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Now, why didn’t we do that first? Allison thought. Because that would have been useful. And maybe to go along with it a list of plumbers crazy enough to work on old houses. Maybe what I really need is a support group for renovators.
Despite the man’s irritation, Kyle assured him that he had just the list for him. By the time he’d promised to get it to him, Allison saw that the majority of the crowd had stampeded to the refreshments table. They hadn’t had to be told twice.
Kyle started across the room toward her, but got waylaid by first one and then another attendee. As she held on to the back of the chair in front of her to keep from falling over, she felt a tug on her elbow.
A tall gentleman with a luxurious crop of snow-white hair and a suntanned face peered down at her quizzically. “Well, now,” he said, then cleared his throat and began again. “Well, now. Stimulating stuff, no?”
Allison blinked. Lying was not her style, not even teeny-tiny white lies, if she could get away with the truth. “Er, they are very detail-oriented,” she commented.
“Got to be,” he said with a satisfied nod. “Got to watch every jot and tittle. Don’t want any anachronistic details to spoil the effect, you know? And people will try you. They’ll test you. Got to hold the line.”
“You mean...about the flowers?” Allison asked. It was as if the man could peer into her very soul and know that she was conspiring to slap vinyl siding onto Belle Paix.
“About it all. I’m on the preservation committee. I should know. All manner of wild-eyed schemes come before us. People wanting to paint their Victorians white. Put Georgian columns on ’em. Enough to turn my stomach, I tell you.”
Allison’s own stomach sank like a stone at the news that this hard-liner was one she’d face at her variance request hearing. If she ever managed to fill out all that paperwork. Please...don’t have any clones on the board just like you.
“I can see you take this very seriously,” she said.
“And well I should! That young Kyle, he’s turned this place around. You ought to have seen the mess this neighborhood was in...well, you can! Let me show you the before-and-after gallery—it’s right out in the hall. You’ll be astonished!”
“Uh...” She looked down at the man’s hand, which he’d wrapped around her arm. Likely planning to take her to the display whether she wanted to go or not.
“Ease up, Herbert, will you? Don’t want to frighten her off on her very first visit, do we?” Kyle’s welcome voice interrupted them.
“Oh! Kyle! I was waiting for you.”
There, that was true. She was. She wanted to be a polite guest and say her goodbyes, and then totter off to her bed.
Herbert shot her a disappointed glance, but covered it up with a good-natured dip of his head. “I’ll show you next time, how about? It will be something to look forward to.”
“Yes. It will be something,” she said brightly.
As soon as Herbert had drifted off to join the others at the table, Kyle said, “You look all done in. Did you stay up late painting after I left?”
“Uh, actually...about ten minutes after you left, the hospital called and begged me to come in. They were short an RN for the ER last night. What could I say? I’m the new kid in town.”
“You worked all night? With no sleep today?” His eyebrows shot up and he shook his head in disbelief. “If I had only known.”
“No, no. I got some sleep. Would have gotten more if I hadn’t had to wake up to meet the electrician.”
“So you’re rewiring the house?” Kyle asked. “Who’d you get?”
“Nobody yet. The guy was a no-show. Let’s face it. He probably Google-Earthed it, saw what a disaster the place was and didn’t bother coming.”
“How frustrating. Listen, I have a list of good electricians who are willing to work on old houses. Let me go grab it for you from the office—no, no, I insist. I have to get that source list for Paul, anyway.”
“Ahem, can...can I come with you? Because I’m really not up to small talk right now. It’s all I can do to get out guttural cave-woman speech. Even the weather is beyond me, as tired as I am.”
He laughed and jabbed his finger toward her, then back at his chest. “You, Jane, me Tarzan. You come.”
“Sold!”
The two of them made their way to the office, where Kyle deftly picked a few sheaves of paper from two pigeonholes. “Commonly requested items—pays to keep them handy,” he explained.
“You are just too organized. You make me feel like a complete slob. You know, you didn’t spill a single drop of paint last night, and your paintbrush, when you cleaned it, looked brand-new.”
“Didn’t yours?” he asked.
“Er, no. Mine wound up looking more like one of those troll dolls. I’ll probably toss it and buy another.”
“I did happen to notice it wasn’t a very good quality brush,” he said.
“Aren’t brushes brushes?” she asked.
“No. A good brush is something to go to war over to protect. Trust me, after you’ve done all the trim work on your house—outside and inside—you’ll have found the right brush for you. And you’ll threaten to kill anybody who so much as lays a finger on it.”
“Does this violent propensity extend only toward paintbrushes? Or should I be worried about touching other things that belong to you?” she teased.
He blushed. He really, honestly blushed. She hadn’t meant anything risqué with her comment, but now could see the double entendre.
“Mainly paintbrushes,” he muttered. “I’ll give you...fair warning about the other stuff.”
To take her mind off her own flaming face and Kyle’s awkwardness, she stared down at the pages. “Well, I guess I should be—”
“I’ll walk you home. Let me hand this to Paul.”
And in a flash, though she wouldn’t have expected it two minutes earlier, Kyle’s hand was on her back as he ushered her out the society office’s front door and toward her house.
“You didn’t much care for the meeting, did you?” he asked.
“Really...I couldn’t say.” For sure. Because then I’d hurt your feelings, and you seem like a nice guy. Probably you share Herbert’s hard-liner approach about historical accuracy, but even so, you’re a nice guy. “Maybe I was too tired to give it a fair shake?”
He didn’t say anything for a few steps. The silence stretched between them, interrupted by the sporadic rush of a car barreling down the street past them, and crickets and a dog barking when the car had passed.
“I liked the idea of going over the antique source guides,” she said at last. “That would have been really useful. I mean, to someone like me.”
“We should do that. Form a group of people who are in the middle of renovating. So many of our older folks have already done their time in the trenches. They’ve got all their work done, and they tend to be jealous when it comes to sharing information. I hate to say that.” He glanced her way, as if to make sure she didn’t instantly hate him for speaking so bluntly about the society members. “But it’s true.”
“Why would they be that way?” she asked.
Kyle shrugged. “Who knows? Honestly? Sometimes I think it’s a sport to some of them. Take Herbert, for instance. He’s a great guy, really believes in historic preservation, but...”
“Ya know, I kind of got that vibe, too,” she said. “But you have to admire people who stick up for what they believe in. One of Gran’s tenets, and mine, too.”
“He’s done a marvelous job with his house. There it is, up ahead.”
Allison came to an abrupt stop as she let her eyes follow Kyle’s finger. A huge Queen Anne encrusted with all manner of gingerbread trim stood back on a picture-perfect lawn.
“The old Kilgore house! That’s his? Wow. Back when I was little, the place was empty and the windows boarded up. My friends teased me, claiming that it was haunted, and that mine was, too. But that one especially.”
“Herbert has worked hard on it. He bought it about ten years ago, when he retired. Gutted the whole place and renovated it from stem to stern. He’s one of the main ones who got me involved in having the initial preservation ordinances passed.”
Allison smothered a snort. It would be someone like Herbert who’d had the idea to make things supremely difficult for her. “I can definitely see that.”
“A lot of the neighborhood has changed. You know, in the last three years, we’ve started drawing serious numbers of tourists, and that’s having a huge impact on our local economy. We have walking tours and ghost tours and Christmas tours of homes. Let me take you on—no, I’m sorry. You’re tired. I should get you home.”
But Kyle’s easy company and the sweet scents of gardenias, night phlox and petunias in the cool evening air had banished the worst of her exhaustion. “Really, I’m better now. Why don’t you tell me about the ones on the way home?”
“Yeah? You’d like that? It wouldn’t...bore you?”
“No. I have to admit, I am impressed with how neat and clean and picture-postcard the old neighborhood looks. It didn’t look like this when I was growing up.”
“No. It didn’t. It was in a sad state. And it’s been only in the last two or three years that we’ve seen real progress. There are just a few holdouts left and they’ll—” Kyle abruptly clamped his mouth shut, stopping himself in midsentence.
“Cry uncle? Sell out? Or get with the program?” she teased. “Or...or do you make them...” she grinned and used her fingers to form air quotes “...‘disappear’?” she asked in a mock-sinister tone.
“Now, how did you guess what we do with the really stubborn ones?” Kyle said with a laugh.
“It’s probably right out of The Stepford Wives manual,” Allison teased. “A complete reeducation program in the renovation camps.”
“No!” He played along with a theatrical gasp, and clutched his chest. “You can’t have tumbled to the secret of our success! Why, now I’ll have to make you disappear!”
But then the next house came into view, and he suddenly grew serious. “Oh, this is one of my favorite stories—this house got rescued from the wrecking ball. Literally.”
“That’s gotta be one dramatic tale. Sounds like something on TV.”
“It just about was. It was horrible, the condition the house was in. Vinyl siding. The wrong windows. A cheap asphalt shingle roof. Oh, and glass blocks in a back bathroom window. Ugh. Walter and Mary, the couple who own it now, found out that some guy had bought the property to make a parking lot out of it. There used to be a—”
“Law office next door, I remember. Really snarly guy.”
“Yeah. He’s gone. You don’t have to worry about him anymore. I disappeared him.”
Allison chuckled and punched Kyle on the arm. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. Go on.”
“They bought it. The day the wrecking ball was due to knock it down. And they started, bit by bit, to restore the old girl to her glory.”
Allison gazed at the massive Georgian, with its white columns and its side porches. “It’s gorgeous. They must have sunk quite a lot into it.”
“Labor of love. But they wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Kyle...” She couldn’t look at the Georgian anymore. She stared off in the opposite direction, only to find that another old house, this time a beautiful Victorian, stood in perfectly restored, accusing beauty.
“Yeah?”
“Not everybody has the money or the time or the inclination to do that.”
“Allison...” He took her hands in his. It was an astonishing move that normally would have weirded her out. But it felt right to have him touch her like this, even though they didn’t know each other very well. “I know. I know.”
“You know...” About the vinyl siding?
“How overwhelmed you feel. I’ve been there. It’s okay. You’ll get through it. I’ll help you. We’ll get Belle Paix looking just as good—no, better! Better than all of these. She’s the jewel of the neighborhood. And you’re going to polish her up until she positively gleams. I promise. It will happen.”
She couldn’t meet his eyes. To Allison, the earnest honesty in them was as guilt-inducing as the picturesque houses all around them. Instead, she focused on his hands, strong and capable and holding hers.
No. No. You have no idea. If you knew how ridiculous I thought this whole rigmarole is— Oh, Kyle. I am not the girl you think I am. All I want is a good roof over Gran’s head.
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_d5ddaedd-a218-596a-89b2-93a14f36ce32)
KYLE HESITATED BEFORE he pushed the tarnished brass doorbell a third time. Allison surely would have come to the door by now. Maybe she’d changed her mind. Maybe the historical society had scared her off. Maybe his little tour last night of the old neighborhood had backfired and left her feeling overwhelmed instead of motivated.
She said she’d see you this afternoon. And there’s a car in the side yard.
But the only sign of life that he could find was through the wavy, 126-year-old glass in the mahogany front door: Cleo glaring at him, her blue eyes filled with contempt.
What did Allison call her when the Siamese sprang out in a full-frontal attack every time he walked through the door? Ninja cat? Yeah. No need for a Doberman when you had a guard cat like Cleo.
Kyle stepped back from the door and walked down the porch steps. Yep. The vehicle in the side yard was her little compact car. So she wasn’t at the hospital. Maybe she’d gone for a walk? Or she was asleep? He hoped the hospital hadn’t called her again last night, because she’d been so tired she could barely stumble up the steps.
He surveyed Belle Paix from his vantage point on the front steps. It was in amazingly good structural shape, really—yes, it needed an accurate paint scheme, and he’d spotted some dry rot in a couple places. But the siding still seemed sound, the windows looked intact, and the wrought-iron porch posts Ambrose had used in lieu of his own heart pine showed only the need for a good scraping and painting.
There were home owners who would kill for a house in this near-perfect shape, where all they had to do was refresh. His own house’s renovation had been a scavenger hunt for missing pieces and obsolete moldings or parts.
He glanced at his watch. Still no sign of life. Okay. He pivoted on his heel and headed for the front gate. He’d go pay the water bill and then swing by again to see if Allison had gotten back—
Suddenly, from above him, came a horrendous screeching of long-stuck wood and a shout. “Kyle! Hey! Don’t go! I’m coming down!”
He looked over his shoulder and saw Allison framed by the open window above the porch. Her face was swathed in pale blue paint and something white covered her nose and smeared across her cheek. “I thought you were gone.”
“Only in my dreams! Just a minute.” But the stubborn window resisted her efforts to close it as vehemently as it had resisted opening a few minutes earlier.
“Sounds like you need a little graphite on that,” he called up.
“Dynamite, you say? Bring it on! This old house—” The rest of her grumble was shut off by the sudden cooperation of the window. Kyle could hear the powerful slam reverberate in the afternoon air.
Allison opened the door, a very unhappy Cleo wriggling in her grip. “No, Cleo, you must learn some manners. Nice Kyle, see? No, you cannot bite the guests—or me, for that matter!”
Kyle shut the door behind him, and Allison released Cleo. The cat streaked off with a series of unhappy yowls.
“You’d think I tortured the creature,” she said.
“So you were upstairs, then?” he asked. “I wondered if something had happened—”
“I heard the bell, but I was in the middle of something that I couldn’t let go of...and so I just crossed my fingers that you’d be patient. Well, mentally crossed my fingers. I had a problem with a wall in Gran’s room, but I think I’ve got it licked.”
They started up the stairs. Kyle saw that, unlike last night, Allison had some spring in her step. A few hours’ sleep must have put her to rights. He couldn’t help but reach over and touch the white stuff on her nose. It was a chalky paste.
“What is this?” he asked, stopping at the first landing to examine his fingertip. “It feels like...not quite wood filler...drywall putty?”
