The House on Hancock Hill

Copyright

Published by

Dreamspinner Press

5032 Capital Circle SW
Suite 2, PMB# 279
Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886

USA

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The House on Hancock Hill

© 2014 Indra Vaughn.

Cover Art

© 2014 Brooke Albrecht.

http://brookealbrechtstudio.blogspot.com

Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.

All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/.

ISBN: 978-1-62798-490-4

Digital ISBN: 978-1-62798-491-1

Printed in the United States of America

First Edition

February 2014

To my husband, every moment of love in this book. To my son, the college fund it will hopefully sponsor. Otherwise you’re on your own, kiddo. To Olivia, the Danes as well as the Danish. To Maria, the moments of hurt and comfort; to Melissa the ones with cake. And finally, to the two people who stood at the very bud of my writing career: to you Lindsay, the happy ending, and Danalee, because I know you love them so… the apostrophes in this book are all yours.

But most of all, dear reader, every word was written for you.

Part 1

Chapter 1

F
ORTY
YEARS
ago, Andrea Johnson left a farm to Mr. Brian Wood, my father. It was the last property at the eastern edge of Hancock in the Upper Peninsula, and also the reason why I was battling a blizzard in a rented Ford Focus. It was a bad storm, even by Michigan standards. The car’s wipers quickly lost ground against snow and ice piling up on the windshield. I only had about seven miles to go before I reached the farm off Jasberg Street, but there was no way I’d make it on foot if I got stuck out here. With nothing but a sea of white surrounding me, wind kicking up snow as fast as it fell, I’d be lost in no time. This area was vastly underpopulated. If I ended up stranded here, I’d be in serious trouble.

The small, uncomfortable pressure that always preceded an asthma attack squeezed the center of my chest. A whole day of traveling from Detroit had worn me out, and this weather wasn’t helping. I could barely see five feet ahead, never mind where the road was going. In my childhood, Dad and I had come up here every summer, but this was an alien landscape that could’ve been the North Pole for all I knew. Leaning forward, kicking up the wipers another notch, I squinted at the road.

Progressive muscle relaxation isn’t easy to do while driving, but I tried. Knowing my rescue meds were only a foot away on the passenger seat helped me stay in control, so it was nothing but bad luck that the car began to skid. It gave a sickening lurch. I felt like it was suspended in air for one of those infinite seconds, and then my face smacked into the wheel as I nose-dived into a snowdrift.

“Well, crap,” I slurred, tasting blood as it filled my mouth. My meds had been flung from the front seat and were wildly out of reach, and that was pretty much all she wrote.

When I woke up, it was either dark or my vision was blurry, and it was so cold I couldn’t feel my hands or feet. A man swore colorfully in my ear, and all I could think was how nice his warm breath felt against my numb cheek. I mumbled something, he mumbled something back from afar, the world tilted nauseatingly, and I mercifully blacked out again.

The next time I opened my eyes, it was to a sterile hospital ceiling. I had a vague recollection of stumbling through snow and snuggling up against a hot, solid body. Probably my mind trying to deal with imminent death by projecting my fantasies to the foreground. I shivered violently.

“H-h-holy shit,” I stuttered between clattering teeth. The entire bed shook.

“Ah, you’re awake.” The curtain to my left parted to reveal a tiny man. His white doctor’s coat nearly reached the floor. If it weren’t for the gigantic black mustache perched on his lip, I’d have wondered who was allowing this kid to play dress-up. “The shivering is quite normal, Mr.—” He glanced at his file.

“J-J-Jason W-Wood,” I offered. He held out his hand and I shook it. Literally. There was one more violent shudder, and then I calmed.

“I’m Dr. Donalds. Nice to meet you. Do you have any recollection of what happened?” I blinked at him. “You were found unconscious in your car, do you remember?” Oh. Yeah, I did remember. “It’s hard to determine how long you were out there, Jason, but you’d stopped shivering which isn’t a good sign.”

My brain felt sluggish, and I blinked at him again, trying to make sense of his words as I thought back to… was it the day before? It’d been around four thirty when I went off the road, but for the life of me, I had no idea what time—or day—it was now.

“So this means you’re warming up again.” He patted my knee through three layers of covers, including one of those silver space blankets sticking to my skin.

“Um,” I said, taking a peek—yup, stark naked—and wondering who’d undressed me.

“Not to worry, son,” Dr. Donalds said. “We had to get you out of those wet clothes, and it’s nothing Nurse Bryce hasn’t seen before.” The curtain moved and in stepped a large ginger-haired woman in green scrubs. “Isn’t that right, nurse?”

Nurse Bryce was apparently not impressed by whatever she had seen. In my defense, I must have been very cold.

“You were lucky Henry found you when he did,” she said. “Half an hour longer, and Mr. Wood would’ve been Mr. Wouldn’t.”

“Yes, well,” Dr. Donalds cleared his throat. “Your hands and feet were a little red, but there was no sign of frostbite. The biggest urgency was the hypothermia, and you’re warming up nicely. It can leave you a little confused though. Do you have any preexisting conditions we should know of?”

“I have asthma,” I said, and I remembered my bag. “It’s very mild, mostly stress-induced. My rescue meds are probably still in the car.”

“Albuterol?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll write you a new prescription,” Dr. Donalds assured me. “Anything else?” I shook my head. There was a bottle of Xanax in my coat pocket, but I didn’t think it was relevant. It’d been months since I’d taken it. “Do you remember what happened?”

“Can we at least let Henry see him first?” Nurse Bryce interrupted, and I had a pretty good idea who really ran this ER. “He’s been out there for two hours.”

“What time is it?” I asked. Nurse Bryce gave me a quelling look, and I decided to keep my mouth shut.

“Now, this is Henry, the kindly gentleman you owe your life to, Mr. Wood.”

From the way she said it, I was expecting a doddering old man to step through the curtain, so I was unprepared for over six feet of lumberjack in utility pants and a heavyweight sweatshirt. He looked like he’d walked straight out of the L.L.Bean catalog. We stared at each other. Nurse Bryce stared at his ass. I couldn’t see it, but from what I
could
see, I knew it wasn’t her fault. You’d have to be unconscious not to ogle—and if my memory served me correctly, even that hadn’t stopped me from trying. Jesus, he was a giant. Through the winter gear, I could see the muscular outline of his thighs, how his shoulders filled his shirt completely. It was probably a good thing the hypothermia had left me a bit befuddled. It was a nice excuse.

“Uh, hi,” Henry said after a long, awkward pause. “It’s good to see you.” I frowned, which hurt, and looked up into a pair of startlingly bright hazel eyes. “Awake, I mean.” He was beginning to look uncomfortable, so I sat up a bit and reached out a hand.

“Thanks, man,” I told him sincerely. He carefully folded his huge fingers around mine. It was like holding a warm water bottle. “I’ve been told you saved my life.”

“Oh, well, it was nothing. I mean, anyone would’ve….” He rubbed the back of his neck. It was incredibly endearing, and the hypothermic part of my brain supplied the thought that I’d never wanted to kiss anyone as badly as I wanted to kiss Henry.

“It wasn’t noth—” I began, but another one of those horrible tremors shot through me, and I swore. Henry jumped forward and grabbed my shoulder like he thought I’d topple off the bed. It wasn’t an impossibility.

“You’re all right,” he said, and Dr. Donalds nodded while I continued to shudder and shake. I couldn’t get a word out for fear of biting a chunk off my tongue.

“You’ll be fine, Jason,” Dr. Donalds said. “You need a lot of rest, a good square meal, and of course be careful with your ribs.”

“M-m-my ribs?”

“And the nose.” Nurse Bryce glared at me like I’d crashed the car and sustained these injuries on purpose.

“Wh-What?” As I said it, the pain literally hit me in the face. My eyes began to throb, my nose ached like it was trying to part with my skull, and my bottom lip suddenly felt twice its normal size.

“Ah, yes.” Dr. Donalds cleared his throat. “Didn’t I mention that? It’s broken. You must’ve hit the steering wheel. I reset the bone while you were unconscious, so you’ll be right as rain. The cold did you a favor in a way, because your face isn’t nearly as swollen as it could’ve been, and it staunched the bleeding so there was no need to pack your nose with gauze.”