dogs, just like hundreds of small towns across New York State.
And its houses needed repair. Matthew knew how to do that. He’d spent every summer during college with a hammer in his hands, and he could spend this one the same way.
“I was just having a look around.” He steadied his gaze. “I’m here for the summer.”
The sheriff frowned, as if the explanation didn’t quite satisfy him, but suddenly Parker Tremaine let out a low curse.
“Harry, look at this,” Parker said, staring at the bulletin board. “I warned Natalie not to post her address on these ads, and she’s done it anyway.”
Matthew wondered what the lawyer would say if he knew one of those address slips was even now tucked away in Matthew’s pocket.
“She did?” The sheriff stalked over and read the notice. Then, with a grumble, he ripped it off the board and crumpled it in his fist. “Hell, now I’ll have to go all over town tearing the darn things down. I tell you, Parker, Granvilles have always been too naive to live, and Natalie Granville is the worst of the lot.”
A sudden commotion erupted from the direction of Boxer’s corner. “Natalie Granville is a hell of a sweet woman, and I’ll kick the ass of anyone who says she’s not,” the old man said, struggling to his feet. He glared at the sheriff. “In fact, I think I’ll kick your ass anyhow, Dunbar, just for saying her name in that tone of voice.”
“Parker—” the sheriff began tightly.
“I know, I know. I’ll get him out of here. Just give me a hand.”
And while the two civilized young professionals were wrestling the crusty old drunk to his feet, Matthew seized his chance.
No one saw him climb into his car and drive away. No one asked where he was going, and he wouldn’t have told them if they had.
Because he was going to find Natalie Granville. He was going to tell her the truth about himself, and he was going to ask her for a job. Maybe she was just naive enough to believe in things like fair play and second chances—concepts he was pretty sure the suspicious sheriff would consider foolish.
Matthew pressed harder on the gas, overcome by a sudden urgency. Maybe this was why he had chosen Firefly Glen. Silver haired and sweet, the despair of cynical sheriffs yet beloved by pugilistic drunks, Natalie Granville just might be the answer to prayers Matthew hadn’t even realized he was praying.
CHAPTER TWO
SUMMER HOUSE, the understated brass plaque embedded in the tall stone pillar said. But the plaque lied.
Summer House wasn’t a house. It was an Italian villa, a sumptuous estate fit for a decadent prince. A baroque fantasy of pink marble and red terra-cotta and gray pietra serena stone. An orgy of arches and ornamentation, loggias and sculptures and formal staircases descending into shadowy gardens.
Matthew left his car by the gate and walked up the long driveway, stunned. Summer House didn’t belong in Upstate New York, tucked into the dense birch and hemlock woods of the Adirondack Mountains. It belonged in the rolling hills of seventeenth century Italy, where lemon trees grew in huge clay pots, and silvery olive trees twinkled in the Tuscan sun.
And yet here it stood.
It was slightly crazy.
It was extremely beautiful.
And it was, quite literally, falling apart.
Matthew, who had finally reached the front door, was hardly an expert, but decay cried out even to the untrained eye. Half a dozen windows on both floors were cracked and taped. The stone walls were pitted in places, crumbling away to dust in others. Many of the statues had lost noses and fingers and other protruding body parts.
And Nature, which obviously had once been banished from these formal Italian gardens by an army of landscapers, was marching boldly back, reclaiming its territory inch by inch.
No one answered the bell. In fact, Matthew couldn’t be sure the bell even worked. He reached up to use the ornate brass knocker, but as he touched it the thing swung free at one end, a loose screw rattling to the ground.
Good Lord. He found the screw and managed to reattach it temporarily, although the threads were nearly stripped. He backed up, and his foot landed on a small sliver of broken glass. As he bent to retrieve the pieces, he balanced himself on a terra-cotta finial, which rocked on its base, threatening to topple.
He caught it somehow and righted it, but he glanced around with a deepening doubt. This place was a minefield of disrepair, and it was way out of his league.
Natalie Granville might be the answer to his prayers, but he definitely wasn’t the answer to hers. She didn’t need a handyman. She needed a miracle.
He moved back down the steps, ready to leave, almost glad that no one had answered the door. He’d just get back in his car and—
But suddenly he heard a sound. A soft, fairylike singing that came from around the east side of the house. The sweet, elderly spinster, the naive Natalie, perhaps?
Curious in spite of himself, he followed the sound, crunching across broken stones with thick weeds growing in the cracks, ignoring the staring eyes of a dozen armless statues that lined the path like wounded soldiers in the war against decay.
As he approached the corner of the house, he caught a glimpse of something soft and white fluttering in the breeze. What was it? It looked like a long, white gauzy stream of lace. He squinted, confused. It looked like a ghostly wedding veil.
He moved closer. It was a wedding veil. A woman stood at the end of a wide back terrace, and she wore a long white wedding dress, her head crowned with the beautiful, flowing, fluttering lace.
But she wasn’t a living, breathing woman. She was a stiffly silent, white marble statue.
Matthew blinked. And as he watched, the soft singing began again. Something weird and disbelieving skimmed across his nerve endings. He was the last man on earth to entertain nonsensical notions. Still, he couldn’t have stopped himself then if a Minotaur had barred the way.
His gaze fixed on the marble bride, he rounded the corner.
And then, finally, he saw the other woman. The young, blond, bikini-clad beauty who was walking the balustrade like a tightrope, singing merrily to herself as she put one bare foot in front of the other.
Now that he was close enough, he could tell she had a lovely voice, but her words were badly slurred, and he noticed that she clutched a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in one hand, holding it out as if for balance.
The balustrade was wide—at least eighteen inches—but it was slick in spots with mildew. And besides, the woman was clearly drunk. He saw her weave slightly, and he began to move fast. She held on for a few wobbling seconds, just long enough for him to reach the balcony.
The bottle fell first, crashing to the terrace and smashing into a hundred pieces. But, two seconds later, the woman fell the other way, and landed neatly in Matthew’s arms.
For a couple of seconds she was utterly silent, her mouth open as she
