“Like slamming a door.”

He raked his fingers through his hair. “Sorry about that. I reacted too quick. Comes from soldiering in a war zone when your ass could get capped at any second.”

He took a wider stance and was about to say that he was over having to defend himself, but reasoned that belligerence would only increase her apprehension. He needed her to hire him so he could keep an eye on her. He needed to act as a buffer between her and Rusty, at least until Rusty backed off the notion that she had stacks of stolen cash lying around.

He changed tactics. “I can do the job. There’s a lot here to work with, and the job would be a welcome change from mending sagging porches and getting closet doors to hang straight. So? What’s it to be?”

She looked down at the floor. He stared at the crown of her head while she deliberated for what seemed like ages.

When she raised her head, she said, “I’ll sleep on it.”

That pissed him off. He figured she was now being either coy or stubborn.

“You’ve got until noon tomorrow to let me know.” He reached for the doorknob, then halted, and with exaggerated slowness, turned it gently and pulled open the door.

Looking piqued, she asked, “What happens at noon?”

“I start accepting the jobs I’ve put on hold.”

She gave a curt nod.

Straddling the threshold, he reached into his back pocket for his wallet and took a business card from it, passing it to her. “Sometimes I don’t hear the shop phone. Call the second number. That’s my cell. It’ll vibrate.”

He stepped out onto the porch and slid on his sunglasses.

“Ledge?”

He came back around and saw that she had read his name aloud off the business card. Looking up at him, she said, “Until now, I didn’t know what the ell stood for.”

“Ledge Burnet? Where did you dredge up that name?”

“I met him yesterday.”

“How did that come about?”

“I went in search of him at his place of business.”

“The pool hall?”

“Pool hall?”

Lisa laughed shortly. “Let’s back up and start over.”

After seeing Ledge Burnet off, Arden had replayed his visit in her mind several times and concluded that, although fear might have been an overreaction on her part, she did have reason to be leery of him.

He’d lied about learning through the grapevine that she had moved here from Houston. The only person who knew that was the OB to whom she had been referred by her doctor in Houston. His practice wasn’t even in Penton, but in the nearest larger city of Marshall. Neither he nor anyone on his staff would have disclosed patient information.

Someone else was Ledge Burnet’s informant. But who? And why would he be reluctant to identify him or her?

Then there was the matter of the door locks. He’d paid a lot of attention to their insufficiency.

That sudden move when he’d slammed the door behind her had been startling, but even when he was sitting perfectly still, his sheer physicality was intimidating.

On the flip side, she couldn’t think of a reason why he would be cruising nightly past her house. It had seemed to trouble him that someone had been. When he’d started his pickup truck as he’d left, the rumble of its engine wasn’t the one she heard each night.

Nevertheless, before awarding him the job, she wanted more information, and she had no one else to ask about him except Lisa. She’d needed to check in with her sister anyway. They hadn’t spoken for several days.

“If you’re talking about the boy I’m thinking of,” Lisa said, “he was riffraff.”

Boy? He was definitely no longer a boy. She also thought Lisa’s terminology was a bit over the top. “He said that he was beneath your notice.”

“I knew who he was, but only because of his reputation,” Lisa said. “His bad reputation. I think he was incarcerated at least once.”

“He must have turned things around at some point. He served in the military for years.”

“So he’s reformed and living in Penton?”

He was living in Penton. Arden wasn’t certain that he’d undergone a reformation. “What was that about a pool hall?”

“You should remember the place. We had to drive past it to get to Mabel’s.”

The family’s Friday night tradition had been having dinner at Mabel’s on the Lake. “All-you-can-eat catfish for twelve ninety-nine,” Arden murmured. “Mabel lost money on Dad. He could pack it away.”

Lisa laughed again. “We had some good times.”

Then their mother had been killed, and all that had changed.

After a short lull, Lisa said, “Anyway, Ledge Burnet. That beer joint that looks like it’s growing up out of the lake? It belongs to Ledge’s uncle. Or at least it did. It may have collapsed by now.”

“Burnet’s Bar and Billiards!” Arden exclaimed with sudden recollection. “He’s that Burnet?”

“He and his uncle lived on the premises.”

“Just the two of them? What about his parents?”

“God knows. I never heard mention of them. Only him and his uncle and that bar. Not exactly a healthy environment for a boy to grow up in, which I guess explains his brushes with the law.”

“He has his own business now.” Arden fingered the white business card with his name and contact information printed in a no-nonsense font in bold black ink. No flourishing logo. Nothing gimmicky. No frills. Very much like the man.

“What kind of business?”

Lisa’s question pulled her from musing over what the right kind of physique could do for a plain white shirt and blue jeans. “Uh, he’s a contractor. Of sorts.”

“Of what sort?”

“Carpentry. Home repairs.” She minimized the scope of the job, needing to work up to suggesting a complete renovation. “He works alone.”

“You interviewed this former jailbird to do repairs on our house?”

“I didn’t know he was a former jailbird when I interviewed him.”

“Well, now that I’ve told you—”

“He told me. He was very straightforward about it.” Less straightforward about how he knew her recent history.

“He sounds like a glorified handyman,” Lisa said, “and he can’t be the only one in Penton.”