The Drake House (2 page)

Nancy cleared her throat from across the long narrow kitchen. Her forehead creased, displaying every bit of her fifty-five years and telling her she wasn’t amused. “I told her you were fine. She said to remind you they’ll be here in two weeks.”

“I miss them.”

Trisha’s parents had adopted her at the tender age of three and this orchard had been her home ever since. When they left it to her and retired to Florida, she swore she went through withdrawal. She’d never been without them. Their unvarying love and support was in no way lacking. Not for one moment growing up had they made her believe she wasn’t their own. Her father taught her everything there was to know about growing apples, the physical brunt work of it, and the satisfaction of her hands deep in the soil.

Her mother taught her every which way to bake the apples, not that she paid much attention. Trisha didn’t cook. It was because of them she became the independent woman she was today, minus the cooking expertise.

When she looked up, Nancy was leaning against the counter and analyzing her face.
Now I worried her
. “I ate my muffin. Can I go now?” She beamed innocently at her housekeeper, masking her embarrassment.

Nancy sighed and waved her hand in dismissal. “Go then.”

She glanced around her land with pride, sucking in a breath of chilly spring air. Early spring was Trisha’s favorite time of the year, and their busiest. The apple trees were in their early blooming stage and everything about the world was fresh. A new beginning after the bitter Wisconsin winter. There was still a bite to the air in late March, usually not hitting warmer temperatures until closer to early May, though things were always apt to change. The common phrase was “if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes—it’ll change.”
So true.

Trisha approached the boys near the main shed on her four-wheeler and cut the engine. The boys, as she called them—though five out of the ten of them were older than her—were pulling out the small spades and strips to begin testing the soil.

Eduardo, her foreman and Nancy’s husband, met her at the open door to the shed. “Lazy here finally got up, I see.” He winked with an affable grin. His shoulder-length black hair was pulled back with a rubber band and his round cheeks were pink from the chill.

She dismounted the four-wheeler where he towered over her five-five frame. “Be quiet, old man. Shouldn’t you be out having hip surgery or something?” She kept her tone mocking, but pleasant.

“Old man? I’ll show you old man,” he countered while flexing his bicep. “That look old to you, Trish?”

Trisha rolled her eyes fondly and shook her head. “No comment. We ready to start testing?”

“Yep,” he replied and turned, playtime over, as she trailed him into the shed.

The metal structure was half the size of a football field and held most of the equipment. Each tree would require about seven pounds of fertilizer so several trailers were needed to carry the bags. The soil should be tested every three years to ensure proper pH. However, Trisha didn’t take any chances; she tested every year.

Her best friend, Brad Johnson, pulled out first with her other good friend, Chuck Harrison, riding shotgun. Brad and Chuck were polar opposites. Where Brad said little unless to argue, Chuck was always telling a joke and belting out an enormous laugh from deep within his equally enormous belly. It astounded her how they remained close friends through the years when they should have killed each other by now.

“You want to start on the east side?” Brad asked her over the hum of the motor, puffs of frost expelling with the words. Strands of chocolate brown hair were poking out the bottom of his knit hat. After nodding, they took off to wait for the others in the field.

“He’s crabby today,” Eduardo commented.

Trisha shrugged. “He’s crabby every day.”

“We need oil for a couple of the trucks. You want me to have Nancy pick some up when she shops?”

“No, it’s Chuck’s birthday next week. I have to pick up a gift in town anyway.” She glanced over to where the boys disappeared. “Let’s start testing and, when it’s underway, I’ll go.”

Eduardo’s two-way radio crackled to life. “Eduardo,” Andrew’s voice shot through the speaker. “Get Trish over to row twenty. We have a problem.”

“What are they doing on the west side? I told them to start on the east,” Trisha barked, already mounting her four-wheeler and starting the ignition. She sped off without waiting for a response, Eduardo close behind her.

When she arrived minutes later, the men were standing around staring at a fallen tree. Trisha dismounted and rushed to them. “What happened? Is everyone okay?”

They all nodded but no one spoke. Trisha knelt next to tree. Row twenty was the last row on the west side of her orchard, the one most exposed to the elements. If there were fallen branches, it was usually on this end. Another two hundred feet west was a dense wooded area. Beyond that, the abandoned Drake house.

Trisha swallowed and looked up. The tree had fallen right in front of the path to the abandoned house. The one that haunted her nightmares since she was a kid. Neither the house nor the path could be seen past the woods.

Glaring back down at the tree, her gut turned to ice. There were no signs of rotting. Hack marks from an axe could be seen from even an untrained eye. She stood. “I asked what happened.”

Andrew, another man she went to school with as a kid, piped up. “Mike and I were heading east to start work now that you were awake. We found this.”

“No one saw anything?” she asked. They shook their heads.

“You thinking lightning, Trish?” Chuck asked. “There doesn’t seem to be any sign of the trunk being rotten, though.”

“We haven’t had lightning in two weeks—”

Before she could say any more, Brad cut her off. “What is that?” he asked, pointing to the ground near the top of the massive tree. He walked over to the suspicious white object and removed a piece of paper from under a branch.

As Brad paled, Eduardo glanced over his shoulder to look at the paper. “All right, everyone, back to work. We’ll take care of this.”

The men muttered and shuffled to their ATVs. Once they were gone, Trisha looked at Eduardo and then Brad. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Eduardo turned the paper around for her to see. Typed in plain red text was: “I’ve been watching. Stay away.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” she shouted, looking between the two of them. They didn’t answer. She looked down at the tree. “It’s been cut. There are hack marks.” Fury bubbled up. No one,
no one
messed with her orchard. “Give me the note. I’ll take it to Wayne. No one touches this row until I return.”

After parking her ATV in the shed and informing Nancy about what was going on, Trisha climbed into her pickup truck and headed north to town. She was so pissed off she was still shaking. Sucking in a harsh breath, she counted to ten and exhaled. Before stopping at the police station to talk to Wayne, she’d get the small amount of groceries Nancy needed. She pulled her mind from the orchard to focus on Nancy’s list instead to calm her heart rate.

Trisha opened the door to Harvey’s Grocery and immediately looked around for Cheryl. She and her husband took over the store ten years ago, and Cheryl was a dedicated town gossip. The store was severely undersized compared to the chain ones, but somehow always had what the customers needed. Trisha preferred to support the independent shops and her hometown. There was a market around the back for fresh produce in the summer months. The lighting was poor, the old tile floor needed replacing, and it forever smelled of Lysol. After a few seconds of scanning, Cheryl sauntered in from the back.

“Well, hey, girl! Did Nancy sucker you into shopping again?” Cheryl chirped as she walked over, her bright red hair swinging behind her. The high heels she wore with her faded denim pants were as ridiculous as her unnatural hair color. Though she couldn’t trust Cheryl as far as she could throw her, Trisha liked her well enough.

“Just a couple things,” she muttered. “Nancy wants fresh garlic this time, not the, quote—crappy dried stuff. And what in the hell is pita bread?”

Cheryl chuckled, grabbing the list from Trisha's hand and moving down an aisle. “I’ll get it. We're slow today. So, have you met the new deputy?” She offered Trisha a jar of what Trisha hoped was the right kind of garlic and whipped her head around. “Oh, he’s dreamy. Just your type, if you ask me.”

“You seem to think anything not married is my type. When did we get a new deputy and why?” Trisha asked, trailing Cheryl around while she hunted baking mix in the dry food aisle.

“Word has it he shot someone in Milwaukee and couldn’t take it. Wanted a small town to get away and…” she whispered dramatically, “
you know
. He’s been here almost a week. Lives up near Wayne’s place in the old Baker house.”

Wayne was Small Rapids’ town sheriff and nearly as old as the town itself, at least, that’s what Trisha liked to tell him. He was like a second father to her. Maybe this new guy would be there when she reported the tree and she could see what all the fuss was about. Then again, a backed-up toilet at the gas station was weekly news around here.

“What is this?” Trisha asked after Cheryl passed her a strange item.

“Pita bread.”

“Why didn’t Nancy just ask for tortillas?”

Cheryl tittered and commenced to ringing her up at the decrepit register, her bright pink fingernails flitting over the buttons. “Not the same thing.”

“If you say so.” Trisha handed her some bills.

“All those men up there working for you and you’re still single.” Cheryl dramatically shook her head as if this announcement was a national tragedy.

“How’d we get back on this topic?”

“You know you’re going to see Wayne after this and check out the new guy.”

“I’m going to see Wayne, not the new guy, and men are trouble. I stay away from them.”

“You live with ten men and one woman.”

“That’s different.” She pouted.

“Uh huh, if you say so. I’ll see you next week.”

Trisha left smiling, as she usually did after a bout with Cheryl, and headed up the hill to the station, pleased her mood had turned less sour. She hated being bitchy. It was so unlike her.

Small Rapids Police Department incorporated Wayne Radcliff, Steve Harvey, who was Cheryl’s husband, a gaggle of volunteers, and whoever this new guy was. The holding cells in back were only used when someone got drunk and rowdy, and the solitary computer probably hadn’t been touched since last Christmas when they had a power outage and needed to reboot. Anything major that happened here required the Madison PD to come up and handle it.

Trisha opened the glass door to the station. Without delay, she snuck behind the desk, tipping back the chair Steve was sleeping in, knocking him to the floor. Her uproarious laughter seemed to clear his head after a moment of sheer confusion.

“Damn it, Trish. I was on a beach with Julia Roberts… Hey, get on the other side of the desk.”

Steve Harvey was a stocky man in his late forties with a receding hairline he tried to cover up by growing the rest of it long. He plopped back down in the chair and gave her his best I-mean-it look. She pecked him on the cheek and, instead, parked her butt on the counter in front of him.

“So, who’s this new guy?” she inquired, biting into a muffin.

“That’s my muffin.”

“You own a grocery store.”

“And you have a cook,” he countered, snatching his muffin back. “His name’s Nick, not new guy, and he’s from Milwaukee.”

“Where’s Wayne?”

“I’m right here, apple,” Wayne informed, strolling in the front door.

“Apple” was Wayne’s nickname for her and she secretly loved it. “My name is not apple, old man,” she retorted, hopping off the counter. She fiercely hugged him and peered over his shoulder before releasing him. Wayne stepped aside.

So, this is the new guy.
Clad in faded jeans and a white T-shirt under a hip-length leather jacket, he stuffed his hands in his pants pockets. He was tall, very tall. Maybe six, two. His cheekbones could have been chiseled from granite and his hair was ebony and short. Just above a pair of piercing emerald eyes was a very prominent scar, long and white, cutting the left eyebrow and contrasting against his tanned skin. He looked like a wicked Irish hellion. Her heart rate kicked inside her chest, a feeling so uncharacteristic she nearly stumbled back a step. “New Guy” raised his eyebrows in question because she was obviously checking him out.

She decided on the spot she didn’t like him. He was too model-perfect looking. And arrogant by the look on his face. Men who looked like him were always arrogant. Damn shame.

Plus, he made her nervous. No one made her nervous. He had the kind of gaze that didn’t look at you, but rather through you.
It should be a crime to be that sexy, though.

“I’m Trisha,” she said, holding out her hand in a friendly gesture, wanting to be polite despite her ogling him like candy.
Damn, he is something to ogle at
.

He answered by keeping his hands in his pockets and nodding. She narrowed her eyes a fraction in irritation. She may be social and outgoing to a fault, but she would speak her mind if provoked. And he was already provoking her.

“Are you this rude to everyone?” she queried, her blood pressure rising.

“Trisha owns the orchard on the south end of town,” Wayne said, interrupting her obvious negative tirade, and grinned, amused by something.

Trisha narrowed her eyes further. “Does he have a name?”

“Nicolas Mackey,” New Guy said. “You can call me Nick or Mack, most people do.” His voice was deep and hoarse without grating. It raked against her nerves, which she found attractive as hell too.

Trisha raised her eyebrows and feigned surprise. “Oh, Wayne, look…he talks. Good thing; last I checked you had to communicate in police work.”

“Be nice, Apple. He’s new.” Wayne draped his arm around her shoulders and squeezed.