Hometown Sweetheart

“I’m sorry,” he apologized again. “I really would have gotten here before if I could have.”

“It’s all right. You’re here now and after a shower, my own bed will feel that much better tonight.”

And why did it seem so risqué to be talking about her bed to this man?

Once again, Neily had no answer for what was going on with her except maybe that she was really tired. Maybe that caused some kind of weird vulnerability to hunks from out of town.

She gave him her business card, and he gave her his cell-phone number. As they left the living room and crossed the entry to the den, she offered a brief summary of the layout of the house.

Then she grabbed her overnight bag from the den and took it with her to the front door.

“I would have been able to rest better tonight even here,” she said, “because today I had our local contractor put keyed dead bolts on the front and back doors, and locks on the windows, too, to keep Theresa from slipping out—just in case.” Neily handed over several keys. “As long as Theresa doesn’t have access to these you shouldn’t have to lose any sleep over that now.”

“I at least want to pay for whatever materials were used,” Wyatt said at her mention of the dead bolts.

“I’ll let everyone know that.”

“And please let them know how grateful I am—”

“That, too.”

Neily opened the oversize front door to go out.

“I should get our suitcases and then lock us all in,” Wyatt Grayson said, following her onto the porch.

But once they were in the cool late-evening air he glanced around at the now quiet street and apparently realized that his SUV was the only vehicle in sight. “Where’s your car?” he asked.

“I walked.”

“Let me take you home, then,” he said insistently and as if he should have somehow known that and offered earlier.

“Thanks, but it’s a short walk and I’m sure you want to get back to your grandmother.” And Neily was looking forward to a stroll through the cool spring air, hoping it would clear her head of the image of his eyes changing color almost like a hologram….

They both walked out into the yard. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” Neily said. “But if you need anything or have any questions before I get back, don’t hesitate to call—middle of the night or not.”

“Thanks.”

Neily headed away from the house as Wyatt went to the SUV parked in the driveway. And while there was no call for it, she found herself glancing over her shoulder at him one last time.

He’d opened the rear of the vehicle and was hoisting luggage, his big, muscular body not straining in the slightest.

And at the sight of it, Neily’s mouth went dry.

This is a first, she thought.

In her years as a social worker she’d felt compassion, pity, commiseration, sympathy, empathy, sadness, even grief and anger in conjunction with the people she’d dealt with.

But what had just happened with Wyatt Grayson had never happened to her before.

Never—ever—had she felt some kind of…

What?

Surely it couldn’t be attraction.

And yet when he glanced over his shoulder at her as if he couldn’t help himself either, something warm and bright flip-flopped in the pit of her stomach.

That couldn’t go on! she told herself.

But still her hand rose in a wave that almost felt flirtatious.

A wave he returned.

The same way…

Chapter Two

Wyatt was sitting in bed early Monday morning when he flipped his cell phone closed to end the conference call he’d just had with his brother, Ry, and his sister, Marti. They were both in transit—Ry from Canada and Marti from Mexico—but they’d been eager to know that their grandmother was okay. They’d also wanted to touch base with Wyatt about where things stood in the investigation of the family by the Department of Public Health and Human Services now that Theresa had been formally tagged as a person unable to care for herself.

After filling them in and answering their questions in regards to the caseworker they’d be dealing with in Missoula and the one he would now be working with in Northbridge, he was having some trouble getting that Northbridge caseworker out of his head.

And not only because Neily Pratt would be taking her turn at scrutinizing him.

The fact that his grandmother had mistaken the social worker for his late wife, Mikayla, was not a coincidence. There was a resemblance. Not a strong one, but if Mikayla had had a cousin, Neily Pratt could have been it.

The hair color was the biggest similarity—thick, lustrous russet-brown hair so deep and rich a hue it demanded attention. And there was something about the nose—thin and pert. And cute. It was just a first-glance sort of resemblance, but it was still there.

But unlike Mikayla’s sun-kissed skin, Neily Pratt was all peaches-and-cream. And she was shorter than Mikayla—even if Mikayla had ever worn the kind of tennis shoes the caseworker had had on.

Neily Pratt wasn’t as voluptuous as Mikayla had been either, although she did have curves enough for him to take notice of. And there was a big difference in their eyes, too. Mikayla’s had been hazel. Neily Pratt’s were a deep metallic blue that glimmered so beautifully he’d had trouble not staring into them.

Which he didn’t want to still be thinking about this morning.

Yet he couldn’t help himself.

And that shook him up a little.

But then his entire encounter with the social worker had shaken him up a little. And not because he was alarmed to be under the investigation of Human Services—he knew there was no abuse or neglect of his grandmother to be found because there was no abuse or neglect. But something had stirred in him the night before in response to Neily Pratt. Something that had him looking forward to seeing her again, to seeing her all cleaned up, to talking to her.

And that did alarm him. Because those stirrings could be the beginning of things he didn’t want to have anything to do with.

He shook his head and dropped it back to the headboard, disgusted with himself.

Why was this happening? He didn’t even know this woman. And he sure as hell didn’t want it to be happening. Not after what he’d gone through over Mikayla. Not after the last two years since her death.

Those two years had been beyond rough. They’d been so bad he’d worried that he wouldn’t ever see emotional daylight again. So bad that he’d worried that he might end up in the grip of the kind of depression that had a hold of his grandmother.

But somehow—he wasn’t sure exactly how or why—things had begun to smooth out. Slowly he’d realized that he was seeing emotional daylight. Only glimmers of it, yet even that had been such a relief, such a godsend, that he’d come to the conclusion that while life on his own might not be the way he’d thought things would be, the way he’d planned it, he didn’t ever—ever—want to risk falling into that darkness again. The darkness that came with the loss of someone he was devoted to.

The surest way to avoid it, he’d decided, was to stay on his own. Not to let anyone else get so close that losing her—either in death or just through things not working out—could put him anywhere near that darkness again. He’d decided that for the sake of his own mental health, it was better to accept things as they were.

So that was what he’d done—he’d accepted it. Then he’d found some small pleasures, some enjoyment to go with it. Just not with another woman.

Which was his plan for the future. Stay solo—that was it in a nutshell. And he was committed to it. Because a little transient loneliness, having his sister and brother and grandmother be the only family he had, was still better than what he’d been through since Mikayla.

It was still better than taking any risk of ending up like his grandmother.

And staying solo had been working for him. No other woman had so much as caught his eye or his interest, let alone stirred anything in him.

Until last night.

So, yes, he would have preferred it if he wasn’t looking forward to seeing the Northbridge social worker again.

Although he still didn’t understand why he was.

Maybe it was the resemblance to Mikayla. Neily Pratt wasn’t the spitting image of her but, still, maybe the resemblance was enough to trigger something in him.

But regardless of what was causing his eagerness to see her again, he was damn well going to fight it with everything he had.

“So make it quick,” he said aloud, as if he were giving the caseworker an order.

But he honestly hoped her work here would be done fast.

The faster the better.

And that then they wouldn’t have to have anything to do with each other.

Because nothing was worth risking being on the edge of that dark pit again.

“She’s having a sad day. Wyatt is sitting with her on the sunporch.”

Thanks to a hectic schedule, Neily didn’t get to the Hobbs house until late Monday afternoon. Mary Pat answered the door and let her in, informing her of Theresa’s mood and whereabouts once they’d exchanged greetings.

“I’ll go on back,” Neily said. “I know the way.”

The sunporch Mary Pat had referred to had probably been a greenhouse when the Hobbs place was built. It was a small space at the rear of the house, completely enclosed in glass—including overhead. Until the previous day’s fix-up it had had more broken windows than not, but those had been replaced and it was once again sealed off from the elements. So even with only the not-too-intense April sunshine to warm it, it was still a comfortable spot from which to look down over a portion of town.

That was what Theresa and Wyatt seemed to be doing when Neily reached the doorway.

She refrained from announcing herself, wanting to observe any interactions between the two before either of them knew she was there.

They were sitting in old wicker chairs facing away from Neily but angled just enough toward each other that she had profile views of them both. Theresa’s sadness was obvious—she sat with her head slumped, her expression gloomy, staring through the windows while Wyatt Grayson seemed to be trying to lift her spirits with a humorous story about a power-tool salesman.

There was nothing alarming in what Neily was seeing and yet she stayed quiet for a moment longer, her focus on Theresa’s grandson.

She told herself that her interest was only professional, that it had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that the guy was just too handsome to believe even dressed in a pair of plain tan twill slacks and a plaid shirt. It was his attitude toward his grandmother that she was observing, not the broad shoulders or the sun streaked through the dark-blond hair that gilded his starkly chiseled face.

But she couldn’t fault his attitude any more than she could ignore his good looks, and after watching him actually win a small smile from Theresa, Neily could tell that there was no tension between the two.

“Knock-knock,” she said from the doorway as if she’d just gotten there.

Wyatt Grayson immediately glanced in her direction, his gray eyes bright and alert as his grandmother merely continued staring blankly out the windows in front of them.

“Look who’s here, Gram—Neily,” he said, getting to his feet.

Theresa didn’t respond but still Neily went into the sunporch. “This is a nice place to be on a spring day,” she said cheerily.

“It really is,” Wyatt agreed the same way, as if it might inspire some enthusiasm from his grandmother. “It took some convincing but Mary Pat and I finally got Gram to come down and see for herself.”

Still nothing from Theresa, as if she was too lost in her own thoughts to even hear what they were saying.

Wyatt Grayson stepped between the chairs and came toward Neily. “I don’t suppose you’re here to see me so I should probably give you some time alone with our girl. But could I have a minute when you’re through?”

“Sure,” Neily agreed, trying not to pay any attention to the little thrill of excitement she felt at the thought that he wanted a minute with her.

“Can I get you something in the meantime? Tea? Coffee?” he asked.

“No, thanks. Theresa is all I need,” she answered.

“I’ll get out of the way then,” he said, reaching over the back of his grandmother’s chair to squeeze her shoulder. “That’s okay, isn’t it, Gram? If I leave you with Neily?”

Theresa’s only response was to pat his hand before her own fell limply back into her lap, all without glancing away from the windows.

Neily slipped between the wicker chairs and sat in the one he’d vacated. “We’ll be fine.”

He left then, but the heat of his big body lingered to warm the chair and Neily tried not to think about that—or like it—as she settled in.

“Hi, Theresa,” she said. “How are you doing?”

Theresa shrugged but didn’t answer, returning her gaze out the windows.

Neily checked the view, finding that the room looked down over an area of Northbridge that had been the first concentrated housing development in the late 1950s.

Finding nothing particularly noteworthy in that, she focused on Theresa instead.

“How do you like having your grandson and Mary Pat here?” Neily asked conversationally.

“They’re good to me,” Theresa answered without inflection.

“So you’re glad that they’re with you?”

“Yes.”

“What does Mary Pat do for you?” Neily inquired, still making certain that her questions sounded like a friendly chat rather than a probe into Theresa’s relationships.

The older woman shrugged. “Mary Pat does everything. She brings me my medicines when it’s time to take them. Fixes my food. Tells me when it’s cold and I should wear a sweater. Reminds me to brush my teeth or comb my hair when I forget. She’s my mother hen.” Theresa said all this in a flat tone of voice, never looking away from the windows.

“And yet you took her car keys and left her behind.”

“I had to. I had to come here. Even without Mary Pat.”

Neily heard Theresa’s belligerence threatening and so veered away from the subject. “What about your grandson? What kind of things does he do for you?”

Another shrug. “Wyatt, Marti, Ry—I don’t know what I’d do without them.”

“Marti is Wyatt’s sister?”

“Yes, and Ry is my other grandson, Wyatt’s brother.”

“They all visit you? Take care of you?”

“They worry about me. Fuss over me. Poor things—they could stay away but they don’t. They treat me like a queen. And here I am, causing them more trouble.”

“Have they said that? That you cause them trouble?”

“They never would. Whatever I want—that’s what they always say. That’s what they always do.”

“But you didn’t think they would this time? When you wanted to come to Northbridge?”

Theresa frowned. “I couldn’t tell them what I did,” she whispered.

Tears filled her eyes for a moment before she herself changed the subject this time, pointing in the direction of the houses that stretched out below them. “All of that belonged to my family, you know,” she said.

“All of what, Theresa?”

“The land where those houses are now.”

“No, I didn’t know that,” Neily said.

“Once upon a time, it was all Father’s. Then it came to me…”

“Really?” Neily wondered if there was any truth to this or if Theresa was drifting into one of her fantasies, the way she sometimes did. “I hadn’t heard that but I imagine it would have been a long time ago that you…what? Sold the land?”

Theresa didn’t answer; she merely went on staring down at the houses.

Neily tried again. “Is that what you want back—your land? Your father’s land?”

If Theresa heard her, she didn’t show it. Instead she said, “It was all ours. From here as far as you can see. Seems like so many things in life get lost.”

“Did you lose the land somehow?”

Again there was no indication that Theresa had heard her.

Instead the older woman said, “Loss…so much loss. Wyatt knows what that’s like. Marti, too.”

Neily tried yet another tack. “I’m sorry for whatever losses you’ve suffered, Theresa. Do you want to talk about them?”

“I don’t want to talk anymore,” she said, pushing herself to her feet then. “I need to rest.”

As if she were alone in the room, Theresa wandered out of it without another word.

Still, as far as Neily was concerned she’d accomplished her goal for today—to see if there had been any negatives to the arrival of Theresa’s caregiver and her grandson. There hadn’t been, so Neily followed the older woman out of the sunroom.

Mary Pat must have been watching for Theresa because the nurse joined her charge the minute Theresa reached the hall. Mary Pat tried to convince Theresa not to return to her bedroom, to go into the kitchen for tea instead. But Theresa insisted she needed to lie down, and the caregiver went along. Neily trailed them to the front of the house.

“That was quick.”

Wyatt Grayson’s voice came from the living room as Neily watched Theresa and Mary Pat climb the stairs. She turned to find him leaning negligently—and sexily—against the side of the archway, his hands slung in his pants pockets like a rodeo cowboy. It was slightly alarming that she could be struck all over again by the sight of him, but she was.

Still, she ignored the impact he kept having on her and said, “It was kind of quick, but I’ll take what I can get.”

“So maybe I can have two minutes instead of one?”

Surely he wasn’t flirting with her. But if he wasn’t, why was he smiling in such an enticing way?

Neily reminded herself that she was there on business, no matter how he smiled, and checked her watch. “I suppose I can spare two minutes before I’m due at my next home visit,” she conceded. “But if you need more—”

“Two will do,” he said. Then he got to the point—canceling the impression that he was flirting. “First I just wanted to say how much I appreciate everything that was done here—over breakfast this morning Gram was talking about broken glass and backed-up plumbing, about dust billowing out of the heating vents, about grime everywhere…Anyway, we got an even better idea of what kind of shape the place was in before yesterday and how much work had to have gone into getting it to this point, and I just had to say thanks again.”

“You’re welcome,” Neily said simply.

“I was thinking that maybe we could have a thankyou dinner for everyone who pitched in, but I don’t have any idea how to invite whoever that was.”

“If you name a day and time I can take care of it,” Neily offered. She didn’t care about herself, but she was glad that he wanted to show his gratitude to the rest of the volunteers.

“You’ll see to it that everyone involved gets invited?” Wyatt asked.

“I will.”

“Mary Pat and I were thinking maybe Wednesday night? Seven o’clock?”

“Okay.”

“Which brings me to my second question—I need to do some shopping for the dinner and to stock the house with more staples for us, too. Where do you do that around here? I didn’t see any kind of supermarket or—”

“No, there isn’t any kind of supermarket but we have the Groceries and Sundries—it’s reasonably well stocked. Plus there’s a butcher shop, a bakery—specialty stores…” Then, from out of nowhere her mouth ran away with her and she heard herself say, “If you’d like I could show you where everything is tonight and you could do some shopping—”

“That would be great,” he said before she could finish. Then, as if he, too, had spoken before thinking, he added, “If you’re sure. If your time is already stretched too thin or you had other plans—”

“I just have one more home visit and then I’m free,” she said, all the while telling herself to use one of the excuses he was giving her and not go through with something that wasn’t part of her job.

But did she backpedal and get herself out of what she knew she shouldn’t do?

No, she didn’t. Instead she got in deeper. “Most things are open until about eight. I could run home after this next appointment, grab a quick bite to eat, and be back at six-thirty or so…”

“Terrific—a tour by a native. That should give me the ins and outs.”

“Maybe you could persuade Theresa to go with us,” Neily said then, thinking that getting the older woman to leave the house would put this back in the realm of work.

“I’ll ask,” Wyatt said. “But no one will be more surprised than me if she goes.”

“Maybe if Mary Pat comes along, too?” Neily suggested.

Apparently that had been transparent because Wyatt’s smile turned quizzical. “Are you afraid to be alone with me? Because I’m harmless…”

Harmless maybe, but definitely not charmless.

“No, I’m not afraid to be alone with you.” She was afraid of these strange things that came to life in her when she was. “I just thought it would be good for all of you to see Northbridge and learn your way around.”

“I’ll do what I can to persuade Gram but I wouldn’t count on it. And if Gram stays, Mary Pat stays.”

Neily nodded. “Well, six-thirty one way or another then?”

“I’ll be ready. Unless you tell me how to get to your place and let me pick you up…”

“It’s just easier if I come get you.” Because then she could have the control and it could seem more like work than a…

A date?

No, this definitely was not—in any way—a date!

Then why was she so nervous?

To cover that up, she looked at her watch again and said, “I really should get going. I can guarantee that my next stop won’t be quick.”

Wyatt nodded, pushed away from the wall and went to the front door to open it for her, smiling still as if she’d thoroughly entertained him.

“I’ll see you tonight,” he said, his gray eyes never wavering from her.

“Tonight,” Neily confirmed. But for no reason she understood, she ducked her head bashfully as she passed in front of him to go.

And as she got into her car, she discovered that there was a small part of her that hoped that Theresa and Mary Pat would stay home tonight.

Chapter Three

Neily was well aware that when she’d met Wyatt Grayson Sunday night she’d been a mess, and that when she’d seen him earlier Monday afternoon she’d had a full day’s wear and tear on her clothes, hair and makeup. She wanted to improve on those two impressions the third time he saw her, so she skipped dinner Monday evening in order to devote every minute to her appearance before picking him up.

But it was only for her own sake, she told herself. For her own sense of self-esteem. Something about the man unnerved her in a way no one had ever unnerved her in the past. She had five brothers, for crying out loud—she hadn’t even been that awkward around boys when she’d been a girl. Yet there she’d been this afternoon, sounding like a shy kid.

And that just wouldn’t do. Especially not when she was in the position of judging Wyatt Grayson’s stability, his character, his demeanor. She needed some stability of her own, some sense of decorum and authority. None of that was conveyed by presenting herself looking like a chimney sweep or in her geeky teenager imitation today.

So tonight she was going to make sure she looked…good. But not to wow Wyatt Grayson. She was just trying to amend the two previous messages she may have sent.

There clearly wasn’t any reason to try to wow Wyatt Grayson anyway, she told herself as she changed into a fitted cashmere turtleneck sweater and the leg-lengthening, hip-slimming pinstriped slacks that she usually referred to as her first-date pants. There was no reason at all to try to wow him. He was an integral part of a case she was handling and that made any personal involvement a conflict of interest.

Yes, he was great-looking and charming, but there were a lot of great-looking, charming guys in Northbridge who didn’t do anything for her.