“Those are rumors.” Surely Maudine Bellows hadn’t really laid bear traps around the grounds of her house in order to keep children from coming onto her lawn. “You don’t happen to have a metal detector, do you?”
That smile of his lit up her world. “You want me to do a perimeter sweep? I bet you can find about a hundred baseballs and footballs. Kids in this county have been terrified of Maudine for years. I know she just about scared me to death the one time I was brave enough to try to sell her popcorn when my Boy Scout troop was raising money. She opened the door with a shotgun in her hand and told me popcorn killed her last cat.”
Mouse walked up the steps. Despite the decrepit look of the stairs, they were solid under her feet, like the house itself. The huge wraparound porch likely needed nothing more than a coat of weatherproof paint. The cornices were in superb shape. She was going to have to work to save the stained glass, but it was worth it.
The porch overlooked the huge yard. In her mind’s eye she could see a couple of rockers sitting on the porch. They would be there when she watched the sunset with her husband. Who always looked like Bo.
Stop. You are not keeping this house. This house is your key to the future. You just sank everything you had into this house and ten thousand more.
And Bo won’t ever be more than a friend.
Mouse often thought her inner voice was far too practical. Her inner voice was always angelic. She wondered if she’d been born without the devil others seemed to have. A little devilish voice might be fun from time to time.
“What the hell are you planning on doing with all these rooms, Mouse?” Bo stood, scratching his head and looking up at the second story. “I heard there are five bedrooms in this place. You planning on getting a couple of cats or something?”
She wrinkled her nose at him. She wasn’t ready to become an old woman with too many cats. She was only twenty-five. And she had a million ideas on what to do with the rooms. “I’m just going to fix them up.”
Bo tried to open the screen door. The handle came off in his hands. “I don’t know about this. I think an apartment might have been a better idea. I heard the complex on Oak Street has a vacancy. I don’t know if I like the thought of you living here all by yourself.”
The building was called the Oak Street Manors. There was nothing manorial about the place. It was gray and boring. Every unit was just like the next. Mouse wanted something beautiful in her life. After two years of hospitals, she needed to build something lovely and amazing.
“Forget I said that.” He set the screen door handle aside. Bo stood, looking at her with his hands on his hips. “I can’t imagine you in one of those little things. You wouldn’t have any place to put your books. When am I supposed to move all those boxes, by the way? Please say Saturday. I played poker with Lucas last night, and he lost. I made him promise to help move you.”
Mouse smiled. She liked the idea of Lucas O’Malley helping her move. Oh sure, he was her part-time boss’s husband, but he looked awfully nice without his shirt on. Maybe there was a little devil in her, after all. “Saturday it is, then. I don’t have to be out of Dad’s place until next month.”
Her father’s place. She had lived there for almost twenty-six years. She had never known another home. All of her memories were wrapped up in that little two-bedroom house. She’d shared a room with her sister for years. She’d grown up in that house.
She’d watched both of her parents die in that house.
The small, ranch-style house on Pine Street held her whole childhood, but it was past time for Mouse Hobbes to become a woman.
“Did I ever thank you for helping me with the funeral?” It had only been a month since she’d buried her father. Tears pricked at her eyes. Her dad. She missed him with every fiber of her being. Her sister, Bonnie, had stood beside her, but Bonnie had a husband and all her friends. Bonnie was the golden girl. She’d left home as soon as she was able to. Mouse had stayed behind. Mouse had nursed her mother and then her father as cancer ravaged them both.
It hadn’t been Bonnie who sat with her in the funeral home making arrangements. It had been Bo O’Malley.
“You know I’d do just about anything to help you, girl.”
Anything but sleep with her. Oh, she had to put that out of her head. “I know. I just wanted to say thanks.”
“Well, you’re welcome. It’s the least I can do.” His cell phone rang. He looked down at the number, and a little smirk took over his face. Mouse knew that smile. She felt her whole soul sag. “Hey. I wasn’t sure you were going to call me, pretty thing.”
Bo winked at her and held out a hand that let her know he’d be back. He walked off, talking to some girl. He would have met her at a bar or a party. Places where Mouse never went.
He was never serious about those women, but one day Bo O’Malley was going to fall in love, and it wouldn’t be with her. He considered her a friend, a sister. They had an odd relationship, and there was no way it would last. When he found a serious girlfriend, Mouse would be out.
She looked up at the house she’d just bought. This house was her future. When she had enough money, maybe she would leave and find some new place.
Or maybe she would stay because she could change locations, but things would always be the same if Mouse herself never changed.
“Hey, I gotta go, Mouse. Clarissa is waiting for me,” Bo said, walking out to his truck. “You want me to take you back home?”
Clarissa Gates. Perfect hair, perfect nails. Daddy’s little princess. At twenty-seven, she had never had to leave her prom queen crown in the closet. Since Karen Wilcox had imploded a couple of years back, Clarissa had taken over as the town’s queen bee. And now she was after Bo, and Bo seemed perfectly happy to get caught.
She shook her head. She had some work to do. The boxes held the contents to make the master bedroom livable. She could spend the night here if she wanted. The bedroom and the master bath were the only parts of the house that weren’t falling apart. “No. I think I want to stay here for a while.”
Bo frowned. “Come on. Let me take you home.”
When he pushed her, she always caved. The impulse was right there. She wanted to get in the truck and let him take her home because he would worry. He would worry about her, but that wouldn’t stop him from chasing after Clarissa. Mouse was damn tired of being everyone’s friend. She thought about the plan she’d come up with the night before. Bo wouldn’t like it, but she wasn’t really Bo’s responsibility.
It was time to stand on her own. “No. This is home.”
“Fine. But I’ll pick you up for dinner. I’ll be back here at seven o’clock.” Bo shook his head as he walked away.
Mouse fit that key into the lock. It might fall down around her, but this was home for now.
Trev stopped the truck in front of the big, rambling ranch house. It was no longer attached to a ranch. The land had been sold long ago, but the house still stood. There was still a tire swing hanging from the branches of the giant oak tree. How many times had he pushed his sister in that swing? Looking at it now, he could still her pigtails hanging down as she threw her body back. She had been the worst giggle bunny. She would laugh and laugh as he got that old tire to go higher. They would run and play until Momma finally called them in for dinner, her head shaking at how dirty they were.
How had he gotten so lost?
His hands shook just a little. Too much caffeine. He always had too damn much of something. He put the truck in park and slid out.