Chapter Two
And she needed guests. She needed income to afford the property taxes on the old place her aunt had left Josie in her will.
She needed income to continue to eat. At the thought of going hungry, a stab of emotion pierced her.
Emotion too big and complicated to break apart into more descriptive terms. She let the weight of it roll through her and then breathed, letting it go.
A leaky roof. Repairs. That’s what she had to deal with. That’s what was in front of her. And though it was daunting, it could be fixed. Somehow, someway. She just had to figure out the details.
She’d spent the last six months cleaning the house to within an inch of its life, painting every room, and adding what she hoped were charming touches to the décor.
Some of the furnishings were beautiful antique pieces that added to the historic feel of the home, but other pieces were simply outdated, ugly, and falling apart.
But she’d gotten creative and found ways to use what was available to her for free rather than spending money she didn’t have.
She’d discovered beautiful old scrolled, wrought iron fencing behind the house, scrubbed it free of rust, spray-painted it, and used it to mount on the walls over a few of the beds to create rustic headboards.
In that sense, it was a boon that her aunt Mavis had been somewhat of a hoarder.
Her aunt had kept the old fencing, aged whiskey barrels—which Josie had cleaned and resealed to use as side tables on the porch surrounding the house—and an attic and basement full of items Josie was still cataloging.
She’d found a gorgeous set of cornflower-blue-and-white china that she’d brought down that morning and began washing.
She’d stood at the sink, one of the lovely, delicate plates in her hands, staring out the wavy glass pane, mesmerized at how the sun caught the raindrops on the rosebuds outside.
She’d opened the window, and the spicy scent of the roses mixed with the clean smell of a rain-washed morning had wafted in, filling her spirit.
It’d felt like a gift meant just for her.
She’d closed her eyes, feeling thankful, living right in that moment.
Yes, it had started out as a good day, but then the roof and the leaks…
She froze as a car door slammed outside. Peeking through the curtains, she let out a groan.
And now…Archie.
She hadn’t realized her day was going to take an even steeper downturn.
She considered ignoring the knock that came at the door, but her car was parked right outside, the windows were open, and if she was going to assert herself with her obnoxious, mean-spirited cousin, she couldn’t run and hide under one of the beds like she was tempted to do.
She walked slowly to the door and pulled it open.
Archie, who’d been looking behind him at the large expanse of yard where Josie had treated the grass for weeds, mowed, and planted spring flowers, turned suddenly, spearing her with his cold eyes.
Eyes as blue as his mother’s and yet with none of the warmth.
“Josie.”
“Hi, Archie.”
He looked past her, into the house. “Can I come in?”
She hesitated. Boundaries, Josie. Boundaries are very important.
You must know your own and respect your own.
If you don’t, no one else will. The words of the social worker who’d been assigned her case came back to her.
It was funny how they’d barely penetrated her trauma-saturated mind eight years ago, but they must have lodged somewhere in her brain, because they whispered back all the time recently.
“Why don’t we sit on the porch? It’s a nice morning. ”
He thinned his lips and hesitated but finally walked to one of the wicker chairs and sat down.
Josie took a seat across from him. “What brings you out this way, Archie?”
“I’m here to make you another offer on the house. I can up it by five grand.”
“Thank you, but I told you I’m not interested in selling. Your mother left this house to me because she knew I had the same vision for it that she did. She knew I’d work hard to get it up and running again, back to its former—”
“My mother left you this house because she felt sorry for you. She pitied you like everyone else does.”
Josie swallowed, lowering her eyes. How quickly she could still be emotionally stripped.
She was working on that. “Your mother was extremely kind to me when I needed it. She helped me after…” She sat taller.
“This house is giving me purpose I didn’t even know I needed, Archie,” she said to appeal to any speck of kindness or empathy he might have inside his hulkish, overbearing body. “I believe your mother knew that.”
“My mother was practically a vegetable at the end. She didn’t know anything, including her own name.”
Josie took a deep breath. “Before the dementia…took her. Before that, she had moments of extreme lucidity.” You’d have known that had you ever bothered to visit.
He pointed at her. “Listen, Josie, I didn’t want to resort to this, but if you don’t sell to me, I’ll be forced to sue you.
My mother was not of sound mind to change her will and give this property to you or anyone else.
Whatever you did to manipulate her into it should be looked at by a judge.
I was offering you money out of the kindness of my heart because I know you barely have a cent to your name, but if you force my hand, I’ll have no choice but to get the courts involved. Make this right.”
Make this right. Anxiety sparked inside Josie as she regarded him, recalling what Aunt Mavis had said about her own son.
After his father died, Archie grew bitter, distant.
I should have worked harder to draw him out, but I was suddenly a single mother, trying to support us both, trying to run a business…
I lost his father, and I lost Archie then too.
I didn’t realize that I’d never get him back.
Her voice had been laced with sadness. Regret.
Oh, Aunt Mavis.
Perhaps she had lost her son, or perhaps some people were just born with a mean streak wider than others.
A few were born evil…and she knew that well too.
Despite the mild temperature, Josie shivered, rubbing her bare arms. But Aunt Mavis had had a part in saving Josie—her battered soul—and for that, she’d be forever grateful.
And Josie understood what it was like to let your past, all the missing parts of yourself, rule your choices. She’d done it once too. Before.
But she couldn’t let this—possibly damaged, possibly mean, most likely both—man in front of her derail her now.
The vision of this farmhouse shining under the morning light had kept her going when she didn’t think she could.
She’d fought too hard to get here, and she still had a lot more fighting in front of her.
“Why do you even want this place, Archie? You have your own house, your own business. You do well. What do you want with a run-down farmhouse?”
“This was my father’s land before he died. It’s been in my family for four generations. It’s rightfully mine.”
“I’m family too. And I love it as much as you do.” More. He’d never been interested in this place. At least not when his mother was alive. She figured it was solely about possession, about greed, about Archie feeling like he’d been cheated in some way.
“I’d think you’d feel more content living in the city where there are lots of people around.
Safer.” He gave her a meaningful look. “Do you really think guests are going to want to stay here when they find out what happened to you?” He leaned closer.
“That sort of thing makes people very uncomfortable, Josie. Very uncomfortable. No one wants to think about it. No one wants it serving them breakfast in the morning.”
Josie stood suddenly, and Archie looked momentarily surprised before coming to his feet as well.
He towered over her, a big brute of a man.
A bully, his brash personality a perfect match to the thick lines of his physique.
“Do what you have to do,” she said, trying her best to hide the fact that she’d begun shaking, trying to hide the anxiety trickling through her at the thought of a lawsuit, a lawyer she could not afford, the possibility of losing the house that was doing so much to heal her wounded soul.
“But I will not sell.” She turned. “Goodbye.”
“You’ll regret this, Josie,” he called as she stepped quickly inside and locked the door behind her.
She walked around the corner where he couldn’t see her through the glass window of the front door, sinking onto the bottom stair.
Archie knocked once, calling her name, but she didn’t answer.
A minute later she heard him swear and then his footsteps descending the steps, followed by his car door opening and closing.
She exhaled, long and slow, as she listened to the sound of his engine fading away into nothing.
Horrible man. Why was he so bitter? Why preempt failure?
That sort of thing makes people very uncomfortable, Josie. Very uncomfortable. No one wants to think about it.
Yeah, she didn’t either. Who wanted to confront the fact that monsters existed? That they could walk right past you on the street—or in your own apartment building—and you’d never know until they decided to strike? But Josie thought about it—she didn’t have a choice.
Finally, she stood, climbing the stairs to the second floor where she entered the bedroom at the far end of the hall.
She was alone in the house, but she still engaged the three locks she’d installed on the heavy wood door.
Her heart calmed, breaths coming more easily.
She walked to the desk where she had three bulletin boards hung above it on the wall, every inch of them covered with the research she’d been conducting for the past eight years.
Her gaze moved from one thing to the other—lists, articles, addresses, every scrap of anything that might eventually lead her to her son.
She closed her eyes, picturing her baby boy, the way he’d gazed up at her, eyes innocent and trusting.
And she made the same vow to him then that she’d made to him in the room of the abandoned warehouse, where their screams had mingled as she’d pushed him into the world: I will never stop fighting for you.