Night Scents by Carla Neggers
Chapter 1
The moment Piper Macintosh heard the screen door bang open and shut, she knew she was caught, and probably by Clate Jackson himself. He'd made it plain he wouldn't tolerate trespassers. He'd instructed the realtor who'd sold him Hannah Frye's two-hundred-fifty-year-old Cape Cod house—who'd told everyone else in Frye's Cove—to have his property posted in accordance with Massachusetts law. Hannah and Piper had always shared responsibility for the hedgerow that divided their property. Not Clate Jackson. It was his. He'd had a No Trespassing sign posted smack in the middle of it, marking out his territory like a grouchy old wolf.
So here she was, Piper thought miserably, out in his back yard at four o'clock in the morning, clearly trespassing.
Footsteps sounded on the stone terrace up one level from the overgrown herb garden where she crouched. Not tentative, I'm-not-sure-what's-out-here footsteps, but confident, I've-got-me-a-trespasser footsteps.
A fat earthworm oozed out over the cool, moist dirt. The wet leaves of tall yarrow and foxglove dripped on Piper's army-green poncho. The rain had stopped. Too bad. It might have kept her neighbor inside.
A cool breeze floated up from the bay, bringing with it the scents of salt, wild grasses, and scrub pine that mixed with those of the extensive Frye gardens. It was June on Cape Cod, and Piper could smell roses and honeysuckle and a touch of mint in the clean night air, even as her heart pounded.
The gate to the wrought-iron fence that enclosed Hannah's garden of medicinal herbs—her witch's garden, she called it— creaked open.
Piper knew she was doomed.
"All right. Up on your feet. Slowly."
Slowly? What, did he think she had a couple ol grenades lucked under her poncho? That arrogant tone decided it. She wasn't going home empty handed. Giving a final tug, she broke off the hunk of valerian root she'd been digging. She ignored the horrendous smell. Worse than dirty feet. Only for you, Hannah.
As instructed, Piper rose slowly. She didn't know if her new neighbor came complete with shotgun. He was from the South. He was rich, a prominent Tennessee businessman. He owned one of Nashville's most exclusive hotels. He'd paid Hannah Frye every nickel of her exorbitant asking price for her house and thirty waterfront acres.
Hannah also claimed that Clate Jackson was destined to be the love of her grandniece's life, but Piper had dismissed that crazy notion as just another case of Hannah being Hannah.
She turned—slowly—and prepared herself to smile and talk her way out of getting hauled down to Ernie at the police station. Ernie had been saying for years, long before he'd been named police chief, that one of these days Piper was going to let Hannah land her in serious trouble.
"You must dig up the valerian root before the sun has fully risen."
Now that she was caught, Piper wondered if her aunt had known that Clate Jackson would be arriving tonight, late. She'd checked his house at eleven, before getting a few hours' sleep, and there was no sign of him.
She pulled her poncho hood down off her hair and smiled, then nearly choked as she focused on the dark figure over by the gate. He wasn't what she'd expected, had hoped for. No one in town had actually seen the grumpy, mysterious Tennessean, and so she had nothing to go on, was completely unprepared. He was young. Mid-thirties. Thickly built, an inch or two under six feet, with dark, tousled hair and the dangerous look of a man who'd just rolled out of bed to roust a trespasser off his land. He wore ragged jeans and an unbuttoned denim shirt, and he was barefoot. Even in the milky predawn light, even from over by the yarrow, Piper could see that his eyes were a searing, penetrating blue, and at the moment were entirely focused on her.
No, definitely not what she'd hoped for. Her reaction would thrill Hannah. "He's the man for you, Piper. I know it in my soul."
Her smile frozen, Piper said, "Well. Good morning. You must be my new neighbor. I'm Piper Macintosh. I live just beyond the privet." She pushed through tall, wet, weedy-looking herbs toward the gate, aware of his unrelenting gaze. "I was just digging a little valerian root."
"Is that what I smell?"
"I expect so." She held up the fibrous root with its hairy offshoots and distinct, unpleasant odor. "Sort of smells like a dirty locker room, doesn't it? My aunt, Hannah Frye, wants it for some new medicinal tea she's got in the works. She couldn't think of another immediate source for it but here."