The Hometown Hero Returns. Julianna Morris

      Chapter Two

      “Drat,” Nicki muttered as she rang the McCade doorbell.

      She’d told him she would be here at nine this morning and it was nearly a quarter past. As a rule, she was never late. But her neighbor had come down sick and needed some groceries, so she’d run to the store first.

      “You’re late,” Luke growled as he opened the front door.

      Normally she’d apologize, but this was Luke, and it wasn’t a good idea to let him get the best of her. “Then I guess you’ll have to dock my pay.”

      He had the grace to look uncomfortable at the reminder she was donating her time out of respect and appreciation for his grandfather.

      “May I come in?” Nicki asked. “Or should I use the back door with the rest of the help?”

      “Don’t be ridiculous,” Luke growled.

      A smile tugged at her mouth as she stepped inside, this time better able to appreciate her surroundings.

      A wide, graceful staircase swept down from the second floor to hardwood floors that contrasted nicely with scattered Oriental rugs. Mahogany framed the doors and archways, while delicate eggshell-white walls lightened the overall effect.

      And once again, through an archway, Nicki saw Professor McCade sitting in the rear living room. This time he was awake, though he seemed to be staring at nothing at all.

      Instinctively Nicki took a single step toward him, then stopped and sighed. She’d never seen anyone look so sad. What would it be like to love someone so much that when you lost them your entire life turned gray and empty? It was scary; yet at the same time it was the kind of love she wanted—the kind of unconditional love she’d always heard about but never found, not even from her own father.

      “I guess you’ll want to start in the attic,” Luke said. “There’s a lot of stuff up there.”

      “Er…I thought I’d do a general walk-through to begin with,” Nicki murmured, still distracted by the elderly man’s distant eyes. Was he remembering the good days, when his wife would bring cut flowers into the house and he’d rush home, just to be with her? Nicki had never spoken about personal matters with John McCade, but as the author of several books, he’d written eloquently of his wife and her passion for gardening.

      “Come along, then.” Luke proceeded to give her a ruthlessly efficient tour of the large house, pointing out various places where paintings had once hung. “We think they’re in the attic,” he explained.

      “Like the portrait of your great-grandmother?”

      Luke glared. Trust Nicki to bring up that damned portrait. He’d done some Internet research on Arthur Metlock the previous evening, and the information had shocked him. If it were genuine, the painting she’d returned was indeed worth a huge chunk of money.

      He didn’t know anything about art, though Granddad had tried to interest him in the subject. And Luke had certainly never realized anything in the collection was worth more than a few dollars. John McCade had always spoken of his art in terms of its beauty rather than its monetary value. If he’d attached a dollar sign to the lessons, it would have been more interesting.

      “I’m sure that was just an accident,” Luke said, wincing at his stuffy tone. “My mother talked about getting rid of things in the house that the family wouldn’t care about keeping. She probably started collecting things together and stuck the painting in with the rest of the stuff Granddad put up there, thinking it wasn’t worth anything.”

      “Hmm. Your parents retired and moved to Florida a few years ago, didn’t they?”

      Luke grimaced because it was such a small-town thing for everyone to know everyone else’s business. Privacy was not a prized commodity in Divine. He preferred the anonymity of city life. “Yes, but they’ve been coming back every couple of months to help Granddad out. Do you need anything to get started with the inventory?”

      Nicki didn’t say anything right away, she just looked around the front living room where he had ended the tour, a thoughtful expression on her face, one that seemed to be less about curiosity than about gathering her thoughts.

      She’d always been an odd mix of nervous energy and intelligence. It was easy to forget that a formidable brain hid behind her habit of running off at the mouth, but even when he was a brash kid, Luke had known that Nicki Johansson was smart, so why hadn’t she gotten out of Divine for good? After the way the townspeople had acted when he hurt himself, he hadn’t been able to leave fast enough.

      “I did leave for a while, then I came back,” she said without looking at him.

      Luke winced, suddenly realizing he’d voiced the question aloud. “I…uh, would have thought you’d go crazy here. Divine isn’t the intellectual capitol of the state.”

      She shrugged. “The college is excellent—highly academic—and I often travel with my consulting work. Just last year a museum in New York sent me to London as part of a team to authenticate a newfound Rembrandt.”

      “But you live here. The college is closest to Divine, but even the students live over in Beardington. This town is dying and everyone knows it. I’ll bet there hasn’t been a new business here in twenty-five years.”

      She glanced at him and there seemed to be a hint of pity in her blue eyes. “Of course I live here, it’s home,” she said simply.

      Home.

      He shook his head. It didn’t make sense to him, but it wasn’t his concern if she wanted to bury herself in a backwater town. Thank God Divine was only a few short hours from Chicago by car, or he would have had trouble managing his frequent trips into rural Illinois.

      Regret stabbed at Luke with the thought, and he looked at his grandfather, sitting vacantly by the cold fireplace. John McCade did little during the day except sleep or turn his chair periodically, as if turning from a painful memory taking hold of his mind—senility, accelerated by grief.

      Luke sighed. They’d hoped the medicine would help, but it hadn’t. And if Granddad could no longer function, he couldn’t stay alone. Grams would have hated seeing him like this. She’d been so full of life, tending her garden and her family with equal zest and pleasure.

      A hand touched Luke’s arm and he noticed Nicki watching him gravely. “I’m really sorry about Professor McCade,” she whispered.

      “It’s just one of those things.” He shrugged with false indifference. “You can’t let it get to you.”

      Instead of seeming shocked, Nicki looked sadder than before. “You don’t have to pretend,” she said, letting her hand drop.

      “Who says I’m pretending?”

      “I do. Even an idiot could tell how much you care about Professor McCade, and I’m not an idiot.”

      Luke pressed his mouth shut. Nicki was far from being an idiot, but since it was easier thinking about anything but his grandfather, he narrowed his gaze and tried to decide if the years had added any inches to her bustline. She wore a pair of loose slacks and an oversized shirt that wasn’t tucked into the waistband, so her figure was left to the imagination. Typical Nicki.

      He remembered the day she’d edged into his hospital room, clutching a stack of books to her chest, wearing clothes so baggy they were practically falling off. She’d kept her gaze fixed to the worn linoleum floor and mumbled that she’d been sent to tutor him on his missed schoolwork.

      Tutor him?

      His temper, already on edge because his girlfriend and the other cheerleaders hadn’t bothered to visit, flared hot and furious. The day he needed tutoring from a flat-chested, stringy little girl would be the day he froze in hell. He’d followed up his reaction with