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CHAPTER 1
Violet
If the men in town knew that Good, Clean Fun was a front for a much rowdier business, they didn’t show it. On the rare occasion one of them did wander into the store, they never would’ve ventured past the closed door at the back. The soap and candle store in the front was cute and the products were great, but it was the secrets behind that door in the back which brought in women from all over Harmony Valley. Doll’s, as it’d been named along the way, was a store and meeting place just for the women around town. Margaret James had started it when women were outnumbered by men six to one in the valley and she’d grown sick of hearing men talk all day long. Doll’s was a well-kept secret which acted as one-part social club and one part sex-positive experience.
Was it strange that a seventy-year-old woman ran a secret speakeasy which had walls lined with more sex toys than most people would ever see in their lives? Maybe. Was Margaret’s age a hindrance when it came time for local women to take care of themselves by buying a few top-of-the-line toys and rant about their male counterparts over a cup of espresso? Not even a little bit. Doll’s was pink, frilly, and lush, a place no one ever would’ve imagined existing in the valley between the Harmony and Stairway Mountains. It was a little slice of heaven amidst the most beautiful nature scenery that could be found anywhere in the country.
I hadn’t moved to Lilyfield explicitly for Good, Clean Fun, or its sexy backend, Doll’s. It’d been a little of everything that drew me in. Margaret was a big part, the views another. Then, there was the close community of women, close enough to hold a secret like Doll’s tight to their chests. There was also my personal history with Harmony Valley. I’d only ever spent two nights in the valley six years earlier, but those two nights were all it took to hook me. Almost every day I’d spent living with my parents back home in Kansas, had been filled with thoughts of the valley and its inhabitants.
I was now officially one of its residents and my heart already felt lighter. I’d been welcomed to town right as the leaves were starting to change color and the days were becoming cooler. Seeing the valley in the beginning of fall was unlike anything I’d ever experienced, and I was already madly in love.
Lily Elementary had been decorated with large leaves all along the interior walls with each child’s name printed on them as I’d lead my son down the hallway to meet his teacher. He was starting a month late, but he was smart and made friends easily, so I knew he’d be fine. Forrest, named after the very trees surrounding Lilyfield, had greeted his teacher like he was twenty-six instead of six. Ms. Jenny had been smitten right away. Forrest was like that, always instantly winning people over. He had three new best friends before we left the building that day.
When Margaret called me a month ago, I’d been bogged down with fatigue, the same fatigue I’d felt for over six years. When I’d found out I was pregnant with Forrest, I’d lived with my parents and listened to their ideas of what was best for me. I’d left college with only one semester outstanding before I graduated and I went straight to work at my parents’ insurance company. It was fine. Everything was fine. Except, it wasn’t. So, when Margaret called and told me she had a home and a job for me, I’d jumped at the chance to leave Kansas.
I’d met Margaret just after I found out I was pregnant and she had put me up in her own living room for the night and held me while I cried. I’d been looking for the father, without any real knowledge of where he was, but I’d come up empty-handed. Margaret had taken me into Doll’s, given me a sex toy she said would help me relax, and fed me until I felt like I’d burst. She’d saved me then and she’d saved me again with that phone call a month earlier.
I would work at the only restaurant in Harmony Valley, a diner aptly named, The One and Only. I’d live in an apartment over a garage, for free, as long as I walked the owner’s dogs twice a day. Margaret had made those promises and she’d kept them. I’d been in Lilyfield for two weeks and I’d already settled into my job at The One and Only, and in the apartment over the garage. Forrest loved his school. I’d already hung out with Margaret and several other women in town at Doll’s. I was settling in. Things were already so much better than they’d been in Kansas.
I just hadn’t met the owners of the house, yet. Or the dogs. The owners were out of town and they’d boarded the dogs since they hadn’t known when I’d arrive. No one appeared to know when they’d be back and Margaret seemed especially coy about the whole thing. I was halfway convinced I was crashing at someone’s house without them knowing, but Joanie Cartwright, the owner of the diner, promised me it was all above board.
Everything seemed too good to be true. Between the free apartment and the amazing support group I’d instantly found, I couldn’t help wondering when the other shoe would drop. I wasn’t typically so pessimistic, but something about the last six years of my life had left me doubting good things. Although, after six years, maybe I was just a pessimist.
I didn’t want anything about Harmony Valley to be off. I wanted a picture-perfect town with good friends and a good school for Forrest. I wanted us to be happy. Lilyfield had always somehow felt like home and once I’d changed the mailing address on my one credit card to Lilyfield, I was committed. Nothing could ruin it for me. Nothing.
That’s what I told myself as I stared at the empty house day after day. It was a large house. It looked like the house from that old Steve Martin movie, Father of the Bride. A large white house with shutters and a manicured lawn, and flower boxes on the windows. The apartment over the garage was nicer than my parents’ house back in Kansas.
What kind of people lived in such a beautiful home and just left it for weeks at a time? I couldn’t imagine. Where were they, I wondered? I tried to imagine the fantastic vacation they were on, but I’d barely ever been anywhere, so I couldn’t picture it. I could only picture the pretty house with the flower boxes. Forrest deserved a home like that. I promised myself I’d give him something similar one day. I didn’t think I’d get it while waitressing at The One and Only, but I was doing okay for us, and without my parents’ help, something they hadn’t believed I could do.
It was my curiosity about the house which kept me watching it nightly. I felt like I was waiting, holding my breath, for the owners to show up. I didn’t know why I felt so on edge about them, but I tried to chalk it up to nerves about meeting new bosses. Technically, that’s what they’d be. They had to be nice people, surely; they had dogs. Dog people were great.
Night after night, I looked out at the house and wondered how long it would be until I spotted them. I hoped they liked me. I hoped they really were nice. I hoped, more than anything, that everything didn’t prove to be too good to be true.
I did a lot of hoping and watching and that was why, when I heard something crash behind the house right before Forrest’s bedtime, I was ready. I’d been waiting for something to happen for nearly two weeks and it seemed like the time for things to happen, had come.
CHAPTER 2
Violet
The crashing sound startled me enough that I jumped up from my window seat in the living room and swung a wide-eyed glance at Forrest. He had his head buried in a book and didn’t even look up. I looked back down at the house and swallowed. The lights in the house were all still off. If it was the owners making sounds, surely they’d turn lights on. I debated what to do for a few seconds before I grabbed the closest thing I had to a weapon, Forrest’s wiffle ball bat, and inched towards the door. If someone was breaking in, I had to do something. My free stay would surely be over if I didn’t try to stop a break-in.
“I’m going to run downstairs and check on something, Forrest. Stay here.” I gripped the doorknob and made sure he looked up at me. “I mean it. Stay up here. Okay?”
He frowned. “Why do you have my bat?”
I heard another sound and gripped the bat tighter. “Just stay up here. If you come down, you’ll be grounded until you’re fifty.”
Without waiting for a response, I slipped out of the door and down the stairs. The stairs were on the far side of the garage, which gave the apartment an even greater sense of privacy, but as I crept down, I couldn’t help wishing the stairs were inside the garage so I could have a few more minutes of feeling sheltered. I made sure to step over the last stair because it squeaked every time it was stepped on.
Feeling like an absolute knob, I tip-toed my way around the garage and let myself into the fenced-in front yard through the gate. I hadn’t been inside the yard and I was momentarily distracted by how plush the grass felt under my bare feet. What the hell kind of grass were they growing that felt like pillows? I took another few steps and then yelped when a shrill cry rang through the night. I’d stepped on a squeaky toy.
Frozen in place, I glared down at the rubber chicken and prayed no one heard it. My prayers fell on deaf ears, though, because just as I was trying to lift my foot, I heard what sounded like a stampede coming at me. I looked up in horror and waited for my sudden death. It sounded like a group of men were running my way, so I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for the moment they spotted me, but instead, I just felt warm air on my chest. I opened my eyes in panic, thinking some creepy man was breathing on my chest, but what I saw was much better.
A giant dog was standing in front of me, looking up at me with the silliest expression on his face. I assumed he was a male dog because of the boob fascination, but I was just guessing at that point. The dog was the size of a horse and he looked identical to Scooby Doo. I tilted my head to look at him and he tilted his in the other direction to look back at me. Then he leaned forward and ran his giant tongue over my chest and neck, leaving behind a trail of drool.
“Oh, man! Buddy, that’s a lot of drool. As much as I appreciate a good kiss, I’m not into the wet ones.” I let him sniff my hand, got a few more wet kisses, and then gently petted him. “You’re soft. Someone takes good care of you, don’t they? Did you break in? Huh? Are you the one who broke in? Yeah?”
I’d quickly defaulted into high-pitched happy dog talk. I couldn’t help myself. I loved animals and the dog in front of me seemed especially lovable. I’d forgotten all about the idea of someone breaking in for real. I scratched the dog behind the ears, happy the giant was such a good boy.
