Your House or Mine?

His previous doubts about taking charge seemed to have faded, and he gave her a smug look. “You manage the whiz kid and the auction, so why shouldn’t I? I’ll get a couple of my friends to help out temporarily. Look, sis, do you have any other ideas?” Jerry added when she hesitated to trust him with her son. “I’ve got one big advantage over anyone else you might think of to babysit. I’m here, and I’m offering.”

It was a convincing argument. And on short notice, Meg had no other choice. She sighed. “Okay, but you’ll stay at my house, so Spence has all his stuff and he’s near the school. And you’ll drive him there every morning by 7:45 and pick him up at the neighbor’s every afternoon?”

Jerry nodded. “Yes, yes, and yes. I’ll be there in the morning. Don’t worry. My nephew is a chip off the old Hamilton block. He idolizes me.”

“That’s what worries me. But thanks, Jerry. I really appreciate this.”

“No problem.”

She headed for the door but stopped before going outside. “One more thing. No parties. And no poker games or gambling of any kind in the house.”

Jerry saluted. “Right. I’ll make sure the kid knows he’d better not negatively influence me.”

Despite the rough day and the bad news from Mount Esther, Meg was smiling when she got in her car.

AT 7:30 THE NEXT MORNING Meg double checked Spencer’s backpack to make certain he had the supplies he would need for the day. Once satisfied that the pack was in order, she took a frozen juice box from the refrigerator and tried to stuff it into his nylon lunch sack.

Her son gave her a look that combined exasperation with sympathy. “Mom, will you relax? You already put juice in there.”

She looked down and frowned. A brightly colored box was nestled between a baloney sandwich and a bag of chips. “So I did.” She took the extra one out and tossed it back into the case of twenty-three others she’d bought the night before at the wholesale club. Then she hurried to her front window and scanned the street with mounting panic. “Where is Uncle Jerry?”

“Right here,” her brother said two seconds after the back door slammed. He entered the living room and announced, “My car’s in the driveway. I must have missed your radar by coming in fast and low.” He ruffled Spencer’s hair. “Ready to go, kid?”

Spencer slipped his backpack over his shoulders. “Yep, I’m ready.”

Meg wrapped her son in a huge hug. They’d never been apart for more than a day or two since Spence had been born. There hadn’t even been a problem when Meg divorced Spencer’s father two years ago. Dave had walked out without a backward glance and without asking for visitation rights. It was as if Dave Groller had never been married and didn’t have a son.

In the beginning, when Spence was born, Dave seemed to enjoy being a father. At least he’d soaked up the attention he got whenever he took their son to the park or wheeled him in the stroller. But that was when Dave had enjoyed being a husband, too. When Spence had grown older, more demanding perhaps, he’d tried every childish trick he could think of to get his father’s attention. And then Dave left, and Spence had to live with the fact that his father didn’t care about him.

Meg held her son’s face between her hands and studied his features. Unlike Meg, whose complexion was coppery and whose hair had the deep auburn highlights of her mother’s side, Spencer had inherited the handsome Hamilton traits of his grandfather and his Uncle Jerry—fair, lightly freckled skin, emerald-green eyes, and thick, wheat-colored hair. In appearance, he was a Hamilton through and through, which is one of the reasons Meg reverted to her maiden name when the divorce from Dave was final.

But contrary to his genetic makeup, Spencer had become a bookish sort of boy since his father left them. His beautiful eyes peered through the unbreakable lenses of heavy-duty glasses. And he rarely played outside, even in the near-idyllic sunshine of central Florida. He much preferred his room with its ever-expanding shelves of books and computer games.

“I’ll call you every day,” she said, at last prying her hands away from his cheeks. “And I’ll have my cell phone on all the time so you can reach me.”

“Okay.”

“You mind your Uncle Jerry.”

“I will.”

Jerry put his hand on her shoulder in a comforting gesture while glancing at his watch. “It’s seven forty-five, sis. I’m trying to keep to the schedule you set up, but you’re holding us back.”

“I’ll be fine, Mom, don’t worry,” Spencer said.

“I know you will. Go on now.”

Meg stood at the door until Jerry backed his car out of the drive. Then she shook off an uncomfortable feeling of emptiness and tried to concentrate on the day ahead. She knew she could trust Jerry to take care of Spencer. He truly loved her son. But the auction—that was another story. She could only pray she had a business to come back to.

She went into her room to retrieve her suitcase. She had almost a five-hour drive ahead of her, and even though every mile was taking her away from Spence, a familiar feeling of anticipation flowed through her now that she was only minutes away from leaving. After a nearly four-year absence, she was going back to Mount Esther, and in a way, it was like going home.

AT ONE O’CLOCK Friday afternoon, Meg exited Interstate 75 onto a two-lane county road about fifteen miles south of the Georgia border. The road twisted and dipped in a westwardly direction over rolling hills. After twenty minutes she had her first glimpse of the Suwannee River through a thickly wooded area of oak and mulberry trees.

She turned off her car air conditioner and rolled down the window. This far north, the humid June heat of Orlando was gone, replaced by a moist cool breeze that rustled the spring blossoms of purple and white trilliums along the side of the road. The rich, pungent smell of damp earth, and the fragrant scent of wildflowers teased the air outside the window.

She rounded a curve that led into an expanse of flat land between the hills and immediately spotted the sign announcing her arrival in Mount Esther. Population 1412, it read. She smiled when she remembered that a member of the town council was appointed every year to change the figure with each birth and death in the close-knit community.

At the traffic light in the center of Mount Esther’s business district, she turned right onto a narrow road that led across a single-lane wooden bridge spanning one of the tributaries to the Suwannee. After a mile she reached the turnoff to Aunt Amelia’s gracious old Victorian home—the home that Amelia had deeded to Meg several years before.

INTENDING TO DROP off her belongings before heading to Shady Grove, Meg drove up the lane to the house. She frowned as she noticed the large potholes in the sparse gravel. This lack of attention to upkeep wasn’t like Amelia. Each spring she ordered truckloads of gravel for the drive so it was neat and resistant to flooding during the rainy season. It also looked as though the trees hadn’t been trimmed in ages. The magnificent live oaks dripped with spongy gray moss that bristled against Meg’s windshield and cloaked the road in deep shadows.

But soon she cleared the three-hundred-yard drive and had her first look at the house. The green and cream colors she remembered seemed duller now, faded in the harsh Florida sun, but the structure, with its turret and peaks and wraparound porch was still a remarkable example of Queen Anne Victorian. Meg might have simply stopped for a moment and enjoyed the welcome sight had it not been for one detail that was completely out of place.

A police car was parked midway between the house and the barn.

Her heart pounded. Meg considered that she should approach the parked car with caution. After all, if a crime were being committed at this moment, she shouldn’t interfere with police procedures. And she certainly didn’t want to become a victim herself. But concern for her aunt’s home, and basic burning curiosity, got the best of her. She accelerated and pulled alongside the police car.

Mount Esther Sheriff’s Department was printed on the driver’s door panel. Meg shifted her car into park and peered out the windows to scan the backyard and trail to the barn. Seeing no one, she opened her door and stepped onto the path.

And then she spied a tall man pushing a wheelbarrow out of the barn. There was nothing in his appearance or demeanor to indicate that he was a law enforcement officer. He was dressed in blue jeans, a plaid shirt, and a Yankees baseball cap. He turned the wheelbarrow to guide it around the side of the building.

Realizing that for the moment at least she was the only other person witnessing this activity, Meg hoped she’d catch the attention of the police officer who must be elsewhere on the property. This was her aunt’s home—she wasn’t about to stand by and let someone take something from the barn.

“Hey, you there. Stop!”

Amazingly the man did what she said. He set down the back supports of the wheelbarrow. Then he stared across the open space at her and said, “Okay.”

Still looking around for the police, Meg marched up to him. He truly didn’t look all that threatening up close though he stood over six feet. He appeared strong but with a lean, solid strength defined by hard work rather than the sculpted tone of weight training. He took a kerchief from his back pocket, removed his cap and wiped his brow. After stuffing the cloth back into his jeans, he said, “Do you want something?”

Meg put her hands on her hips and tried to make the most of her five feet five inches. “What are you doing?”

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.”