Throughout the melee Seth stood, squatted, and even crawled on his belly to get the perfect shot. An angry, “Boys!” penetrated the snarling and claw scrabbling. The three possums froze. One spat out a mouthful of fur. A woman tramped through the weeds, stopping when she saw Seth. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t know you were out here.” She selfconsciously patted errant strands of hair back in place. “I’m Kelly Johnson, your neighbor. I met you at the store the other day. You haven’t seen my boys by any chance, have you? I’m afraid they like to sneak down here to the pond and catch crawfish.”
From the corner of his eye, Seth observed three furry forms creeping toward a blackberry bush. The woman followed his line of sight. “There you are, you scoundrels. You better march yourselves right back up to the house and finish your chores. Now! Wait until your father comes home and gives you a piece of his mind!”
Three heads bowed, three tails dragged the ground, and three apparently trained possums trooped up the path and over the hill. “Sorry ’bout that, jack, but what can I do? Joeys will be joeys.” She shrugged and traipsed off after the critters, leaving Seth bewildered, disbelieving, and with a collection of wildlife shots the likes of which he’d never seen before.
He’d made it halfway to the house before the woman’s words hit him like a ton of bricks. “Wait a minute! Did she call them her boys?”
Chapter 12
SETHhad no sooner made it to the house to research possum behavior than he heard the unmistakable sound of tires rumbling up the driveway, louder than normal. He flinched, and though the truck was a ways off, he stepped back from the drive, placing an oak tree between himself and the approaching vehicle.
A shiny white BMW X5 pulled to a stop. The man inside stared into the SUV’s rearview mirror, adjusting his tie. Could this man be from Aunt Irene’s attorney’s office?Please, God, let it not be another realtor.Instead of a briefcase, the man stepped down with a box of chocolates in one hand and flowers in the other. “Mr. McDaniel?” he asked, showing a mouthful of choppers, not unlike the three recent possums. He stood at least six foot two, with sandy-blond hair and moustache, both neatly trimmed. The kind of “out of my price range” cologne Seth sniffed at perfume counters drifted toward him on a light breeze.
“You’re not a realtor, are you?” Seth hesitated to ask. He’d forgotten junk food at the grocery store, and the chocolates made his mouth water.
“Oh hell no!”
Good. Seth relaxed a bit. “Can I help you with something?” “Don’t worry, Mr. McDaniel. This here’s a social call.”
The stranger’s well-groomed appearance and expensive clothes hinted at money, with enough age on him for a few permanent crinkles at the eyes. He took a step forward, holding the flowers and candy in front of him. Those truffles hadn’t come cheap, and neither had the long-stemmed red roses. “I’m Junior Timmerman, and I thought I’d come introduce myself, seeing as how I knew your aunt. Went to school with your daddy too, but he was a few grades ahead of me. How ’bout we go inside, set a spell. Get better acquainted.”
Back home in Chicago, none of Seth’s acquaintances dared show up out of the blue without calling first, but he figured unannounced visits might be a Southern thing, like leaving your doors unlocked, although Seth never did. Hadn’t the guy at the Feed and Seed mentioned an Uncle Junior?
“Well, the air-conditioning isn’t the greatest, but sure, come on in.” What could it hurt? The guy seemed harmless enough—thus far. Junior traipsed along behind Seth, and Seth swore he felt the man attempting to stare holes through his back.
“How long you planning on staying, Mr. McDaniel?”
“Not long. Long enough to get the house fixed up and on the market before I head back home to Chicago.” No need to let strangers in on his internal struggle over whether to leave or stay. Besides, the man might know an honest realtor, or a local with an eye on the place.
“You’re leaving?” The man sounded truly disappointed. “But you just got here. If you gave it a chance, you’d find Possum Kingdom to be a nice area to settle down in.”
“I remember it fondly from my childhood, but I grew up in Chicago. That’s my home now. Can I get you something to drink, Mr. Timmerman?”
“Oh, please, call me Junior. Why don’t I step into the kitchen with you, find some water for these flowers.” Junior made himself at home, sidestepping Seth to enter the kitchen and then making a beeline for the far cabinets, depositing the chocolates on the counter on his way. He opened a door and extracted a vase, apparently acquainted with where Irene kept things. Seth’s anxiety clicked down a notch, taking Junior’s familiarity with Aunt Irene’s kitchen as further proof of the guy’s harmlessness, though Seth remained a bit on guard. Michael had always accused him of having “trust issues.” Seth didn’t have trust issues; he just didn’t trust anyone.
“Sweet tea, Coke, or would you care for a beer?” Seth bent into the refrigerator, shaking the tea pitcher to check for fullness. He might have been displaced from the South at a young age, but he’d still learned to appreciate a tall glass of sweet tea.
“Water will be fine, straight from the tap. Irene’s well has some of the sweetest water I’ve ever tasted.” Junior filled the vase, added the flowers, and then placed them in the center of the kitchen table. “They don’t have well water up there in Chicago, do they, Mr. McDaniel?”
It seemed ridiculous for a man dressed in a suit, an older man dressed in a suit, no less, to call Seth “Mister” while insisting on being called “Junior.”
“Call me Seth.”
“All right, Seth.” A predatory grin crossed the man’s face, and Seth suddenly understood how a T-bone steak must feel right after being doused with A.1. “Let’s cut to the chase, shall we?”
Quicker than the eye could follow, Seth found himself pressed up against the refrigerator door, a leering man staring down at him. “We are, without a doubt, the two most powerful men in town.”
Seth gulped, forcing out a strangled, “We… we are?” Junior nodded, his nose mere inches from Seth’s. “Without a doubt.”
Unable to come up with anything more intelligent to say, Seth replied, “Imagine that.”
“Now, surely your aunt’s attorney’s made you aware of how much you inherited, didn’t he?”
“I haven’t gone over the records thoroughly yet. She left some bonds, a couple of accounts, this farmhouse, and a few acres that con men keep trying to finagle me out of.”
“Farmhouse? A few acres? Boy, your aunt owned half of Possum Kingdom! This house sits on over two hundred acres of good farmland. It’s been in your family for generations. I don’t understand how you could dream of selling and living elsewhere, especially not now given your changed circumstances.”
“What changed circumstances?”
