Going Home (Nugget Romance 1)

  COMING HOME TO A KISS

  Rhys slowly rocked the glider with his right leg. “Maddy, I don’t know what the Wellmont mold is. What I do know is that you’re clever and you’re funny and you’re beautiful.... Look what you’ve accomplished in the short time you’ve been here. Most people would’ve written off the Lumber Baron as a scrape. When you’re done with it it’ll be the pride of Nugget. From where I’m standing this Gabriella woman wasn’t your problem. If your husband couldn’t see what I see . . . Well, he doesn’t deserve you.”

  She pressed her face against his shoulder and mumbled, “You might not say that if you’d ever seen Gabriella.”

  He gently lifted her onto his lap, his soft lips just inches away from her ear. “I don’t need to. I’ve seen you.”

  Maddy looked at him with such wonder in her eyes that it mesmerized him. He bent his head, gently brushing her lips with his. The kiss started innocently enough. But when she wrapped her arms around his neck, he was lost. He sank his mouth over hers, pulling her firmly against him . . .

  GOING HOME

  A

  NUGGET

  ROMANCE

  STACY FINZ

  eKENSINGTON BOOKS

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  Table of Contents

  COMING HOME TO A KISS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Teaser chapter

  Copyright Page

  To my late father, Steven R. Finz.

  Heaven got one hell of a copyeditor. I miss you, Dad.

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to Susan Kennedy for your invaluable information about city zoning, licensing and waste treatment plants. I bet you never thought sewage would be so spellbinding. Thanks to Jeff Rinek and Joe Toomey for your expertise on guns, ballistics, and all things law enforcement.

  Thanks to my critique partners A.J. Larrieu, Vanessa Kier, Sonya Weiss, and Suzanne Herel. How many versions of this book did you read, A.J.? I’m so indebted and grateful for all of your help, inspiration, and encouragement.

  A special thanks to Amanda Gold, Tara Duggan, and Sarah Fritsche for being beta readers, telling me what worked and what didn’t and for lending me your names. Amanda, your help working out plot problems was vital!

  Thanks to Wendy Miller and Leah Garchik, my besties, for all the dinners, drinks (especially the drinks), and the advice. Wendy, thank you for reminding me that my characters needed to shower and for all your editing expertise. Leah, thank you for your spectacular gift for coming up with names and slogans.

  Thanks to my agent, Melissa Jeglinski of the Knight Agency, for believing in my work, helping me make it better and steering me through this new journey. And to my editor at Kensington, John Scognamiglio, thanks for taking a chance on me and guiding my work with the bedside manner of a country doctor.

  Last, but never least, thanks to Jaxon, Iris, Janet, Laura, Noah, Kendra, Kaley, Zach, Paulina and Garyn—my family. Thanks for the endless reading and for believing that there isn’t anything I can’t do. I love you guys. A special shout-out to Jaxon, my husband, who read, proofread, cooked all my meals, and did all the dishes so I could finish this book. You’re the best!

  Chapter 1

  “Pop, why’d you take this stuff?” Rhys stared down at the assortment of crap—because with the exception of the ladies’ ring and the handgun, it really was just crap—and shook his head.

  When his dad looked up at him with those basset hound eyes Rhys actually felt sorry for the old man.

  “You listening? You’re looking at grand theft here. That’s a three-year sentence.”

  They’d been at it for nearly forty minutes and Rhys was about to throw up his arms in defeat. Out of professional courtesy the Plumas County sheriff’s investigator had given him a heads-up about his dad’s arrest. Rhys in turn had called a highly recommended local attorney, jumped on a plane to Reno, and driven the eighty-one miles in a lousy rental car across the Nevada-California line to Quincy, the county seat.

  If they didn’t resolve this mess soon, he’d miss his flight back to Houston. With the two-hour time difference, he wouldn’t get home until midnight, and he had to be in court in the morning to testify on a case he’d solved.

  But Rhys was starting to panic. Stan Shepard might be a mean SOB, but he was no thief. And his lack of memory and fits of confusion didn’t seem to be an act.

  “Pop, you okay? What’s going on with you?”

  Stan, known simply as Shep by what few friends he had, responded, “You gonna make me some of that Dinty Moore stew, boy?”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Rhys banged his head against the institutional green wall of the nine-by-nine-foot sheriff’s interrogation room.

  “You’re gonna hurt yourself, son.”

  He hadn’t heard his dad’s lawyer come in. For a big guy, he was light on his feet. “Where the hell have you been?”

  Del Webber didn’t seem to take offense. “Been getting your old man’s test results.”

  “What test results?” No one had told Rhys about any tests.

  “Psych eval.” Del grabbed a chair and dragged it over to the conference table that anchored the windowless room, motioning Rhys to do the same. “You want the good news first?”

  Rhys remained standing. “Yeah, sure.”

  “Sit down, Detective. This might take a little time.”

  Rhys sagged into one of the folding chairs and rested his elbows on the table. Shep continued to sit in the corner, staring into space.

  “For now, they’re holding off on officially charging him.”

  “How’s that?” Rhys had worked for Houston PD going on eleven years now. He knew the drill. “Mental incompetence?”

  Del took off his cowboy hat and set it down on its crown, then ran his fingers through what little was left of his hair. “Although there is no definitive diagnosis, it looks like your dad’s in the middle stages of Alzheimer’s. I’m sorry, son.”

  Rhys probably should’ve felt a whole range of emotions, including grief. All he felt was inconvenienced. “They putting him in a state hospital?”

  Del shook his head. “I can make this whole thing go away. He probably misplaced a few of his own things and thought these were his.” He looked over at the collection of stolen goods: a set of keys, one of those gaudy figurines they sold in shopping mall jewelry stores, a Kodak camera, and some corroded jumper cables. The gun and the ring.

  “I don’t know about Nugget anymore, but in Texas people don’t take kindly to someone walking into their home and making off with their stuff.”

  Del frowned, running his hands through that thin hair again. “The truth, Rhys, is he probably was disoriented. Didn’t even know he was committing burglaries. People around here are pretty forgiving.”

  Rhys got up and paced the room. “What am I supposed to do with him? He obviously can’t be left to his own devices.”

  “Maybe find one of those assisted-living facilities. Our doctors said there will be times when he’s
totally lucid. But he’ll need medical care and someone to watch over him.”

  Rhys looked over at his father. They shouldn’t be talking about him as if he wasn’t sitting in the same room. But Shep seemed more preoccupied with a loose thread on his shirt than he did with their conversation.

  “You ready to go, Pop?”

  He lifted his head as if seeing Rhys for the first time that day. “You gonna make me some of that Dinty Moore stew?”

  Rhys turned to Del. “You want me to write you a check?”

  “I know where you live. You’ll get my bill in the mail.” He grabbed his hat off the table and gave Rhys’s shoulder a fatherly squeeze. “I’m truly sorry, son.”

  Rhys acknowledged Del’s condolences with a slight nod of his head and gently tugged his father up out of the chair. “Let’s go home.”

  Home? When had he ever thought of Nugget as home? Even though Rhys had lived there a good part of his life, he’d always felt like an outsider, like someone peering through a picket fence, watching a party he hadn’t been invited to. Something about that kind of alienation, the hollowness of it, made Nugget the loneliest place in the world.

  He maneuvered his father past the front desk and out the door into the parking lot. It was colder here than it had been in Houston. He wished he’d thought to bring something warmer than a sweatshirt. His dad’s denim railroad jacket wasn’t any heavier, but he seemed oblivious to the temperature. Rhys hustled him into the front passenger seat and got behind the wheel.

  “What do you say we blow this popsicle stand?”

  Shep didn’t respond, just stared out the window as Rhys headed east on Highway 70. The last time he’d been back was twelve months ago for the funeral of his best friend Clay’s father. Shep hadn’t bothered coming to the chapel to pay his respects, but Rhys had called on him anyway. Like always, they’d had nothing to say.

  It’d been Rhys’s only visit since peeling out of town eighteen years earlier. With nowhere in particular to go, he’d just wanted to get far away from Nugget—to a new place, where no one knew him and he could reinvent himself.

  About the only good thing in coming back was he’d get to see Clay again. The McCreedys had been ranching in Plumas County for four generations. Clay knew everything about these mountains. And everybody. Rhys grabbed his cell phone and punched in Clay’s number. When voice mail came on, he left a message, then tried his lieutenant. His partner would have to pull court duty while Rhys took a few days to get his dad settled.

  Thirty-five minutes later he rolled into downtown Nugget. The place was looking a little long in the tooth. But the surrounding snowcapped mountains and hulking pines still awed him. Funny how when he told Texans he was from California they automatically conjured up images of palm trees, sandy beaches, and balmy Santa Ana breezes. It was late September. In a month, Nugget, located in the northern Sierra Nevada, could be socked by sleet and snow.

  He drove up Donner Road to the two-family home where he’d grown up. It hadn’t been much then and looked even worse for wear now—little more than a double-barrel shotgun shack, housing the Shepards on one side and Old Lady Brown on the other. But it was spitting distance from the Union Pacific Railroad depot, where Shep, up until the time he retired, reported to work every day. The house practically sat on the tracks. As a kid, Rhys had hardly noticed the constant roar of diesel engines and the piercing blows of train horns.

  “We’re here, Pop.” Rhys got out of the car and helped his dad out of the passenger seat, noticing for the first time how frail he’d gotten. He could feel the sharpness of Shep’s bones through the flimsiness of his dungaree jacket.

  “I’m hungry, Rhys.”

  That caught Rhys off guard. He couldn’t remember a time when his father had actually called him by his name, the only remaining vestige of his mother’s Welsh heritage. Other dads sometimes used nicknames: Shortstop, Sport, Buddy. He was just “Boy.” Or if his old man was in a particularly foul mood, “You good-for-nothing little punk.”

  “Let’s get inside and I’ll fix you something to eat.” Rhys turned the knob and smiled when the door gave way with a little shove of his shoulder. People still didn’t lock up in Nugget.

  The old plaid fold-out sofa that Rhys used to sleep on still sat against the main wall in the living room. The linoleum floor, nicked and worn with age, had been swept clean and smelled of disinfectant. As he walked through his father’s bedroom to the kitchen in the back of the house he noted that the place remained as sparse and neat as the day he’d left it.

  Rhys hunted through the pantry for a can of stew, checked the expiration date, and chucked it in the garbage can. “You’ll have to settle for soup, Pop.”

  He grabbed a cast-iron pot off a shelf above the stove, found a can opener in one of the drawers, heated the soup, and reached by rote into one of the upper cupboards for two bowls, which he set on a small Formica table in the corner of the room.

  His dad took one of the chairs while Rhys served them lunch. He tested the soup to make sure it wasn’t too hot and waited to see if his father could feed himself. “This okay?”

  Shep slurped down a few spoonfuls of chicken and noodles and nodded. They ate in silence while the old man cleaned his bowl.

  “You want more?” Rhys asked.

  “Nah. I’m good.”

  Rhys finished the last of his broth and pushed his bowl away. “Mrs. Brown still live next door?” He thought his father seemed a little more clearheaded now that he’d had something to fill his belly.

  “She died.”

  “That’s too bad.” Although Rhys meant it, he’d never liked her much.

  Through the thin wall that separated their two houses, he knew she’d heard him crying as a boy on those miserable nights his father left him alone to work on the railroad. Instead of assuring him that she was just next door—there if he needed her—she’d cranked up the volume on her TV set. At least he’d had Johnny Carson to keep him company. “Anyone living there now?”

  “Nope.” Shep took his bowl to the sink. He gazed out the window as if trying to get his bearings, and fiddled with the faucet uncertainly until a spray of water came out.

  “Want me to do that?” Rhys called to him.

  Shep didn’t answer, just placed his bowl on the drying rack and turned in the direction of his bedroom. “Get some sleep, boy.”

  Rhys didn’t have the heart to tell him that it was only two o’clock. He washed his own bowl and stepped out onto the back porch, resting his elbows on the wobbly railing so he could admire the fall leaves on the trees that dappled the edge of town and inhale the familiar scent of wood smoke from the neighboring chimneys. The trains didn’t run as frequently as they used to—he hadn’t heard one since being back at the house. But the sound of the Feather River rushing at full throttle made Rhys think of record rain and snowfalls.

  As he peered down on the town, he felt nostalgic for the kind of childhood he should’ve had. What boy wouldn’t love growing up in a place like this? A safe and endless playground of rivers and lakes, trees and fields, cow and horse pastures. Snowboarding and sledding in the winter. Swimming and inner tubing in the summer. Fishing, nearly year-round.

  Now looking at it, Rhys found it hard to believe that Nugget had ever been prosperous—first, during the gold rush, later, when loggers from around the country discovered the area’s abundant fir and pine forests. The railroad eventually followed, so that lumbermen could ship their timber downstate. More recently, the place had become a mecca for weekenders, skiers, hunters, and outdoorsy types. But like every other rural town in America, when the recession hit, Nugget took it in the shorts. Badly.

  His father had moved them here from Utah to work as a brakeman for Union Pacific when Rhys was just two. He’d never known his mother, who, according to Shep, had run off with a Mormon dentist to live the high life in Salt Lake City shortly after Rhys was born. Something about Nugget must have resonated with Shep, because no matter how solitary his meager
existence got here, he’d never left this little town.

  Never.

  But tomorrow Rhys would have to start looking for a care facility for his father, and the likelihood of finding one near Nugget was next to nil. Shep would never make it through one of Texas’s hot, humid summers. Not that Rhys wanted him living there. He’d made sure over the years to put a lot of miles between him and his father. Sacramento or Reno seemed like the most logical choices. And the sooner Rhys got him tucked in the sooner he could get back to Houston. Back to his life.

  “Hey, if you’ve got cigarettes, I’ve got beer.”

  Rhys pivoted fast on his feet and broke into a huge grin at the sight of his best friend. “You scared the shit out of me.”

  “Well, you know Nugget—full of toughs and ne’er-do-wells,” Clay said. “Gotta keep on your toes.”

  “You learn that in the Navy?”

  “What?”

  “Sneaking up on me from the side like that.”

  “Nah. You were just deep in thought.”

  Rhys gave Clay a big bear hug. “How the hell are you?”

  “From the sound of things, better than you.”

  Rhys eyed the grocery bag Clay carried. “I gave up smoking when I went through the police academy.”

  “Well, hopefully you didn’t give up drinking.” Clay pulled a six-pack of Sierra Nevada and a bottle of Patrón from the sack.

  “Looks like your taste has vastly improved since high school.” The two of them used to shoot Cuervo Gold with Pabst Blue Ribbon chasers while smoking packs of Marlboros they’d filched off his old man.

  “Just my booze. I still like my women cheap.” Clay laughed and took a seat on the porch steps. “It’s good to see you, man. I just wish it was under better circumstances.”

  Rhys joined him on the stairs. “How’re the boys?”

  Clay rubbed his temples. “A goddamn handful. Probably payback for everything we pulled. My dad’s gotta be laughing in his grave.”

  Both he and Clay had been raised by single dads. Although Tip had enough love in him for two parents, it couldn’t have been easy.