The Lake House Secret, A Romantic Suspense Novel (A Jenessa Jones Mystery) (3 page)

“What was that about?” Ramey arched an eyebrow at her.

Jenessa turned away from the window. “I don’t know. I didn’t think I’d have that reaction the first time I ran into him. Just hearing his voice somehow dredged up our dirty past.”

“After all this time?”

“Yeah. Crazy, huh.” Jenessa grimaced.

“Well, I’m sure he’ll forget about it. Things will be better the next time you see him.”

She peered up into Ramey’s smiling eyes. Her friend was always the optimist. “Maybe.”

Ramey walked back behind the counter. “I need to close up. Why don’t you head over to Aunt Renee’s and let her know I’m right behind you.”

Jenessa loved her aunt Renee. With her mother gone, Aunt Renee had tried to step in as the buffer between Jenessa and her father whenever she could. But her aunt was not all sugar, she could sometimes be rather spicy and a bit pushy, believing she always knew what was best for everyone, and she wasn’t shy about letting them know.

Jenessa moved to the door. “Okay, see you over there.”

~*~

Jenessa pulled into the long driveway in front of Aunt Renee’s stately home on Monte Vista Drive, a neighborhood overflowing with large and expensive homes built in a bygone era. She rolled her windows down, and her little car sputtered a few times after she turned the engine off. Parked in the shade of the tall trees that divided the properties, she hoped there was nothing among the boxed possessions in her old Toyota that would melt in the sizzling July heat.

She crossed the front lawn and stood before the two-story red brick Georgian with its crisp white trim and black shutters. Almost as soon as she pushed the doorbell, the wide black door swung open.

Her sister flung her arms around Jenessa and sobbed on her shoulder. “I’d almost given up on you,” Sara said. “What took you so long?”

“I’m happy to see you too,” Jenessa responded.

“Come inside, girls,” she could hear their aunt calling from somewhere inside the house. “You’re letting all the heat in.”

Sara stepped aside to let Jenessa in and followed her down the wide hallway. Passing the grand staircase, they continued down the hall with its dark, polished hardwood floors, an array of family photos and artwork strategically hung on both sides. Aunt Renee sat on a barstool at the breakfast bar with a slab granite countertop that enclosed half of the expansive, newly renovated kitchen.

As the girls approached, Aunt Renee slid off the stool and opened her arms to Jenessa, pulling her into a firm embrace. Jenessa noticed Aunt Renee’s lower mascara was smudged a little and her pale green eyes were rimmed with red.

“I can’t believe he’s gone,” her aunt said in little more than a whisper. She released Jenessa and dabbed at the side of her eyes with a white handkerchief.

“I didn’t know he had anything wrong with his heart. He seemed so healthy to me.” Although, Jenessa had to admit, she hadn’t seen the man for quite some time.

“He had a pretty stressful job,” Sara said, “working for that Grey Alexander. Seems like Daddy was always having to clean up his messes.”

Daddy?
Jenessa hadn’t called him that since she was a kid, but then, he and Sara had a different relationship than she’d had with her father. A twinge of jealousy pricked her heart.

“It was a long drive,” Jenessa said. “Mind if I freshen up?”

“Sure, sweetie, you know your way to the powder room.” Aunt Renee delicately blew her nose.

Jenessa closed the door to the half-bath and stood before the mirror. She had spilled her tears for her father on the drive down and no more threatened to come at the moment. She wondered if Ramey, Sara, and Aunt Renee might think she didn’t care—there was certainly no shortage of tears between the three of them. Yes, she mourned her father’s passing, but she also grieved for what could have been between them. At the moment, she simply felt numb.

After drawing in a long breath, she exhaled slowly, feeling some of her stress leaving with the air as it passed through her lips. She ran her fingers through her hair, wiped clean the bit of mascara that had bled under her eyes, and applied a fresh coat of lip gloss. The fading redness in the whites of her eyes made the green more intense, particularly against her dark hair.

As she stared at herself in the mirror, she thought about her unexpected run-in with Logan, but she quickly pushed him out of her thoughts. There was grieving to be done, funeral plans to be made, and decisions to be mulled over for what she would do with her future. Now was not the time to lament over lost love.

By the time she emerged from the powder room, Ramey had arrived. She and Sara were seated on the floral sofas in the great room with Aunt Renee, talking quietly, surrounded by a wall of french doors and white-paned windows that overlooked the garden and pool area. The room had been added to the rear of the old house, off the new kitchen and breakfast area, in the latest remodeling project, Jenessa assumed.

Ramey raised her head in Jenessa’s direction as she walked in. “If you’re hungry, I brought some muffins and bagels that didn’t sell today. They’re still fresh.”

“Thanks.” Jenessa grabbed a plump cinnamon bagel out of the paper bakery bag and joined the others. She kicked off her flip-flops and tucked her feet under her as she dropped down onto a sage-green overstuffed chair nestled next to one of the sofas. “Did anyone see Dad’s body?”

“I did,” Aunt Renee replied. “Since he was already gone when the paramedics arrived, they took his body to the morgue. The medical examiner recognized him and knew I was David’s sister—his wife is on a couple of charities with me—so he phoned me.”

“What do we do now?” Sara asked, her eyes moist and red from crying.

“Does anyone know what Dad wanted, in terms of a funeral or cremation?” Jenessa tore off a piece of marbled bagel and stuck it in her mouth.

“We hadn’t talked about it,” Aunt Renee said. “I assume he wrote his last wishes down somewhere. Attorneys are like that, you know.”

Jenessa swallowed and cleared her throat. “I’ll look through his office at the house.”

“Are you staying there?” Sara asked.

“That was the plan.”

“I thought you might want to stay here,” Aunt Renee offered. “Are you sure you want to be in that big old house all alone?”

“I think it’ll do me good to go through his things. I’ll see if I can find his Will and his burial instructions.”

“How long can you stay, Jenessa?” Ramey asked.

“As long as I need to.”

“What about your job?” Sara asked. “Won’t they expect you back after a few days?”

Jenessa hesitated. She hadn’t wanted to tell anyone, but now was as good a time as any. “Not really. I got laid off a few weeks back. I’ve been job hunting, but no luck yet.”

“So the timing is perfect,” Aunt Renee said. “I hope you’ll stay in Hidden Valley for a long time, hon. We’ve missed you. Haven’t we girls?”

Ramey quickly agreed. Sara shrugged.

“And speaking of perfect timing,” Ramey leaned over and patted Jenessa’s knee, “just last week I heard that the Hidden Valley Herald is looking for a reporter. Maybe you should go down and apply.”

She did need a job. Even though, career-wise, taking a position at a small-town paper would be a step backward from the Sacramento job, her mother always told her that beggars can’t be choosers.

“Maybe I should wait a few days, until we work out the funeral arrangements and all.” Jenessa had hoped to settle in and get used to the small-town life again before going out and trying to find another job.

“I wouldn’t put it off,” Aunt Renee countered. “The job could be gone by then. If you’re out of work, you need to strike while the iron’s hot.”

Beggars can’t be choosers? Strike while the iron’s hot?
Where did the older generation come up with all these sayings?

Jenessa pulled another piece of bagel off and chewed on it. She really couldn’t afford to be choosy. Earlier that morning she had been willing to clean toilets for cash. How bad could a small-town newspaper be?

It would put some money in her bank account, which was in dire need of an infusion, and maybe she could finally fix that bucket of bolts she drove. With her family home empty now, she had a place to live rent-free, at least for a while. This job, if they hired her, would give her time to think about what she might do with the rest of her life.

With all eyes on her, eagerly awaiting her answer, she relented. “All right, I’ll go down and apply tomorrow.”

“And you won’t have to worry about running into Logan again,” Ramey said. “He works at his father’s real estate office, not the newspaper.”

Aunt Renee’s eyes lit up. “Run into Logan again?”

“Tell us more,” Sara chimed in, sounding more surprised than interested. “When did you see Logan?”

“It was nothing, really.” Jenessa didn’t want to discuss Logan with them, or with anyone for that matter. “He stopped by The Sweet Spot as Ramey was closing up and then he left.”

“Just like that?” Sara sounded like she didn’t believe her sister.

Ramey leaned forward. “It was more like Jenessa ran him off.”

“Oh, dear girl,” Aunt Renee sighed. “You can’t stay in this town and not run into Logan Alexander. You’d better make peace with him or you’ll surely make yourself miserable.”

Her aunt was right, but she didn’t want to talk about it. Her initial reaction to running into Logan was so visceral that it knocked her off balance, emotionally. She hadn’t meant to bite his head off. That wasn’t how their first meeting was supposed to go, at least not in the hundred times she had replayed it in her mind during the first few years following their break up.

After a while she had managed to think of him less and less, until the last couple of years she hadn’t thought of him at all—until today. She’d have to figure out a way to be in that man’s presence without going ballistic.

“Can we
pu-leeze
change the subject?” Jenessa begged, popping the last of the bagel into her mouth.

~*~

As the afternoon flowed into the early evening, Aunt Renee ordered take-out from a local restaurant that specialized in fresh and organic food, requesting that they deliver the meals, which was not their usual custom. But Renee Giraldy could be convincing, and after promising a sizeable tip, her doorbell soon rang with her delivery.

Sara and Ramey unpacked the food and set plates and glasses out on the casual dining table between the kitchen and the great room. As Aunt Renee filled a crystal pitcher with water and ice, Jenessa grabbed the napkins and utensils and set the table. Each did their part and dinner came together like clockwork.

Jenessa enjoyed the meal with her family, something she had not done in a very long time. Even though it was not under the best of circumstances, it felt warm and comfortable—a far cry from the years of eating frozen meals out of the microwave, alone in her apartment, sometimes consuming them over the kitchen sink or grabbing bites while working on a story on her laptop.

She had concentrated on her education, and then on her work. She hadn’t taken the time to make many friends in Sacramento, even among her co-workers at the newspaper, focusing more on her job as an investigative reporter. Working her way up from covering weddings and social events, she had proven her ability to write and to dig for the truth while producing compelling human-interest stories.

And as pretty as she was, Jenessa had shied away from getting too deeply involved in romantic relationships—not in college and not after. She had dated a number of men over the years, but as soon as she noticed they were getting serious, she found some way to demolish the relationship.

She had given her heart to one man, Logan Alexander, and it had turned into a disaster. For her own emotional protection, whether purposely or subconsciously, she protected herself from going through anything like that again.

When she was seventeen, Jenessa had loved Logan so completely, so intensely, she’d thought she might burn up and disappear in a cloud of smoke. And he had loved her, or at least he’d said he did. But he broke her heart and ruined her life, and she didn’t ever want to feel that way again.

Coming home to Hidden Valley, would she finally be ready to open her heart to another man?

Chapter 4

Dinner was almost over. Aunt Renee brought another pitcher of ice water to the table and offered to pour.

“No more for me,” Jenessa said. She finished her Caesar salad with grilled chicken and sourdough rolls and couldn’t remember when anything had tasted so good. “I should get going pretty soon. I want to go through Dad’s desk and his filing cabinet before I go to bed. Maybe I can find his funeral and burial instructions.”

Sara and Ramey decided they would stay over at Aunt Renee’s so none of them would have to be alone that night.

Ramey was single, having not married yet. Actually, she had hardly dated, but she remained hopeful and optimistic. Jenessa always thought what Ramey lacked in beauty she made up for in sweetness and charm.

At the moment, Sara was single too. She was usually kind, always beautiful and carefree, blessed with dark honey-colored hair and familial soft green eyes, looking more like Aunt Renee than she did her own mother. She was a little shorter than Jenessa, with a slim, petite build.

Sara had married at twenty-one and, much to her parents’ dismay, she was divorced by twenty-three. In the last couple of years, she’d had a string of boyfriends, but as far as Jenessa knew, none of them were serious.

Jenessa stood. “I think I should be going.” She was looking forward to staying the night, alone, at her parents’ home. She didn’t mind the solitude—she was used to it. In fact, she was a little excited to get busy digging through her Dad’s office, hoping to find more than just his final wishes.

After saying her good-byes to the girls and giving hugs all around, she left her aunt’s home and drove her bucket of bolts to her parents’ house. It was located a couple of blocks from the high school, in a neighborhood of well-kept, upscale, older homes. Although it didn’t rival the grandeur of Aunt Renee’s neighborhood, it was beautiful nonetheless.

As Jenessa drove past her old school, she swore she saw a vision of herself with Logan, sitting on the front steps, holding hands. He was wearing his letterman jacket as the football team’s star quarterback. The big fish in a small pond.