take-care-of-you face and returned to the dining room.
“The police are there now, Mrs. Donovan,” Grayson was saying. “But from what they tell me, identification may take some time. DNA is a slow process.”
Julia nodded, arms tight across her waist. “You’ll let me know.”
“As soon as I hear anything.”
Eli patted his wife’s back, adding his quiet strength and love as he stood next to her chair. “Why don’t you go lie down awhile, honey?”
“I’m fine, Eli.”
Valery set both tea tumblers on the table. “Listen to Eli, Julia. You’ve had a shock. A rest will do you good. I’ll make chamomile tea instead of this and bring it up.”
As if a stupid cup of tea would take away the fear that someone had buried her eight-year-old son within walking distance of the inn.
“What if he’s been out there all this time? What if—”
“Stop it.” Valery made her voice strong and brisk. “Do not let your thoughts go there.”
Julia nodded, lips pressed together in a line. “You’re right. You’re right.”
Valery stroked a lock of her sister’s hair behind one ear, tender and encouraging. “Go on, sis. Take a break. Take all the time you need. I got this.”
Julia blinked her thanks and stood, shaky but quickly regaining her inner grit. To Grayson, she said, “I apologize, Grayson. You’ve caught me at my worst.”
Grayson touched two fingers to his heart. “No apology needed, Mrs. Donovan. If I can do anything...”
He let the offer dwindle as Eli gave a man-to-man nod of gratitude, put his arm around his wife and walked with her out of the room.
Grayson blew out a breath. “I’m really sorry. I never considered what news of an unearthed skeleton would mean to her.” His disturbingly blue gaze settled on Valery. “To both of you. You’re nearly as pale as she is.”
Pale with guilt, with a secret Julia would hate her for. If the whole truth was known, Julia would most certainly hate her because Valery hated herself. How could she expect anyone to understand what she’d done when her sister would give anything in the world to have her child safe at home?
“Sit, and we’ll talk about something else.” Grayson motioned toward Julia’s vacated chair. “Allow me to make up for my colossal blunder.”
Valery shook her head. “I have to make tea.”
“I’ll put the kettle on.” Grayson already moved toward the opening into the kitchen, long, lanky legs eating up the distance. “You sit for a few minutes while it heats.”
He moved with an unexpected grace for all his lean length. As if her mind couldn’t settle, she wondered if he danced, and the thought brought a pang so sharp she pressed a fist over her breastbone.
Moistening lips as dry as those dead bones at the gristmill, she collapsed onto the chair.
Elbow on the table, she propped her forehead in her hand.
Thoughts of the past kaleidoscoped inside her head, of her teen years, of the horrible time in Savannah, and the worst day of all when Mikey didn’t come home from school.
Valery had had a choice. Julia hadn’t.
Would she be forever haunted? Would they all?
In less than a minute Grayson returned and joined her. She pushed the extra glass of peach tea at him. “My sister’s recipe. It’s amazing.”
He nodded and sipped. “You’re right. It is.” He set the glass aside. “Want to talk about him? Or something else?”
“Mikey?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Talking is—” She waved a hand around.
“Sometimes good for you.”
“You’re a pretty smart guy, you know that?” Of course, he knew. He’d always been smarter than the rest of them. Intimidatingly smart.
His smile was soft. “So, talk. What was he like?”
“He was eight and all boy.” Eight years old. A baby. An innocent without a care in the world. She stared at the condensation forming on the glasses as if the air knew and wept. “A sweet, witty little guy who loved Cardinals baseball and Star Wars and all the usual things a second-grader enjoys. He was such a good boy. We adored him. He was the center of our family.”
“The only grandchild?”
She bit her bottom lip, her breath stuck in her throat.
The teakettle whistled. “Julia’s tea.”
Relieved to end the conversation, she jumped up and hurried into the kitchen.
* * *
Two days later, Grayson pushed back from his desk and closed the laptop. His mind was not on business. Since the painful day he’d discovered the skeleton and upset the Carter sisters, he’d thought of little else. Particularly of the innkeeper’s brunette sister.
Valery Carter fascinated him.
There. He’d admitted it.
The girl who’d bewitched him as an awkward teenager hadn’t lost her power. As an adult, she was still the flirty, popular beauty who had boys lined up like ants to a honey biscuit. Now, though, he noticed something more. Something deeper that surprised him, though, given the loss of her nephew, perhaps it shouldn’t have. The free-spirited, carefree teenager who’d tossed boys and friends aside with a laugh now cared deeply, especially about her sister.
Deeper or not, Valery was no less flirtatious than she’d been at fifteen, and if the number of times her cell phone chimed were any indicator, men still lined up like ants.
Him included, he thought with self-deprecation as the episode in the dining room swirled in his memory. He’d had the bewildering need to console Valery the way Eli had comforted Julia.
He’d sat with her until the color returned to her cheeks and she’d found her balance enough to respond to his lame efforts at distracting conversation. After he’d made her smile with a story about him and Devlin being treed by a mama pig on Pappy’s farm, she’d started to laugh and tease again, and he’d almost asked her out to dinner. Fortunately, his cell had chirped, and he’d excused himself to take a call from headquarters in Nashville. He didn’t have time for involvement, especially with a woman like Valery.
As a teenager he’d been too tongue-tied to talk to her. Now, he was smart enough to know that he was too stodgy and serious for a woman like Valery Carter. She’d die of boredom if she spent too much time in his company.
As restless as a windshield wiper, he locked the Mulberry Room and went in search of activity. Today, he had to get something moving at the job site. He had to do something. Anything.
Hand on the stair railing, he bounded down the staircase. One of the steps creaked, reminding him of the age of Peach Orchard Inn and of the many feet that had trod this way. According to Julia, the house had been a Civil War hospital and even now they sometimes sensed the presence of the family who had lived here first. The house was, she told him, slowly revealing its secrets.
He didn’t know about all that, but thanks to his grandfather, history fascinated him almost as much as the brunette innkeeper.
Clearly, the old gristmill held secrets, too. Painful, ugly secrets if a buried body was any indicator.
“Hey.” Devlin glanced up from his computer as Grayson’s feet thudded at the bottom and made the turn into the airy and elegant parlor.
The younger brother was tucked back against a Victorian divan, feet propped on the coffee table as if he owned the place. Grayson could never feel that relaxed in someone else’s house.
“Hey yourself.”
“Have you blown a gasket yet?”
Grayson glanced at his watch. “Not yet.”
Devlin knew how he was about delays. They drove him over the narrow time ledge he walked like a tightrope. He was antsy, already pushing a pencil in hopes of maneuvering other projects and contractors. Today, he’d make inquiry calls to the local authorities and put on a bit of pressure.
“I was at the scene earlier,” Grayson told his brother.
“Earlier than now?” The night owl looked horrified. According to Devlin’s droopy eyelids and the full cup of high octane next to his feet, he hadn’t been up long.
Not bothering to grace the question with an obvious answer, Grayson paced to the fireplace and studied an oval photograph of a pretty blonde woman and a Union officer—a captain if he remembered his history about the crossed bars on the man’s cap. He’d have to ask Valery about the pair.
Valery again. He huffed out an irritated sound. She was in his head too much.
“Crime scene tape all over the place and it’s crawling with authorities.”
Even the TBI—Tennessee Bureau of Investigation—forensic people had been called in to investigate.
“And the unerringly curious, too, I suppose.” Dev’s voice was lazy, slightly amused, as if he got some kick out of watching Grayson’s blood pressure rise.
He put his back to the cold fireplace. “The good old boys barely go home to eat. I wouldn’t be surprised if they started bringing a picnic lunch.”
Devlin made a face and reached for his coffee. “Ghoulish.”
“A bit, maybe, but they’re more worried than anything, I think.”
“Julia’s lost son?” Devlin cast his glance toward the kitchen and then upward, not wanting to be overheard by either Julia or Valery. The sisters zipped around the inn, ever busy. Grayson knew because his radar went on high alert every time Valery danced past. Sometimes with a load of towels, and sometimes with snacks or tea or a vacuum cleaner. Always with a smile that made him feel like a silly peacock.
She reminded him of a butterfly, flitting here and there. A toss of dark hair. The slash of smiling red lips. The flirty slant of long, amber eyes.
Ten o’clock in the morning meant one or both of the sisters were in the kitchen or upstairs cleaning rooms for the next round of guests.
They shouldn’t be able to hear the conversation, but to be sure, Grayson lowered his voice. “Everybody on-site and in town is talking about him.”
“Assuming the worst?”
“Speculating.” He huffed a long, frustrated sigh. “I want them all gone. Today would be good. Yesterday even better.”
“Pinching your schedule, aren’t they?”
“Killing it.” He grimaced. “Bad choice of words.”
Devlin swung his boots to the floor. “The mill has been there for nearly two hundred years. I tend to think the bones are much older than an eight-or ten-year-old boy.”
“I hope you’re right. Regardless of who he is or how long he or she has been buried there, our construction site is frozen until the investigation is complete. And heaven help us if we’ve dug into something prehistoric.”
“We’d have to walk away from the project.” Devlin suddenly turned serious. His mouth tipped down in thought, and he pulled at his upper lip. “Remember that builder—Josephson, I think it was—who unearthed an ancient Indian burial ground?”
Grayson tilted his head back and studied the ornate crown molding. As if he needed a reminder of what they might be in for. “He lost everything.”
“A boatload of everything. Last I heard, he declared bankruptcy and the company was dissolved. Josephson was working handyman jobs.”
Grayson hooked his hands behind his back and fidgeted. “Don’t buy trouble. For now, we’re dealing with some poor soul who can be exhumed and reburied elsewhere, so we can continue our work. Today, however, is shot. Any hope of making progress is a wash. I’ve sent the crews home.”
It set his teeth on edge and poked holes in the budget, but such was the construction business.
“Which means we might as well head back to Nashville.” Devlin slowly closed his laptop. For all his positive energy, he wasn’t any happier than Grayson.
“You go. I’m staying here as long as needed. Someone has to nag authorities and hurry things along.”
Devlin stood up, his face alight with the particular mischief Grayson knew too well. He braced for it.
“Don’t think you can fool me. You’re staying because of that feisty brunette.”
Ah, Valery. Grayson feigned ignorance. “Where did that come from?”
“I got eyes, and so do you. Every time she whips through here with that big smile, yours nearly come out of your head.”
Grayson scoffed, though his brother was half right. “Don’t be stupid. She’s your type, not mine. Fun and flirty. No substance.”
He didn’t know why he’d added that last part. He didn’t know Valery well, and he was rarely so judgmental. But Dev was pushing his buttons this morning.
“I think not, big brother. And don’t sound so old. You’re not confined to a rocking chair yet.”
With a lazy, boneless grace Devlin stretched his arms up over his head. “Do I smell bacon?”
Grayson offered him a scalding glance. “If there’s any left for stragglers.”
“No worries.” Devlin grinned that charmer’s grin. As if he thought Grayson would fall for his wiles the way women did. “Julia said she’d save me a plate. I knew I’d be up late.” He pointed a finger, still grinning. “And by the way, that pretty brunette of yours was up late, too.”
Up late? Doing what? Grayson bristled, a silly reaction to a simple statement. He was, after all, the geek who kept normal hours. Valery’s life was her business. “Told you she was more your speed.”
“Nope. She didn’t stay up late for my benefit. I worked right here until about four. She stopped in to offer coffee around one, and then she went out.”
“Out. As in with a date? At that hour?”
Devlin lifted a shoulder. “Don’t know. Didn’t hear a car. Not my business.”
“Nor mine.” He spun toward the foyer. “I have work to do.”
Devlin laughed. “No, you don’t.”
Grayson groaned. Devlin was right. The stalled construction made him grumpy, and his brother’s needling made him worse.
He spun back. “Go eat, and then go home. I’ll call when I know something.”
With a salute, Devlin started toward the kitchen as Valery entered the parlor. Regardless of how late she’d stayed up last night, she looked as fresh as the daffodils popping up in the gardens around the inn. Fresh and beautiful in a flippy red skirt that kissed her knees and a white top that hugged all the right places.
His ornery brother looked over his shoulder and pumped his eyebrows at Grayson in a hubba-hubba expression. “Don’t implode while I’m gone.”
* * *
Valery gave Devlin a warm smile and then shot Grayson a quizzical look. “Are we imploding? This early in the morning?”
The businessman looked harried, all right, and she felt a little sorry for him. Sorry, and attracted to his perfectly groomed, buttoned-up appearance. Did he have any idea how good he looked in immaculately pressed gray slacks and a turquoise shirt that turned his eyes to aquamarine?
“Delays.”
“Make you crazy.” She’d once had that same drive, that same perfectionism, and recognized it in him.
He hiked an eyebrow. “Am I that obvious?”
She laughed. “The fact that you looked at your watch when you asked is a dead giveaway.”
His grin was sheepish. “We have so much to do, and contractors are already scheduled. This delay could take days or weeks and cost us months, not to mention the money. With our tight schedules...”
“Schedules made by you.” She’d seen the spreadsheets and neatly penciled pages on his desk. Being the cleaning lady gave her insight. She hadn’t looked on purpose. They were simply there.
On second thought, maybe she had looked on purpose.
“A tight schedule keeps construction on track, keeps things moving along. Time, as they say, is money, and it waits for no one.”
“But there’s nothing you can do about a skeleton buried on your job site.”
“Right.” He breathed out a long, frustrated sigh.
“Then why not relax?” He was tight as a fiddle string. “You’re in a beautiful setting with miles of woods and creeks to explore. You’re a short drive from the river and loads of activities. Fishing, rafting, you name it. Have you even walked the grounds or driven up on Honey Ridge?”
He shook his head. “Not my thing.”
“No? Then what is your thing?” She curled a lock of hair around her index finger and tilted her head, instantly aware that she was coming on to him. She stopped, dropped her hand to her side.
“Business.”
“Ah, come on. There has to be more to life than work. Any hobbies? Anything you do for fun?”
“I mostly don’t have time for frivolous time wasters.” He stuck a hand in his pants pocket and jingled the coins there as if releasing pent-up energy.
“But if you had the extra time, what would you do?” She moved closer, tilted her head again and touched his arm. As hostess, helping him relax was her job. At least, that was her excuse.
“What did you like as a kid?”
A little smile edged up the corners of his mouth. A nice mouth, sexy and male and firm-looking. Actually, all of him looked good, from his tidy brown hair to the way he filled out a shirt.
A tingle radiated up the back of her neck. She, who had sworn off men forever. Again.
She didn’t know what was wrong with her. She knew the trouble men could be. The trouble she could be.
But Grayson seemed like a good guy, not her usual loser type. Exactly the reason he would never be seriously interested in someone like her. Like the men she dated, she was a loser, a woman who’d thrown away the greatest gift in life.
The fact that she was even thinking about Grayson in this way disturbed her. It was ridiculous.
But what was the harm in having a conversation?
She moistened her lips and ignored the nagging voice in her head that said a good man, especially one as smart and steady and controlled as Grayson Blake, was out of her league. She’d been out of control since she was fifteen.
“I see that smile,” she said. “Tell me.”
“Oh, nothing important. For some reason, I thought of the band Devlin and I used to have back in high school.”
“You were in a band?” She’d always had a thing for musicians.
“Three of us. Dev, me and our best friend, Gil. We thought we were the Backstreet Boys with instruments and destined for the big-time.” He chuckled. “Didn’t happen, of course, but we played some gigs and made a little money.”
“And the girls went wild.” She knew about that, too. She’d followed her share of boy bands.
“Devlin was the star, witty and outgoing with loads of charisma. I was the stuffed shirt at the keyboard.”
She waved a dismissing hand. “Keyboard players are hot.”
He looked amused. “And you know this, how?”
She wagged a finger at him. “Never mind.”
He laughed, and then exactly when her negative imps went silent and she started to enjoy yourself, Grayson looked at that blasted watch.
“I should head back to the mill. Maybe they’ve learned something.”
Before she could change his mind, he left her standing in the foyer, wishing her company had been enough to keep him here.