by Stacy Finz
Geez, enough with the inquisition. Colin had stuff to do.
“I don’t know,” he said. “In her twenties, maybe. I’m not good at that.”
“And that’s why we love you,” Mariah teased. “Well, is she single?”
Besides being a bunch of matchmakers, everyone in Nugget liked knowing everyone else’s business. It was a town hobby. He knew people wondered about him. Luckily, no one thought he was interesting enough to dig deep. It helped that he kept a low profile.
“I better get to work.” He started for the house.
Members of the crew had spread out to staple Tyvek to the exterior walls. Colin planned to come in behind them to install windows and doors. Some of the special-order glass hadn’t come in yet. Those openings he’d cover with plastic.
“We’re taking off,” Sophie said. “If we don’t see you around, have a good weekend, Col.”
They were good people, Sophie and Mariah. They’d all moved to Nugget about the same time—he from LA and Soph and Mariah from the Bay Area. Sophie had worked for a big-time marketing firm and Mariah had founded her own software start-up. Neither wanted those lives when they turned forty.
They bought the Ponderosa, moved into the apartment above it, and hired Colin to bring the place back to life. They took one look at his house in progress and decide he was the man for the job. He and a consultant who knew everything about modern bowling alleys. He restored the original hardwood floors, did all the carpentry in the dining room, and refurbished the bar, which according to town legend had survived the gold rush.
The couple persuaded their friends Maddy and her brother, Nate Breyer, to buy the run-down Lumber Baron and recommended Colin for that job too. He’d been working ever since.
Colin strapped on his tool belt and started on the south side of the house, where the exterior had already been wrapped. He taped a window-and-door schedule to the wall and got to work. By the time he finished that side, the men had stopped for lunch, eating sandwiches on the tailgates of their pickups.
It was this time of day, while the workers took their breaks, that Colin got the most done. One blissful hour of solitude. When they finished, Colin would find a quiet spot to eat his own lunch.
He tugged the schedule down and readied to start at the back of the house. That’s when he heard a whining sound come from underneath the deck.
At first he thought he’d imagined it and continued to tack the list to the back wall. But he heard it again. This time the noise, a painful whimper, was louder. Colin got down on the deck and listened through the floorboards and heard scratching.
Someone or something was down there. Colin grabbed a flashlight from his toolbox, hiked down the embankment, and swept the light over the crawl space.
“Anyone in there?” he called.
Another whimper. This one more pitiful than the last.
Shit! The last thing Colin wanted to do was crawl around in a hole twenty-four inches tall. He could get one of the guys. But then he’d have to hand in his man card and leave his balls at the door.
“Hey,” he called back under the deck. “Do you really need me to come in and get you? Or can you come out on your own?”
He got his answer in the form of a yelp. Then a wounded cry. Colin did another sweep with the flashlight and saw nothing, which meant whatever he was dealing with was jammed way back there, farther than Colin wanted to go. Hell, he didn’t want to go in at all. Every time he looked at the crevice, it got smaller and smaller. Darker and darker. Even with the flashlight.
He took off his jacket because it had suddenly gotten so hot that Colin couldn’t breathe. “How you doing in there?”
“Errrrr,” came a weak cry.
“Okay. I’m coming in.”
He crawled in halfway, but quickly came back out, his heart pumping so hard that he thought it would explode out of his chest. “Breathe,” he told himself, and for the next few seconds concentrated on the exercises the therapist had taught him.
“Errrrr.”
“Okay, chill. I’ll be there in a few seconds.”
He got on his hands and knees and inched his way back in, using the light to guide him. The joists and beams felt like they were closing in, smothering him, as if someone were holding a pillow over his face.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Focus.
Task.
Straight ahead.
“Where you at?” Colin called into the darkness.
“Errrrr.”
A few feet away, huddled next to a deck post, was a black-and-white fur ball. “You okay?”
The dog, which looked like some kind of shepherd, let out a long whimper and thumped its tail like it sensed Colin was a friend, not a foe.
“There better be a good reason that you made me crawl through hell.”
The dog made another high-pitched, “Errrrr,” then cocked its head to the side.
The mutt was a mangy thing. Scrawny and disheveled. And if Colin wasn’t mistaken, the animal’s belly was matted in blood.
To keep from spooking the dog, Colin slowly reached out his hands, getting a wet-nosed sniff and a few tentative licks for his trouble. Sticking the flashlight in the waistband of his jeans, Colin gingerly lifted the animal, crawled back out, and didn’t stop until he saw blue skies.
“We made it.” Colin gasped for breath and tried to regulate his breathing as the dog licked his face. “Knock it off. That’s gross.”
Once his pulse returned to normal, Colin used the sunlight to closely examine the animal—a male—and found a nasty cut. Maybe from barbed wire; he couldn’t tell. But the raised incision was oozing blood and looked infected. Colin put his jacket back on, hefted the dog into his arms, and carried him to his truck.
“Whaddya got there?” Jack, one of the workers, finished a soda, crushed the can, and chucked it into the Dumpster.
“An injured dog. I found him under the house. You know where there’s a vet around here?”
“Nearest one’s in Graeagle. Right there on Main Street,” Jack said, coming over to pet the patient. “He’s bleeding, poor dog. Here, let me put some Tyvek sheeting on the seat of your truck.”
“Thanks,” Colin said. “You guys okay with me taking off? I’ll come back later and close up the openings before the snow hits.”
“Sure.” Jack checked his watch and smiled. “It’s practically the weekend anyway. You want me to call the vet, let him know you’re coming with an emergency?”
“Yeah, that would be great.” He didn’t think the bleeding was life threatening, but the infection could be serious.
Two hours and three hundred dollars later, Colin drove up McCreedy Road. “This place look familiar, boy?” The dog, whose nose rested on his two front legs, looked up at Colin with doleful eyes—one blue and one brown. “You buzzed on doggy tranqs?”
When Colin knocked on Clay McCreedy’s door, his fiancé, Emily, answered and looked a little surprised to see him. “Hey, Colin.”
“You by any chance missing an Australian shepherd mix, about two years old?”
“No. I don’t think so.” Emily invited him in and called to Clay, “We’re not missing a dog, are we?”
Clay came into the foyer and nodded a greeting at Colin. “Nope, at least not that I know of. One of the barn dogs might’ve gone for a stroll. You got her with you?”
“It’s a he, and he’s in my truck.”
Emily and Clay grabbed their jackets off a hall tree and followed him outside. Colin opened the passenger side of his truck. The dog thumped his tail a few times, stood up, did a couple of turns, and dropped back down, looking up at Colin like What now?
Clay scratched the dog under his chin. “Not one of mine.”
“He’s so sweet,” Emily said. “Where did you find him?”
“Under Sophie and Mariah’s new deck. He was filthy and cut up on barbed wire. The vet cleaned him, gave him a shot of antibiotics and
stitched him up. He didn’t have a collar or one of those tracking chips. Dr. Weil thought I should check with some of the local cattle ranchers, since he’s a herd dog.”
“Sophie and Mariah’s property is a good five miles from any cattle ranches,” Clay said. “While it’s possible that the dog might’ve gotten hurt and run off to lick his wounds, it’s more probable someone dumped him off. Unfortunately, it happens all the time. You could put a notice in the paper, but I doubt anyone will claim him.”
The dog had cuddled up next to Emily’s leg as she stood inside the truck door, stroking his head.
“You want me to take him off your hands?” Clay asked. “I got room in the barn for one more.”
Colin scrubbed his hand through his hair. The dog would probably like a place like this. Plenty of animals to keep him company, young kids to play with, and a nice roof over his head.
“Nah,” Colin said. He and the dog had kind of bonded—maybe because they were both a little lost. “I’ll keep him unless someone comes forward to claim him.”
“Man’s best friend,” Clay said, wrapping his arm around Emily’s shoulder.
Colin could use a friend.
Once they got back on the road, he reached over to scratch the dog behind his ears. He seemed to like that. “You got a name, boy?”
The pooch just gave him another one of his doleful stares and licked his hand.
“You look like a Max to me,” Colin said, sliding the dog a sideways glance. “What do say? Max work for you?”
The dog let out a bark, and Colin grinned the rest of the way home.
“Oh my God,” Darla mouthed to Harlee, her mile-long fake eyelashes fluttering at the array of miniature pastries, finger sandwiches, and salmon pinwheels decoratively arranged on tiered silver servers.
“Wow.” Harlee waited until their host was well out of earshot. “This is not what I expected. It’s so sophisticated.”
“It’s absolutely lovely, girls.” Harlee’s mom poured each of them a cup of tea.
At sixty-one, Leigh Roberts had the kind of grace and beauty that still turned heads. She wore her hair, now completely silver, in a stylish chin-length bob. Unlike Harlee, who’d become a slave to designer labels, Leigh chose clothes that were arty, one-of-kind pieces that she liked to accent with exotic scarves or interesting jewelry.
“Thank you so much for thinking of this,” Leigh said to Harlee.
“It was Darla’s idea,” Harlee told her mother, taking in the ornate dining room with its decorative cornices and antique sideboard. “This part of Nugget is not at all like when we used to come here, is it, Mom?”
“No, but I always thought that this old building had tremendous potential. And someone with a fine eye for detail must’ve seen it too, because the place is gorgeous.”
“Why, thank you.” Maddy Shepard, owner of the Lumber Baron, introduced herself. “I was eavesdropping,” she admitted, and scoped out their group. “I know Darla, of course, and you must be Harlee, and you . . .”
“This is my mom, Leigh Roberts.”
“So nice to meet you,” Maddy said. “Thanks for coming to the inn’s first English high tea.”
“Honestly, we thought it would be a big flop,” said another woman, who had joined Maddy at the table. “I’m Donna Thurston, owner of the Bun Boy. I love that necklace you’re wearing.” She pointed at the strand of chunky amber stones Leigh wore around her neck, pulled up a chair, and plopped down. “Was it terribly expensive?”
She didn’t wait for an answer, just swept her arms around the room and said, “The tea was actually Emily’s idea.” Harlee only knew who Emily was because Darla had told her. “I myself thought maybe two people would show up. But color me wrong. The place is packed.”
Harlee looked up at Maddy, expecting to see her aghast. But the innkeeper was smiling.
“She’s an acquired taste, but we love her.” Maddy kissed the top of Donna’s head.
“Don’t you need to mingle?” Donna shooed Maddy away.
“How long have you lived here?” Leigh asked Donna.
“My whole life. But in the last few years it’s started to get interesting. Lesbians bought the Ponderosa.” She nudged her head in the direction of the square. “They’re having a baby. The baby’s father is Maddy’s brother, Nate.” She leaned across the table and with a conspiratorial gleam in her eye said, “I helped set the whole thing up. Let’s see, what else? A hot bazillionaire just moved into town—bought the Nugget Gas and Go and the fancy bankrupt planned community down the road. And Emily ghostwrote Della James, the famous country music star’s cookbook.” Donna put her finger to her lips. “That’s supposed to be classified. But the little strumpet—Della, not Emily—came to Nugget to do the photo shoot.”
“You’re kidding!” Harlee said. “I love her.”
“Not if you’d met her in person.” Donna took a quick glance around the room and whispered, “She’s a biotch.”
“Really?” Della’s songs about cheating men and crappy jobs made her seem like one of the girls, Harlee thought, disappointed.
“With a capital B.”
Maddy returned to the table to introduce everyone to Emily, who Harlee immediately recognized but couldn’t quite pinpoint from where. While Harlee tried to figure out where she’d seen her before, Emily said a quick hello and rushed back into the kitchen.
Maddy tried to pull Donna away, but the Bun Boy owner wasn’t having it. Apparently she liked a captive audience. Harlee actually found Donna to be quite entertaining. Leigh seemed to be enjoying her as well. And of course, Darla had known her since childhood.
Donna hooked another chair with her foot, dragged it to the table, and told Maddy to sit. “Take a load off, sister.”
“So, Harlee,” Maddy said, “I hear you’re Colin’s new neighbor.”
“I am,” she said, and reached for one of the mini éclairs, trying to take a dainty bite. “My God, these are good.”
“That’s our Emily,” Maddy said. “She’s an amazing cook.”
That’s when it hit Harlee who Emily was. It was the cooking that triggered her memory. Emily Mathews, once a well-known Bay Area food writer, had been huge news. Several years ago, her daughter, Hope, had gone missing from the family’s Palo Alto backyard and was never found. Harlee had been on another story at the time, but remembered the details quite well. She also recalled that over the summer there had been a new wrinkle in the cold case, something about a serial killer falsely confessing to Hope’s abduction. Apparently, Emily now lived in Nugget. Interesting.
When Harlee got home, she planned to do a little research on the matter. But now wasn’t the time to bring it up.
“Colin,” Maddy continued, “did all the Lumber Baron’s carpentry. I absolutely adore him.”
“Mmm.” Harlee, who’d lost track of the conversation, nodded. “I’m taking my mom over later to see his furniture.”
Maddy turned to Leigh. “You’ll love his shop. He built all the rocking chairs on the Lumber Baron’s veranda. Take a look on your way out. Are you staying in Nugget long?”
“Just the weekend, I’m afraid. I own a shop in the Bay Area and need to get back.”
“Too bad you all missed our annual Halloween festival on the square. Hopefully you’ll come next year, especially since Harlee’s a full-time resident now. Someone said you’re a journalist?”
“Yes,” Harlee said. Well, it was true, even if she was between newspaper jobs. “But I’m taking some time to build my start-up company.”
Harlee knew that buzzwords like “start-up” made people take you more seriously. Otherwise, they thought you sold Mary Kay or Amway, instead of inventing something that would save the world, like, say, Pinterest.
“What is it?” Maddy and Donna said in unison.
“Tell them,” Darla said, nudging Harlee’s arm with excitement.
“It’s called DataDate. I do background checks on members of online dating sites.”
Leigh po
ured another round of tea, while Maddy pulled her chair closer to the table.
“Does the service hire you to do the checks? Like to make sure the members are legit?” Maddy asked.
“Nope,” Harlee explained. “Individual members hire me to make sure they’re not being duped before taking their relationship to the next level. Some people fabricate entire stories about themselves.”
“She’s like a private investigator,” Darla bragged.
“So say a guy’s a serial killer,” Donna posed. “You can find that out?”
“Only if he has a criminal record,” Harlee said. “All my research is done using public databases. I can find out a person’s real age, marital history, divorce information, real estate worth, military record, and sometimes even employment past—stuff like that.”
“Hell, girl, if I were single, I’d pay you to do it. Thank God I have Trevor.” Spying the rock on Donna’s wedding finger, Harlee assumed Trevor was her husband.
“You really are like a private investigator,” Maddy said.
“Right?” Darla reached for a cucumber sandwich. “These are so good.”
“Feel free to put the word out. I’m always looking for clients.” Harlee wanted to mention that Darla was also looking for clients, but she didn’t want to embarrass her friend. Darla had revealed that her dad had been forced to pick up some of her hours. Business was that bad.
After they finished gorging themselves on finger food, Darla went back to the barbershop and Harlee and her mom headed for Grizzly Peak. On their way, Harlee tried to ring Colin, but no answer.
“Maybe he’s in his shop and can’t hear the phone,” she said, directing her mother to go past the Roberts’ log cabin to Colin’s house. Leigh’s SUV took the jagged road a heck of lot better than Harlee’s Mini.
As they dipped down Colin’s driveway, Leigh hummed her appreciation. “This is lovely.”
“He built it. Can you believe it?” Harlee hopped out of the passenger seat and knocked on the door. “Let’s go around back.”
Sure enough, she could see Colin in the workshop through the window. This time, Neko Case’s twangy voice boomed through the speakers while Colin sanded the top of a table.
