Page 10 of Weight of Guilt

Her brother . . . he’d come home.

More tears poured down her cheeks.

“Come on. Let’s get inside,” Nora said, her voice gravelly with emotion. “We’ll figure out the rest of it later.”

Nash Hendricks was lacing up his boots for the walk his physical therapist kept insisting he take every day when Tank’s low growl came through the screen door.

Tank was his pittie mix, a dog with more muscle than manners. People misunderstood the canine and feared him. But the dog was a teddy bear.

Nash didn’t need to look outside to know what was going on.

Three weeks in this house, and he could already read that growl the way other people read weather.

The property he’d found was three acres, most of it woods, with only a narrow stretch of trees separating his place from the property to the east.

He’d quickly learned that no distance was too wide for one determined dog who wanted to be overly friendly.

Bo had come for a visit.

The labradoodle loved to bound into his yard and stir up trouble. And Tank couldn’t stand his new neighbor. Tank found Bo to be aggravating, to say the least.

Nash understood the sentiment.

He blew out an annoyed sigh.

He crossed the porch and went down the steps, grimacing at the ache flaring in his knee when he moved too fast. The pain was a souvenir from the case that had changed his life.

His doctor in Nashville had recommended he go someplace quiet to recover. Someplace slow. Someplace, presumably, that wasn’t infested with a labradoodle who treated the property line like a polite suggestion.

Fog Lake hadn’t been Nash’s first choice. He’d looked at the coast, at a cabin outside Asheville, at a rental in the Keys that would’ve cost him half his disability check each month. He’d landed here mostly because a buddy from the academy had a cousin who managed properties in the area and the price was right.

Another part of him had secretly wanted mountains instead of ocean. He’d felt drawn to something that didn’t move. Something that had been standing in the same place for thousands of years and would still be standing there long after he’d sorted out whatever was left of him.

Then he’d visited Fog Lake and fallen in love.

The town was full of life. The people were friendly. The area was currently gearing up for all the upcoming fall festivities. Tourists loved to visit the area, especially when the leaves started changing to orange and red.

If he’d come here under different circumstances, he might have called the place charming and peaceful . . . if he could ignore the haunted history surrounding the town. There was a native American massacre, a lake that was perpetually foggy, and the fact that the area was a hunting ground for more than one criminal. Then there were the locations like Dead Man’s Bluff and the general mountain lore in the area.

Being here, he was learning that he wasn’t actually good at doing nothing. He kept trying to talk himself into it anyway. He kept telling himself relaxing was a skill like any other, something he’d get better at with practice.

But he still felt restless.

Tank’s growl hadn’t let up by the time Nash reached the trees between the two properties, and sure enough—the labradoodle now bounded away from them.

He had to talk to that dog’s owner again. This couldn’t keep happening.

All he wanted was peace, and that dog was the antithesis of peace.

“Bo!” he called. “Come here!”

The dog—all eighty pounds of him—bounded back over as if expecting to play.

Instead, Nash caught his collar. “I’m going to have a talk with your mama.”

Bo barked as if he understood. In fact, he barked right at Nash, almost as if fussing at him for not being enthralled with his visits.

Nash should be honored at the dog’s presence. That was the vibe this dog was giving off.