Ellie turned off the engine and sat in the truck for a few moments, staring at the dark house. Life had dealt some hard blows over the years, but the last few years had been some of the worst of her life.

She and Dan had been married for five years and the passion had not only cooled but also become downright frigid. They had been trying to rekindle the fire and for their fifth anniversary, he reserved a room in a hotel near the fairgrounds where the state fair was taking place. She had always loved going to the fair and thought it sweet that he booked a place close to it.

Not only that but he paid for them to take a hot air balloon ride, something she had always wanted to do.

If someone had told her that the weekend would be such a disaster, she would have stayed home. The room had a leak right over the bed and the day of the balloon ride, she and Dan had a fight. A big enough fight that he left her behind and went on the ride alone.

Sadly, that morning, when he called her a fucking bitch and stomped out of the hotel room, was the last time she ever saw him. While on the balloon ride, one of the old prop engine warplanes that was flying above the fair pulling a banner hit the balloon. The pilot of the plane had a heart attack, the plane hit the balloon, and the balloon fell right on top of the tilt-a-whirl. Miraculously there was only one fatality: Dan.

Not exactly a great way to end a marriage or a life, but like Ellie’s grandma always said, you play the hand of cards you’re dealt.

Well, Ellie’s cards were real stinkers. Turns out Dan had remortgaged their home for more than it was worth and for more than she could pay each month. Not only that but he’d apparently gotten involved in some kind of online gambling and had run up a mountain of credit card debt.

She tried for two years, worked two jobs, and took on freelance jobs but in the end, she just could not keep up. So, she lost her home, sold everything she owned and moved into one of those pay-by-the-week hotel rooms where truckers and construction workers seemed to dominate the guest list. That was until her boss at her main job decided that since she was a widow, she was fair game and tried to pinch her breast. When she slugged him in the nose and broke it that was the end of her job.

With only enough money in her bank account to pay for two more weeks at the hotel, life was looking bleak. Then fate stepped in. Her father, who had left her when she was four, died and left her a ranch in Florida.

So here she was, getting her first look at her inheritance.

It was not pretty.

Not the house or the land, as far as she was concerned. The house was old. One of those flat-roofed affairs that looked low and squat, and in the moonlight, appeared to be the color of green chalk.

The yard was more sand than grass with big prickly bushes and squat, gnarled trees that were so heavy with moss they looked like some science fiction monster trap.

Ellie laid her forearms on the steering wheel, lowered her forehead to them, and closed her eyes. What the hell was she going to do? She felt like crying but knew that would solve nothing.

After a few minutes of self-pity, she straightened up and reached for her worn leather shoulder bag. Inside was an envelope she had not opened. She had received it in a packet of material from her father’s attorney.

Her name was scrawled across the front of it. Elana. Lord how she hated that name. How she hated the man who’d scribbled it on the outside of the envelope. No, the truth was, she wanted to hate him. She wanted to forget the smell of Camel cigarettes and beer on his breath and the sound of his voice, raspy and possessed with an accent completely unlike her own Southern brogue. She did not want to remember the safety she felt when he held her in his arms or lay beside her at night telling her stories before she fell asleep.

He left her and she wanted to continue to hate him for that because the pain of loving him was too great. He had not loved her enough to stay and she did not want to love him now to mourn his passing.

She blew out her breath, composed herself, and tore open the envelope. Inside was a sheet of paper that looked to have been torn out of the kind of notebook she used when she was a kid in school. The words on it were written in small, tight script. Too small to be read in the dark. She turned on the lights in the cab of the truck and started to read.

Elana, I don’t suppose you’re much interested in anything I have to say. I can’t say that I blame you. But if you’re reading this, then I’m dead and it’s time you heard a few things from me.

First, I’m sorry. I was wrong to walk out on you. When I lost your mom, well, I guess I lost the best part of myself. And I guess the person who was hurt the most was you. You didn’t have a daddy when you needed one. I know you had grannie and I know she loved you with all her heart.

But that doesn’t have anything to do with why you’re reading this letter. I bought this place in Florida and I know the land doesn’t look like much to people from other places, like the Carolinas with all those rolling hills and tall hardwoods, but it’s far more special that it looks. It’s one of a kind.

There is something special here, something important. I was the keeper and did all I could do to preserve what needed to be preserved and to protect what needed to be protected.

Now it belongs to you, and I hope it brings you peace and happiness. I’m sorry I was a lousy dad. I hope this helps make up for it.

Yours truly, Mike Whitehorse Ellie lowered the letter and turned off the light. One of a kind? That’s not how she’d put it. Ramshackle, rundown, depressing, or downright scary maybe, but special? If this place held anything special, you sure as heck couldn’t see it in the dark.

And she was not about to walk into that house until the sun was up. Just thinking about it gave her a case of the cold sweats. She did not have a lot to spare but she figured she could find a cheap hotel to stay in for the night. Tomorrow was soon enough to explore her new home and try to figure out what in the world this place possessed that would inspire her father to say it was special.

*****

“Well, Cam Marsh, as I live and breathe,” a shrill voice came from behind him.

Cam turned to find a stooped little white-haired woman standing behind him. “Well, hey there, Mrs. Myrtle. What in Sam Hill are you doing out this late? And in a drinking establishment? The ladies at the next church social are liable to skin you alive.”

Myrtle cackled a laugh, and her lined face lit up, making her seem younger than her years. “Honey, I got me a new fella. Old Byron Tate over there at the bar. You know his wife passed on last year. The old-timers got her.”

Cam smiled. “Yeah, I remember someone saying something about that. Shame. So, you’re stepping out with Mr. Tate, are you?”

“Yes, I am, honey. And having the time of my life. But don’t you go telling anyone you caught me in a bar. Those ladies in the canasta club wouldn’t ever let me hear the end of it.”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Myrtle, your secret’s safe with me.”

“You trying to move in on my gal?” Another voice had Cam sidestepping to make way for a tall, thin elderly man in worn jeans and an even more worn Stetson.

“I was thinking about it, Mr. Tate, but seeing as how I’m pretty sure you’d kick my ass, I decided I better move on along.”

Byron Tate handed Myrtle a glass of something that looked like pink lemonade and clapped Cam on the shoulder. “How’s the cattle business, boy? Or wait, you’re sheriffing now, right?”

“Yes, sir. Not bad—on both counts.”

“I hear tell your brother finally got hitched. Some gal from up north?”

“The Carolinas.”

“She a ranch gal?”

“Yes, sir. She’s a damn fine horse trainer.”

“Well, good, good. Tell your brother I send my congratulations.”

“I will.”

“You get yourself a wife yet? Last I heard you was dating some gal clear up in Tallahassee. Some slick city gal.”

“That was a while back.” Cam did not even want to think about Camille Dresden. She was probably the worst mistake of his life. Beautiful and from a wealthy and politically influential family, she’d turned his head with her looks and then tried to turn him into something he was not. The breakup was ugly and had pretty much made him decide he wasn’t destined for hearth and home.

“Well, one day the right woman will come along, honey,” Myrtle said. “Love finds you when you least expect it.”

Cam couldn’t help but smile at the look that passed between Myrtle and Byron. They might be old, but like his dad once said, just because there’s snow on the roof doesn’t mean there’s no fire in the furnace.

“Well, you two behave,” he said. “I think it’s time for me to call it a night.”

Leaving them to their date, Cam made his way outside. As was typical for Florida this time of year, the air was heavy and moist. The humidity was still high enough to bring a sheen of sweat to the skin if you stayed out more than a few minutes.

He got in his truck and headed home. There wasn’t much of the county left that wasn’t developed. While tourism might fuel the state and there were more people moving in every day, development did not bode well for people like him and his brother, Clint. In the last few years, quite a few of the larger ranches had been sold off. Families who had been ranching or farming in the state for generations were selling out and heading for places like Texas and Montana.

But not Cam and his brother Clint. Before their father died, he helped them buy the ranch and they fully intended to hang onto it. After their dad passed, Carly had taken over running the ranch. Their mother had chosen to stay in Arizona but now spent her time in a condominium complex with her mother, Irene, playing cards and going shopping. That was fine. She was happy and Cam didn’t begrudge her enjoying life. Their oldest brother, Colton, had settled in the Carolinas after he left the military and had a nice breeding farm.

And Cam? Well, he was fine alone. Hell, it was time he was alone. He was almost thirty-five. Aside from the time he’d spent in college and the two years he had spent wandering the country, he had never lived alone, and even then, it wasn’t what you would call alone. His college years were crammed with friends and parties, and the glory of being the star quarterback, of having his choice of the prettiest girls, and becoming one of the hot new stars on the local rodeo circuit.

Truthfully, living in the apartment on the ranch they had created by adding another floor on top of the big garage was not exactly like being alone. Clint and Lily were just a short walk away in the main house, and he spent as much time there as he did the apartment.

As he passed the old Whitehorse ranch, he saw a truck pulling out from the narrow drive. That was odd. Old man Whitehorse had been dead almost six months and the place hadn’t gone up for sale. What was someone doing there?

Cam and his brother had been on little more than speaking terms with Mike Whitehorse, despite their properties adjoining. Whitehorse stayed to himself. And the man hadn’t run cattle in the last ten years. How he survived was a mystery.

But still it was odd to see that old truck pull out of the drive. Maybe he would take a ride back over in the morning and check the place out to make sure there wasn’t any vandalism or a clutch of homeless folks squatting in the house.

Right now, he was ready to shut down his brain and get some sleep.

It didn’t look any better in the daylight. Ellie stood beside her truck and stared in dismay at her so-called inheritance. She wished she had someone with her because she was a little loathe to even step foot in the place. It was probably infested with rats and snakes.

That thought had her turning to fish her shotgun from behind the seat of the truck. She dug around for the box of shells, loaded two into the shotgun, and stuck a few extras into the back pocket of her jeans.

“Man up, Ellie.” She grumbled to herself as she stared at the front door of the house. “It’s all you’ve got.”

Sucking in a breath, she started for the door. Two feet away from the front door, she stopped and whirled around. A shiny black Dodge truck pulled up behind her old Ford F150 and stopped.

Ellie’s eyes bugged out when the man stepped out of the truck. Holy shit. He was something. Tall, really tall, maybe six-three or six-four, with coal black hair, eyes the color of storm clouds and a body that would have any women with a pulse suffering a hormone spike.

Slim hips and strong legs encased in black denim. A starched white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to display well-developed forearms made for one pleasing picture. The gun clipped to his belt along with a badge, however, gave her pause. What was the law doing here? And why was there something familiar about Mr. Sex in Jeans?

“Morning.” His voice was deep, tinged with an accent that had a definite Southern twang.

“Morning.”

He walked over to her. “Cam Marsh. Sheriff’s Department. Mr. Whitehorse, the owner, passed a little while back.”

Ellie nearly fainted dead away. What were the odds that she would run into Cameron Marsh in Florida?

“Cameron?”

“Yeah, Cam. Marsh.”

“You have two brothers, Clint and Clayton? And a sister Carly?”

“Yeah. Uh, do we know each other Miss…?”

“Ellie Whitehorse.”

“Ellie?”

She could see the surprise on his face. “It’s been a long time, Cam. It’s good to see you.” Ellie transferred the shotgun to her left hand and extended her right hand to Cam.

His hand engulfed hers; making her keenly aware of his size, along with being more keenly aware of what a powerful affect his touch had on her. Damn if he wasn’t about the finest man she’d ever laid eyes on. The boy she had known and loved as a child had grown into one hell of a man.

“Ellie Whitehorse,” he said and smiled. “Damn. I haven’t seen you since…”

“Since your mother caught us in the backseat of her car.” Ellie filled in the blank.

“Yeah.” He grinned. “Damn, I can’t believe this. What’re you doing here?”

“My dad left the place to me.”

“You’re Mike’s daughter?”

“Yep.”

“But I thought…never mind. It’s really good to see you.” He released her hand and indicated the shotgun. “You expecting trouble?”

Ellie shrugged and glanced over her shoulder at the house. “Wasn’t quite sure what I might find in there.”

“Want some company? Just in case?”

Ellie wouldn’t have admitted for the world how relieved she was at his offer. She wasn’t a total chicken, but she sure as heck didn’t want to go in that house by herself.

“Thank you.”

Cam started toward the house. “You got keys, right?”

Ellie fished her key ring out of the pocket of her jeans and hurried to catch up. She gave the key to Cam and waited as he located the right key and unlocked the door. He pushed it open, stepped inside, and flipped a light switch. After a moment, she followed.

“What the…?”

She had imagined a lot of things—most of them awful, but she’d never imagined this. The front room had little furniture—an old recliner with one of those ancient wooden table-lamp combos sitting beside it, and a very old console television set that had a smaller television sitting on top of it.

But that was not the surprise. It was what made it almost impossible to walk through the room. Stacks of paintings, three and four deep lined the perimeter of the room. The walls were just as packed with paintings.

And every painting was of the same subject—a magnificent white horse with a long flowing mane and tail.

Ellie was agog as she looked around. Where did all of this come from? Did her father do this?

“Wow.” Cam said as he looked around.

“Yeah,” Ellie agreed. “Do you know if he was an artist? Did he do these?”

Cam shook his head. “To be honest, I didn’t really know him. He wasn’t what you call sociable and…well…”

“I understand.” Ellie could tell Cam felt uncomfortable. “I didn’t know him either.”

“Yeah, I remember. So, you want to check out the rest of the house?”

“Yeah.”

Aside from every room having more of the same, the place was tidy. There was a layer of dust on everything, probably from being vacant for a while, but aside from that, it was not bad.

Well, bad in terms of being full of rats and snakes. There was not much in it. Of the three small bedrooms, only one had furniture and that was an old-fashioned double bed with a sagging frame and an equally old bureau.

The bathroom boasted of a horrible peach colored tile and a shower curtain that was hanging only by three hooks.

She walked back down the hall to the kitchen. It pretty much matched the rest of the house with appliances that belonged in the seventies and a small two-seat table with salt and pepper shakers on it.

A door led outside. She opened it and walked out onto a small concrete patio that had a tin roof covering it.

The inside of the house and even the front yard might have been depressing but the back yard was even worse. Bare, with patches of scraggly grass, trees overladen with moss and an old rusted out lawnmower with no wheels.

“Oh man.” Cam’s voice came from behind her.

“Yeah, really.” She couldn’t stop looking or wondering. She’d never given much thought to who her father was. She just accepted what she had been told by her grandmother and tried to dismiss him from her mind like he had dismissed her from his life.

But now curiosity rose. What kind of man created art like she’d seen and lived in a place that looked like no one cared about it? She turned to face Cam. “Do you know anyone who knew him?”

Cam’s mouth twitched to one side. “Let me ask my brother, Clint. He deals more with the ranch business than I do, and he might know someone.”

“Thanks, I appreciate that.”

“You wanna give me your phone number so I can let you know if I find out anything?”

“Oh sure.” She hoped she didn’t sound as unsure as she felt. Seeing Cam was a shock. She’d thought a lot about him over the years but never thought she’d see him again. Now that she had, she was fighting residual feelings from long ago that were trying to rise.

Cam pulled out his cell phone and entered the number she recited then tucked it back in his pocket. “You know, maybe I should give you my number and the number at the ranch. Just in case.”

“Let me grab my phone out of the truck.”

They fell in step and wandered around the side of the house to the driveway. Ellie got her phone from the truck and added Cam’s cell phone number and the number for his ranch.

“That’s the house number, so if you call, chances are you’ll get Clint or his wife, Lily. But you can always reach me on my cell.”

“So, Clint’s married? Any kids?”

“Yes and no. He got married last year. Hell of a woman, Lily. She’s a breeder and trainer.”

“Breeder?”

“Horses. Our spread adjoins yours.”

“So, you’re a—what—rancher?”

“Yeah, and detective with the Sheriff’s department.”

“Funny, I never would have guessed that was in your future. Oh, well, thanks Cam. I really appreciate this. I think…I think I’ll be fine. I mean, at least it isn’t full of rats and snakes.”

Cam laughed. “Well, it’s really pretty clean. A bit spare in furnishings but I guess it suited your father. And by the way, sorry about your loss.”

Ellie looked down at her feet, a habit she’d had most of her life when speaking of her father. “Thanks.”

“Hey, you know you should stop by sometime and see Clint. Meet Lily.”

She looked up and made eye contact with Cam. God, what a mistake. She damn near forgot how to talk. Up until now, she’d done okay. She’d kept her eyes on anything but him. In part, it was due to the discovery of what was inside her father’s house and the curiosity that raised, but she’d been keenly aware of him the entire time and had done her level best not to look at him any more than she had to.

If she did, he just might see something in her eyes she didn’t want him to see. Like the fact that she was pretty damn sure she’d never seen a man so fine. And that despite the time that had passed there was still something of that young girl inside who had loved him when he was a boy. Combine old emotions with a man that was hot enough to start a fire with just a look and you only came up with one thing. Trouble.

Since he wasn’t wearing a ring—and yes, she’d looked—that meant either he was divorced because he was too damn fine and got hit on all the time so couldn’t be faithful, or he was single because he had a dang string of women panting after him and wasn’t the kind of man who was into more than a quick roll in the hay, so to speak.

And regardless of which category he fit in, he was out of her league. Way too fine. Not to mention the fact that the last thing she needed in her life right now was a man. She was going to be doing good to get this place cleaned up and hopefully get a job before her meager funds ran out.

“Ellie?”

Ellie wanted to be sucked into a sudden sinkhole as she realized she’d been standing there staring at him like a fool. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I was…I was just thinking.”

“About your father.”

“Uh, yeah. Well, you know. When my mom died, he left me with my grandmother. My mom’s mother. I never heard from or saw him again.”

“I remember your grandmother, and your dad not being around. I guess I figured the two of you would have reconnected at some point. Sorry that you didn’t, and that I don’t know any more about him than I do. From what we saw in there he was a pretty talented man.”

“So, it seems.”

“Okay, well, if you’re sure you’ll be okay; I’ll get on out of here and get to work. Just stopped when I saw you pull in because I knew no one was living here.”

“I appreciate you staying while I checked out the house. I’m in your debt.”

“Well, when you get settled in invite me over for a beer and we’ll call it even.”

Is he flirting with me? Ellie felt a thrill rocket through her. “You’re on,” she said with what she hoped was not a nervous smile.

“Great. See you soon Ellie.”

“Okay. Thanks again, Cam.”

The smile he flashed before he turned away almost turned her knees to jelly. She watched him get in his truck, back up, and then pull down the driveway. When she was alone again, she turned and looked at the house. Okay, so it was not a mansion. It was barely furnished and could use some fixing up, but it was paid for. If she was lucky, what she had in the bank would hold her over until she could find a job or maybe some freelance work.

That reminded her. She needed to find out about internet service. If she was going to try to work freelance, she’d need internet access. But how did she find out who the service provider was?

The answer flashed in her mind. Cam had given her the number to his ranch and said his sister-in-law was there most of the time. What was her name? Lily. Yes. That was it. Ellie would call her.

She pulled out her phone and placed the call. The call rang half a dozen times before going to voice mail.

“Hey. You’ve reached the Marsh Ranch. Leave a message and we’ll get back to you as quick as we can.”

Ellie started speaking as soon as the beep sounded. “Hi. My name’s Ellie Whitehorse. I’m moving into my father’s place next to you. Cam stopped by and gave me this number and I was wondering if you could help me by giving me the number for the internet service provider in this area and the local power company? Thanks for your time.”

She recited her phone number, ended the call, and shoved the phone into the pocket of her jeans. So, what now? Did she start unpacking her truck?

No. Before she did that, she needed to go through the house and try to make some order out of things. Get all of the paintings that were stacked around moved into one location and give the place a good cleaning.

With a plan of action set, she headed back inside.