The Money Pit Read online

  “Sure,” he said. “I’ll have Jock Simmons send you copies of the contract. We’ll get things finalized this week.”

  “It’s okay that I get the trailer moved over and stuff now, right?”

  “Of course. The place is yours. Just need to dot the i’s and cross the t’s, but as far as I’m concerned, you are home.”

  I smiled. “Sounds good.” When Merl left, I pulled out my phone and made a call. “Haze. I got the house,” I said when my BFF answered.

  “Oh. Em. Gee!” She materialized and hugged me hard. “That’s amazing.”

  Smooshie’s barking grew even more excited, almost verging on a frantic hysteria as she danced around Hazel, going up on two feet, but not quite jumping on her.

  “Will you muzzle your beast?” a squeaky voice demanded. A red squirrel climbed Haze to get away from my pittie.

  “She’s just saying hello, Tiz.” I scratched Smooshie behind the ear, and she leaned her thick body into me, her tail whacking the back of my thighs as she panted her pleasure.

  Hazel Kinsey is a witch, and Tizzy, a squirrel, is her familiar. They were both my best and only friends when I was growing up. Being short and skinny in a Shifter community was the same as being weak and useless. I’d never wanted to stay in Paradise Falls, but the death of my parents had made that choice for me. I’d had to drop out of high school to support my little brother, and I stayed until he died. It still hurt to think of Danny. There was nothing left for me there once he was gone.

  “Is this it?” Tizzy asked. She made a chittering sound of disgust. “What a dump.”

  “Tiz!” Haze crossed her arms. “It just needs a little TLC. And maybe a little…” She wiggled her fingers.

  “No magic,” I said.

  “Not even a little?”

  “She’s probably worried you’ll blow her house down.” Tizzy jumped to my shoulder. “Not that it would take much. Did you find this place in Deader Homes and Gardens?”

  “Ha ha. Very funny.”

  “I thought so.” Tizzy pulled an almond from somewhere on her furry person—I didn’t want to know from where—and began to chew. “I like all the trees. And oh, look! Squirrels.” Two gray squirrels ran up a mature maple. I rolled my eyes.

  Haze, who was taller than me by six inches, put her arm around my shoulders. “You’ll make it a real home, Lily. I have every faith.”

  “Thanks for lending me the down payment.”

  She smiled. “I know you’re good for it.” She gave me a squeeze.

  “I’m kind of scared, Haze.”

  My BFF put her hands on my shoulders and stared down at me. “Why?”

  “I’m not sure I can make it out here.” By “out here” I meant in an entirely human town. Well, mostly. I’d never had to hide before, and I wasn’t sure I could keep it up. “Aside from the fact that I’m a fish out of water—”

  “More like a cat out of the litter box,” Tizzy snarked.

  I ignored her. “I didn’t even finish high school. I don’t make enough working at the shelter to afford a mortgage and food.” Shifters burned through calories like fire burned through a month-old Christmas tree. And I needed a lot of protein in my diet, too. “Have you checked out the price of beef lately? It’s ridiculous. I could spend a paycheck on red meat alone.”

  “Have you thought about getting your GED, maybe taking some classes at the local college?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re the smartest person I know, Lily Mason. It would be a shame to let all those brains go to waste.”

  Hazel believed every word she said. I could smell the truth on her. It was a gift passed down from my great-great-grandmother on my mother’s side, who happened to be a witch, amazingly enough. I only found out in October that I wasn’t pure Shifter, and some dangerous magic back home had triggered my ability as a truth-sayer. Most people wanted to be truthful, anyhow, and my power allowed them to open up to me. It didn’t always work. If someone wanted to hide a secret bad enough, they could resist the compulsion to come clean.

  I nodded to my friend. “I won’t give up.”

  “Good, because you’ve been happy here, Lils. More happy than I’d ever seen you before.” She squeezed my shoulders. “Humans are good for you.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” I could hear the roar of a dually truck engine less than a mile away. “My boss is coming. You better get out of here.”

  “The boss?” She made the sound like thee. “The one who basically rescued you and swept you off your feet?”

  “Stop,” I said. “Seriously. You need to go.”

  Haze’s phone played “Bear Necessities” from The Jungle Book. “Shoot, that’s Ford.” She looked at the screen. “It’s a 9-1-1. There’s been trouble since Halloween between the Shifters and the witches, and with spring right around the corner, it’s not getting any better.” She kissed my cheek. “Call me if you need me.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I told her and gave her a quick hug.

  “Bye, Lils!” Tizzy said as she circled her witch’s waist and climbed up her back. “Next time leave your beast at home.”

  I knelt next to Smooshie, who happily wagged. “She is home.”

  Tizzy stuck her tiny tongue out at me. Haze gave me a wistful smile. “Tell lover boy I said hello.”

  “He’s not—” They disappeared before I could finish my protest. Parker’s big black truck was throwing dust up as it came down the gravel drive.

  The truck ground to a halt about thirty feet away. Parker rubbed his hand over his dark hair before he opened the driver-side door and stepped out. He was average height, about five feet eleven inches, which was still eight inches taller than me. I’d always been a bit of a runt. He had a broad chest, muscular arms, and crystal-blue eyes that nearly undid me every time he looked my way.

  His dog Elvis—half pit bull, half horse—jumped out of the truck after him. The large, silvery-blue beauty hugged his body against his master’s legs. As a PTSD dog, Elvis had been trained to pick up on Parker’s body language and put himself between Parker and stressors. Turns out I was one of those stressors. I didn’t want to make Parker’s life difficult. Just the opposite. It was the reason I needed my own place.

  “Whatcha doing out here?” I asked, shielding my eyes from the sun as he approached. An easy breeze carried his scent to me, and I fought the urge to run into his arms. We were friends. Nothing more. No matter what my Shifter libido wanted.

  “I have to run into Cape Girardeau for some supplies, and dad asked me to bring you out his toolbox, shovel, and plaster scraper.” He reached into the bed of the truck and lifted out a red bifold-topped metal box.

  “It’s so I can bury the bodies.”

  Parker froze for a moment. A crooked smile played on his lips. “You need help? I got a hacksaw back home.”

  I laughed. “These will do.” I took the shovel and scraper from him. I followed him to the porch where he set the toolbox down.

  “There you go,” Parker said. He rubbed his hands on his jeans and put them in the pockets of his windbreaker.

  “Tell Greer I owe him some pie.” It was a joke between us. Parker’s dad and I shared a love of food in a pastry.

  “I’ll let him know.” His low voice always made my stomach jittery.

  Smooshie and Elvis sniffed each other, with Smooshie getting her full nose right up his butt. I didn’t want to begrudge her the formal dog greeting of an old friend, but automatically, I said, “Stop that.”

  Smooshie cocked her head at me, gave Elvis one more nose goose then moved away. Thank heavens Elvis tolerated Smooshie. He outweighed her by at least thirty pounds.

  “You sure you want to live out here?” Parker asked. “It’s going to take a lot of work to get this place livable.”

  “Buzz is moving in with Nadine. He’s going to let me put his trailer out here to live in until I can get it all fixed up.”

  Buzz was actually my uncle and was a good forty years older than me, but since w
e were both Shifters, we could pass for nearly the same age. Nadine was one of the few friends I’d made since I moved to Moonrise. She was a deputy sheriff for the county, and she was very much in love with my uncle. Unfortunately, she could never be Buzz’s mate. Oh, he loved Nadine. He probably loved her as much as she loved him, but Buzz was a werecougar.

  A Shifter. The only other nonhuman in town besides me.

  Shifters only mated with other Shifters, with only a few exceptions, and all of those exceptions were paranormal mates. There was a distinct aroma that developed between mates, and when a Shifter caught the scent, it was for life. That couldn’t happen in a Shifter-human relationship. It was genetically impossible. But since Buzz hadn’t ever found his true mate, he and Nadine could be happy for many years together. Sadly, it would eventually end. And that was another reason to not get involved with sexy humans like Parker Knowles.

  I felt an aching pain in my heart. My kind lived a very long time. Hundreds of years sometimes. I’m not sure anyone is built to watch the people they love grow old and die. I know I’m not.

  “So Buzz is taking the big step, huh?” Parker smiled, his blue eyes lighting up with mischief. “He seems more like the rambling kind than the settling-down kind.”

  “Nadine has a way of getting what she wants.” She reminded me a lot of Hazel. Nadine was very straightforward, a lot of “what you see is what you get.” I admired her bluntness and her honesty.

  I smiled at Parker; a melancholy feeling that I’d grown accustomed to experiencing washed over me. I knelt down, feeling the sudden need to hold on to something, in this case, my pittie. Smooshie put her wet nose to my ear and licked my cheek. I patted her.

  “Theresa holding down the fort today?” I asked. She was Parker’s other paid employee. He could only afford to have us both on part time thanks to an anonymous donation that rolled in every month on the fifth. Theresa Simmons, who had started as a volunteer, had worked at the Pit Bull Rescue Center for over two years. Parker also had several volunteers who spent time socializing the rescue dogs to get them ready for rehousing.

  “Keith, Jerry, and Emily are in today, so she has plenty of help.”

  “Good, I hated leaving you short on a Saturday. I know that’s when you run your errands, but it was the only time Mr. Peterson had open to meet with me.”

  “Life happens.” He glanced over at me, his blue eyes locking on my gaze. “They don’t get much better than Merl Peterson. He gave me my first job, did you know that?”

  “No, you never told me.”

  “Yeah, he likes to hire local teenagers for odd jobs. He’d hire me occasionally for things like deck building and roofing. Summer work. It was long hours but a decent paycheck.”

  “My first job I clerked at a convenience store. I worked nights and some weekends.” I’d had to quit school to work full-time, and the Valhalla Gas & Go was the only place that would hire an eighteen-year-old dropout.

  “I’m glad you’re putting down roots here.” He looked around, his upper lip curled a little in disgust. “Even if it’s this place.”

  “The house has good bones,” I told him.

  “That’s not a house.”

  “It has doors and windows and rooms and—”

  “Ghosts.”

  “Parker.”

  “Facts are facts, Lily.” He walked up the front steps as if drawn, his voice like that of a tour guide. “Randall Dilley, who built the place back in 1908, hung himself in the living room. Another owner, Lincoln Edwards, was killed in a combine accident in the 1940s, a whole family disappeared from here in the eighties, and there hasn’t been someone living there since Old Man Mills died in the upstairs bedroom two years ago.”

  “Let me guess.” I mockingly gasped. “He was murdered.”

  “Nah. Natural causes.” Parker paused. “Or so they say…” He let it hang there as if to imply there were more sinister reasons behind the old man’s death. What he didn’t realize is, because of my witch ancestor’s gift, I could smell bull-poop from a mile away.

  Anyway. I knew a little about John “Old Man” Mills. The property had been held in escrow as the court tried to find a blood relative somewhere to inherit. No one came forward, so the property was sold to Merl—who’d sold it to me.

  “You want to go on the supply run with me?” Parker asked.

  “No thanks.” I smiled. “Another time. I want to get in and measure the rooms. I need to figure out where I want to start with this place. Besides, Buzz is bringing out the trailer today.”

  “That’s fast.” His lips thinned. “Well, thought I’d ask.”

  “And I appreciate it.” To lighten the mood, I asked, “Do you think the ghosts took him out?”

  “Who?”

  “Old Man Mills, of course.”

  “I think he’s one of the ghosts now.” He moved in close, his tone ominous. “Some say when the moon is full, and the wind is right, you can smell his farts on the breeze.”

  I giggled. “That’s terrible.”

  I will not flirt with Parker. I will not flirt with Parker. It had become my mantra. A mantra that failed fifty percent of the time.

  I knew Parker liked me. A lot. I could scent his attraction. For whatever reason, his desire for me smelled like honey and mint. Crisp, refreshing, and exciting. But he deserved to be with a woman he could grow old with, and I had a terrible feeling that if I allowed myself to love Parker Knowles, I wouldn’t be able to give him up when the time came for me to leave Moonrise. I could only stay for so long before people would start asking questions about why I didn’t age, and the first rule of integrating with humans was to never let them know you were different. Not unless you wanted to be hunted down like an animal.

  Humans had two impulses when it came to things they didn’t understand. Kill it or dissect it. I didn’t want either of those things happening to me.

  Chapter 2

  After Parker left, I grabbed the toolbox, shovel, and scraper and took it into the house. The peeling blue ivy wallpaper in the living room gave the house the haunted feeling Parker had mentioned, but it was the most updated of all the rooms. It had drywall, not plaster, which meant, unless there was mold, I could save money by just stripping the wallpaper and painting in there.

  Even with all its many failings, I already loved the place. I felt as if I’d finally found a home. A place to call my own.

  I set the toolbox down. Getting started would be the tricky part, but I wasn’t afraid to work hard. I would need to hire a contractor to tell me which walls were support walls, and which ones were room dividers. The place could literally tumble down around my ears if I decided to get sledgehammer happy.

  Smooshie’s ears perked. She stared at the door with expectation then began to bark the moment I heard the gravel spinning under the tires. I had great hearing, but Smooshie’s hearing was incredible. I went outside. I grinned as I saw Buzz’s blue pickup pulling his twelve-by-sixty-foot trailer onto my property. Behind him was a brown four-door car, its hazard lights blinking as they made slow progress up my drive.

  When they got close, Buzz stopped, stuck his head out the window and shouted, “Where do you want it!”

  I pointed to a piece of flat ground about twenty feet from the house. It was the side closest to the well and the power meter. I’d have to pay someone to come out and hook up the water, electric, and run a pipe to the septic tank, but I’d put money aside for that purpose already.

  Five men—two in their forties or fifties, one that looked to be in his teens, and two who looked somewhere in between—got out of the brown car and began methodically getting down to the business of helping my uncle land the trailer.

  They worked efficiently to get it blocked at the wheels, unhitched, and level.

  Buzz got out of his truck and grinned. “It was a scary drive.”

  “I bet.” The other men joined us. “Who’re your friends?”

  “Lily, these are some of my lodge brothers. This is Nick Newton.
” Buzz gestured to one of the older men. His hair was a dirty gray, which meant he’d probably been a light or dark blond before age changed the color. His hazel eyes were warm, and the deep leathery lines around his mouth and eyes marked him as someone who’d spent his life in the sun. “He owns Handy Contractors, and I’ve known him long enough to know he’ll only rip you off a little.” Buzz’s grin matched Nick’s.

  Nick shook my hand. “As opposed to a lot,” he added. I could smell tobacco on him, but his fingers weren’t stained yellow, so I put him at under half a pack a day, maybe less. “This is Paul, Jeff, Mark, and my nephew, Addy.” He cuffed the younger man behind the ear. “Addy’s the Moonrise varsity quarterback. The kid has a great arm on him. Next year, if he can stay out of trouble, he’ll have his pick of colleges if he can get the team to state.” The older man beamed with pride at his nephew.

  Addy was the youngest in the group. I’d seen him before at The Cat’s Meow. He was usually surrounded by a couple of buddies, including James Hanley, a real jerk of a kid, and fawning over teenage girls. I’d heard the name Addy at their table, but I’d always assumed it was one of the girls.

  “Addison,” the teenager said, automatically answering my unasked question. His cheeks reddened. “It’s a family name. I’m used to Addy, though.”

  I gave him a sympathetic smile. “It’s nice to meet you, Addison.”

  The young man gave me a glance that was decidedly grown up, so I gave him one back that conveyed a when-hell-freezes-over message. He blushed again.

  Paul was Paul Simmons. Late thirties, early forties, less gray than Nick and shorter, but well-built and handsome. He was a plumbing department manager at Hayes Home Improvement Center. I wondered if he was related to Jock Simmons, the lawyer Parker had used when he’d been suspected of murdering Katherine Kapersky. I hoped not. I didn’t have much use for Jock. I believed he beat his wife, Theresa, the other woman who worked for Parker at the shelter. In my book, any man who puts his hands on a woman is despicable, but a man who hits a woman he vows to love is not only despicable, he’s disgusting.

  “I’ve heard nice things about you, Miss Mason,” Paul said.