Matchmaking with a Mission

“I thought you could prepare by working here in the hospital office. You’ll also need income. I’ll help you put together a résumé for when you’re released.”

The imbecile. She wasn’t going to need a job when she got out. “That is so kind of you,” she said. “How can I ever thank you?” She could think of several ways she’d like to thank him, all of them involving his pain.

“You being well and getting on with your life will be thanks enough,” he said as he removed his hand from hers and rose to leave. “I want you to be a survivor, Violet.”

She nodded and smiled. “I intend to be.” She couldn’t say the same for her mother and the others who had made her life a living hell.

She tried not to shudder at the thought of the mediocre life she would have on the outside if it was up to these doctors. Some dismal job, a cramped apartment, several cats and nothing to look forward to at night but television and a frozen cheesecake.

A woman as smart as she was? Not a chance. She’d been foolish in the past. She’d let them catch her. She wouldn’t make that mistake again..

She thought about her mother’s face when she saw her oldest daughter again. Payback was a bitch, she thought with a secret smile as she looked out the window.

Thirty days. And counting.

Chapter Four

The auction was held in front of the Harper House on a bright blue-sky June day. Someone had mowed part of the weeds in the front yard the night before. The air smelled of fresh-mown grass and dust from the county road out front.

As McKenna mounted the steps to the open front door, she saw that the footprints she’d seen yesterday evening in the thick layer of dust had been trampled by the half dozen people who’d traipsed through the house this morning.

April had been right. The house needed work. But that wasn’t what surprised McKenna. She’d always been enthralled by the house. She’d just assumed she would feel the same once inside. The interior had a dark, cold feel even with the warm sun shining through the dirty windows, and she found herself shivering as she walked through the rooms.

She noticed the shovel and shirt she’d seen by the back door yesterday were gone. On the third floor, when she looked out a small back window, she couldn’t see the places where the man had dug. They’d apparently been covered with cut weeds. Had she not caught the man in the act yesterday, she would never have guessed anyone had been digging on the hillside.

It still made her wonder what he might have been looking for, but she turned her attention to the house as she wandered from room to room, trying to imagine herself living here. It was hard given the condition of the house. It would take days just to clean, let alone paint. She knew exactly what her sister Eve would say.

Raze the house and start over.

McKenna had heard several such comments from the other people who had gathered for the auction.

“There’s a nice building spot upon the hill once the house is gone,” she’d heard one man say.

But the rooms were spacious, and she told herself once the house was cleaned up, painted and furnished she could be happy here. Anyway, the house was the reason she’d always wanted the place, wasn’t it?

At one fifty-five she gathered with the others in the front yard as the auctioneer climbed the porch steps and cleared his throat to quiet the small crowd.

McKenna glanced at the group around her, surprised that some of the people who’d toured the house earlier had left. Just curiosity seekers. She recognized only one elderly man and his wife, Edgar and Ethel Winthrop. The couple lived about two miles to the north. McKenna was surprised they’d stayed, since she doubted they would be bidding on the place.

She didn’t recognize any of the others waiting. Three of the men appeared to be in their early thirties; the fourth man, in his forties, was on a cell phone. She figured he was here bidding for an investor and turned her attention to the other three men.

One, clearly a local rancher, wore a Mint Bar cap, a worn canvas coat and work boots and had a toothpick sticking out the side of his mouth. The second was dressed in a dinosaur T-shirt, jeans and athletic shoes. The third man wore jeans, cowboy boots, a Western shirt and a gray Stetson.

As the auctioneer described the property and the county auction requirements, she saw another man, one she hadn’t noticed before. He’d parked on the county road some distance from the proceedings and now stood, his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the front of his pickup truck, his battered Western straw hat pulled low against the sun.

He’d obviously just come to watch. He was dressed in work boots, jeans and a white T-shirt that called attention to his tanned, muscular arms. There was a toolbox in the back of his truck and a construction logo of some kind on the cab, but she couldn’t make out the name from where she stood.

“If everyone’s ready, let’s begin,” the auctioneer said, drawing her attention back to the front.

The cowboy glanced over at her as the auctioneer began the bidding. He was good-looking enough to make her do a double take.

“I can’t believe anyone would buy that house,” Ethel Winthrop whispered behind McKenna.

“Not everyone cares about a house’s history, Ethel,” her husband whispered back.

“Who would like to start the bidding?” the auctioneer inquired.

When no one responded, the auctioneer started the bid high and had to drop the price when there were no takers.

McKenna waited as the man on the cell phone bid along with dinosaur-shirt man and the local rancher. The cowboy hadn’t bid either, she noticed, apparently waiting as she was. Or maybe he’d just come to watch.

As the price rose, the man on the cell phone quit bidding and left. It had come down between the rancher and dinoshirt man when the cowboy jumped in. McKenna feared the men were going to drive the price up too high for her.

The rancher quit. It was down to the cowboy and the dino-shirt man when McKenna finally bid.

The cowboy shot her a look and raised her bid.

She bid two more times, dino-shirt dropping out, so it was just her and the cowboy. One look into his dark eyes and she realized he was enjoying himself—at her expense.

“The young woman has the bid,” the auctioneer said after they’d gone back and forth.

Time seemed to stop, and then the cowboy tipped his hat, his dark eyes flashing. “It’s the lady’s.”

McKenna couldn’t believe it.

The auctioneer closed the bidding. Edgar Winthrop stepped up to congratulate her and ask her what she planned to do with the house as the remainder of the small group dispersed.

“I’m going to live here,” she said and saw his wife’s expression.

“Not alone, I hope,” she said.

“Ethel,” the husband said in a warning tone.

“Edgar, she should know about that house,” the elderly woman insisted. “If she moves in and then finds out…”

The husband took his wife’s arm. “You’ll have to excuse my wife. All houses have a history, Ethel.” He smiled at McKenna. “I wouldn’t concern yourself with local gossip. What’s past is past, right?”

McKenna smiled, too excited to care about the house’s history. Anyway, she figured the woman was referring to the troubled boys who’d lived on the place when she was a girl. They couldn’t have been any worse than she and her sisters.

“Congratulations, I’m sure it will make you a fine home,” Edgar said.

“I’m sure it will, too,” she agreed.

He tugged at his wife’s elbow, but Ethel grabbed McKenna’s sleeve. “If you need us, we live up that way as the crow flies.” She pointed north.

“Thank you,” McKenna said as Edgar Winthrop took his wife’s hand and led her toward their car.

“You remember what I said,” Ethel called over her shoulder.