Her high-heeled shoes sank into the soft green grass as she pulled two suitcases up onto the porch. She parked them on the porch and sat down in the rocking chair. Nothing happened. No peace, no memories. Just a hot wind, like that on the day of the funeral, blowing across her face and making beads of sweat pop up under her nose. She pushed up out of the chair and found the spare key hidden under the flowerpot shoved up in the corner.
Twenty-nine steps off the deck out back led straight down to the boat shed where the pontoon used to be housed. Conrad had used it in one of his schemes a few years back and bragged about it to her, so now there was just an empty shed down there. She opened the front door and wheeled her suitcase and briefcase inside. She expected the musty scent of a house that had been closed for a long time. But the aroma of something sweet, like a scented candle or potpourri, lingered. Had someone been there recently? Kate parked her suitcases in the middle of the floor and went straight to the thermostat, turning it down from seventy-eight to seventy degrees. And then she eased down on the sofa and covered her eyes with the back of her hand.
Coming to the cabin might have been a bad idea. She could have gone anywhere in the world for a few weeks, and this was the very last place she should be. But after her mother suggested that she get away for a while, all she could think of was the quiet happiness that she’d known sitting in that rocking chair on the porch. And she did need to get all the legal matters settled before her mother retired.
With its log walls and Western decor, the interior of the house was as rustic as the outside. The front door opened right into a great room–living room and country kitchen separated only by an archway. A panoramic view of the lake spread out before her from the sliding glass doors that opened up to the wide deck where Kate had watched beautiful Texas sunsets every evening for a whole week.
She was there and she didn’t plan to leave, so all that was left was to unpack. She rolled her luggage down the hallway toward the master bedroom, but she couldn’t make herself go into the room. She’d known he’d had other women, but did he bring them here? Did he have sex with them in her honeymoon bed? There was no way in hell she could sleep in that room. The therapist would call it love-hate, what she experienced as she stood there, her feet glued to the floor. She’d loved him. He’d tricked her. She hated him. All those feelings finally hit home and rolled up into a hard ball in the middle of her chest. They did not make for the happy, peaceful feeling she’d hoped for.
She crossed the hall to a second bedroom and noticed a furry paw sticking out from under the bed. Startled, her first reaction was to run until she realized it wasn’t a mouse but a stuffed animal. She crossed the room and raised the bed skirt to find a little toy bunny no bigger than the palm of her hand and a Barbie doll wearing a bathing suit. The doll’s black hair was frayed, giving testimony that it had seen lots of time in the bathtub. No doubt about it, Conrad had brought his daughter and her mother here.
Kate made her way to the second guest room. Judging by the dust on the dresser, no one had been in this room in years. Evidently the wife with the little girl only dusted and took care of the part of the house that they used.
Which makes this room perfect.
She set her briefcase at the end of the dresser and parked her suitcases in the middle of the floor, went back to the car, and rolled in a case with her laptop and printer/fax machine. She took it straight to the room and parked it beside the dresser. A queen-size bed with a split rail–type headboard, flanked on both sides with nightstands and lamps fashioned from horseshoes, a six-drawer dresser with a mirror above it, and a nice-size empty closet waited for her. A gold velvet rocking chair had been shoved into a corner. It looked comfortable and well worn, as if someone had used it a lot in the past.
“No bad auras here,” she mumbled.
That room, with its rustic charm, felt right. She stripped down the bed, carried the sheets and the quilt to the utility room, and shoved as much as she could into the washer. She found a dust cloth and a can of spray cleaner in the cabinets over the washer and dryer and returned to the bedroom. While she was dusting, she thought she heard the squeaky hinges on the front door but attributed the noise to the washer and kept right on cleaning her new bedroom. She’d come to the cabin to get away from everyone, and no one even knew she was there.
“Hello?” a thin voice yelled.
Kate stepped out of the room to find a wide-eyed Amanda standing in the hallway not five feet from her.
Amanda tucked her chin and glared. “What are you doing here?”
“I own this place. What are you doing here?” Kate asked.
Before Amanda could answer, another voice called out, “Who’s here? Show yourself.”
Kate recognized wife number two—Jamie, was it? Amanda whipped around as fast as her big belly would allow and stomped into the living room with Kate right behind her.
“Get out! Both of you, get out! This is my cabin,” Amanda shouted and waved her arms around. “Conrad told me when he brought me here for my honeymoon that he was leaving it to me in his will. So get off my property and don’t ever set foot on it again.”
Jamie took a step around the suitcases in the middle of the floor. “And he promised me and Gracie the same thing. You can leave. I’m staying right here the rest of the summer and there’s not a damn thing either of you can do about it.”
“Just for the record, I’m the first wife and this property is mine unless there is a will. So far there’s nothing filed in Fort Worth or the surrounding counties,” Kate said.
“He’s only been dead”—Amanda winced at the word—“nine days. Give it time and it will turn up, just like his divorces from both of you, and when it does, you are both leaving my house.”
Jamie crossed her arms over her chest. “And if it’s my house, then you two can get out of it. How long will it take to figure this out?” She frowned at Kate.
“I have no idea,” Kate answered. “Why would either of you even want to stay here?”
“It’s where Conrad brought me last December on our honeymoon. We started off the new year right here on the deck and watched the fireworks display out on the lake,” Amanda answered.
Jamie drew her eyebrows down in a frown. “And I suppose he said he’d bring you back here for a week out of every summer?”
Amanda nodded. “We were supposed to arrive tomorrow, and now”—she sniffled—“I’ll have to just imagine that he is here with me.”
Gracie tugged on her mother’s shirttail. “Mommy, are they really going to live with us?”
“Looks like it, because we aren’t leaving.” Jamie grabbed the handles of two suitcases and rolled them down the hallway.