“I didn’t say I was going to give him a treat,” she said. “This is just something to help with his recuperation.”
Apparently Hercules knew what the word “recuperation” meant. He immediately looked at his back right leg where a patch of black fur was beginning to regrow. He’d had to have stitches there after catching his leg on some old wire fencing buried in the bushes between my house and the one next door belonging to the Justasons. Mike Justason had immediately cleared out all the rusted wire and trimmed back the bushes. He had a dog that often nosed around in the same spot. Hercules was still giving the area a wide berth.
Neither Hercules nor Owen liked to be touched by anyone other than me, probably because they had been feral early in their lives. That made visits to the vet traumatic for everyone, but Roma had managed to sedate Hercules so she could clean and stitch his wound and give him a shot. She’d been watching him carefully for any signs of infection since then.
The cat had suffered through the indignity of wearing a cone for several days and was still trying to convince me to wait on him every chance he got.
“He’s already recuperated,” I said as I pulled on my dark gray hoodie. It was cooler than usual for late May. I fished the keys to my truck out of my right pocket. “I’m ready.”
Hercules followed us out into the sun porch and hopped up onto the bench by the side window. “We’ll be back soon,” I said.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rebecca wink at him. I was pretty sure that like every other conversation I had had with Rebecca—or really anyone else—about treats for Owen and Hercules I was going to be roundly ignored.
We climbed into my truck and I headed up Mountain Road. Until recently, Wisteria Hill, where Roma and Eddie lived, had belonged to Rebecca’s husband, Everett Henderson. He’d sold it to Roma. Now Roma and Eddie were married and they were working on the property, turning it back into the much-loved home it had been when Everett was young. It was Everett who had brought me from Boston to Mayville Heights to oversee the renovations to the library for its centennial—his gift to the town. I had originally come to town on a two-year contract to supervise the project. I hadn’t expected to stay. I hadn’t expected that I would ever want to stay.
Back then I’d wanted to shake up my life for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that my boyfriend, who had gone to Maine on a two-week fishing trip after we had had a major fight, had come back married. And not to me. (For the record: friendly diner, even friendlier waitress, lots of alcohol.)
I loved my wacky family—Mom and Dad, and Ethan and Sara. And I missed them like crazy. They were all artistic; impetuous and unpredictable. Mom and Dad were actors. Ethan was a musician. Sara was a makeup artist and filmmaker. The artistic temperament had somehow skipped me. I was organized, responsible, pragmatic. Someone had to run the washing machine. Someone had to keep us in Band-Aids, ice packs and aspirin.
I had been the practical person in the family as far back as I could remember. Coming to Mayville Heights, coming halfway across the country to Minnesota, had been the most impulsive thing I’d ever done. I hadn’t expected to make friends, to make a whole new life.
So many things had changed for me in the last four years. I’d made friends who felt like family, fallen in love with the incredibly handsome and equally stubborn Detective Marcus Gordon and I’d found Owen and Hercules—or, closer to the truth, they had found me.
“Do you remember the first time you saw Wisteria Hill?” Rebecca asked as though she had somehow known what I was thinking.
I shot her a quick sideways glance. “Yes, I do.” For a long time Everett had had complicated feelings about his family homestead. He didn’t want to live there, but he wouldn’t sell the property, either. It had been overgrown and neglected when I discovered the old farmhouse one late winter day just after I’d arrived in town.
“Hercules and Owen were just kittens then,” Rebecca said. “I have a photograph somewhere of them sitting on your back steps.”
I grinned. “They were so tiny the first time I saw them, but they were determined to come home with me. I had no idea I was going to end up with two opinionated, furry roommates.” I had actually carried the kittens back up the long driveway a couple of times when they’d followed me, but they would not be dissuaded.
I glanced at Rebecca again as the road curved uphill. “Do you ever regret Everett selling the property to Roma?” I asked.
Rebecca’s mother had kept house for the Hendersons as well as using her herbal remedies as a kind of unofficial nurse to most of the townspeople. Rebecca had basically grown up at Wisteria Hill and she and Everett had loved each other all their lives.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw her smile as she shook her head. “No, I don’t. I’ve seen what can happen when you live in the past. I have so many happy memories of the place as a child, picking blueberries in the back field and blackberries on Mulberry Hill, climbing trees, swimming in the stream. But I don’t want to go backward. I like where we are now.”
“So do I,” I said. Rebecca and I were backyard neighbors. She was the one who had first taken me to tai chi class and to Meatloaf Tuesday at Fern’s Diner.
“I’m happy that Roma and Eddie are building their life out at Wisteria Hill. That’s how it should be.”
When we got to the top of the long driveway we spotted Eddie up on a ladder in a clearing back away from the driveway, working on one of the small outbuildings on the property that had been moved up closer to the old carriage house. The farmhouse was to the right of the driveway. It was white with dark blue shutters and yellow doors. Roma had done a lot of work on the house even before she and Eddie had gotten married—which had taken place in their living room.
“One thing I most certainly do not miss is that bumpy old driveway,” Rebecca said.
I nodded in agreement. For a long time the driveway had been nothing more than two ruts cutting through an overgrown field. In the winter it was icy. In the spring it was more like a mud hole. I thought about all the times I had bounced my way to the top, on my way to feed the feral cat colony, fingers crossed that I’d make it safely up and then back down again.
I parked and we got out of the truck. Rebecca looked down the driveway. “I remember one time being in the backseat of Everett’s old Impala. About halfway up that hill we hit a pothole that must have been six inches deep. My head smacked the roof of the car and I said a rather unladylike word.”
I put my arm around her shoulders. “And exactly what were you doing in the backseat of Everett’s Impala?” I teased.
“A lady doesn’t kiss and tell,” she said with a sly smile. “But I do miss that old car sometimes. I wish Everett still owned it. It had a lovely backseat.” She bumped me with her hip. “I would have loaned it to Marcus. You two would probably be married by now.”
With that Rebecca walked over to greet Eddie. I just shook my head and followed her. Marcus and I had met because of one of his cases. For a while he’d actually considered me a person of interest. It wasn’t the best way to start a relationship, which didn’t stop what felt at times like the entire town from trying to play matchmaker.
As I got close to the old carriage house I was hit with the memory of Eddie’s daughter, Sydney, getting stuck up in the hayloft. When her soon-to-be-stepsister—Roma’s grown daughter, Olivia—had tried to reach Sydney she had gotten trapped on the shaky platform as well. I’d been able to use a little physics along with a lot of luck, a coil of rope and a rusted chain to get them both down.
Eddie followed my gaze as I joined him and Rebecca and I saw him swallow hard. “I’m so glad you were here that day,” he said.