Distressed Wood: Faint Hope Heights

By Cate Marsden

Nothing is Scarier than the Suburbs.

After her divorce from wealthy, possessive Todd Richardson, Tiffany’s settlement includes a steady allowance…and a house.

He’s had it built just for her, using reclaimed materials because he knows she loves all things vintage. But there’s something very wrong with Tiffany’s new home. To begin with, she’s not really alone in it after all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Short Attention Span Press
• Release date: Mar 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781507054437

Cate Marsden

Cate Marsden is the pseudonym of a romance novelist living in eastern Canada. She shares a home with her husband (the sinister Dr. M.), two adorable children and an adopted zombie baby (pictured). Reach her at [e-mail] or on twitter (@CateMarsden).

Book preview

Chapter One

Tiffany Richardson turned into the wide driveway, tires nearly silent on the smooth new pavement, and the house loomed up over her. It wasn't clearly visible from the street. Faint Hope had bucked the trend of banning front-yard fencing, and Todd had enclosed the entire property with eight-foot high wrought iron, letting ivy and morning glories start their long climb up the curlicues.

So when the Lexus purred to a stop and she stepped out, she was taking her first real look at the house.

Her house.

Typical of Todd to insist on such a bizarre agreement before he was even willing to sit down with their lawyers and hammer out a divorce settlement.

And it was even more typical that his demands had turned out to be such an awkward, cringingly obvious attempt to win her back.

Then again, according to local legend the Matheson men had been getting their own way since they first arrived in the town, taking over the local mill nearly a century ago. It went beyond pushiness. People whispered that there was something unnatural about the family.

After all, it had been a Matheson who’d married into the mill-owning Moggie family a century ago, and when her husband and three daughters perished she’d vanished, leaving the property to her brother. Todd was a direct descendant...

She shook her head, remembering how concerned everyone had been when she'd started dating Todd. But there wasn't anything the least bit unnatural about Todd. If anything, beneath the civilized exterior her handsome ex was all too natural. Animalistic, almost. There was something primitive and hungry inside him, far more wild than the polished exterior he showed to the rest of the world.

He'd built the house himself, from reclaimed materials; from the blueprints on, this had been his pet project. Then he'd signed it over to his soon-to-be ex-wife, insisting on that as the condition of his co-operation.

She'd wanted out. She sighed now, heavily, as she looked up at the structure, a subtly beautiful construction of aged silver-grey wood. She didn't want to find it beautiful. She didn't want to be seduced by the elegance, the sheer class, of this house.

She didn't want reminders of Todd in her life, damn it, much less to be surrounded by him like this.

But she grudgingly admired the curve of the front steps, walking up them lightly and easily, not fully registering that they'd been perfectly scaled to match her gait. Even the front door, flanked by chimes of driftwood and hag stones and bearing a muted wreath of shells and seagrass, made her unconsciously relax her shoulders and breathe more deeply.

Everything about the house would be perfect. She knew that already.

Because that was how Todd worked. No one else in the world could be as attentive to detail, as aware of all her moods and tastes, as relentless in his pursuit.

Even now, when she'd convinced everyone else in her life that she was ready to move on and make a fresh start for herself, she sensed he didn’t believe her. She saw that little smile lingering at the corner of his lips whenever he looked at her.

As if he knew she wasn't half as sure as she sounded.

As if he knew what she really wanted.

A door slammed somewhere upstairs and Tiffany jumped, dropping the purse she'd been about to lay on the foyer table. She blushed as she picked it up, even though there was no one to see.

Straightening up, she caught sight of herself in the long, unframed mirror over the table. It ran the full length of the room, and she frowned slightly, thinking it looked out of place. Something danced at the edge of her mind, some sense that she'd seen mirrors like this before, but the memory refused to coalesce.

Instead she was left with her own pink-cheeked, slightly frazzled reflection, honey-blonde hair frizzing in the unexpected mid-October heat. The lavaliere at her neck caught