After a sudden rebound marriage, she completely broke off all contact with the family. Without that first ill-starred marriage, perhaps everything would have been very different.
Claire gave him a determined smile. “Like I told you, this is a great place to raise the kids. It’s also now my sole source of income.”
Logan’s expression darkened. A telltale muscle in his cheek jerked. “Okay, how about you manage this place until next spring? Keep it open—earn a salary. Not that there’s much business over the winter. And you’d still have the money from selling. How could you do better?”
By owning it myself. If the stories were true, this man had married her late sister to get at the family money, yet hadn’t honored his wedding vows. Even if Claire were broke and desperate, loyalty to Brooke precluded the possibility of selling the property back to him.
“I won’t uproot the children again. Not now, not next year.” She drew herself up to her full height. “They need a permanent home, and this place is safe and secure. Losing their—”
“Hey, Miz Worth?” the grizzled handyman called out as he rounded the far corner with a piece of black hose in his hand. “Thought I heard someone back here.”
“Did you find the problem?”
“You got any enemies?”
Logan studied her with intense interest. “Well, do you, Claire?” he murmured.
His voice vibrated across her skin. She felt the hairs rise at the back of her neck, sensed the sudden tension and heat of Logan’s body, just inches from her own. His long, tanned fingers flexed at his sides. Enemies? Only you, Logan.
“None I can think of,” she shouted to Fred. “Why?”
As the old man got closer, he held up the length of hose. “This was cut clean in two. And this wasn’t no accident, Miz Worth.”
CHAPTER FIVE
THE VOICE SOUNDED familiar. Logan turned around and stared in disbelief. Fred Lundegaard, in all likelihood wearing the same set of tattered overalls he’d worn fourteen years before, stared back at him with equal surprise.
The moment of stunned silence broke when Fred’s face lit up like a kid’s on Christmas morning. “I heard you were back, boy!”
Fred dropped the length of hose and strode forward, his arthritic gait less steady than in years past. His craggy features had blurred a little, as if he’d softened with age.
Logan met him halfway and extended his hand. Brushing aside the offer, Fred gave Logan a bear hug followed by a couple of bone-jarring slaps on the back.
“I knew you’d be back someday. I knew it,” Fred chortled, stepped back to give Logan a once-over. “About time.”
“Too long,” Logan agreed, feeling his face shift into the unfamiliar contortions of a real smile.
Claire joined them and looked from one to the other, clearly mystified. “Old friends?” she asked, tucking a blond curl behind her ear.
In jeans and a soft pink sweater that molded to every curve and plane from neck to ankles, she could be mistaken for a college student. But her cool voice was that of a person accustomed to being in charge. A surprising and all-too-interesting combination, Logan decided.
“This boy tagged along behind me when he could hardly reach my knees.” Smiling broadly, Fred looked at Claire over the top of his wire-rims. “His grandma owned this place, you know.”
“So he says. You worked here?”
“Twenty-three years for Sadie, and after she passed on, six months for Logan and Brooke when they took over. Clear up through their divorce—” Fred shot a quick glance at Logan and cleared his throat, then suddenly became absorbed in an all-out search through his grease-darkened pockets. Finally withdrawing a round metal tin, he turned away to slip a wad of tobacco inside his cheek.
Old Fred had seen and heard it all, Logan thought wryly. Every step of the biggest mistake Logan had ever made. Hopefully, Fred had forgotten the details—or had sense enough to pretend he had.
“Yep, that Brooke was one crazy woman,” Fred continued. “She—”
With a sharp, dismissive wave of her hand and a look that could have melted granite, Claire broke in. “What were you saying about enemies?”
Logan had no doubt that the Worth family had collected its share over the years. He walked over to where Fred had dropped the hose and picked it up. Running a finger along each edge, he walked back and handed it to her. “Sharp knife, I’d guess. Doesn’t look like the act of a friendly person to me.”
Staring at the stiff black plastic in her hands, her eyes widened. “But, why? I don’t even know anyone up here.”
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