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Chapter one
"I got it for a really good price."
The Bradford place had been abandoned for years, so when J.T. saw a car in front of it, he pulled off the road and parked behind the white Honda with Idaho plates. The front door of the old house was open, so he left his truck and went onto the porch. He peered through the door, then went inside. There wasn’t anyone in the living room, but he heard some noise overhead. The floor creaked and groaned as someone walked around upstairs. He went to the rickety stairs, avoiding the first one which was missing a board, and went up to the second floor. He followed the sound down the hall and stopped in the doorway of the bedroom at the end.
A woman was there trying to close the window.
“Whatcha doing?”
She jumped and turned around with a hand to her chest. Her look of surprise quickly turned to recognition, and then to anger. Then she got a look on her face he couldn’t decipher.
“J.T.?”
He also couldn’t quite believe his eyes. “Hey, Josephina.” She was prettier than ever with her long dark hair hanging to the middle of her back, and her green eyes flashing angrily at him.
She scowled. “You scared the crap out of me. Why didn’t you announce yourself?”
“I thought you were an intruder. I didn’t want to give away the advantage of surprise.” He cocked his head at the woman he hadn’t seen in six years. “What the hell are you doing back in Castle Springs? And what are you doing poking around the old Bradford place?”
“It’s no longer called the old Bradford place. It’s called the Pierson place now.”
J.T. laughed. “Seriously? You bought this piece of crap?”
“Yes. And I’m going to fix it up and restore it to its glory days.” She looked around the room with its peeling wallpaper and scuffed up wood floors. The light fixture in the middle of the ceiling hung lopsided with the wires exposed on one side.
“Wow. Good luck with that.”
“I got it for a really good price.”
He shook his head. “Whatever you paid. It was too much. The best thing you can do for this place is to burn it to the ground and start over.”
She ran a hand over the hardwood moldings around the window. “You would think that.”
“Are you going to dust off your cowboy hat and boots and run cattle on your five hundred acres?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do other than fix up the house. That’s my first priority.”
He smiled. “So, other than to waste money. Why did you come back? I’m sure there are plenty of old houses to throw your money at in Boise.”
She took a moment to answer. “I missed Castle Springs.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Is that all you missed?”
She put her hands on her hips. “Yes.”
When someone came up behind him, J.T. turned to see Josephina’s sister, Madelyn.
She scowled at him. “You?”
“Hey, Maddy. Are both of the Pierson sisters back? Is this a team project?” The Pierson sisters were a lot like Sage and Sawyer. They rarely got along. Though unlike his siblings, who enjoyed annoying each other, but were actually close, Maddy and Joey were not. If they were going to try and work on the house together, disaster and failure were unavoidable.
Maddy pushed him out of the way and came through the door. “Are you okay, Joey?”
Joey frowned at J.T. “Yes. I’m fine. He was just leaving.”
He nodded toward the window. “Do you want me to close that for you before I go?”
Joey glanced at Maddy, then stepped out of the way. “If you don’t mind.”
