Hometown Sweetheart. Victoria Pade

       Chapter One

      “You said you had a plunger and you knew how to use it—I just took you up on it.” Neily Pratt teased Charlie, the plumber she’d known for as long as she could remember. Charlie was only one of many townsfolk in Northbridge, Montana, who had just spent their entire Sunday working on the run-down old Hobbs house, a brick mammoth at the top of the hill at one end of South Street in the heart of Northbridge proper.

      The house had been deserted until a week ago when its longtime owner, Theresa Hobbs Grayson, had somehow managed to steal the car of the live-in nurse who cared for her and make her way from her current residence in Missoula to her former hometown. Once she’d reached Northbridge, she’d abandoned the car at the ice cream parlor, walked the remaining block and a half to the house and slipped in through the cellar door.

      Suffering from mental illness, Theresa had spent a few days undetected before she was discovered. When local police had entered the premises, she’d run for an upstairs bedroom, locking herself in. In her disturbed state of mind, she had hysterically refused to leave either the bedroom or the residence itself, saying that she was there to get back what was taken from her. The police had been forced to call in Human Services. Which, in Northbridge, meant sole social worker Neily Pratt, who was now overseeing Theresa’s welfare and, for the time being, staying with Theresa at the old Hobbs house.

      Neily’s brother Cam joined her on the front porch where she was saying thanks and good-night to everyone as they left.

      “Are you doing okay here alone?” Cam asked as he stood beside Neily and waved to someone heading off down the hill. Cam was one of the local police officers, and he, too, had done what he could today to make the house more livable.

      “I’m fine,” Neily assured her brother, knowing he was concerned for her safety. In her line of work Neily had encountered people who could be a danger to her, but she didn’t believe the sweet seventy-five-year-old woman was one of them.

      “Have there been any more scenes like the night we found her?” Cam persisted.

      “The only time Theresa gets really difficult is when I say anything about her leaving the house. As long as I don’t mention that, she’s a lamb. So for now it seems better for her and easier for everyone else if she stays here while we figure out a long-term plan.”

      “Well, at least the place is cleaner and there aren’t any more fire hazards. And the kitchen sink is unclogged and all the broken windows have been replaced,” Cam observed.

      “Thanks to you and our local Good Samaritans banding together to help me today. I especially appreciate the windows—we may be having a warm April but it still gets cold at night, and cardboard taped over gaping holes isn’t a lot of help.”

      Neily and Cam exchanged a few final words with the electrician who came outside at that moment. Then the man went to his van parked in the driveway.

      “Anyhow,” Neily continued, “I haven’t seen even a hint that Theresa is violent. Her mood is up and down, she’s confused more than not, but she isn’t a threat to anyone. I’ll never understand how she made it here on her own—she must have been really determined. But now she mostly just sits silently in the rocking chair in the master bedroom.”

      “Like she has all day today—I never saw her.”

      “No one did. She didn’t want to see anyone. But I didn’t want her alone in the bedroom the whole day either—”

      “So you hired a companion.”

      “Only after I promised Theresa that it wouldn’t be anyone who had known her in the past. I have no idea why that was such a big deal, but it was.”

      Out came three more volunteers—including sixteen-year-old Missy Hart, Theresa’s companion—and after another round of gratitude and good-nights, Cam said, “Theresa’s okay inside alone?”

      “She’ll still be sitting in the rocking chair when I go up to her—that’s why I told

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