The House on Main Street

by Shirlee McCoy

  Emily.

  Always happy and laughing and carefree.

  Gone.

  It didn’t seem possible. Shouldn’t be possible.

  Tess cinched the bag and set it against the side of the house, the rumble of a car engine breaking the afternoon silence.

  Please, don’t let it be Cade. Please, don’t let it be him. Please . . .

  A black-and-white cruiser pulled up to the curb, SHERIFF emblazoned on the side.

  It was Cade. Of course. Because that was the way her day had been going.

  He got out of the car, all lithe hard muscle and restrained power. Ten years hadn’t put any paunch on his gut, taken any fullness from his dark brown hair. Hadn’t done one thing to make him less attractive.

  He met her eyes across the hood of his car.

  “Tess,” he said.

  Just that, and she was back thirteen years, hoping and praying and wishing that he’d invite her to his senior prom. He’d invited Emily, of course. A year older than Tess, a year younger than Cade, and the most beautiful girl at Apple Valley High. There’d never been any doubt that the best-looking guy in school would ask the best-looking girl. Tessa had still dreamed, though, because she’d been just young enough and foolish enough to believe that dreaming could make something true.

  She smiled, extended a hand, proud and relieved that it wasn’t shaking. “Cade. It’s been a long time.”

  “It sure has.” He dragged her into his arms.

  His shoulders had filled out.

  His chest had broadened.

  And his thighs . . .

  Man! His thighs!

  They were like rocks. Only warmer, and a heck of a lot sexier.

  “I’ve missed you, Tess,” he murmured against her hair, and she felt the warmth of his breath trickling down her spine and straight into a place she’d locked up tight. There was nothing she could do about that, but she could sound as cool and unruffled as she wanted to feel.

  This was Cade, after all. Her best childhood friend and her deepest adolescent crush. She knew how to put on an act when she was around him. She’d perfected it during the years he’d dated Emily.

  “I guess you’re here about the mess,” she said. Cool as a cucumber. Absolutely unruffled.

  “Your neighbor called. He thinks the house and property are eyesores. I can’t say I disagree.” He glanced at the house, shoved his hands into his coat pockets. His hair was just a little long, the ends brushing his collar. Soft looking. The kind of hair a woman would love to run her fingers through.

  She noticed, because she was a woman. Not because she still harbored feelings for the guy.

  “I already assured Mr. Beck that I’d get the place cleaned up as soon as possible. Things have been . . . difficult.”

  “I know. I’m not going to issue you a citation or a warning. But Zim called in the complaint, and I had to honor that. Besides, I wanted to see how your family was holding up.”

  “We’re fine.”

  “You sure?” He touched her hand, his fingers skimming along her knuckles. He’d done the same thing a hundred times when they were kids, but they weren’t kids anymore. There were ten years between what used to be and what was, and she didn’t want either of them to forget it.

  “Yes.” She stepped over a dried-out rosebush, desperate for a little space. “Thanks for stopping by, Cade. I need to get back to work.”

  “You need a place to put all that garbage. I have a pickup. I can come by tonight, throw everything in the back, and drive it to the dump tomorrow morning.”

  “That’s not—”

  “A bad idea,” Gertrude called out from the front doorway. “Why don’t you come by for dinner? I’m making pot roast. After you eat, you’ll have plenty of energy for the job.”

  “No need to bribe me. I already offered to help.” Cade grinned, flashing his dimple. The one that had always made Tessa’s heart sigh.

  “It’s not a bribe. It’s dinner. Unless you have other plans?” Gertrude sashayed onto the porch, the Santa hat still on her head, glossy red lipstick smeared across her mouth. She must have primped before making her appearance. Cade had that effect on women.

  “None that I can’t change for you, Gertrude,” Cade drawled, and Tess wanted to smack him.

  “You always were a flirt, Cade.” Gertrude returned his smile. “Come here. Give me a hug, damn it!” she barked, opening her arms.

  He walked right into them. Not even a second of hesitation. That’s the way it had always been between him and Gertrude.

  “Sorry that I couldn’t be at the funeral, Gert. By the time I got word of the accident, it was too late.”

  “I know you would have been here if you could have.” Gertrude kept an arm around Cade’s waist. “Your grandmother said you were in Japan, training search-and-rescue teams. Not my idea of a vacation. If I had two weeks off, I’d be in Hawaii.”

  “I enjoyed it. I’m glad to be back, though.” His dark blue gaze settled on Tessa again. Fine lines radiated from the corners of his eyes, hinting at passing time and dusty dreams. Tessa’s throat tightened with memories she’d shoved so far down, she’d thought they’d never find their way up again.

  “Well, the town is happy to have you back. That deputy sheriff of yours is okay, but he’s not you. Come on inside. I have something for you.” Gertrude tugged him up the porch steps and into the house.

  Next thing Tessa knew, she was standing in the sparse and dried-out yard alone.

  No more Cade.

  No more Gertrude.

  Just the pile of trash that Emily had left her and the hard, hot lump in her throat.

  Across the street, Charlotte’s front door opened, and Zimmerman walked outside, his white hair smoothed down, a road map of wrinkles lining his aged face. He caught sight of Tessa and stopped short, scowling in her direction.

  “Get that junk cleaned up, girl. ’Cause I’m getting tired of looking at it,” he called.

  Tessa offered a smile and a quick wave, then walked toward Emily and Dave’s old Victorian, leaving every bit of junk exactly where it was.

  Chapter Two

  Cade picked his way through the cluttered parlor of the old Riley house, following Gertrude into what used to be a large dining room. Now it was so stuffed with dusty junk that it should have burst at the seams years ago. This-N-That Antiques is what Emily and Dave had called the place. Public Dump would have been more appropriate.

  The front door opened and closed.

  Tessa. Deep red hair. Freckles. Violet eyes. Cade had been shocked at her beauty, surprised at how happy he’d been to see her again.

  Footsteps sounded on the stairs that led to the upstairs apartment. Floorboards creaked. A door closed.

  Apparently, Tess wasn’t quite as happy to see him.

  “Hold on just a minute, Cade. I have to get this door open.” Gertrude grunted as she shoved a few dusty items to the side and wrestled with the pocket doors that closed off the antique shop portion of the house from the old kitchen.

  “Need some help?” He reached over her Santa hat and shoved the doors apart. The room beyond smelled like mildew and dust, the dank air heavy and still. Like every other room in the house, the old kitchen was filled to overflowing.

  “Must have been awhile since you’ve been in here, Gertrude.”

  “Dave was planning to clean it out, make it a working kitchen again. We were thinking of selling coffee and cookies. Little stuff like that, you know?” Gertrude sidled past an old pinewood table and skirted by a stack of cast-iron pans. “Too bad he never got around to it. It would have made us a little money to fix this place up.”

  “Yeah. Too bad,” Cade responded, hoping she couldn’t hear the sarcasm in his voice. Dave Riley had had a million plans. What he hadn’t had was the ability to work hard enough to make a go of them.

  “You standing in judgment of the dead?” Gertrude asked, her sharp green eyes narrowed.

  “Just agreeing with you.”


  “Right.” She turned away, her bright red Santa’s hat sliding backward as she walked to an old china cabinet. A layer of grime coated the wood, and Gertrude swiped a hand over the dusty glass. “Should be in here.”

  “What?” Cade glanced at his watch. His first day back at work since his training trip to Japan, and he had a lot to catch up on. Even in a town the size of Apple Valley, crime happened. Stolen livestock. Missing pets. The occasional drunk and disorderly or domestic violence call. Not big-city stuff, but enough to keep busy.

  “Miriam’s angel.” Gertrude opened the cabinet door and pulled out a small angel. “Here it is.” She held it up triumphantly.

  Maybe six inches tall, its hands cupped around a red heart, face serene and eyes closed, the angel sported a layer of dust that couldn’t hide its beauty.

  “It’s nice.”

  “Nice? It’s more than that. It’s history. Made by Miriam Riley herself and finished on Christmas Eve, the very night she passed away. You bring this to your grandma Ida and tell her it should be displayed in the town hall.”

  She thrust the figure toward him, and he took it, the ceramic oddly warm in his hands. The angel’s face was crackled, the white glaze yellowed from age. It looked old enough to have been made by the first mayor of Apple Valley’s wife, that’s for sure.

  “Are you sure you want to donate this, Gertrude?”

  “As sure as I am about anything right now.”

  “Why don’t you wait, then? See if you still want to donate it in a few weeks?” He tried to hand the angel back, but she shook her head, nearly knocking the Santa hat from her bright orange hair.

  “If Tess has her way, we won’t be here in a few weeks. You’d better take it now before she tosses it into one of those damn trash bags.”

  “If it’s trash, that’s where it should be.” Tessa appeared on the threshold of the kitchen, her face pale, her odd-colored eyes deeply shadowed. She’d thrown on an oversized gray sweater—a guy’s sweater, unless Cade missed his guess—and it fell right to the middle of her long, lean thighs, skimming over slender curves that he didn’t remember her having when they were kids.

  “See?” Gertrude spit out, jabbing her finger in Tessa’s direction. “She’s like a one-man trash removal army.”

  “If the place wasn’t such a dump—”

  “It’s not a dump!” Gertrude cut Tess off. “It’s an antique store. It’s supposed to have antiques in it. You take the angel to Ida, Cade. I’m sure she’ll appreciate it more than my niece does.”

  Ida would appreciate it. As mayor of Apple Valley and president of the town’s historical society, Cade’s grandmother appreciated everything that had to do with Apple Valley’s past. “I’ll bring it to her. You know where to find it, though, if you change your mind.”

  “I won’t unless Tess does. I don’t know what I did wrong while I was raising her that she can’t be content to stay here where she belongs. But, no, she’s got to move all the way across the country, and now she wants to take me and Alex with her,” Gertrude griped.

  “I’m standing right here, Gertrude.” Tessa rubbed her forehead, her fingers long, the nails short and unpainted. Last Cade had heard, she worked for some fancy interior design firm on the East Coast. A small-town girl who’d made good. That’s what people said when they talked about Tess. Which they did. People in Apple Valley talked about everyone.

  “And I’m ignoring you,” Gertrude retorted. “Wait right here, Cade. I’ll get something to wrap the angel in.”

  Gertrude stomped from the room, her orange hair nearly vibrating with indignation.

  Obviously, she and Tess were back to their old habits. Arguing. Fighting. Butting heads. Nothing new there. They’d done the same almost every day for as long as Tessa had lived in Apple Valley.

  Tess didn’t look like she was up to the fight. There were dark circles under her eyes and the freckles that dotted her cheeks and nose were the only color on her face. She’d lost her sister, inherited Emily and Dave’s mess of a house, and, if rumors were true, she’d become guardian to Alex. Any one of those things would be a lot to deal with. All of them together...

  Cade wasn’t surprised that she looked like she was struggling.

  “Gertrude is a piece of work.” Tess sighed, offering a half smile.

  “Want me to talk to her?” he asked, touching her arm like he had a million times before. This time, heat shot through him. He wasn’t sure what to do with that.

  This was Tess, after all.

  His friend. His buddy.

  Not someone that he would ever have imagined feeling more than friendship and affection for.

  “We’ll work it out, but thanks.” She ran a hand over the old table, frowning at the dirt on her palm. “I really need to get back to work. I have a lot to do.”

  “I’ll be back this evening to help out. In the meantime, don’t work too hard.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “We’re friends, Tess, and you’ve just lost part of your family.”

  “We were friends. That was a long time ago.”

  True, but with Tessa standing just a few feet away, it didn’t feel like a long time. It felt like yesterday.

  Gertrude burst back into the room, waving a white box and several sheets of colored tissue paper. “Let’s pack that angel up and get you out of here!” She worked quickly, wrapping the angel in paper and then setting it in the box.

  Cade took it. “Thanks. I know Ida will appreciate the donation.”

  “No need for thanks. Just tell her to make sure it’s taken good care of. Come on, I’ll walk you out.”

  Gertrude grabbed his arm, and he let her pull him from the room. He had work to do. Plenty of it. But there was a part of him that was tempted to stay. Just to spend a few more minutes talking to Tessa. Somewhere beneath the beautiful woman was the tomboy he used to hang out with. Once he found her, there’d be no spark, no quicksilver fire racing through his blood.

  “We’ll be expecting you at six thirty. Don’t forget,” Gertrude called as he picked his way across the cluttered yard.

  “I’m not one to forget a home-cooked meal, Gertrude,” he responded, and she laughed, closing the door as he reached his cruiser.

  Silence settled deep, the neighbors going about their business the way they had for more decades than Cade had been alive—quietly and without any fuss or muss. Charlotte Garrison was the only young person on the street. A transplant from the East Coast who’d inherited her grandmother’s house, she’d come to town with nothing but an old Chevy station wagon, a suitcase, and an air of mystery that seemed to feed the town gossips.

  He glanced at her bungalow as he set the angel in the cruiser. She waved from the window, holding a hand up for him to wait.

  Too bad they hadn’t quite clicked.

  She hadn’t seemed to mind his hectic schedule the way Darla had. Then again, Cade and Charlotte had only been out twice. He and Darla had been married for six years. More than enough time for her to find things to complain about.

  He met Charlotte halfway across her yard and stood under the barren branches of a giant birch, watching her hips sway as she walked toward him. She’d lost weight, her gorgeous curves hidden beneath too-baggy jeans, a sweatshirt, and an apron.

  “What’s up, Charlie?”

  “Thought you might like some gingerbread.” She held up a tinfoil-wrapped loaf, and he could smell the spicy sweetness of the cake.

  “Did you keep any for yourself?” he asked, worried about her pallor and the way her clothes hung. They might not have hit it off romantically, but they’d become friends, and that counted for a lot in Cade’s book.

  “Enough to feed an army.” She handed him the loaf.

  “Does that mean you ate some?”

  “You need to stop worrying about my eating habits, Cade.” She smiled and patted his cheek, her palm cool and dry and just rough enough to let him know she worked hard.

  “You lose any more weight and
a stiff wind will blow you away.”

  “I don’t think there’s any worry about that,” she said, glancing away the same way she did every time they got close to something personal. “Looks like they’re cleaning things out over at This-N-That Antiques.”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Zim isn’t happy about the mess.” She brushed thick dark hair from her forehead, revealing the scar at her temple. He’d asked her about it once, but she hadn’t had much to say. An accident when she was a kid. Must have been some accident. The scar was thick and ragged, disappearing into her dark hair.

  “Is Zim ever happy about anything?”

  “You’ve got a point there. I don’t think I’ve seen the man smile more than a dozen times in the seven months that I’ve been in town.”

  “A dozen smiles is more than most of us have seen from Zim in a lifetime. Guess he’s got a soft spot for you.”

  “Only because I feed him,” Charlotte said with a smile.

  “So that’s the key to making Zim happy, huh? I’ll have to spread the word. Did you hear the fight going on over at the Rileys’ a little while ago?”

  “How could I not? Zim and Gertrude were going at it like alley cats. Tessa looked like she wanted to kill them both.”

  “She has a lot on her plate,” he said, jumping to Tessa’s defense, the knee-jerk response as familiar as sunrise.

  “That’s for sure. I heard she’s planning on selling the property.”

  “It sounds that way.”

  “It’ll be a shame if she does, don’t you think? There’s still a Riley in town. It seems like the house should always belong to one of them.”

  “Tess inherited the house. It’s her decision to make.” Though he had to admit, it did seem strange to think of the place belonging to someone who wasn’t related to the first mayor of Apple Valley. The Rileys were legends in town, and seeing the house belong to another family would be like seeing an era end.

  “You’re right, but I’m still hoping she doesn’t sell. I’d better get back inside. I’m making tea for the women’s social club tomorrow. Three different kinds of finger sandwiches and two different kinds of scones.”