A Conard County Courtship

It must have rolled well for ten or twelve years before it caught up with him. Tim didn’t understand exactly how the scheme had worked, but Bob had persuaded people to entrust him with their money to invest, and most had only given him amounts they never needed back, or if they needed to pull something out, they’d been able to.

But Vanessa’s parents had been different. They’d thought their investments were growing so well that Bob Higgins had managed to persuade them to give him even more, promising them a fortune. They’d mortgaged their ranch and had learned the bleak truth when they needed money from their investments to pay that mortgage.

Tim didn’t pretend to understand how it all had worked or why Higgins had persuaded the Wellings to mortgage their ranch. Maybe because he was getting to the point where he needed money to pay clients a return?

Regardless of it all, the Wellings had left town, and Bob Higgins had been exposed and sent to jail.

But he could see no earthly reason why the man would have deeded his house to Vanessa. No good reason.

He joined the line of parents waiting in their vehicles at the elementary school. The temperature had begun to drop, and the teachers were blowing clouds of fog when they spoke and hurried the children along. Cheeks quickly brightened to red, and there was little of the usual horseplay. The cold had shocked the kids, too.

Tim started to smile as he watched his son, Matthew, race toward the truck. The boy reminded him of his mother, Claire, with his round face, a splatter of freckles across his nose, and a dark blond hair. Every time Tim saw him, he felt an ache for Claire.

Leaning over, he unlatched the door and threw it open for the boy. Matt scrambled in then used both hands to close the door. As usual, Matt did everything at top speed.

The door was open long enough, however, for Tim to feel the dangerous cold deepening outside. If the forecast held, they might need to close school tomorrow. Occasionally it grew too cold to expect children to walk to school or to bus stops.

“How was your day, kiddo?”

“Okay,” Matthew answered. He grinned as he struggled to buckle himself in, showing off the two new front teeth that were emerging. He’d just outgrown the child seat, but was still having trouble with the regular seat belt.

“Just okay?” Tim asked.

“Well, Orson turned green around his neck and got all ruffed up.” Orson was an exotic lizard who lived in a large aquarium. “Ms. Macy said something must have scared him. That was probably Tommy. He kept banging a penny against the tank.”

“Why did Tommy do that?”

Matthew shrugged. “I guess it was fun. Everybody was pretty mad about Orson, though. He doesn’t bother anybody.”

“I don’t imagine he does. Lots of homework?”

“Not much. Two work sheets.”

At last able to pull out of the line, Tim drove back toward the Higgins house—although he supposed it was the Welling house now—and listened to Matthew’s cheerful recounting of the day and his pride in bringing home his very first library book from the school.

It wasn’t as if Tim hadn’t been taking him to the public library all along, but the school library was something special.

“Where are we going, Daddy?”

“Back to the house I’m working on. There’s a lady there now—she owns the house. So...”

“Company manners,” Matthew said with a sharp nod of his head. “Is she a nice lady?”

“I think so, but I just met her before I came to get you.”

“She’s not a witch?” Matt asked, scrunching up his face and making his small hands into claws.

“What have you been reading?” Tim asked, eliciting a giggle.

“Fun stuff. Ms. Macy says I’m too young for Harry Potter, though.”

“Oh. Did you want to read it?” He suspected Ms. Macy’s objection arose more from what some parents around here thought of children reading about wizards and magic.

“Joey’s brother did. He loves it.”

“Well, I’ll see what I can do about getting a copy from the library. You can try it and see.”

For that he received an ear-to-ear grin.

Occasionally when he talked with his son, Tim felt a nostalgia for his own childhood, when everything had been simple and magical. Other times, though, when Matt was having a problem of some kind, Tim was more than glad to be so much older. He suspected that feeling would grow when Matthew hit his teens.

This time he pulled up right in front of the house. Vanessa had parked in the narrow driveway, so there didn’t seem to be any reason to leave curb space. Especially with the temperature dropping so rapidly.

Matthew started to pull his backpack out with him, and Tim stopped him. “You won’t need that until we get home.”

“But I want to show the new lady my library book!”

Tim let him go but wondered if Vanessa would be pleasant, bored or annoyed. Matthew wasn’t her child, after all, and for all he knew she had little patience for youngsters. Still, how annoyed could she be over a library book?

“Company manners,” he reminded Matthew as they walked toward the front door.

“I know, Dad.” The boy’s tone was a touch exasperated, making Tim smile faintly. How fast they tried to grow up.

Vanessa was still sitting in the kitchen with her coffee. Apparently she’d felt no urge to explore the house. Sooner or later, she would have to do a walk-through with him. He could understand her being angry with Higgins, but the house? No, she hadn’t wanted it, but surely she didn’t have anything against the house. It was an inanimate object.

“Ms. Welling, this is my son, Matthew.”

She had lifted her head at the approach of their footsteps, and now she managed a faint smile. “Hello, Matthew. If you want, you can call me Vannie.”

“Vannie?” he repeated as if memorizing it. “I got a new library book. Wanna see?”

Kids, thought Tim. They got through the rough spots as if they weren’t there, skipped over the awkwardness of first meetings and just accepted everyone as a friend.

“I’d love to see,” she answered. Her expression remained pleasant and her tone neutral. Okay, she’d be polite.

“We can’t take too long, Matthew. Vannie’s going to need to get some groceries before the snow starts.” He looked at Vanessa. “The cold out there will snatch your breath.”

“Already?” She frowned faintly. “Here or the motel, huh?”

“Well, I have a guest room, if you’d rather. No problem for me.”

The offer was out before he knew it was coming, and then Matthew seconded it. The idea of having someone new in the house seemed to appeal to him.

Vanessa’s hesitation appeared obvious. Matthew was already running on about how they could read his library book together, but she had drawn away. He could feel it. Pulled back into herself.

“Look,” he said finally. “I’ll guide you to the motel if you want, but like I said, mostly truckers and transients stay there. This house is okay if you want to stock it up. I was only thinking about you being here alone if the blizzard gets bad. You’d be stuck, and the phones here aren’t working. Cell phones can become unreliable when the air’s full of blowing snow.”

He could have sworn she felt torn in a bunch of different directions. But then she surprised him.

“If you’re sure I won’t put you out...”

That settled it, he decided. A night or two. As soon as she’d made her decisions about the house, she’d drive away.

Matthew was ecstatic. Tim watched him with a faint smile, but once again reflected on how much that boy must miss having a mother. He hoped a couple of days wasn’t long enough for him to fit Vanessa into that role.

Chapter Two

Vanessa hoped she hadn’t made a mistake. Tim Dawson seemed like a laid-back sort of guy, however attractive, and his son was a trip. It ought to be okay for a few days.

But honestly, the thought of being stuck alone in Bob Higgins’s house because of a blizzard had been more than she could face. As she’d sat there, waiting for Tim to return with his son, memories had clamored, and maybe the worst part was that they were so confused.

So much for thinking she’d dealt with the past and put it away. The house had dug it all up again. It would have been okay if the memories had been bad, but the thing was, they were good memories, which made Bob Higgins’s betrayal all that more difficult to deal with.

When she stepped outside to follow Tim to his house, the icy air astonished her. The temperature had fallen that fast? She wore what she’d thought would be an adequate wool coat, but it wasn’t enough.

She hurried to get into her car and out of the wind. Matthew had told his father he wanted to ride with her, but before she could say anything Tim had squashed that. Good. She liked the kid as much as she could, having only just met him, but she was far from being ready to drive him around. Also, she knew next to nothing about children.

Maybe she should have gone to the motel. The town had only one, it seemed, and the reviews hadn’t been exciting. Truckers and transients? And what if she got snowed in there?

She shook her head at herself. She wasn’t usually a ditherer, but then she’d never faced a situation quite like this before. Not as an adult making her own decisions.

A town she had nearly forgotten that held secrets about her family that might cause people to judge her. Her dad had certainly thought so. A house from the man who’d destroyed her family. She couldn’t imagine staying there by herself to deal with the good memories that refused to jibe with later reality. Worse, the bad memories from later were more sharply engraved on her mind. She didn’t want to relive her dad’s deterioration and death. All that bitterness. Her mother’s despair.

She hoped Bob Higgins had gone to hell, then caught herself. She didn’t wish that on anyone. But that was the problem with being back here. Having thoughts like that. She was going to face a very ugly part of herself until she was able to walk away.

Tim lived right around the corner. He pulled into a paved driveway that left enough room for her to pull in beside him. She was relieved she wouldn’t be blocking him in or leaving her car on the street to interfere with snowplows.

From the outside, the two-story house appeared tidy—freshly painted white, black shutters all in good condition. A side door led into a mudroom, and from there into a warmly decorated kitchen, painted yellow with sunflower decals along the soffits. A woman’s touch.

“Your wife won’t mind?” she asked, a belated concern. It almost embarrassed her that she hadn’t asked earlier.

“I’m widowed,” Tim said as he bent to give Matthew a friendly pat on his behind and sent him to put his backpack away. “Homework before dinner.”

“Okay, Dad, but I still haven’t showed Vannie my book.”

“After the work sheets are done, okay? She’d probably like to put her suitcase in the spare room and settle a bit.”

Matthew looked at Vanessa and grinned. “I don’t have much homework.”

“Then I’ll have to hurry my settling in.”

Matthew dashed off, leaving Tim and Vanessa alone for a moment.

“He’s cute,” Vanessa offered.

“He’s also endlessly energetic. Don’t let him bug you too much. Come on, I’ll show you your room.”

Miserable as she had been by herself at the Higgins house, now she felt a desperate need for a few minutes alone. With her emotions all topsy-turvy, she needed just a little time to let them settle.

Closing the door behind her in the guest room seemed like a sure way to get that done. Tim brought in her suitcase, told her where to find the facilities, then left her alone in a lovely room.

She suspected he cherished the memory of his wife, because little enough had been done to erase a woman’s touch. No man had chosen those white ruffled curtains or thought to put an embroidered oval doily on the top of the mirrored dresser. A comforter decorated with forget-me-nots covered the queen-size bed, and matching rugs scattered the polished wood floor.

Definitely his wife’s choices, she thought, along with the pale lavender paint on the walls.

So he hadn’t changed a thing. That told her something about his grief. Then she thought of his son, the boy without a mother, and reluctantly her heart went out to them both. The fact that she didn’t make relationships didn’t mean she didn’t care.

It was the relationships that could frighten her. But for Tim and Matthew...that wasn’t enough to unnerve her. She didn’t intend to be here that long.

She enjoyed a few minutes by herself, changing out of her traveling clothes into more comfortable green fleece, pants and thick socks. Then she decided it was time to go out and face the world of Tim and Matthew. Hanging around in her room might seem rude to Tim after he’d been awfully nice to invite her to stay here.

As she passed the dining room, she saw Matthew hunkered over some papers, chewing on a pencil. He flashed her a grin and went back to work.

She found Tim in the kitchen, washing and patting down a whole chicken. “Can I help?” she offered automatically.

“No need. Just have a seat at the kitchen table. Coffee?”

“No, thank you. Maybe some water?”

“There are bottles in the fridge, and glasses in the cabinet beside it if you want one. I’m a bottle drinker, I’m afraid. Anyway, apologies for not getting it for you, but my hands are covered with chicken.”

“I don’t expect to be waited on,” she assured him. “It’s kind of you to give me shelter from the storm. Honestly, I didn’t want to stay alone at the house, and Earl’s and your description of the motel made me uneasy.”

Tim nodded as he placed the chicken in the roasting pan beside the sink. “You’d probably be okay there, but you aren’t going to want to have to cross the highway in a blizzard this cold just to get to the truck stop to eat something. Anyway, with this weather moving in, they’ll be packed...and so will the truck stop diner.” He flashed her a smile. “My house is so much nicer.”

“It is,” she agreed readily. “Your spare room is beautiful. Your wife?”

“Yeah.”

She watched him oil the chicken then wash his hands again, wondering if mention of his wife was off-limits.

When he was done prepping the chicken, he washed his hands again then leaned back against the counter as he dried them with a towel. “My wife passed six years ago. Pulmonary embolism, if you can believe it. Out of nowhere. Matthew has absolutely no memory of her. I can’t decide if that’s good or bad.”

“I wouldn’t know,” she said carefully. “I am very sorry for your loss.”

He tossed the towel to one side. “You get used to the most incredible things. Anyway, yeah, she decorated most of the house. Your room was her pride, though. It wasn’t often she could find everything she wanted that would match.” He rested his palms on the counter behind him. “What about you?”

“Me?”

“People you’re in a hurry to get back to?”

“I work at a natural history museum, and they told me to take whatever time I needed.” Indeed, they’d been very kind. But she was also acutely aware that she hadn’t answered his questions. He’d been straightforward with her, and she felt she needed to give him something in kind.

“My parents are both dead, and there’s no one else.” And never would be. No risks of that nature. She’d seen the price up close and personal, as they said.

He didn’t press the issue but instead turned to pop the chicken in the oven when something beeped. “We eat early around here. Better for Matthew. Tonight we’ll have broccoli with cheese and boxed stuffing to go with this. I hope that sounds good.”

“It sounds great.”

He got himself a bottle of water from the fridge. She still hadn’t gotten one for herself, so he placed one in front of her with a glass.

“So what do you do at the museum?” he asked.

“I help connect dinosaur bones. Unfortunately, they’re rarely discovered as a complete kit. Weather, erosion, what have you, have scattered and mixed the bones. So my job is to figure out what they are and which ones belong where.”

“Do you assemble them?”

She shook her head. “Not unless there’s an extraordinary find. No, mostly we catalog and put them away for safekeeping and later study. It’s not like we know everything.”

“Matt would probably love a trip to see dinosaur bones.”

She smiled. “I’m sure he would. And this summer there’ll probably be several digs going on around this state. Wyoming is a great place for fossil beds. He could see someone pulling them out of the ground...if he has the patience.”

“I’ve read about that. Just never thought about taking the time. Guess I should.”

A silence fell, and she felt awkward about it. With people she knew, silences could be allowed, but she didn’t know this man that well. “You don’t have to entertain me,” she nearly blurted.

He lifted one corner of his mouth in a half smile. “That goes both ways. Besides, once he finishes his homework, Matthew will take over the entertaining. You’ll probably be begging to go to your room for some solitude.”

A laugh trickled out of her. “I’ve hardly met him, but he seems high energy.”

“I’ve often wished we could tap some of that energy for ourselves as we get older. It’s amazing. He can wear me out sometimes.”

“All kids are like that, right?”

“I would worry if one weren’t.” He glanced at his watch. “Want to move into the living room? I’ve got an hour before I need to start the rest of dinner. We could check in on how bad the storm will be.”

She was agreeable and followed him into another tasteful room. His wife was a living presence here, she realized. In a good way. She had created a comfortable, lovely home.

He flipped on the wide-screen TV to the weather station. Whatever else had been in the programming had given way to a nearly breathless description of the storm that bore down on them, complete with advice not to travel and to stay inside if possible.

“These are going to be killer temperatures,” the woman reciting the weather said. “Not a time to decide to make snowballs, kids, or a snowman. You could leave your fingers behind.”

“Or worse,” Tim said. “Do you remember when you were a kid living on a ranch?”

She looked at him. “Earl’s been talking?”

“Earl knows darn near everything. Like the sheriff. I’m fairly certain he doesn’t share things that are personal. Is it some kind of secret that you lived on a ranch?”

She shook her head but felt the memories jar her again, just as she thought she’d managed to put them away once more. “I just don’t remember very much of it. I was seven when we moved away, so all I have left are snatches. Why?”

“I just wondered how many cold mornings you stood at the end of your road waiting for the bus. Do you remember those?”

“One or two,” she admitted. “It was just me, of course, but when it got really cold my dad would drive me to the stop and we’d wait together. Once the snow was so deep he couldn’t drive me, so he forged ahead of me so I could walk.” She smiled faintly, enjoying the good memory of her father. “I remember how the snow was practically up to his waist. Behind him I was walking through a tunnel.”

Tim smiled. “We don’t often get snow that deep right here. It tends to fall farther east because of the mountains.”

She nodded, not really caring. Her only agenda was to get this house out of her hair and go home. Then she remembered Matthew. “He’s taking a while with his homework. I thought he said it was just a little bit.”

“Compared to what he usually has, it probably is. But he knows I’m going to check it, and he doesn’t want to be sent back to fix his mistakes.”

That drew another smile from her. “He’s a cute kid.” And he was. He could have been included in a Norman Rockwell painting.

“I think so. Of course.” He looked toward the windows, as it sounded as if someone had thrown sand against them. “Ice pellets. It’s begun. I need to go pull the curtains to keep this place warmer.”

He closed the ones in the living room first, a deep burgundy that complimented the dark blues in the furniture and was picked up in the area rug centered on the floor. She sat by herself with the TV weather running at a quiet volume, the forecaster clearly happy to have something interesting to report.

The journey that had brought her here was certainly an odd one. She’d never expected, nor had she ever intended, to see this town or this county again. Not because anything so bad had happened to her, but because of the aftermath of what had happened to her family.

All she remembered of that time was having to move, leaving most things behind, but also leaving her friends behind. She remembered having friends back then. Not the kind of reserved friendships that came later in her life, but she’d known other people, other kids. Whisk—they were gone.

Changing schools, changing lives and listening to her father’s endless bitterness. He’d turned some of that bitterness on this town and county, on the people he had known here, people he was sure were making fun of him or looking down on him.

After that move, and several others that followed, Vanessa had begun to feel like a visitor in her own life, ready to move on at a moment’s notice.

But she didn’t want to think about that now. Anyway, she’d been round and round about it all for years before she decided to put it away. The past couldn’t be changed, and concentrating on it seemed like a waste of time.

So coming back here? That seemed like a step backward, a step in a direction she didn’t want to go. Being here would resolve nothing, but it had sure stirred up a lot of unpleasant feelings and memories.

Whatever had Bob Higgins been thinking? Once upon a time she’d called him “Uncle Bob” and played with his children in that very house. Then her father had told her endlessly and repeatedly what an awful man Uncle Bob was, how he’d stolen everything from her family. She’d learned to hate him.

Now that house. It didn’t make sense, and she guessed she would never understand. She just had to find a way to dump it as quickly as possible. Get back to her normal life.

All of a sudden, Matthew came bouncing into the room. “All done! Daddy says it’s okay so I can come talk to you.”

She shook herself out of her reverie and summoned a smile. “You were going to show me your book.”

“Later,” he said decisively. “Daddy says you work with dinosaur bones. Are they really big?”

She liked his enthusiasm. “Some are huge. As long as this room. The ones I like best are the small ones, though.”

“Why?” He scooted onto the other end of the couch.

Why? How to explain that to him. “Everyone loves the big bones,” she said slowly. “And they’re easier to find most of the time. But the little ones are like a secret.”

That made his eyes shine. “Do you find out the secret?”

“Sometimes. Has anyone ever showed you a picture of the bones in your foot?”

He shook his head.

“Well, there are lots of tiny bones in your foot. Your foot wouldn’t move very well without them. But someone looking at them if they were scattered around might put them together and finally figure out how your foot works.”

He nodded, looking very intent. “So it’s like a puzzle?”

“Exactly. Sometimes I make mistakes and put pieces from different puzzles together, and I have to figure out what’s wrong. But when I find enough of the pieces of the same foot puzzle, I know how the dinosaur’s foot worked.”

“Do you do that all the time?”

“Once in a while.”

“I’d like the small pieces, too,” he decided. “More fun. But the big pieces?”

“More exciting for everyone,” she agreed. “Youngsters like you are always coming to the museum to see the big dinosaurs we’ve managed to put together. It can be wild to stand on the floor and look up, up, up to see the head of the dinosaur. It makes me feel very small and very glad there aren’t any more dinosaurs around.”