A Conard County Courtship

by Rachel Lee

  “I never thought about that.”

  She was grateful to him for keeping the subject in a safe area—safe for her. Because tomorrow they were going to have to make their way back to the Higgins house, and she was going to have to face some very old demons. She’d rather pull bones out of limestone. “We try to preserve right at the site if we can.”

  Easier to talk about than that damn house. She’d been able to forget it most of the day, but now it was looming again. It seemed ridiculous to give it so much power over her. She’d survived that period of her life, after all, even though it had eventually cost her so much.

  But the simple fact was that over the years she’d learned to hate it. Or fear it. She couldn’t decide which. Everything about that period had gotten tangled in her mind as a child, and it seemed that growing up hadn’t untwisted the knot.

  Later that evening, after Matthew had gone to bed for the night, she and Tim relaxed in the living room. She sat on one end of the dark blue couch while he sat on the other. On the coffee table was a small plate of bakery cookies.

  The wind had picked up again, rattling the windows just a bit, and Tim remarked that he hoped they didn’t need to shovel again tomorrow.

  “When the snow gets dry enough, and the wind blows hard enough, I can shovel the same dang snow six or seven times. It’s annoying. One blizzard with reruns.”

  She smiled at his description. “We don’t see much snow in Albuquerque, although we get some. Usually light, rarely more than an inch or two. I mean, you have to spread eleven inches of snow over the whole winter, on average. We might get a powder this month, like confectioner’s sugar, but the most of it will come after Christmas. I consider that a plus, I guess.”

  “Right now, I would, too. But I like living here, for the most part.” He hesitated then said, “Thinking about the house is still bothering you, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she admitted, her lips growing tight. “It’s not just the reality of what happened.”

  “No?”

  Then, on impulse, she told him something she’d never shared with anyone else. “I have nightmares about that house. Which is weird, because I always had fun when I was there. But the nightmares have come from time to time over the years.”

  “Nightmares how?”

  “It starts off feeling normal, but then everything changes. I’m all alone, and it gets darker. You know how the upstairs has that hallway?”

  He nodded. “L-shaped with three bedrooms coming off it, and the bath.”

  “Exactly. Except in my dream when I climb the stairs, it straightens out and seems to go on forever. A long, long hallway lined with closed doors. The closest thing I’ve ever seen to it is a hotel. Anyway, I know it’s Uncle Bob’s house, but I’m afraid of all those doors. Afraid of what’s behind them. And all I know is that I have to walk past all of them to the other end. I don’t have a choice.”

  “That’s creepy,” he said quietly.

  “It sure feels that way when I’m dreaming it. But it sounds almost absurd when I say it out loud.”

  “I don’t think so. I can imagine it, actually. Everything distorted, so you know where you are, but it looks different, and all those closed doors that could conceal anything? Creepy. Nightmares are more about feelings than images anyway, don’t you think?”

  “Depends,” she said after a few seconds’ thought. “But mostly I agree with you. There haven’t been too many horrific images in my nightmares, but there’s always been plenty of fear or terror. Urgency.”

  He nodded and draped his arm along the back of the couch while crossing his legs loosely. He looked so relaxed that she envied him. Her entire body ought to be relaxing, too, with all that time spent shoveling and building a snowman. But instead of feeling weary, she felt herself winding up. Anxiety about tomorrow?

  “I could quitclaim the house to you,” she blurted. “You said you’d love to make it over, to move on.”

  At that she felt tension run through him, although he didn’t seem to move a muscle. “No.”

  “No?”

  “Come on, Vanessa. You deserve to get something out of this mess, miserable though it’s making you. Secondly, I wouldn’t accept it, because it feels wrong. Unethical.”

  “But I want to get rid of it. I told you.”

  He looked straight at her. “Yeah, you did. But what you really need is to deal with it.”

  His blunt statement deprived her of breath. He was telling her what she needed to do? He hardly knew her. How dare he? “What are you saying?”

  “You mean I shouldn’t poke my nose into your affairs. Maybe you’re right. But you make it my affair when you talk about giving me that house. Could I do a lot with it? Sure. But that’s not the point here. The question is whether you’re going to run from a problem.”

  Oh, that scalded. It scalded even more because it reminded her of her childhood, of her father, who had run from everything right into the bottom of a bottle.

  She wasn’t like that.

  Was she?

  She wanted to glare at him, almost hating him in that moment, because he had left her feeling emotionally naked. Why had he done that? It felt cruel.

  When he spoke again, his voice was quiet. “Guess I was out of line. And probably wrong.”

  But he wasn’t wrong, she admitted. As knotted up as her feelings were over all of this, she recognized that kernel of truth. She wanted to run from all of this, from facing her past, from dealing with that house and all the memories it evoked. Except for the threat of taxes pursuing her down the years, or fines for code violations, she’d have ignored the entire situation.

  This man, who had known her for such a very short time, had somehow looked all the way to her soul, to one of the most private places inside her. It was unnerving.

  It was also embarrassing. She thought of herself as reasonably strong, having survived so much in previous years, including the death of both her parents. Now she was staring a huge weakness in the face and wondering if that had been the reason she had believed herself to be a sturdy survivor. Because she fled from all the difficult things?

  Gah. Hiding in the museum with ancient bones and colleagues for company was a nice little hermitage, she admitted. Yes, she loved her work wholeheartedly, but she allowed little time for anything else...like a life.

  Maybe some reevaluation was in order—but not right now. First she had to deal with the Higgins house, whether she wanted to or not. Tim was right. She couldn’t run from this one.

  It’d be nice, though, if she could. Just head back to Albuquerque and work and forget all about the house and the town she had been raised to think of as judgmental.

  But whose judgment? It was beginning to seem as if that were her dad’s. She had absolutely no reason to think poorly of this town. She hadn’t met anyone but Tim and Earl yet, but both seemed nice. Particularly since Earl appeared to know the whole sordid story. He’d been anything but judgmental. From his first phone call to tell her Higgins had left her the house, he’d been totally sympathetic about her concerns, her resentment and her anger. He’d also been totally honest about the position her uncle Bob had placed her in.

  But whether she was being fair to the town or not, it remained that she had her own issues—issues that were coming starkly into light because of that damn house. And Tim’s insight.

  She leaned forward for a cookie, realizing that she was beginning to get hungry again. She wasn’t used to being so physically active most days. Not shoveling-snow active, anyway. It had kicked up her appetite.

  “Want me to make you a grilled cheese sandwich or something?” Tim asked. “Or will cookies be enough?”

  She glanced over her shoulder at him, still leaning forward. “Reaching for a cookie means I’m starving?”

  He laughed. “Not necessarily. Ju
st trying to be a good host.”

  She turned then, still sitting on the edge of the couch, and gave him a smile. “You’re being a wonderful host. You took in a stranger, and you make me feel like I belong here, just like you and Matthew. That’s a gift.”

  “Is it?” He shrugged slightly. “Honestly, I couldn’t imagine you staying in the Higgins house all by yourself especially during the storm. Big, empty place. You’d have had heat and water, but I can’t testify to much else yet. It’s been unoccupied for a long time. I’m concerned about the air in there. I’m going to have it tested. Once I got the heat going, I don’t know what might get into the air with time, and while I’ve been leaving windows open while I work, you wouldn’t be able to do that during this storm. Anyway, there I am, looking at a house that’s barely getting back into livable state, and you, not knowing a soul here...how was I going to leave you there? What if the power went out? The heat wouldn’t shut down but you wouldn’t have a single light.”

  “That would have been spooky,” she admitted.

  “Spookier than your dream, probably. And once the storm really set it, you’d have nowhere to go to escape. Then there’s the motel.” He grimaced. “I don’t know for sure, but I suspect the some of the truck drivers who got stuck there might think it was a great time to booze it up and have a party. A different kind of creepy for you.”

  “I’m sure. That even crossed my mind earlier. But you still didn’t have to make me so welcome in your home. I’m grateful to you.”

  “You’re welcome. I’m enjoying your company, and Matthew certainly is, too. I think he’s got a thousand times more questions than he knows how to ask about dinosaurs.”

  And that reminded her. “I’m sorry I brought up a trip to the museum. That put you on the spot.”

  He shook his head a little. “He may forget all about it and move onto a new fascination. If he doesn’t...well, he needs to go to places like that. It might have been easier to take him to the place here in Wyoming, but if he wants to go to your museum, maybe over spring break. My busiest time of the year is summer, so it’s hard to get away. But in the spring? We could fly down and spend a few days.”

  “He’d love it,” she assured him. “We’ve got more than dinosaurs to look at. All kinds of sciency things and habitats he can walk through. He might like being able to travel back sixty-five million years in time and feel as if he’s really there.”

  “I’m sure he’d like it.”

  “We have interactive displays, too, where he could try things out.” Then she caught herself. “I sound like a travel brochure.”

  “That’s okay. I was enjoying it.” His dark gray eyes seemed to dance. “You’re making me want to visit, too. However, with a boy that age...for all I know, next year he’ll be begging to go to Cooperstown.”

  She leaned back, nibbling on her cookie. “It’s true, I guess. I’ve seen kids go on and off dinosaurs pretty fast. We have summer programs and after-school programs, and I hear from the leaders that kids are always changing which program they want to be in. They kind of flea-hop around, thirsty for new things all the time.”

  His smile changed subtly, and something about the shift made her heart skip and a drizzle of purely sexual hunger run through her. What was different?

  But it was as if the very air had changed. From talking about the museum to this? She must be imagining it. After all, she’d been fighting her attraction to him since they’d met—a whole day and a half ago. Too soon, too fast.

  And maybe that very thing would make it safe, said a portion of her traitorous mind. How much threat could there be in something that would be over almost before it started?

  “So...” He drew the word out. “You know I’m widowed. But what about you? Husband? Boyfriend? Girlfriend?”

  “None of the above,” she answered, trying to sound flip but instead hearing her own voice come out on the husky side, revealing entirely too much.

  Then, almost as quickly as the air had started to turn smoky with desire, he swept it away. “I always thought it was good to be happy on your own before getting involved with someone. Less neediness.”

  Well, he was probably right about that, but where was this coming from? “What are you trying to say, Tim?”

  He shook his head a little as his expression grew almost rueful. “I think I’m trying to avoid taking this moment to places it shouldn’t go. We only met yesterday, and I don’t want you—or me, for that matter—to regret you accepting my hospitality. You should be safe here.”

  “What if I feel safe?” she asked impulsively. Her cheeks heated almost instantly with embarrassment.

  “Then tell me that again in a few days. Now about tomorrow... I want to give you a really good tour of the house. We can talk about how much you want to do before you have to get back home. How much is essential and how much might help with selling it.”

  All business again. Somehow she felt as if she’d just lost an important opportunity. Surprisingly, the loss made her ache.

  * * *

  In the morning, there was no escaping the return to reality. She rode along with Tim when he took Matthew to school, but then they headed to the Higgins house.

  “Matthew’s a real pistol,” she remarked.

  “A constant joy,” he agreed.

  Then silence fell, mainly because she felt tension winding around her, stretching her nerves. No matter how hard she tried to tell herself it was just a house, that it was not some kind of living beast that could attack her, she was afraid of the memories it might evoke, so it might as well have been alive. Or haunted.

  Usually she could look back over her past with a reasonable amount of objectivity. Time had passed, and she had grown up, the loss of her parents no longer as fresh. Yes, she still grieved for them, but the grief had grown quieter. And in the case of her father, the anger had gradually worn away. He’d been a crushed man, and while drowning himself in alcohol had been stupid and cruel to those he loved, he’d been a mortal and had succumbed. People made mistakes. It wasn’t easy to recover from some of them.

  So the man had made two huge mistakes in his life. He’d completely trusted a lifelong friend, and then he’d tried to wash away that mistake in alcohol. Even his few attempts at AA had failed.

  He couldn’t live with himself.

  And that’s what the Higgins house signified to her now. Adulthood had helped her to gain some understanding of the mechanisms that had affected her life, but it hadn’t quite relieved her of all the fallout.

  Even now she would unexpectedly turn a corner in life and be drawn up short as she realized she was facing a scar from the past. She hadn’t walked through all of that untouched. She’d have to be insensate not to respond to the difficulties and wounds.

  But the important thing was that she deal with it, get this job done and return to her life. While she tended to be solitary outside work, she had a great time at work and with her colleagues. Relating on a professional level was comfortable—comfortable enough that sometimes she went out to lunch or after work with a couple of people. But it didn’t extend beyond that.

  The house loomed before them as Tim turned into the driveway. Memories couldn’t hurt her, she reminded herself. So why was she so unnerved? Because the place would remind her of a brief time when her life had been full and happy, and how that had been so suddenly ripped from her.

  Ludicrous. She’d dealt with that. She was beginning to feel like a whiny child.

  The house smelled different from when she’d first entered it two days ago. Evidently the heat had warmed it through and through, and maybe had pulled old odors out of the walls. It was definitely musty, but she thought she could detect the aroma of Bob’s cigars.

  “Oh, man,” she murmured as she stood inside.

  “What?”

  “Can you smell the cigars
? Bob had one going all the time. I guess the smell is in the walls.”

  “Probably in the furniture, too. I presume you’re going to get rid of it. After twenty years in an unregulated environment, I’m not sure it’s any good anymore.”

  “I certainly don’t want any of it.” Most assuredly. The couch in the living room—she remembered jumping on it with Bob’s daughter Millie, until they’d both been scolded. The rug had provided an area where they built towns and drove toy cars or set up tea parties for their dolls.

  The kitchen was no better. She’d eaten a lot of homemade cookies in there. And upstairs were bedrooms where she’d played or sometimes spent the night. Even the backyard was haunted with memories of barbecues when Bob would invite a lot of his clients. Or his marks, if she were honest about it.

  “Let’s gut it,” she said abruptly.

  Tim looked askance at her. “Do you mean that? Really?”

  “Gut it,” she said again. “This whole town will be better for losing every possible memory of Bob Higgins. I mean, even his wife left him and changed her last name. The kids, too, I think I heard.” She stepped farther inside. “If we can do it, I want to erase every mark in here that Higgins left behind.”

  He gave a low whistle. “That could get expensive.”

  “He left me some money. Earl advised me to keep it until I caught up with expenses. I just wanted to give it away, but maybe he was right. If I possess some of his ill-gotten gains, how much better if I use it to erase his existence?”

  At that, a laugh escaped Tim. “Check. Erase Bob Higgins. Maybe we can do it without bankrupting you if you want to help.”

  “I’ve got a couple of weeks of vacation. I was planning to use most of it for a skiing trip in the mountains back home, but I could use it for this.” She felt a smile spring to her lips. “You know, I think it would give me a great deal of satisfaction.”

  He shook his head a little, but his smile remained. “And to think I was trying to budget for minimal repairs to make the place pass an inspection for sale. Now you want to go whole hog?”

  “As much as I can. I’ll be thrilled, for example, if I never have to smell that cigar again.”