Home For Keeps

The receptionist wore a worried smile. Then again, Carol worried about everything and everyone, said it was the result of having raised five kids. Blamed them for the gray in her hair, though she was barely forty.

“Is something wrong?” Grace tried to keep tension from her voice, but Carol’s brows were knit together.

“Mr. Huber wants to see you,” she said in something just above a whisper. “He told me to send you in the moment you arrived.”

Oh, great. Wearing a forced smile, she entered her father’s office. Sitting behind a massive desk loaded with paper files, Henry Huber appeared every bit the successful businessman he was. His stocky build was minimized by tailor-made suits, which he wore even when visiting the construction site, and his dark hair laced with silver was professionally trimmed every other week.

“Hey, Dad, I heard you wanted to see me.”

He glared at her and looked as if he was ready to pop a cork. “Where have you been?” he demanded. “I’ve had people calling me the past couple of hours to complain.”

Uh-oh, he knew about the mural. Grace tried to divert him by asking, “You mean they’re bothering you about the ghost sighting? I talked to Nellie Martin. She really didn’t see anything other than some faint movement through the trees, maybe fog, but people are convinced the land is haunted.”

“Ignore them.” He carefully arranged a stack of paper in one of the trays on his desk. “I did hear a rumor about a murder...or similar in that old farmhouse we tore down. Whitman. That was the name of the old couple that lived there.”

“A murder?”

“Something that happened back nearly a century ago. Nobody could offer any proof, though. Probably just gossip.”

“A hundred years ago, huh?” Grace felt a bit relieved. “Yes, probably gossip.” People in small towns loved to talk.

“Whatever. It’s not important. What is important is taking care of our project now. I heard how well you did that this morning. Residents are complaining that you wouldn’t call the authorities and have those girls who defaced the property arrested.”

She should have known better. When her father had something he wanted to say, it was like a mission to him. “I did speak with the artist’s father—”

“Artist? You mean vandal!”

“She’s a kid, Dad. Her mother ran off and left her, and she’s upset about that. You remember what that was like, don’t you? You would have totally gotten it if you had seen the mural she painted.”

Her father’s mouth tightened.

She went on. “Caleb Blackthorne has taken this very seriously. He’s about out of his mind with worry for his daughter. I think he was terrified that I would have her arrested.”

Her father’s visage changed. He looked a little haunted himself. She knew he remembered the trouble she’d gotten herself in. It was a time in their lives that neither of them would ever be able to forget.

“Dad?”

“All right, all right! As long as they stay off the Green Meadows grounds.”

Grace was certain Caleb would do what he could to make sure Angela stayed in line. But she didn’t know about the other girl, Kiki. Still, she said, “They will,” with more certainty than she actually felt.

“Good. Then concentrate on the job. On what’s important, so you can slide behind my desk when I retire next year.”

Grace’s throat tightened. “You’re not going to retire, Dad. You would be too bored.” And thinking about whether he would retire or not was making him uptight.

“I want the pleasure of seeing what I’ve built become an enduring legacy for my family.”

“I understand you do.” Though Grace was not happy with the future he expected of her, she never could tell him that. “Now, I’ve got work waiting for me.”

While she enjoyed the public part of her job—dealing with people—she wasn’t so crazy about the executive part of it, particularly the never-ending meetings and financial planning for the future. The endless paperwork made her crazy, and she would do anything to avoid it. She wanted to expand her knowledge and get more personally involved in the green community, an idea that Dad continually criticized, making her keep her wishes to herself and resent him for it.

Her father waved her away, and she traded his office for her own, where she pulled out the proposal Heather had drawn up for the landscaping. Though she looked it over, she couldn’t focus. She kept glancing out the window, watching sparrows play tag as she thought about her future.

About her father telling her she was born to be his right hand, that her purpose in life was to run Walworth Builders when he was done serving his time.

She knew that position would have gone to her twin brother, if Michael had lived past thirteen. His death in a tragic boating accident drove her parents apart, and her mother had divorced her father and abandoned her when she’d moved to Minneapolis. She and her father had been left to go it on their own. That’s when she’d started acting out, getting herself into trouble. Like Angela, she’d been a handful, but her father had both protected her and put her back on the straight and narrow. And so, grateful, she felt very protective of the man who’d lost so much in life.

If only he wasn’t so demanding and grumpy. If only he didn’t tell her what she needed to do and how to do it. Her father really would retire one of these days. He expected her to take over as CEO at Walworth and, though it was the last thing she wanted, Grace knew she would do as he wished. Reaching up to close the blinds, she forced herself to stare at the papers in front of her.

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_99571f46-ee42-546b-8775-bd5f1c6772c8)

“AREN’T YOU AFRAID your dad’s gonna kill you?” Kiki asked Angela on Monday morning, halfway through building a semitraditional sweat lodge a hundred yards from the house.

Angela glanced at her friend, who was decked out in her usual black clothes and makeup, but with new purple extensions flowing from her hair. “Dad grounded me, he said I had to stay home, but he didn’t say I had to stay inside.” It was her spring break, after all. The community college had been off the week before, so Dad was at work and she was theoretically alone. He’d probably have a cow if he knew Kiki was here. “Besides, he’ll have to see I’m doing something worthwhile.”

Even if her father wasn’t into Chippewa culture the way she was. And even if her true intention was to have a place to get away from him. She could come out here to avoid his lectures about how she needed to be practical, to plan for her future, about how she was always doing things the wrong way—which really meant she wasn’t doing things his way.

“What if he asks why you decided to build a lodge?” Kiki asked.

She wouldn’t tell him the truth. “I’ll say I was inspired the last time I stayed with Gran Maddie. He never argues with his mother about anything. He just can’t know you were here helping me. By the time he comes home from work, we’ll be finished. Too late for him to tell me to forget it.”

Kiki circled the half dome of saplings they’d tied together with twine. “Um, I hate to say it, but it looks a little crooked.”

Sighing, Angela agreed. “It does, but it’s my first try. It’ll have to do for now. Let’s get this stuff up.” She indicated the pile of tarps and blankets she’d collected from the house. “Blankets first. The tarps will keep them from getting wet when it rains.”

“Yeah, if you get to keep it up that long.”

Angela’s chest tightened. Dad had better not make her take her sweat lodge down! She didn’t know what she might do if he did.

They spent the next twenty minutes carefully aligning blankets and securing them to the frame, leaving an opening facing east, but with a flap she could lower for complete darkness. And privacy.

“So what did you do yesterday when Dad dragged me away from the mural?” Angela asked.

“Something fun.”

“What?”

“I got back at them—the creepy Green Meadows residents who wanted us arrested.”

“Kiki, what did you do?”

“I called someone who would be interested in murders and ghosts. Hopefully, he’ll scare them to death!”

Angela rolled her eyes. Wasn’t the mural enough for one day? “Are you sure you should have done that? If anyone finds out, you’re going to get yourself in trouble.”

“So? I’ve been arrested before. No biggie.”

Arrested. Angela shuddered as they began gathering large stones. She knew Kiki had been arrested for shoplifting once and had spent a day behind bars. She didn’t want that fate for herself. She’d hoped they could disappear before someone discovered they were painting a mural on that wall, and when they were caught, she’d really been afraid someone would call the cops.