Monkey Wrench

“In layman’s terms, this old place is falling apart.”

Susannah said, “Surely you exaggerate.”

“Not at all.” Quite seriously, Joe addressed himself directly to Rose. “I took the liberty of looking around upstairs a little just now. I notice the roof leaks, for starters.”

“Oh, it’s nothing a few pots and pans can’t take care of when it rains,” Rose answered with a twinkle in her eye.

Susannah frowned. “I had no idea you were having problems with the house, Granny Rose. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Rose shrugged. “Why should I spend my time worrying about an old pile of wood? It just has to last as long as I do. The only reason I had Joe work on the porch was that the posts were rotting.”

Joe said, “You’re going to live a good, long time, Mrs. A., so I think we should make sure your house doesn’t fall down around your ears in the meantime.”

“Oh, Joe, you’re too busy to bother with an old woman like me.”

Despite her objection, Rose looked suspiciously delighted to be the center of an attractive man’s attention, Susannah noted. She said, “Maybe you ought to get some estimates from other carpenters, Granny Rose.”

“Oh, I don’t want anybody but Joe working on my house. If he’s got the time, that is.”

“I’ve got time,” Joe said.

“Aren’t you working on the old lodge for the Ingalls family?”

“It’s coming along fine.” Joe leaned comfortably back in his chair and reached for yet another cookie. “In fact, I think the Ingalls family is trying to decide if they’re going to sell the old place or not. My crew is moving right along on the major renovations while they think about it. The improvements we’ve made should certainly help them get a better price.”

Susannah’s curiosity was piqued by that bit of Tyler gossip. “The old lodge is for sale? I thought it was condemned years ago.”

“Not condemned, just closed up. It was in pretty bad shape,” Joe said, “but Liza has been fixing it up again. Do you know Liza?”

“The youngest Baron girl? Yes, she was several years behind me in school—her brother, Jeff, was closer to my age—but I remember her. She was...well, a little wild, as I recall.”

Joe grinned. “She hasn’t changed. She’s a pistol, but I like her. Liza’s got a real artist’s eye where old buildings are concerned.”

“And,” Rose added with a smile, “she got married recently. I think she’s finally on the right track. Her grandfather is very proud of her.”

The Ingallses were one of the town’s most prominent families, and whatever they did was grist for the gossip mill in Tyler. Old Judson Ingalls had long been a community leader, and his daughter, Alyssa, was respected as one of Tyler’s most gracious and generous ladies. Her good works were well known, and a great many people asked her advice on matters.

Alyssa’s apparently fairy-tale marriage to Ronald Baron had come to a tragic end when her husband took his own life after a financial setback, but Alyssa and her three children seemed to have weathered the tragedy as well as could be hoped. Daughter Amanda was a successful lawyer, if Susannah remembered correctly, and Jeffrey had become a doctor. Only Liza, known for her wild ways, had failed so far to make her mark in the world in a big way. Susannah had always liked the feisty youngest child of Alyssa Baron, and she was glad to hear Liza was finally coming into her own.

She said, “Liza was always very talented.”

“I hope she’s also a good detective,” Joe remarked.

“Why?”

Joe exchanged a glance with Rose. “Well, the Ingalls family has a mystery to solve.”

“A mystery?” Susannah repeated.

Rose’s expression brightened with excitement. “Yes, the whole town’s been buzzing for months. Joe and his men found a dead body buried up at the lodge.”

Susannah stared at Joe. “Whose body?”

He shrugged and appeared unaffected by the gruesome event. “Nobody knows. Whoever she was had been buried for a very long time—more than twenty years, I’m sure.”

“She? How did she get there?”

“That’s the mystery. We don’t know anything, except that it was a woman—the police just figured that out, apparently—and she died under suspicious circumstances.” Joe added, “In fact, I think she was probably murdered.”

Rose set her cup down and said firmly, “I’ll bet you a dozen doughnuts it’s Margaret Ingalls.”

“Judson’s wife?” Susannah asked, astonished by Rose’s revelation. “I thought she disappeared a long time ago. Her disappearance caused a big scandal years back, didn’t it?”

Nodding, Rose said, “Everyone assumed Margaret left Judson and ran off with one of her boyfriends—she had a bunch of them. What a naughty flirt she was! I know where Liza got her spunk. Margaret ran away, but we never really learned what happened to her. The murder story makes sense, don’t you think? Instead of abandoning her husband and never contacting her friends again, she was killed!”

Susannah couldn’t help grinning as she noted Rose’s fascination with the mystery. “That’s what this town needs. A juicy murder mystery to help pass the cold winter nights.”

“It’s been the talk of the town,” Joe agreed.

With even more fervor, Rose declared, “I always knew Margaret Ingalls would come to a bad end.”

“Wasn’t that wishful thinking, Granny Rose? You had a soft spot for Judson, if I remember correctly.”

Rose blushed and got up suddenly from the table. “Oh, that was a long time ago. I never meant for Margaret to get hurt. Judson and I were friends, that’s all, especially after my Henry died. That’s the way things work in a small town. Everybody’s known everybody else since the day they were born, and we look out for one another. Except Joe, of course. He’s not from Tyler, are you, Joe?”

Susannah saw that Rose didn’t want to talk about the details of her romantic past, and Joe must have seen the same thing. He played along, saying, “Tyler is my home now, and my daughter likes it here.”

“Joe has a daughter,” Rose said to Susannah, clearly relieved that the topic had been changed. “She’s a lovely girl. Perhaps you’ll get to meet her.”

Amused, Joe heard the hopeful note in Rose’s voice and knew exactly what the old girl was up to. Practically every woman in Tyler had tried to help Joe’s love life along by introducing him to their daughters, their sisters, their maiden cousins from Chicago—any female who didn’t have one foot in the grave.

And it wasn’t just the women who tried to hook him up with marriageable ladies. A great many fathers, brothers, uncles and even a grandfather or two had made overtures on behalf of their female relatives. A widower like Joe was a prime target in a small town. In fact, Joe figured he’d met every eligible woman within a hundred miles of Tyler.

He liked meeting eligible women, of course. But Joe wasn’t looking for one particular woman in his life. He was having enough trouble with his daughter. Another female around would surely spell disaster.

However, something about Susannah Atkins intrigued Joe, unlike all the other women he’d met since coming to Tyler nearly a decade earlier. He couldn’t help noticing that Susannah Atkins was different.

As she sat at the cluttered kitchen table, her delicate hands cupping her hot cocoa, she looked beautiful, stylish and smart—not the kind of woman Joe was usually introduced to. But he liked the sound of Susannah’s laughter, and he could hardly keep his eyes off her. His insides were churned up, too, with unmistakable physical attraction. And for some reason, he was fighting the urge to reach across the table and toy with her hand. She was that kind of lady.

He tried to figure out exactly why the bells and whistles were going off in his head. It wasn’t just her beauty that drew his gaze, although her fine blond hair had started to come loose, and framed her face in silky, touchable wisps. Her features were more precise than the television camera portrayed. Her eyes were bluer.

But there was something more appealing than good looks about Miss Suzie Atkins. With a start, Joe realized he also liked the fact that she wasn’t making bedroom eyes at him. In fact, she appeared to be downright determined not to start anything personal with him or anyone else.

Susannah was one woman who wasn’t going to chase him, Joe decided.

She’s a challenge, he said to himself.

For once, here was a woman who wasn’t going to bake him cookies he didn’t need or invite him to parties he didn’t want to attend or fuss over him until he paid a compliment. She was cool and lovely and sophisticated, a woman who knew her own mind and could laugh when the moment warranted.