finalize. Good luck with the house. I’m sure you’ll get a fine price for it after all the repairs are made.”
Vaughn frowned down at her. “I know about the roof. Don’t tell me there’s more.”
“I’m afraid so.” June hugged to her chest the office supplies she’d scavenged. “Your uncle had an electrical fire upstairs a few months ago, and there’s a problem with the plumbing in the master bath.” She squinted up at him. “He didn’t tell you?”
Vaughn shook his head. What else had the old man kept from him?
Hazel grimaced. “The way the market is around here, you’re not going to find a buyer if they have to invest in major repairs.”
Vaughn barely refrained from rubbing his eyes with his knuckles. His halfhearted search for Uncle Em’s whiskey stash had now become critical. He didn’t have the money to invest in major repairs. His chances for getting a loan weren’t good, either. Not when he was already stretched thin. Rent ate up most of his pay.
He thanked the sisters again for the food, apologized for not being able to offer them coffee and walked them out, then shut the front door and glanced at the second floor. That cat could be up there having kittens right this moment. In his bed.
Oh, hell, no. Vaughn grabbed his cell and headed for the stairs. Why hadn’t he asked June for the vet’s number? Before he could do a search on Wilmer Fish, he noticed a text from Whitby.
Forgot to mention it’s a paid position. Let’s talk salary over dinner. Cal’s Diner @ 7? I’m buying.
He hesitated on the top step. As his thumb hovered over Reply, his ringtone blared into the silence. With a sigh, he lifted the phone to his ear.
“Hey, Mom.”
“You said you’d call.”
“I got caught up in something.” He worked his way toward the room Aunt Brenda had assigned him during his summer visits. So much for hoping the second floor wouldn’t also be packed to capacity. It was standing-room-only up here. And it reeked of mothballs.
He stopped in the doorway of the guest room and exhaled. Even his bed was piled high with crap. Though maybe that was a good thing, considering the twin-size mattress looked about five times smaller than he remembered.
His mother gave a disapproving huff. “Do whatever it is you need to do and spend the rest of your break with us. Your father has someone he’d like you to meet.”
Vaughn tightened his grip on his phone and swung toward the master bedroom. “I thought I made it clear. Enough with the ambushes.”
“Don’t be stubborn. So we scheduled a few dinners. You have to eat.”
“Mom. I have a job waiting for me in Erie.” At least, he hoped he did. “I’m not changing my career.”
“Plenty of people your age and even older have made the decision to steer their professional lives in a new direction. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I’m not ashamed, I’m resolved. I’m proud of what I do. I plan to continue doing it.”
“Vaughn.” His mother’s voice gentled. “You know your father and I would rather you find a job with actual earning potential. We’re trying to look out for you. Don’t you want to be able to afford a house someday? A family? Don’t you want to have money to travel when you retire?”
He did have a house. His uncle’s house. But it was only partly his, and it wasn’t in Erie. Not for a moment would he consider staying.
As his mother talked about the trips she and his dad had taken and all of the places they planned to go, Vaughn peered into his uncle’s bedroom. Score. The bed was empty. No junk, no cat in labor.
He propped a shoulder against the doorjamb and listened to his mother describe the luxury car he could afford if only he earned a decent paycheck.
Most law enforcement parents would worry about their son or daughter getting hurt in the line of duty. Vaughn’s folks worried what the neighbors thought of their blue-collar son.
“So when can we expect you?” his mother asked. “I think you should talk to the man from the securities firm first—he has a personal driver and a summer house in the Hamptons.”
“Not interested, Mom.” Did she ever get tired of hearing it? ’Cause he was sure as hell tired of saying it. “Even if I were, I don’t have the time.”
“You don’t have the time to visit your own parents?”
“Not when they won’t stop campaigning against my job.”
“And anyway, how complicated can it be to put up a For Sale sign?”
Basically what he’d said to Whitby. So why didn’t the suggestion sit well?
“It’s more involved than that.” Just to be difficult, Vaughn added, “Plus they want me to pinch-hit as a deputy while I’m here.”
Her reaction didn’t disappoint. “That’s not going to happen,” she said flatly. “As if wasting your potential chasing hardened criminals around the city isn’t bad enough.”
Vaughn rolled his eyes. “There’s a lot more to the job than that. By the way, crime rate’s a lot lower here.”
“So is the standard of living. What’ll I tell the securities broker, that you’re busy breaking up a moonshine ring? Please be serious. You’ll damage your prospects. You know very well your father and I are not going to let you bury yourself in the country playing cops and robbers with your uncle’s cronies.”
She wouldn’t let her uncle’s arrest go. Never mind that Vaughn was still holding his own grudge. His mother didn’t blame Sheriff By-The-Book Tate, but Vaughn sure as hell did. “I’m twenty-eight, not twelve,” he said. “If I want to play cops and robbers, I’ll play cops and robbers and you can’t stop me.”
He winced at his juvenile tone. After muttering his goodbye, he straightened, drew in a breath and prepared to flush a pregnant cat from her hiding place.
Or maybe he’d just join her there.
* * *
WHEN SPEEDY PETE drove past Lily Tate sedately enough that she had time to register his smirk, she realized she’d been had. Squinting after his faded gray Jeep as it disappeared around the bend, she lowered the radar gun and swore. The last time Pete Lowry had driven that slowly, he’d been bringing up the tail end of the Christmas parade, putt-putting down the center of State Street hauling a flatbed crammed with the high school football team, the cheerleading squad, three dozen bales of hay and a celebrity Holstein named Priscilla Mae.
Somehow the smug so-and-so had known Lily was parked at the entrance to the old logging road. But how? The only vehicles she’d seen that afternoon had all been headed in the same direction, away from Castle Creek.
She lifted her hat and blotted the sweat clinging to her bangs. She blinked against the perspiration that stung her eyes and wriggled her shoulders, desperate to free her skin from the short-sleeved uniform shirt plastered to her back. But that
