Wake My Heart (Jasper Falls 1)

A fog blanketed the cemetery as she parked her bike, making the gravestones difficult to see, but Maggie knew them by heart. She dropped to her bottom in front of Nash’s headstone and opened the thermos, pouring a small amount of coffee into the lid and placing it at the base of his slab. She sipped her half from the container while steam coiled from his into the cool March air.

“Someone moved into the old Nanomaker house. Maybe a few someones. All guys. Remember the lumberyard at the top of the mountain? The one at the end of town? I think they work there. They all have trucks that say McCullough Lumber.”

She didn’t know how she felt about a bunch of young guys moving in next-door. If they were cool, she was cool. But last night the one pulled up blasting music. She preferred the silence.

“I need to buy a new rake. I can’t find ours.”

She passed the better half of the hour making small talk and sipping coffee. When his portion stopped steaming, she knew it was time to go.

Her fingers pressed a kiss over his engraved name and she stood. She had a rule that every weekend she had to do something productive. Yesterday, she cleaned out the hall closet. Today, she’d do the flowerbeds.

It was important to keep up on the house, because too much neglect attracted the concern of others. Concern provoked house calls, and house calls led to unwanted advice and business cards with the local shrink’s name and number embossed on the front.

On the way home, she stopped at McGinty’s to pick up a rake. Transporting it on her bike wasn’t the easiest task, but she managed. By the time she arrived home, the sun was high overhead and the day had warmed, which was a lovely change from the typical damp and rainy air this time of year.

After bagging the leaves, she dragged out the old lawnmower, filled the small tank with gas, and gave the cord a hard pull. The mower clicked, sputtered and then seemed to burp at her, as if to say I don’t think so.

“Come on, you old piece of crap.” She yanked again, greeted by another gurgle.

She stabbed her finger into the starter button three more times and gripped the bar. Angling her body, she jerked the cord as hard as she could. The mower released a congested vrummm that quickly disappeared.

“Having trouble?”

Maggie sprung back and stumbled over her feet as she spun on her heels. A man stood on the other side of the picket fence separating her driveway from the neighbor’s yard.

He held up his hands in a signal of peace. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”

She’d have to adjust to having neighbors again. Was this guy her neighbor? She recognized him from the day before. Where were the others? Did he have roommates?

“Is your mower not working?”

Realizing she’d been staring silently for over a minute, she blinked and dropped her gaze back to the lawnmower. “It’s old.”

He placed a hand between the pickets and leapt over the fence with surprising dexterity. “I can take a look if you want.”

She swallowed, unsure if she wanted to invite a complete stranger into the reserved sanctum that was her yard, but he was already across her driveway that acted as a buffer between their homes, and opening the gate to her private backyard, so she didn’t seem to have much of a choice.

Stepping back, she asked, “I’m sorry, who are you?”

“Ryan Clooney, your new neighbor.” He smiled and a dimple formed a divot in the gold stubble along his jaw. “You live here, right?”

She nodded, trying to decide if she’d call his hair blond or red. Maybe strawberry blond?

“Do those other guys live with you?”

He looked over his shoulder then turned back to her and frowned. “Other guys?”

“The ones here yesterday. I thought I counted three of you.”

“Oh, they’re my cousins. No, it’s just me living here. They were just giving me a hand. They live up on the mountain.”

She frowned. People lived up there? She always assumed it was just the lumberyard and a bunch of windmills. There were so many trees, she supposed a house or two could be hiding in the forest. Mountain folk.

Then it occurred to her. “Clooney as in Liam Clooney?”

He smiled again, showing off a mouthful of perfectly straight teeth. Another dimple. “That’s my dad. Do you know him?”

The Clooneys had been involved in the notorious card game that lost Nash’s grandfather his pub. Not since the death of Wild Bill Hickok had there been a more famous hand of poker than when Liam Clooney beat Caleb O’Malley and stole the bar the very next day, in the biggest brawl Center County ever saw. Nash would have hated living next to a Clooney.