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Pepper turned on the light in the kitchen. The saving grace of the house was that both the bathroom and kitchen were functional, although out of date. There was no dishwasher, no washer-dryer hookups, and the cabinetry and tile in both rooms hadn’t been fashionable since before Pepper was born, but they did what they were supposed to do. That was more than she could say about the rest of the place.
When all was said and done, though, Pepper loved her house. It was her first home. A real wood-and-brick home. She had grown up in a trailer and then moved to an apartment when she got her job at Curls. It took several years to save up a down payment, but she finally had a little place to call her own.
She’d saved a little over five thousand dollars to put toward improvements to the house. Her attempts at doing a little bit over time hadn’t gotten her very far. She did get the hardwood floors in the living room and dining room refinished and the walls painted in a couple of rooms before she moved in. Everything else had been bumped to the foot-long to-do list she had tacked to her refrigerator.
Pepper eyeballed the list for a moment, then opened the door to pull out a drink. Her father’s health had taken precedent lately, but her vacation was coming. She was desperate to get at least one of the bedrooms functional so she could move out of the living room. Maybe then she could have people over and not be embarrassed.
People like Ivy. They had become pretty close again while Ivy was in Rosewood to help with the tornado fund-raiser.
Pepper would love to have her over for a visit, but it just wouldn’t happen the way the house looked now. She wouldn’t even let her brother in—there was no way she was going to let a rock star in her house, friend or not.
Pepper turned to head back toward the livbedoset but stopped when she caught a blur of movement outside the kitchen window. She could barely make out the face of someone watching her. The sudden realization shot her heart up into her throat and she dropped her drink, sending soda spewing across the floor. She scrambled to pick up the can and drop it in the sink. By the time she got to the window to look outside again, there was nothing to see.
Her backyard wasn’t fenced. Anyone could get up to that back window, then go in five different directions and disappear into someone else’s yard or the next street over.
One window. She had one window without anything to cover it. She’d bought one of those ruffled valances to go over the top, but the rest of the window was wide-open. That was about to change. Pepper marched through the room and pulled a bath towel out of the linen closet. She returned to the kitchen and flung the towel over the window, tucking it around the curtain rod and blocking the entire view.
“Peep on me now, you bastard!” she shouted at the window, although the culprit was long gone.
Pepper had intended to curl up in bed and watch some television before she fell asleep, but she knew now those plans were shot. Instead, she picked up her cell phone and called the police department to add her report to the long list of complaints.
“I responded to a call at your girlfriend’s house last night.”
Grant looked at his brother Simon and frowned. He didn’t have a girlfriend and Simon knew it. Grant wasn’t much for the kind of commitment that required labels. He narrowed his eyes at him. “You know something I don’t?”
Simon chuckled. “I went to Pepper’s house last night,” he explained.
“She’s not my girlfriend, dork. We’ve never even dated.”
“I know. But she’s the one you dream about,” Simon said with a misty, romantic look on his face.
That earned him a kick to the shin under the table. Simon bit down a yelp, not wanting to cause a scene in Ellen’s Diner. If he did, Ruth, the waitress, would scold him. Grant’s twenty-two-year-old brother was hard-pressed to get any respect as a police officer as it was. He didn’t need to be publicly reprimanded by a crotchety, middle-aged woman having hot flashes.
“That hurt, you dick,” Simon hissed over their food. He leaned down and rubbed his leg with a frown lining his face. “Someone is a little touchy about the subject of Pepper Anthony.”
Pepper was always a touchy subject and had been since the ninth grade. Grant wasn’t used to failing when it came to women. He always knew exactly what to say, how to act, when to look into their eyes at the perfect moment to make all their defenses melt away. None of those skills had helped where Pepper was concerned.
“Someone doesn’t feel like getting ragged on by their baby brother today. Now get to the point of the story. What happened that you had to go to her place?”
“She was struck by the peeper.” Simon shoved a French fry in his mouth. “That’s our eighth report so far. The second this week.”
Grant didn’t like the sound of that. Rosewood was a small, quiet community. They weren’t used to having some pervert roaming the streets at night, harassing the local ladies.
Especially Pepper. She lived alone in that house and her family lived way on the edge of town. She was surrounded by older residents who probably couldn’t hear her screams. She had no one to protect her from the town weirdo. “Is she okay?”
“Oh, yeah, she was just a little unnerved by the whole thing. The guy never tries to get in the house or make contact. He just watches. Pepper said she was in her kitchen and saw someone watching her from the backyard.”
“That’s creepy. I don’t like it. Pepper doesn’t have a security system, does she?”
Simon snorted. “No. Who does? You know a big dog and a loaded shotgun are the ADT of the South.”
“Yeah, but Pepper doesn’t have either of those.”
“Who doesn’t have what?” Blake asked from over their shoulder.
Grant and Simon both turned to watch their oldest brother approach the booth and force Simon to slide over. Because of Blake’s class schedule he usually didn’t have time to pop over to the diner at lunch, so this was unexpected.
“A security system,” Simon repeated.
