Happy family to the left. Tess let out a long sigh. It’s not like she was jealous. Much. She wasn’t even looking for a relationship. In fact, the farther she stayed away from men, the better. At least for now. It was more the picture they painted that got under Tess’s skin. The house shamed most of the cabins around the lake. It was more of a mini-mansion. Great house, the giggling voices of little girls, husband built like a freaking god.… Tess could only imagine what Ms. Perfect had to look like to fit into the equation.
She looked down at her old ragged sweater and fiddled with the cuff that had begun to fray. For weeks she hadn’t worn more than T-shirts and yoga pants and, if she had to be honest, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d washed her hair. Not exactly the picture of a woman who’d gotten over her recent breakup. Ugh.
Maybe more a picture of a woman who’d given up. She’d been living in the cabin for almost a month and she’d yet to start on any of the home-improvement projects she’d lined up. Gallons of paint sat in the den that would be her office; the new throw rugs were still rolled up and stored in one of the guest bedrooms along with the new linens. She hadn’t even unpacked her dishes. In fact, the only thing that had made its way out of the boxes labeled KITCHEN was her Chemex coffeepot, the one thing she couldn’t live without.
Who needed a man? Caffeine was her stable relationship.
The sound of raucous giggles drifted from the neighbor’s house, and Tess edged closer to the boundary of her property. She always thought she’d have kids of her own by now. For a while, she’d thought that Jared was the man she’d have those kids with. So much for hopes and wishes. Twenty-nine wasn’t old, was it? Women were having kids into their forties. She had plenty of time. Right?
Oh good Lord, Tess. Who in the hell are you trying to convince?
The sound of her phone caught her attention and she jogged across the lawn and through the back door into the house. She swiped her cell off the kitchen counter just before it went to voicemail and swiped her finger across the screen.
“Hello?”
“How are you doing, Chickpea?”
Tess smiled at her dad’s teasing tone. “Did Mom ask you to call and check on me?”
“You know your mother doesn’t ask me to do anything,” her dad replied.
“True.”
“She thinks you’re living in a run-down shack without water or heat.”
The house was old but it wasn’t that old. Tess’s mother had been adamantly against her moving into the house to begin with. She’d even gone so far as to suggest that she try to patch things up with Jared. Which was why Tess had been dodging her calls for the past month.
“Yeah, well, the outhouse has been sort of annoying to get to in the middle of the night, but I’m getting used to fetching water from the open well.”
Her dad laughed. They’d always shared a love of sarcasm. “Want me to come down and do anything for you? It might not be an abandoned shack, but I doubt Millie was good about the upkeep.”
Tess looked at the stack of unpacked boxes, paint rollers, and masking tape. Her plans for fixing up the place were all cosmetic so far. “Not yet.” She definitely wasn’t ready to deal with her mom. She needed at least six more months. “But when I do need help, you’ll be the first person I call.”
“For the record,” her dad said. “I’m glad you kicked that bastard to the curb. You’re too good for him.”
Tears gathered behind Tess’s eyes but she willed them not to fall. “Thanks, Dad.”
“I’ll tell your mom you’ve avoided catastrophe thus far.”
“Love you, Dad.”
“Love you too, kiddo.”
Tess ended the call and set the phone down on the counter. Next door a happy family enjoyed their evening. Hopefully soon, Tess would have some of her own happy evenings.
Two
So much for a happy family. Apparently this little section of the lake had become the misery-loves-company block. It had been a week since Tess’s neighbors had shown up at their house, and for the past seven days, her ears had been assaulted by the sounds of little girls whining and their father being a grumpy pain in the ass. Where was their mother, anyway? Probably holed up in the bedroom, drinking. She’d thought that moving to a small town would afford her the luxury of not having to hear her neighbors’ every move, but sounds seemed to carry when you lived so close to the water.
As far as she could tell, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Grumpy was a total buzzkill and it was starting to get on his daughters’ nerves. The property next door existed in a virtual police state. No fun allowed. In fact, it had been so quiet for the past few hours that Tess had begun to wonder if the family had decided to pack it in and call it quits on their vacay. Fingers crossed. The restored quiet would give her plenty of time to continue to wallow in her own loneliness while she procrastinated on all of the projects around the house that she’d yet to start.
Tess, your new life is too exciting for words.
“No fair, Jane! You had five cookies and I only had four!”
“Nuh-uh! I had four cookies. The rest are for later so don’t eat them!”
So much for her hope for peace and quiet. Tess sat up in her chair on the back porch and strained to hear the tiny voices that sounded as though they came from the small barn at the northern most corner of her property. The structure was barely sound, it tilted slightly to the right and parts of the roof had begun to sag. It probably wasn’t suitable for squirrels to be running around in, let alone kids.
“Shit.”
Tess tugged on her boots and trudged across the spongy spring-damp ground to the corner of the property. Would it kill their dad to keep an eye on them? And where in the hell was their mother?
The girls continued to bicker as Tess eased open the large rickety door. Like a couple of mice, the girls quieted, the only sound the loud “Shhhhh!” of one sister silencing the other.
They thought they were pretty sneaky. Amusement bubbled in Tess’s chest as she made her way to the ladder that led to the loft. She couldn’t begrudge them going out and looking for a little fun. She just wished they’d find somewhere safer to do it. Tess poked her head up the square hole in the loft’s floor and her jaw fell slack.
Those little squatters …
Today wasn’t the first day the neighbor girls had decided to play in the barn. From the looks of it, they’d been squirreling away all of the things they’d need to turn the dilapidated loft into a luxury fort for quite a while. Much longer than the mere seven days they’d been here. Pretty dang impressive.
“Okay, little mice,” Tess crooned. “No more hiding. Come on out.”
She waited patiently as the sisters exchanged heated whispers from behind an old hay bin that they’d draped a sheet over to make a tent. “There’s no mice here,” a tiny voice replied. “Just ghosts. So you better run before we decide to scare you.”
Tess suppressed a giggle. They were tough little cookies, she’d give them that. “Ghosts, huh?”
“Yep,” another tiny voice answered. “And we’re super scary.”
“Okay,” Tess said. “It’s too bad. I baked chocolate chip cookies this morning and I was going to share them. But ghosts don’t eat cookies.”
“Yes they do!”
“Jenny!” one of the girls hissed.
“If we’re running away, we need food.”