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“This is a lovely old home. One of our founding families built it in 1902. It sits on four acres of land, and you can see, it has a beautiful view.” She halted the pitch at the sagging screen door to search a full ring for the correct key.
When she opened the door, the house sighed the past into Sam’s face with the unique smell of sunlight, plaster dust, and old wood that was inherent in old houses. Remembering her ribs, she only took small breaths of the rare perfume as she stepped over the threshold. A staircase on her right ascended a few steps, turned at a landing and continued upward. A tall, slim etched glass window let in as much sun as the dirt would allow.
Honey led her to the left, through glass-paned double doors into a small parlor with tall windows overlooking the front porch. She prattled on, reciting the home’s selling points. Blueprints unfolding in her head, Sam tuned her out, having assessed the retail market from the picturesque town.
They proceeded to the rear of the house. On the left, in a large formal dining room, a water-stained ceiling sagged in places. Windows, with a large fieldstone fireplace between them, opened onto the covered side porch.
A small door across the hall revealed a cubbyhole area under the stairs, saved from gloom by a round, beveled-glass window. The dog-trot hallway ended in a large, dark country kitchen. The green linoleum floor was worn through in places, the old-fashioned porcelain sink chipped and badly stained. A narrow opening beside the back door led to a laundry room, where the ceiling had collapsed entirely.
Sam interrupted the woman’s chirping sales pitch. “Could I see the upstairs?”
Honey gave her a blank look, then recovered and pasted on her best sales smile. “Of course.”
Sam could almost hear her thoughts. I’m probably wasting my time.
In the long hallway at the top of the stairs, several doors opened to small bedrooms. The reason for the ceiling damage below became evident when Honey opened the door on the left. Blinding sunlight streamed through the hole in the roof. The hardwood floor had rotted and buckled.
“Don’t go in there. The floor’s not stable.” Honey pulled the door closed like a child with a messy bedroom—if you don’t see it, it doesn’t exist.
This house wouldn’t work for everyone. But a young couple could love it.
This is what Sam did. As a building contractor, flipping houses was more than a career; it was her passion.
The last door at the end of the hall opened into a large bathroom. With a black-and-white checkerboard tile floor that was yellowed and cracked. An enormous claw-foot tub took up one corner.
This is even better than it looked from the outside.
They retraced their steps to the front porch.
“How long since anyone lived here?” Sam asked, while Honey vainly attempted to remove a smear from her designer skirt.
“Almost seven years.”
“Has it been for sale all that time?”
“Yes.” She sighed. “It was in better shape then, but the owners wanted too much for it.” Her sparrow eyes brightened. “Now, of course, the area is in higher demand.”
Sam cut in before Honey could launch into a discussion of the local market.
“Okay, I get it. So, keeping in mind that the roof is a complete loss, the left half of the house is severely damaged, all fixtures need replacing, not to mention any dry rot, termite damage, or structural unsoundness I might find—how much is it?” Sam calculated the balance in her business account.
Honey seemed dazed, but rallied and quoted a price.
Sam smiled; they must be desperate to sell, given the home’s condition. Mentally decreasing the quote by twenty percent, she gave Honey her offer.
“Now, you don’t know me, but please believe me when I tell you that this is my only offer. It is contingent, of course, upon a termite and structural inspection. How long until I can expect an answer?”
Honey looked at her as if she were from a different planet.
Sam took pity. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound rude. I just don’t enjoy price negotiation.”
“You want it? Just like that?” Her pouty voice made it clear Sam had taken away all the fun by cutting to the chase.
“I wouldn’t put an offer on a property I didn’t intend to buy.” Sarcasm was lost on the woman, who seemed confused that the deal wasn’t proceeding according to her formula.
“I guess I could call the family when I get to the office.” Honey jotted Sam’s cell number, then wandered off through the tall grass to her car, dusty smears marring the butt of her peach skirt.
God save me from real estate agents named Honey. Sam went to investigate the carriage house.
She guessed the large structure could house six full-size cars. The large wooden door opened in a shriek of protest. Cool air washed over her. The smell of damp soil drifted from the dirt floor. She stood just inside the door, letting her eyes adjust.
A rough staircase against the wall appeared out of the gloom. She ascended it gingerly, testing the integrity of the staircase and her injured knee at the same time. The door at the top landing stood locked, so she peered through the glass panes into a large unfinished room.
Of all the homes she’d renovated, this one could be the most beautiful.
And bring in the most profit.
Roof replacement would top the long list of tasks. And the upstairs floors were so unstable it would be economically impractical to repair them. Her brain worried at the puzzle.
“Relax, Crozier, you don’t even own the thing yet.”
But I think I may have found the next dream, Dad.
CHAPTER FOUR
NICK STOOD IN Josh and Annette’s backyard, alternately flipping burgers and throwing passes to their nine-year-old, JJ. The other twin, Courtney, was in the kitchen “helping,” making cookies. He’d have to apologize for the mess when Annette got home.
He’d agreed to watch the kids for his friends’ weekly “date.” With two crazy-active children, they needed it.
“Go out long, JJ.” Nick waited, then lofted a bomb, which JJ scooted under for a neat catch. “And the crowd goes wild!” The kid’s face lit up. God, Nick loved spending time out here at the Bennetts’.
Thirty wasn’t old, but lately he’d been thinking about wanting kids. But in his mind, kids didn’t come without marriage. And marriage didn’t come without dating. He fielded the wobbly pass from Josh, and fired back a hot one. If it were up to him, he’d skip the whole dating thing. Who needed the angst, the awkwardness—the judgment? Especially given his history.
Looking back now, from the long end of the telescope, it wasn’t surprising when his home life had imploded that he’d gone a bit wild. He’d had so much anger built up and nowhere for it to go. Booze was the only antidote he’d found, and he made a career of partying for a couple of years, post high school. Thank God for friends; Jesse, Carl and several others staged an intervention, making him see where he was and where he was headed.
It actually worked for a while. He decided he wanted to be an auto mechanic, and enrolled in a school in Los Angeles. Once there, though, he’d gotten caught up in the bar scene, many days arriving for school in the same clothes he’d left in the day before.
That bender ended the day he’d woken up on someone’s floor, and had been on his way to school when a kid darted out in front of his car. He swerved, took out a parked car and a fire hydrant, but thankfully, not the child. He still woke up some nights in a puddle of sweat, dreaming of what could have happened.
Luckily, since he’d finished his class work they allowed him to graduate, though he’d spent the day of the ceremony holding down a seat in a county drunk tank. When Nick sobered up, he looked around at the jail population and had a revelation—he fit right in with the drunks and losers. His mother would have been so disappointed. Hell, he was disappointed in himself.
Nick needed a plan. By the time he’d served his six-month sentence, he had one. He left L.A. with a twelve-step card in his pocket, an idea for a business and a bad case of homesickness.
Now he needed another plan. “JJ, go get washed up. Your parents will be here in a minute, and dinner’s about ready.”
Almost all the girls he’d known in high school were married now. When he first moved back, he’d tried dating, but between the hours he had to put in with the shop and the awkwardness of discussing his past, he gave it up. He hadn’t met anyone who, an hour after spending time with them, he missed.
Time to check the cookie progress, and assess the damage to the kitchen. He turned off the grill and lowered the lid. The sound of the twins squabbling in the kitchen made him smile.
Maybe it was time to try again.
* * *
SAM CRUISED PACIFIC COAST Highway back to town, breaking into a goofy smile when she drove around a bend to see the ocean, stretching like molten metal, to the horizon. It had transformed overnight from a moody, white-capped, gunmetal gray to a California picture postcard. Foam rode the small blue rollers that combed the creamy beach sand. The ocean’s chop fractured the sunlight into blinding silver slivers.
Turning inland, the road seemed guileless in the sunshine, but as she came upon the scene of yesterday’s accident, a shudder rippled through her. Her shoulder protested with an electric arc of pain. She studied the scene, but still couldn’t see anything she’d done wrong. Even if she had seen the Mercedes, she had nowhere to go. Now it appeared the accident had led her to another job.
Sam wondered how she’d look back at her time in Widow’s Grove. Each of her project pauses on her way across country seemed like a separate lifetime—as if she’d tried on different lives, to see how they fit. When she shook her head, the thought blew away in the wind ripping through her hair. Nowhere fit. That was just the way of things. A dark wisp of the nightmare edged across her light mood. Best to keep moving.
She rolled back through Widow’s Grove. The town had morphed overnight to a sparkling jewel. Tourists wandered, ducking in and out of shops. In the park, a group in bright spandex sprawled next to their bicycles. The coffee shop did a brisk business, the umbrella’s flirty skirts flipping up in the breeze.
A picture-postcard town.
And that can only help the resale value of the house.
But time spent dreaming would be a waste if the owners didn’t take her offer. She had learned the hard way not to want things—it was less painful.
Pulling up in front of her run-down cabin, she shut down the engine and unbuckled the seat belt. She ran her hand over the sun-warmed leather seat. Someone spent a lot of time and money restoring this; even the eye-scorching yellow interior was spanking clean and perfect. Nick, obviously, but why? Clearly he didn’t take it out much. Why put good money into a garage-dweller? She stepped out of the car just as her cell phone belted out the first notes of an old Jethro Tull road song.
Her heart sped up when she recognized the soft voice on the line.
“Miss Crozier? It’s Honey, from Homestake Realty. I was able to contact the Sutton family this afternoon. I’ve been trying to get you for an hour.”
“I guess I couldn’t hear the phone for the wind.”
“Yes, well. I’ve been in touch with the family.” She hesitated. “Look, I know you don’t negotiate and I don’t mean to offend you. But the sellers find it hard to reach a consensus, and...”
From the undertone of frazzled in Honey’s voice, Sam could imagine what that conversation was like.
“The bottom line is that they won’t take less than their original asking price.”
Crap. This disappointment bit a layer deeper than most of her letdowns. She recalled the Victorian’s stately bone structure, peeking out at her from under years of neglect. Uncovering those bones would have been such a challenging project. Fun, too. She sighed.
“Ms. Crozier?”
She realized it was the second time her name had been called. “What?”
“Why don’t I call you in a couple of days? There’s no reason to make a hasty decision.”
Sam took a breath, fully intending to nix the deal. Instead, she heard herself say, “Let me think about it. I’ll call you.” She hung up, but continued staring at the phone.
This was business. Either a deal worked, financially, or it didn’t. This one didn’t. So why did it matter so much? Sure, it was a neat project, but she’d learned there were great projects scattered all across the U.S.
So what was with the soft tug in her chest?
* * *
FOR THE NEXT WEEK, Sam didn’t have much else to do but think. The rest was good for her battered body, but the forced inactivity wasn’t good for her mind. The distraction of staying busy had always been her first line of defense against dark thoughts and bad dreams. That, and traveling. Grounded and idle, they were catching up with her.
She’d taken to walking, stalking the country roads around the cabins. Something about the green rolling hills and live oaks calmed her, but today she’d gone farther than usual, and her feet dragged the dusty roadside.
In spite of repeated admonishments, her mind kept returning to the puzzle of the house. Somewhere in the country miles, she’d solved the problem. If she demolished the top floor on the water-damaged side of the house, along with the rooms below them, the entire right side would become a master bedroom loft, looking down into a huge great room. That would leave the house with only one bedroom, but what a bedroom! She imagined the fieldstone fireplace, and the firelight reflecting off a burnished hardwood floor.
There was the carriage house—the second story was one huge open room. It could be converted to guest quarters. There was enough room for two bedrooms and a bath, easy.
Damn, that would be nice. She turned in at the cabins.
But she’d done the math more than once. She’d always turned a good profit, thanks to sticking to strict budget guidelines. This one didn’t fit them.
But the location! Property values always skyrocketed near tourist towns. Maybe they hadn’t peaked yet. If she took this deal, she’d be betting on the come.
But Sam wasn’t a gambler. Gambling was for people who could afford to lose.
Screw it. I’ll just move on. After all, there would be another project down the road. She opened the hideous car’s door, gingerly lowered herself into the seat and fired it up.
Mind made up, she kicked the disappointment to a back corner of her mind. Maybe she’d head up the coast, see San Francisco. She liked the idea of working on a Victorian, and she heard they had a bunch of them up there.
I’ve got to pressure that mechanic to move faster on the bike. Without a project, she had no money coming in. She could have the Jeep sent from Telluride, but traveling was no fun on four wheels.
She turned at the Farm House Café parking lot. Listening to local gossip would be a good distraction from her thoughts. She’d just grab a cup of coffee. Her phone rang with the distinctive drum riff to “Radar Love.” Only having full use of one hand was getting old, fast. She zipped into a parking place, put the car in Park and picked up the phone.
“Ms. Crozier? It’s Honey, Homestake Realty.”
“I was going to call you, later today. I’ve done the numbers, and they just don’t add up. I’ll need to—”
“Would you still be interested if I told you the family would be willing to split the difference with you? It was a fight, but I got them to agree to accept ten percent lower than the asking price.”
Sam stepped out of the car, recalculating the spreadsheet in her head. That would work. Just.
“When can we sign papers?” She kept her voice deadpan, a hard task while grinning ear-to-ear.
“Would you like to meet me in the office in the morning, say nine o’clock?”
Sam hung up, and did a gingerly happy dance, complete with fist punch. “Unh.” Stabbing pain made her pay for forgetting her ribs. She grimaced, taking shallow breaths. But it couldn’t wipe her smile.
Sam hobbled inside, holding her ribs.
“Well, that looked like good news. I think.” Jesse stood watching, hands on hips, behind the counter. Her hair was in a different style than the last time Sam had been in, but it was just as big, and the short dress just as tight.
A book lay face down on the counter. Sam read the title. Mensa Sudoku.
“The best news. It looks like I’m going to be your neighbor for a while. I just bought the Sutton place.”
“You what? What would you want with that wreck?”
Sam’s stomach woke, growling to the delicious aroma of grilling meat and frying potatoes. “I’m a building contractor. That house has potential.”
“From what I’ve seen, the biggest potential that house has is to fall down.”
