Your House or Mine?

He gave her a look that might have been more appropriate if he were indulging a child’s question. “Pushing this wheelbarrow around to the back of the property.”

She took a step closer. “What’s in there?”

His mouth lifted at one corner in a cocky sort of smile. “You don’t want to know, ma’am.”

“I asked you, didn’t I?” She walked near enough to have a look for herself. A healthy whiff of foul air curled up from clumps of damp straw. She wrinkled her nose and hopped back.

The man snickered. “Satisfied? It’s good old-fashioned horse manure. I figure it’ll be a lot more welcome down by the Suwannee than up here by the house. The wild ferns by the river bank seem to like it.”

“Where did you get it?” she asked.

He merely raised his eyebrows while his smile widened.

“You know what I mean,” she amended. “There hasn’t been a horse here in twenty years.”

“There is now.”

Meg glanced over her shoulder. No one else had appeared, prompting her to assume that she and this man were the only people around. But she was no longer worried. Obviously this man wasn’t stealing from the barn. He was cleaning it. And somehow her Aunt Amelia had neglected to tell her that a horse had taken up residence in Uncle Stewie’s old stable.

She folded her arms over her chest and said, “Who are you?”

He held out his hand, glanced down at the dirt, or whatever, that had stuck to his palm and dropped it to his side. “My name’s Wade Murdock. I’m the deputy sheriff of Mount Esther. Been here five months now.”

That explained the patrol car. “And whose horse is in the barn?” she asked.

“My daughter’s. I promised her a horse when we left Brooklyn.”

And that explained the man’s distinctive northern accent. “Mrs. Ashford allows you to keep the horse in her barn?”

“We worked out a deal,” he said and let his gaze wander over the property from where they stood to the back of the house. “For all practical purposes it’s my barn anyway. I bought this place, lock, stock and barrel from Mrs. Ashford.”

CHAPTER TWO

DEPUTY MURDOCK frowned with concern. “Are you all right, ma’am?”

No, she wasn’t all right. He’d just aimed verbal darts at the reality she’d always depended upon. She wanted him to take them back. I just bought this place lock, stock and barrel, he’d said. That couldn’t be.

He held out his hand, cautiously, as if he might have to grab onto her. Apparently she looked as shaken as she felt. “Stay there,” he ordered. “Don’t move.”

For some reason she obeyed. Maybe she didn’t trust her legs to hold her up if she tried to move. Or maybe she stood still because he was a cop. He stepped inside the barn and returned with a galvanized washtub which he upended next to her. “Sit down.”

She didn’t want to sit, but he obviously thought she should.

He slapped at his pockets, searching for something. “Do you need medical attention? Where’s my damn cell phone?”

As if a 911 call would provide an antidote for what he’d just said. “No, I don’t need medical attention,” she assured him. “I need answers. You can’t have bought this property.”

He seemed to relax once she started talking. “Why not?”

“Because it’s not for sale. Amelia Ashford would never sell this house to anyone.”

He scrubbed his hand over the back of his neck. “Well, I’m sorry, but she did. She sold it to me six weeks ago.”

Six weeks ago? Impossible. Meg had spoken to her aunt at least twice during that time frame, and Amelia never mentioned anything about it. She snorted her disbelief and sat on the washtub. This was ridiculous. Ashford House had been promised to her when Amelia prepared a Quit Claim Deed four years ago giving the property to Meg.

She surveyed the house and acres that stretched from the out buildings through groves of stately trees to the river. This land, that beautiful, curious, gingerbread house was her safety net, her last resort, the refuge for her and Spencer if all else failed.

Meg stared at Deputy Wade Murdock, a newcomer to Mount Esther, a man who couldn’t possibly understand what Ashford House meant to her. She wanted to believe he was lying to her. Unfortunately he didn’t look like the sort who would make up this story. He had a strong, proud face, centered by a nose with a subtle crookedness to it, as if he’d defended his principles on more than one occasion. His hair was the deep brown color of a walnut, slightly unkempt and just long enough to be interesting—the outward symbol of a man who avoided fussiness.

And he wasn’t likely a con artist or a crook. After all, he was the deputy sheriff of Mount Esther. Surely the man the town appointed to defend the law wouldn’t be the one to break it. But there had to be a logical explanation for what he believed to be true and what Meg knew to be fact.

Wade leveled a look at her that was every bit as intense as the one she gave him. “Look,” he said, “there’s obviously some mix-up here. Why don’t we try to get to the bottom of this. Tell me your name and your connection to this property.”

Once she told him who she was, he would have to accept that there had been a terrible mistake and they could work to correct it.

“My name is Meg Hamilton,” she said. “I live in Orlando….”

He nodded. “You’re the niece, the one whose husband—”

“Yes, I’m her niece,” she announced, cutting him off. She was acutely aware that while Aunt Amelia may not have told Meg all the details of her life the last few times they’d talked, she’d obviously been confiding personal information to this stranger. Did he also know that Dave had left her and Spence without so much as a forwarding address?

“I was called here yesterday,” she continued, “because my aunt fell in her home a few days ago and is convalescing at Shady Grove.”

“That makes sense,” he said.

“She asked me to come to Mount Esther to help sort out some things.”

“So let me get this straight,” he said. “You didn’t know that your aunt sold her house?”

Meg stood up and faced him squarely. “Frankly, I’m not at all convinced there has been a sale.”

“Do you think I’m imagining the contract that she and I both signed and which is right now sitting in my desk drawer?”

“No, I’m not suggesting that you are making up a contract. Clearly something was signed, something that has you believing you own this house. I would like to see the document for myself. Then maybe I can sort this out.”

“I’d be happy to show you my contract,” he said. “Although your aunt has a copy, and so does Betty Lamb, the real estate agent who handled the transaction. You might feel more comfortable dealing with one of those ladies instead of me.”

“I’ll certainly ask my aunt,” she said. “As soon as I take my suitcase into the house.” She half expected him to contest her right to stay here. To his credit, he didn’t. Once she’d moved her things in, she would go to Shady Grove and evaluate her aunt’s medical condition. And if Amelia were in good spirits, Meg would question her about this supposed contract.

Wade pointed to the rear of the house. “Go in the back way,” he said. “I left the door unlocked.”

“You have a key?” An alarming thought occurred to her. “You’re not living here, are you?”

He smiled. “No, not yet. But I have access to the property. With your aunt’s permission, of course.” He swatted his ball cap against his thigh, settled it back on his head, and took a few steps toward the wheelbarrow as if he were dismissing her. “Oh, by the way, don’t be alarmed by what you see in there. The place may not look exactly as you remember it. Your aunt’s been a busy lady the last few weeks.”

She matched his smug expression with her most skeptical one. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“You’ll see when you get inside.” He grasped the handles of the wheelbarrow, but before he turned the corner of the barn, he called back over his shoulder. “Make yourself at home, Meg.” And then he smiled. “While you’re here I promise to knock before coming in.”

BEFORE MEG COULD utter an appropriate comeback, Wade had turned the corner with his Suwannee riverbank fertilizer. Consequently he probably didn’t hear when she slammed her car door after retrieving her suitcase and stomped along the old cement patio stones that led to the back door. Maybe Deputy Murdock didn’t appreciate the full effect of her frustration, but it made Meg feel better to release it.

His attitude was unnerving. He almost acted as if this dilemma were a laughing matter and that his claim to Ashford House was real. Of course she supposed he believed it was. Meg lugged her bag up three porch steps and twisted the doorknob which was, indeed, unlocked. She’d set Deputy Murdock straight soon enough. Meg knew Ashford House had been deeded to her. She’d seen a copy of the Quit Claim document before it was filed with the attorney. Her name was on it.

“This house guards our souls, Margaret,” Aunt Amelia had told her one warm, fragrant night many years ago. “We two are the only ones who feel its pulse and hear it breathe. Not even your Uncle Stewie understands these old walls like you and I do. We are the destiny of Ashford House.”

Through the years Meg had explored every nook and cranny of the mansion. She’d daydreamed at the windows of all six bedrooms. She knew about the secret panels in the library, the removable top to the newel post at the base of the front stairway where Uncle Stewie always hid a bag of silver dollars which he passed out to Meg and Jerry when they visited.

She stepped across the threshold into the kitchen and let out a breath. A sense of overwhelming relief washed over her. This was Hattie May’s kitchen, just as Meg remembered it with its six-burner stove, mammoth refrigerator, and ten-foot pine scrub table. She could almost picture Hattie May washing vegetables at one of the giant sinks as she spun tales about her ancestors who had been brought to America as slaves.

Don’t be alarmed, the deputy had said. The place may not look as you remember it. What nonsense, Meg thought. As far as she could tell nothing had changed.

Then she noticed that the pantry door was ajar. Several boxes protruded from the opening, making it impossible to close. Certainly the shelves were not stocked with food as they once used to be. Hattie May passed away a few years after Uncle Stewie’s death, and Aunt Amelia, with hired help only a few hours a day, prepared most of her own simple meals herself.

Meg crossed to the door, pulled it open the rest of the way and stood face-to-face with a solid wall of cardboard cartons. “What is all this?” she said to the empty room. The boxes she could see had been opened and resealed. She read a few of the shipping labels and discovered with a feeling of relief that each carton had been shipped to Amelia Ashford. At least the deputy hadn’t moved his personal possessions into her house! The postmarks were from the past two months. The return addresses were various companies located throughout the United States.

If this collection of cartons was what the deputy meant by alarming, then perhaps he had a point. Determined to get to the bottom of this mystery, Meg went out the back door and stood on the service porch. “Deputy,” she shouted. “Deputy Murdock!”

He came around the barn, pushing the wheelbarrow with ease since it had delivered its cargo. “What is it?” he called to her.

“These boxes. What do you know about them?”

Leaving the cart by the barn door, he came halfway to the house. “They’re all Mrs. Ashford’s,” he said.

“I can see that, but what’s inside them?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “Amelia’s been ordering things. I bring her mail up every day, and she gets stacks of catalogues. Since she’s been at Shady Grove I’ve left an accumulation on the wicker table on the front porch. If you look through the mail, I think you might get some answers.”

Meg shook her head. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “She’s filled up the pantry.”

Deputy Murdock laughed. “The pantry? Haven’t you been in the dining room?”

“No.”

He let out a long whistle. “I hope you aren’t planning any dinner parties while you’re here.”

She frowned at him. “Of course not. You’re just full of riddles and surprises, aren’t you, Deputy?”

“No, ma’am. I deal in facts, and you’re about to face some of them right now.”

Meg returned to the kitchen and walked cautiously to the dining room. When she pressed on the hinged door that normally provided easy access between the rooms, she discovered that it allowed only enough room for one person to walk through. And when she did, she couldn’t believe what she saw. Piled on the floor, the table, all ten Chippendale chairs were more boxes. Dozens and dozens of them. All sizes and shapes.

She sidestepped down a narrow path that wound between two columns of cartons until she was in the middle of the room where her aunt had once hosted friends and family and which now resembled a warehouse. She scanned a wall of corrugated cardboard while she ran her hands along the dusty exteriors of the boxes. Then, she absently noted Wade Murdock’s voice coming from the doorway to the kitchen. “It’s a little overwhelming, I guess. I suppose eventually we’ll have to figure out what to do with all this stuff.”

WADE FOLLOWED HER through the dining room to the formal parlor in the front of the house. She hadn’t asked him to. In fact, she probably wasn’t even aware that he was so close. But it was the least he could do, stand guard over her while she faced the evidence of her aunt’s eccentricity. She peered warily around the door frame into the parlor as if she expected to see additional boxes and was steeling herself to deal with even more chaos. She released a long sigh when she saw a mere half-dozen cartons sitting on the desk and an end table. They were the ones he’d carried in today. As long as Meg didn’t look too closely at the details of the parlor that had fallen into disrepair, she would be comforted to find this room at least familiar.

“As far as I know,” he said, “all the boxes are confined to these downstairs rooms. Although I haven’t been on the upper floors since I first saw the house and made an offer on it.”

Startled at the sound of his voice, she spun around and laid her hand across her chest as if she were sending a message to her heart to keep beating. Then she stared at him with wide, vivid blue eyes and shook her head. “How long has it been like this?”

“Roughly since Mrs. Ashford came into some money.”

Her eyes rounded. “What do you mean?”

He had to smile, since he knew the source of the unexpected income. He knew, too, as most everyone in Mount Esther did, that Amelia Ashford had suffered financial difficulties recently. Like many elderly folks, she’d watched her savings dwindle. “It was my money,” he said. “I gave her a deposit on the property when we signed the contract.”

Meg’s eyebrows arched with the unspoken question.

“Twenty thousand dollars,” he told her.

Her gaze darted to the entrance to the dining room and she groaned. “You don’t think…? All that money?” She read the label on a long, narrow box. “This is from a company called Star Search.” She tore the plastic envelope from the top, removed an invoice and read the particulars. As if expecting Wade to validate what she read, she held the paper out to him. “There’s a telescope inside. And it cost five hundred and forty dollars.”

He studied the invoice, adding that Mrs. Ashford had paid with her bank debit card. “For that amount of money, it’s no doubt a fine instrument.”

Meg let out a bark of laughter. “And this one,” she said, reading the label from a box on the end table. “It’s from a toy company called Furry Friends.” She raised the box and shook it, creating a soft, rustling sound. “My aunt bought a stuffed animal?”

Wade shrugged.

“Where did you say you’d put her mail?”

He went out to the porch and returned with the stack of catalogues he’d brought from the mailbox in the last few days. He handed them to Meg, and she sank into the nearest chair and thumbed through them. When she looked up at Wade, her eyes reflected shock and confusion. “Did you know that my aunt was spending all this money?”

“I knew she was receiving deliveries, yes.” He glanced over his shoulder toward the dining room. “It’s a little hard to ignore.”

Meg’s voice rose a notch. “Why didn’t anyone stop her?”

“Stop her? For what reason? There isn’t a law in this state against spending money.”

“But didn’t you find this behavior suspicious?”

“I’ve only known your aunt a few months. I wasn’t qualified to judge her behavior. As I saw it, a ninety-two-year-old woman suddenly had extra cash and she spent it as she wanted to. I knew where the money came from since I gave it to her myself, so there was no need to investigate her windfall and what she did with it. But it might comfort you to know that the bank manager of the Mount Esther Savings and Loan did find your aunt’s habits suspicious. He strongly suggested that she quit using her credit card when the charges became abnormally high. That’s when she resorted to using her debit card.”

Wade hadn’t been inside the house in over two weeks since he’d been doing repairs on the outside and in the barn. When he’d come in today he’d been shocked at the accumulation of deliveries.

Meg stared at the glossy catalogues on her lap as if they were written in a foreign language. And then she tossed them to the floor, stood up, and looked at Wade. “Why wasn’t I called?” she asked. “You obviously know about me, Deputy. My phone number’s in my aunt’s address book. Didn’t you think I should know my aunt was spending her money so foolishly?”

The hairs on his neck bristled. Was this woman actually expecting him to defend himself further? “You think I should have called you? Mrs. Ashford told me that she has two nieces. One of them, the one she talks about a lot…” He jerked his thumb toward a photograph on the wall. It showed Meg in her high school graduation gown. “…is you I assume since I’ve seen your pictures hanging all over this house. And I know you haven’t been to see your aunt in quite a while. The other one…” He picked up a photo from a bookshelf. “…a woman who lives in Chicago, hasn’t been to Mount Esther in years.”

He leveled his sternest gaze on her. “Besides, this really wasn’t my business. I simply observed a sweet old woman spending her own money.”

Meg scowled. “So, you stood by and watched as this sweet old woman’s mind slowly but certainly failed her without doing anything about it.”

“What would you have wanted me to do? As I saw it, Amelia Ashford was having the time of her life.”

What happened next completely unnerved him. Meg’s features slowly changed from righteous anger to a sort of chilling understanding. “Wait a minute,” she said. “Perhaps you had something to gain by ignoring my aunt’s unusual behavior.”

He backed up a step. “What do you mean by that?”

She gestured to the packages. “You’ll excuse me for saying so, Deputy, but I can’t help thinking that this wild spending was a sign of my aunt’s vulnerability and an open invitation for you to con her out of this house.”

Anger flared inside him. “That’s ridiculous. I didn’t even express an interest in buying this place until after I made the deal to board my daughter’s horse. And then I only mentioned it as a sort of remote possibility. But Mrs. Ashford was more than willing to get an offer on this old place. She welcomed my interest, encouraged it. And another thing…your aunt didn’t start her spending spree until after she sold me her house. I didn’t observe her buying so much as a sewing needle before she accepted my offer. So much for your theory about me watching her odd behavior with some sort of sinister intent.”

She didn’t seem to have a reasonable counterargument, so she sank back down in the chair and stared at the cartons around her. Then she looked up at him, some of the fire back in her eyes. “You won’t get this house, Deputy,” she finally said. “You are going to find that the contract you signed with Amelia Ashford is worthless.”

“I hardly think so.”

She leaned forward, fixed him with an unblinking gaze. “You’d better be ready to accept disappointment,” she stated defiantly. “Four years ago, Amelia deeded this house to me.”

Okay, she’d finally presented an argument that could pose a problem. Had Betty Lamb overlooked something? Still, he couldn’t resist pointing out the obvious. “Then why didn’t that little detail show up when my Realtor did a title search?”

“I intend to find out,” she said. “It has always been my aunt’s wish that I would get Ashford House when she dies, and she prepared the deed to insure that would happen.”

For a moment, the cold grip of panic coiled in Wade’s gut. He’d given Amelia Ashford twenty thousand dollars, every penny he’d saved while working fifteen years for the New York City Police Department. There was no way he would stand by and watch the savings he’d scrounged from hauling in thugs and criminals squandered on the contents of boxes in an old woman’s dining room without getting what he’d paid for.

He drew a deep breath to steady his nerves and stared hard at Meg. “It appears we both have documents we need to inspect,” he said.

“That’s fine with me.” Meg stood up and walked around him toward the kitchen. “I’m going to take my suitcase upstairs now, and then I’m going to see my aunt. Perhaps she can explain what’s been going on here.”

She disappeared into the dining room and he could visualize her threading her way back through columns of boxes that reached higher than her head. And, strangely, a bout of conscience, or more accurately, pity, washed over him. Meg Hamilton was obviously going to fight for Ashford House just as vehemently as he was.

There was something about this place. Wade had felt its spirit the first time he came in the door. And his connection to the house had grown once he’d decided to buy it. Now, it was as if he’d been destined to find this old place and make it his. He sensed that after two and a half years of grieving over a senseless tragedy, he could finally put down roots again in this quirky old mansion.

CHAPTER THREE

MEG WAS THINKING about Ashford House as she drove back to Mount Esther, turned at the traffic light, and headed to the Shady Grove Convalescent Center. She also thought about Deputy Wade Murdock. While he’d been adamant about defending his claim to the property, she had to admit that he had treated her decently, especially considering that she’d accused him of taking advantage of her aunt’s confused state. Plus, the announcement that Ashford House had been deeded to her must have been a shock. Twenty thousand dollars was a lot of money to invest in property that was never going to be his.

She chewed on the end of one nail as she scanned the side of the road for a sign that identified the drive to the nursing home. She wondered about what sort of contract the deputy had and if it was truly valid. It couldn’t be. She had legally owned Ashford House for four years. A man can’t just move into town and make a deal on a piece of property that has been given to someone else.

In spite of this controversy, Meg did feel some compassion for the deputy. He was obviously a family man. He’d mentioned his daughter, and Meg supposed he had a wife and perhaps other children who depended on him. And now he would have to disappoint them when he explained about the house. This whole mess really was unfortunate, and certainly not a problem Meg had ever thought she would have to deal with. Just as she never thought she would pull into her aunt’s drive and find a good-looking lawman carting manure from the barn.

She shook her head to dispel the very clear image of Wade Murdock standing so close behind her in the parlor of Ashford House. When she considered Wade’s appearance, which she shouldn’t, since he obviously had a family, she had to admit that Murdock had a certain appealing quality, in what she imagined was a down-to-earth, working man, New York sort of way.