Page 3 of Hero Next Door
I stared at the wall for a full thirty seconds, trying to get my brain to start working again, and then looked back down at the letter.Greetings, Ms. Pelton,it read. And from there, a brief description of who was writing—a Roxy Mason, partner in the firm Mason, Ginger, and Harris—and how hard she’d had to work to find me.
A somewhat snarky comment about how I hadn’t left a forwarding address with my relatives in Arberry, which made me snort. I didn’t have any relatives left in Arberry, thank God, and even if I had, you couldn’t have paid me enough money to tell them where I’d gone. I’d left the place without any warning, and I’d made sure that the family I had left there couldn’t follow me.
Or give any lawyers my forwarding address.
But that was a story for another time. Right now, I didn’t want to think about the relatives I’d once had—or what they’d done to make me run for Nashville at the first possible opportunity. After all, they didn’t have anything to do with the letter I was reading.
I skipped through Roxy’s recitations of all the hoops she’d jumped through to find me, having already decided that I wasn’t going to respond to any of that, and went right to the meat of the matter.
I’m contacting you with happy news, Ms. Pelton. I represent the estate of Scarlett Davis, who recently passed away. In going through her will, I found that she left virtually everything to you. Including her house and all the land she owned in Arberry. All the necessary paperwork has already been filed to change ownership, and you may take possession of the house immediately. I’ve left the key with a Mr. Stone at the local grocery store, and there will be paperwork in the house for you to sign. Please sign and date everything you see send it to me at your earliest convenience to finalize the transfers.
She’d signed it ‘best of luck,’ and then her name and a great deal of contact information that I hoped I’d never have to use.
And that was it. One little letter, only five paragraphs, and in it...
In it, I gained an entire house and ranch in Arberry, North Carolina. The town where I’d grown up, and the town I’d left the moment I turned eighteen and became an adult capable of making my own decisions. I’d run for Nashville and I’d never looked back. Never glanced at the world that had dominated my life up to that point.
I’d tried very hard not to think about it, in fact, and I’d flat out ignored the existence of most of the people I’d left behind.
One of those people, though, hadn’t forgotten me. Scarlett Davis. She wasn’t actually related to me. Never had been. Hell, she hadn’t even really lived in town. Her ranch, Butterfly Glen, was outside of town, halfway between Arberry and the little village next to it, though her address had been, technically, in Arberry. She’d never spent much time in town, though, and I wouldn’t even have known about her existence if I hadn’t been in charge of delivering groceries to her.
Back then, my family had owned the grocery store and I’d been in charge of deliveries starting when I was about ten. Just old enough to ride my newer, bigger bicycle and tow a wagon behind it. And I know what you’re asking: Isn’t ten a little bit young to be making deliveries for a grocery store? Shouldn’t a store like that have a real delivery driver, with a whole car and a driver’s license?
And the simple answer is that yes, they should have.
Unless that grocery store was run by a man who spent every penny he made on alcohol and didn’t bother to keep any for paying a delivery driver. Why would he have, after all, when he had a daughter he could use for things like that?
I closed my eyes and stopped that line of thought firmly in its path. I wouldn’t like where it went and I didn’t have time for the amount of work it would take to put the memories away again.
I also didn’t have any whiskey in the house, and those particular memories required copious amounts of whiskey.
Instead, I glanced back down at the letter once more. Scarlett Davis had left me her house. A wave of pain went through me at the thought that she’d died—and that I hadn’t gone to see her again, like I’d always meant to. The woman had been everything to me, starting with the day I’d first made a delivery to her. I closed my eyes and remembered, feeling the spring sun on my face and the sheen of sweat sliding down my neck. I’d been twelve, and it had been a long ride out to her farm, but my father had told me I had to make it and be home before it got dark.
I arrived at her house tired, thirsty, and nervous about this, my first big delivery out of town. Scarlett had opened the door, all big smile and flowing dress. Perfectly coifed hair and makeup that looked like it belonged in the theaters of New York rather than a little ranch in a small town in North Carolina. She’d been beautiful and I had stared up at her, my breath fleeing my body and my eyes darting back and forth over her face, trying to take it all in.
I’d been in awe of her right from the start, and when she took in my ragged jeans and the bruises on my arms—along with the sweat coating my brow—the smile on her face changed. She’d gone from performing hostess to concerned mother in no time flat, and had hustled me right into her kitchen for lemon aid and cookies. She’d kept me there for lunch and then loaded my bike and wagon into her tiny car—I still couldn’t figure out how she’d fit them—and driven me back to my parents.
And she’d never stopped taking care of me. She’d become my refuge. My escape from the real world. My other mother. I’d run to her anytime anything was going wrong and spent my weekends at her house just to escape my own. She’d been my muse, my mentor. The one who taught me about the world and gave me the tools I needed to make my dreams happen. She’d listened as I talked for hours about wanting to be in the music business, and had even paid for piano lessons for the three weeks it took both me and the teacher to realize I had no musical talent.
It had been Scarlett, she of the New York theater, who told me that the music industry had a number of people who didn’t play instruments at all. Executives. Producers. Managers. Scarlett who had recommended that I get into that side of the business, where I could put my talent for organization and numbers to good use.
And then I’d left her on the day I turned eighteen. And I hadn’t been back to see her in six years.
I hadn’t forgotten her. I could never forget her. But I’d allowed my life in Nashville to become so big, so all-consuming, that I hadn’t made the time to go back and see the woman who practically raised me.
And now she was dead. Gone beyond my reach, with her red lipstick and her big, booming laugh, and all that wonderful advice. The milk and cookies that she baked herself, the hugs that had always felt like coming home.
Gone.
But she hadn’t forgotten me. She’d remembered me so well, and so fondly, that she’d left me everything. Including that big, rambling house that she’d first welcomed me into when I was only twelve, and so lost and scared that I hadn’t even known who I was.
I groaned and put my hands to my eyes, rubbing hard enough to blur my vision. That big, rambling house just outside of Arberry. The one with the pink roses climbing all over it and that wide, stretching view of the valley below it. The house full of memories and laughter and late nights spent talking to Scarlett about what I thought I wanted to do with my life... and how I had to get out of Arberry to do it.
Out of the town where I’d grown up. The town where my father—and then my ex—had tried to trap me.
The town that had colored my nightmares ever since I left it.
Sure, I’d been back. Last year, in fact, for Christmas and then again when we were trapped there in the midst of the biggest storm the town had ever seen. But I’d gone out of my way to stay out of town as much as possible, and that had been relatively easy, given where I was staying at the time and the fact that it was raining hard enough to flood the place.
