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“Of course not.”
I knew it was the right thing to do. I put Cher in charge until I got back. It was actually good in that respect—I’d been trying to give Cher more exposure to leading the crew. She didn’t know it yet, but I was planning on handing my company to her when I got Heartbreaker Trades rolling.
But damn if I didn’t regret it now as I rumbled up toward the most exclusive neighborhood in Quince Valley.
Flo rumbled noisily and I patted her dash. “The Hills don’t agree with me either, girl.”
I tended to talk to my beloved van, Flo, more and more these days now that my two twin baby brothers—who I’d raised myself from the age of 18—had left for college last September, making me an empty-nester at the ripe old age of 32.
I also tended to talk to myself when I was feeling nervous, and right now, a cold sweat was spreading across my palms.
Quince Valley was mostly down-to-earth; known for its gorgeous valley views, quaint downtown, and red iron bridge spanning the river. But behind the low brick buildings and gingerbread houses of the downtown core, the houses grew bigger and were set farther back from the road. At the very top, they hid behind gates and walls. The Hills was a favorite locale for not just rich townies, but the uber-wealthy, too. Business magnates, movie stars, and other folks with more money than sense.
Or so I assumed.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like money. I had plenty of it. I’d been tucking it away for years. My money, my life.
Don’t you ever do what I did, baby, my mama told me in an urgent whisper from her hospital bed while her husband was out of the room. She’d married Adam for the security when I was thirteen, wooed by his wealth and oily good looks.
But it was this neighborhood. It reminded me of him, and that darkest time in my life. When he’d taken everything from her.
And her from me.
“You have arrived,” my phone announced, startling me out of the past, and the violent memories I thought I’d left behind.
Before me was a massive black gate set into a high concrete wall. Trees emerged over the top of it, but that was all I could see. I pulled up next to what looked like the intercom, though it was just a black tablet on a thin pole poking out of the garden.
Even in the reflection I could see the black mechanical grease streaked across my cheek. And was that a dust bunny in my blonde hair? I plucked that out, but there was no time to clean myself up further, because a woman’s face appeared on the screen.
Not a real woman—some kind of AI.
“Hello,” she said, smiling benignly. “I’m Anita.”
I didn’t like talking to computers. I was much better with real people. “Um, hi, Anita.” I felt like a damn fool. Still, I cleared my throat. “Winona Chambers. Heartbreaker Plumbing. You called?”
“Welcome, Winona.”
And just like that, the shiny black gate in front of me sprang to life.
“God love your cotton socks,” I whispered.
The path wove into thick, dark trees. It was hot for mid-September, but the temperature seemed to drop the moment I entered this little forest. It shouldn’t have been ominous—the trees all still had leaves on them only starting to turn to yellow and orange, but somehow, they were. It was like I was heading to some mysterious cursed castle.
But a moment later, when Flo and I emerged from the woods, my jaw dropped.
“Holy crikey!” I whispered. The grounds were more like a park—lush grass dotted with hedge animals and a massive tangled metal sculpture that spouted water as I passed, making me start.
I was surprised a chorus didn’t sing.
The house itself was grand but not overly so—from here it looked like a concrete box dotted with a few large windows on the top floor. But with this kind of kingly landscaping—and the size of the gates back at the entrance—I knew it must expand on the other side, down the slope toward the valley.
Blake’s brother was clearly a millionaire. Maybe a multi-millionaire.
As I parked in what I hoped was the service driveway and headed around to Flo’s backside to get my tools, I thought of my own house, a creaky old Victorian in downtown Quince Valley that I’d inherited from my Great-Aunt Millie. Its landscaping was a rough patch of nubby brown grass and withered hedge from this year’s hot, dry summer that was spilling into September. Inside, only the plumbing worked right. My neighbor, Mrs. Moody, always sniffed while she pruned her roses next door. She’d never liked me or the boys. Thought we brought the neighborhood down. But I didn’t care. I’d never put much effort into my place because I’d been so busy first with the boys, and then work. I never thought I’d stay there after the boys were gone anyway. I was sure I’d eventually move in with some sweet Prince Charming. A school teacher maybe. Someone calm and level-headed. Handsome, but not showy. Far from Mrs. Moody and her judgmental clippers.
But the only Prince Charming I’d met in the year since the boys had left—since ever, really—had been in books.
Cher kept telling me I needed to quit staying home and reading. She knew I dreamed of my happily ever after, but she’d been pushing me to have a no-strings-attached fling. I’d had a few while off at trade shows, not that she’d known about them. But I was too much of a romantic for short trysts. I wanted the real deal. But I knew Cher just wanted to live vicariously through me since she was married with a toddler. And besides, for now, I was perfectly happy sticking to books. Books were my happy place. Reading had been what Mama and I did together back before Adam, when we couldn’t rub two nickels together. We practically lived at the downtown St. John’s library during the cold months, and after they closed we’d sing along to the sea shanties the tourist bars piped out onto the sidewalk as we passed on our way back to the rooming house we lived in then.
