“I think we need to talk.”
“I don’t think so,” she spat. Those green eyes rolled hot at him. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but this is my farm. Go back to New York City or wherever you came from, Penn Ramsey. Leave. Turn around and walk away! You’re good at that!”
That shine in her eyes almost looked like tears, and that socked him hard. He shoved the feeling back. This was some kind of scam. Otto P. Ramsey had died six weeks ago while Penn was working on an overseas account, his last trip for Brown and Sons. He hadn’t made it back for the service. The executor of the estate had sent him a letter and Penn had gotten in touch with him immediately on his return. He’d had the will for a few months. Otto had sent him a copy before his death, and he’d been too busy to do more than briefly argue with the old man over the phone about its details. The executor’s warning had convinced him to give up fighting the residency clause. He’d spent the last month arranging his life so he could give up thirty days to fulfill the requirements in the will before coming out to West Virginia. He’d shuttered his apartment, handed in his resignation, and gotten on a plane.
There had been nothing in that document about Willa North. Hell, he had no idea what Willa North had to do with Otto at all.
“I want to know what the hell is going on here, Willa, and I want to know now. This is my farm. I’m here to claim it. If you’ve been squatting here, that doesn’t make it—”
“I’m not squatting anywhere! This is not your farm, it’s mine. I live here, and I’ve been living here for over a year, and if you were ever in touch with your grandfather, maybe you’d know that.”
If she was trying to make him mad, she was doing a fine job. Yeah, he’d been out of touch much of the time, but not completely, and his grandfather had never mentioned Willa.
And on top of that, he was almost speechless at her gall. Or maybe he just liked being angry with her. It felt good. Better than guilt. He had plenty to be angry with her about, going back fourteen years, so it was no effort.
“When I did or didn’t talk to my grandfather is none of your business. What is my business is this farm. Who else is living here? Jared?”
Wow, bitter, that tone in his voice. He hadn’t expected that from himself. Anger, yes, but bitterness? Jared could have her.
“No. Not that it’s any of your business,” she told him through gritted teeth.
He barely caught her voice over the storm. Maybe they were both crazy, standing there arguing in the pouring rain. And what did she mean by that response anyway? Were she and Jared divorced then? Not the point, he reminded himself.
“I want you to leave,” she repeated. “If you want to contest the will—” She looked terrified and determined all at once. Her hair—short, not long like he remembered it—plastered to her cheeks. Her clothing soaked to her body. “Then fine. You do that, hotshot! Talk to my attorney.”
Like she had an attorney. He could tell she was bluffing on that one by just looking at her frightened face. She was driving some beat-up piece of crap and squatting on a farm that didn’t belong to her.
Maybe she really had been living with his grandfather. The old man kept secrets, he knew that. Or maybe she’d moved in after he died. She was an opportunistic excuse for a human being, he knew that, too. Maybe she thought he’d never show up to claim his property and she’d live there for free forever.
She had another think coming. He was smarter than she’d bargained for, fourteen years ago and now.
“Brilliant, Willa. Just brilliant.” He dropped his hold on her arm, suddenly unable to bear the contact. “Now, why would I contest anything? The farm is mine. And if I have to go to the legal system to get you removed, I’ll do it.”
“It is not your farm.”
“Are you crazy?” He was on the verge of losing his temper completely.
But she was so insistent, he could almost believe for a second she was telling the truth—or thought she was telling the truth—and the feeling bugged him. What if she really did have mental issues? She didn’t look crazy. She looked angry and upset and scared. But what did he know—other than that he was going to be a hell of a lot more pissed off if he had to walk six miles back to town in the rain.
“The farm was left to me in the will.”
It took him a full thirty seconds to realize that it wasn’t just he who had said those words, she’d said them at the same time.
Their gazes locked. He felt the shock roping between them.
“You are the crazy one,” she breathed, so raw and soft he couldn’t hear her. But he saw her lips move, knew what she said. She was shaking, visibly now, and white as a sheet. “Get out of here!” She yelled that. There was no missing it.
She tore off suddenly, leaving him stunned just long enough for her to get in the old Ford. The engine rattled to life and, in the light from the dash’s interior, he could see her reach first one way, then the other, slamming down manual door locks.
The truck rammed backward, sliding on gravel in the drive, then reared forward. Was she trying to run over him? He jerked back, almost losing his balance in a dip in the gravel drive, and sidestepped out of the way.
Red taillights disappeared up the hill.
Son of a bitch. He started walking.
The house was pitch black.
“Birdie?”
Willa slammed the side door of the farmhouse as she barreled inside, turned back just as quickly to hit the bolt, then ran for the front door and then the back door, making her way by perfect memory, and bolted those, too. She wouldn’t put it past Penn to come charging in here, since he seemed to think he owned the place.
“Birdie!” she yelled again.
She heard the telltale sound of Flash’s doggy nails padding through the house toward her. A second later, the hound—part basset, part whatever—was pawing at her legs, then dropping down to go check his food dish.
The old house creaked in the wind outside. Had to be a tree down somewhere. Electricity was the first to go out here. Phones next. She fumbled for a phone, checked the line. Dead, as expected.
Cell service was only a fantasy in the country, so the isolation was quick and complete.
If Penn came stomping up here, she’d have no way to call for help. She stood there in the old house, a shiver crawling up her spine.
Creepy, that’s what this house was sometimes in the dark, in the storm, during lonely nights. Yet she loved it, every crumbling inch of its Gothic architecture. She’d moved in the week of the Haven earthquake, and sometimes the town’s collective, overly active imagination about the consequences of that so-called “perfect storm” of low pressure, dense moisture, and geologic instability, niggled at her mind.
She’d seen the bursts of red lights right here on the farm, the same mysterious lights that had been talked about in town and on cable news, when a paranormal detective had been interviewed. Foundational movement for oncoming paranormal activity, the spokesperson for PAI, the Paranormal Activity Institute, had claimed.
