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“The sooner, the better,” Jo said as they turned into Noel’s driveway.
“Want me to come in with you and set them free?” Riley offered as she took out the cage for Noel.
“No, I can do this,” she said as much to herself as her friend. “But I will definitely call you to come back and help me catch them.”
“Okay. Good luck in your mission,” Riley said and hugged her. Then the sisters roared off down the road, leaving her alone with the rats.
She carried her new houseguests into the house, holding the cage as far away from her as possible. This was too, too creepy. But she’d have brought home a boa constrictor if it would keep away the competition.
The house wasn’t a mansion. In fact, it was small, with only two bedrooms. But it had a bay window in the living room and a brick fireplace that she loved using in the winter, with a mantel just right for hanging Christmas stockings, and a built-in china cabinet in the dining room. The lawn at the back of the house wasn’t much, but it was the right size for a puppy...which she fully intended to get once she owned the place and was free of the no-pets rule. She loved sitting out on the patio in the summer, smelling the honeysuckle that grew on the side of the house and working on her books. The kitchen cabinets and floor vinyl were both as old as time. The windows tended to sweat in the winter and the hardwood floor was scratched up, but none of that bothered her. Someday, when she had money, she’d replace the windows and refinish the floor, refinish the kitchen cabinets, and this old place would sparkle like the gem it was. Meanwhile, though, she loved it, and she wasn’t going to give it up.
She glanced around at her tidy living room with the apartment-size, cream-colored sofa and matching chair, the rocking chair that had been her grandma’s, the fall candle arrangement on the coffee table. Ugh. It all looked way too inviting. She couldn’t do anything to the house itself, but she could at least cut down on the cozy factor. She set down the cage and got to work messing up the room, putting away the candles and throwing some sofa pillows on the floor. In the kitchen she pulled dirty dishes out of the dishwasher and scattered them on the kitchen counter. There. That was better. Now, all she had to do was set loose the vermin.
Oh, wait. Did she want rats climbing on her sofa pillows? She put them back on the sofa. Okay, it was showtime.
She approached the cage as if it bore two ravenous tigers, reaching out a tentative hand to the latches on the little door. “You can do this,” she told herself. Honestly, she was a huge, powerful human. They were only the size of her feet.
Rats the size of her feet running around the house!
She held her breath and opened the door, granting them freedom to pillage her place, then dashed for the sofa. Rats couldn’t climb furniture, could they?
She huddled there and watched as the stupid things stood at the door of their cage and sniffed. “Come on, already, get out and do your duty.” What was the problem here? Were they agoraphobic? She left the sofa and crept to the cage, giving it a wiggle. The rats planted their feet. Great. Just great. She’d brought home defective rats.
But no, now one was poking its nose out of the cage. Then, next thing she knew, he was out. With a screech she ran back to the sofa.
Brother rat came out, too, and she sat helplessly watching as they scuttled around her living room, sniffing and exploring. She was never going to be able to leave her sofa. And, oh, how dumb! Her cell phone was in her purse on the hall table. How would she ever be able to call Riley to come over and help her put them back in their cage? Doomed. She was doomed to stay on her sofa for the rest of her life like some poor flood victim camped on her roof, hoping for a helicopter.
The mantel clock told her she only had half an hour before the invaders arrived. Of course, now she had to go to the bathroom. Maybe she could wait until Mrs. Bing came. Maybe Mrs. Bing and the potential house thief would distract the rats long enough for her to dash to the bathroom. This had been such a stupid idea.
She nibbled her lip. She really had to go.
She was going to have to be brave. Time to make a break for the bathroom. The rats were over there, on their way to the kitchen. She was clear over here. She could do this. She put one tentative foot down and then the other. One of the little beasties lifted its gray head and looked at her. Looked right at her!
Eeeee! She dashed for the bathroom and shut herself in. She was never coming out.
She kept her vow until she heard her front door open, followed by the sound of voices, one feminine, the other masculine. Mrs. Bing and the interloper. Suddenly Noel had no idea what to do. Should she stay in the bathroom with the door locked? Ha! Not a bad plan. They’d both try the door and not be able to open it, yet another sign of a flawed house.
“This was my mother’s home,” Mrs. Bing said. “She lived in it for fifty years. As you can see, it has a lot of charm.”
Dear God, please let him be blind.
Footsteps moved from the hall into the living room and Noel opened the door and stuck her head out, trying to hear.
“Windows will have to be replaced,” said the voice.
Yes, too expensive. You don’t want a house where you have to replace the windows.
“What the hell?”
He must’ve seen the rats. Hee, hee.
“Oh, my!” cried Mrs. Bing. “We’ve never had rats in this house.”
Noel crept down the hall and peered around the door frame into the living room. There was Mrs. Bing in all her glory, wearing a faux fur coat over a tentlike green dress that made her look like a Christmas tree. Atop that Christmas tree sat a face like a pumpkin with Chia Pet hair.
Next to her stood a tall, dark-haired man with a body to match his manly voice. He wore jeans and a black sweater and an old, leather jacket and had black stubble on his chin. His eyes were brown. And his mouth...it was lifted in a half smile.
“Those are domestic,” he said, and pointed to the cage.
Darn. Why hadn’t she hidden the stupid cage? Oh, yeah. Terror.
“That’s impossible,” Mrs. Bing said in shock. “Noel knows I have a no-pet policy.”
Noel decided it was time to show herself. “I’m keeping them for a friend. She’s a teacher. She’s coming to get them tonight.”
“Why are they out of the cage?” Mrs. Bing demanded.
Jailbreak? Noel had a very creative mind; why couldn’t she think of something? “Um, the latch on their door must have jiggled loose.” Did that sound lame to anyone besides her?
“Well, put them back,” Mrs. Bing ordered.
“Now?” She’d have a heart attack right here.
“Don’t worry,” said the interloper. “I’ll get ’em.”
She watched as he chased down the first rat and bent to pick up the disgusting little squeaker. Nice butt. Oh, who cared?
“You didn’t need to be home,” Mrs. Bing told Noel as the unwanted visitor scooped up Useless Rat Number Two and stuck him back in the cage with Useless Rat Number One.
“I was done shopping,” Noel said. “I wanted to come home and...check for leaks.” Ha! Brilliant. No one would want to buy a house with leaks.
Mrs. Bing’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “When did you notice a leak, Noel?”
Noel’s guilty conscience started a fire on her cheeks. “I thought I saw water the day before yesterday. In the kitchen.”
“Really.” Mrs. Bing was not fooled.
The rats were safely in the cage now. “Let’s go look,” said the interloper.
So they all trooped out to the kitchen to look.
The kitchen was as cheerful and warm as ever with its yellow walls. Noel and Riley had painted those walls last summer. She’d even sprung for the paint herself. All the love she’d been pouring into this house and Mrs. Bing was going to sell it out from under her just like that. Mrs. Bing was an ingrate.
“Where exactly was the leak?” asked Mrs. Bing.
“Uh, over by the window. I think.”
The interloper gave the window and surrounding wall a checkup. “No signs of water damage. But the counters need replacing.”
“The counters are fine,” Noel informed him and he raised an eyebrow.
“Come on. I’ll show you the rest of the house,” Mrs. Bing said. “Noel, you can wait down here.”
“That’s okay. I’ll come with you,” Noel said. Her rent was paid up. She had every right to join the home tour.
They walked from room to room, the interloper seeing ways he could change every one.
“You know, this house is very nice just as it is,” Noel informed him.
The interloper cocked his head. “Yeah? Then why don’t you buy it?”
“I want to. Mrs. Bing knows that,” Noel said and looked accusingly at her landlady.
Mrs. Bing’s cheeks turned rosy. “Noel, if you had the money I’d sell it to you.”
“Noel, pretty name,” said the interloper. He thrust out a hand for her to shake. “Mine’s Ben, Ben Fordham.”
Noel put her own hands behind her back. “What do you intend to do with this house, Ben Fordham?”
“I intend to fix it up.”
“And then what? It needs a family, people to live in it and love it.” Okay, she was lecturing now.
No, no. She wasn’t lecturing. She was getting in touch with her inner Marvella Monster, chasing away a predator.
He held up his left hand. “Not married.”
“Well, then...” Suddenly it dawned. “You don’t want this house for yourself. You’re going to flip it.”
“I’m going to fix it up and sell it to a family who will love it.”
Fix it up? Ha! He was going to destroy its character. Noel turned to Mrs. Bing. “Mrs. Bing, please don’t sell the house to this...this...Scrooge. He only wants it so he can make a profit. Please let me rent to own or give me time to come up with a down payment. I love this place. I’ll take care of it.”
“I saw how you’re taking care of it with the dirty dishes on the counter,” Mrs. Bing said, pursing her lips.
“I never have dirty dishes on the counter, really. That was...” Noel was aware of Ben the Bad Man looking at her.
“Camouflage?” he guessed. “Like the rats and the so-called leak.”
She wasn’t too proud to beg. “I’m sure you can find other houses to buy.”
“Of course I can,” he said, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Until he added, “But not at this price point.” He turned to Mrs. Bing. “Why don’t we go back to your house and talk?”
Nodding, Mrs. Bing started down the hall.
Ben the Bad Man turned to follow her and Noel caught him by the arm. “Please don’t buy this house.”
He looked down at her pityingly. “This is nothing personal. It’s just business.” Then he gently disengaged his arm and trailed Mrs. Bing down the hall. “Nice meeting you, Noel.”
“I wish I could say the same,” she called after him then leaned against the wall and wished all manner of Christmas disasters on him. She hoped he fell off a ladder while hanging Christmas lights and broke his leg. No, make that both legs. She hoped his dog bit him. And if he didn’t have a dog she hoped all the dogs in the neighborhood would poop on his lawn. She hoped Santa would drive right by his house or, better yet, drive over it and dump an entire load of coal down his chimney. She hoped...he’d have a change of heart. Maybe he’d have a dream and get visited by a bunch of ghosts showing him what a bad boy he was.
Or maybe, just maybe, she could find a way to win him over.
Chapter Four (#u6bb90c9d-0f9e-5c55-aa0f-fa78f3b99f22)
Riley called Noel shortly after the invaders had left. “How’d it go?”
“He wasn’t fooled. And he wants to buy the house and flip it. He’s talking about taking down walls and ripping out counters and all kinds of things. He’ll ruin its character.”
“Too bad the rats didn’t work.”
“Please don’t say that word,” Noel begged, looking over at the useless rodents in their cage.
“Sorry. I’ll come over and collect them for you.”
“No need. The house thief already did that.”
“He saw the cage?”
“What can I say? I screwed up. It’s just that they had me so icked out I couldn’t concentrate.”
“We’ll think of something,” Riley said. “And I’ll come and get them tomorrow, okay?”
“In the morning?” If she had to look at them all day...
“Yes, and don’t worry. I’m sure this will all work out.”
Perhaps, but meanwhile, she had to be proactive. She said goodbye to Riley then pulled out her laptop and did an internet search for Ben Fordham. She found him under Fordham Enterprises. We Turn Nightmares into Dream Homes, he promised on his website. And there was a picture of the dream-maker himself. He looked like an HGTV star in his jeans and T-shirt and tool belt, with his muscles and dark hair and trust-me smile. He was on the front porch of a pretty Victorian, sitting on the railing, one leg dangling casually. Underneath that was a before-and-after example of his work, two shots of the same house. In one it resembled something out of a Halloween movie, with peeling paint and a front lawn overrun by unruly shrubs; in the other, it had turned into a sweet, two-story charmer with a freshly mowed lawn and flowers blooming along its front walk. Very impressive.
But her house wasn’t a nightmare. And she had her own plans for turning it into a dream home.
She poked around the site, checking out more examples of what he did. Various pages offered visitors a chance to sell a property (You need out, we’ll step in) or buy property (We did the work, you reap the benefits), and his contact information gave not only his email address but the physical address and phone number of his business, as well. She knew that building. It was downtown, around the corner from the Wiltons’ hardware store. It had once been a little on the derelict side, but now housed both his business and a real estate office, plus an escrow company and an interior decorator. Very handy. No doubt he worked hand in glove with the Realtor, and she supposed the home-decorating woman helped him stage his stolen homes.
Stolen was about what they were, she was sure. He probably never paid full market value, probably preyed on poor widows who were desperate for money. Like Mrs. Bing.
Except Mrs. Bing drove a new car and lived in a rambler in a nice neighborhood. Noel didn’t believe she needed the money as badly as she claimed. Of course, in all fairness to Mrs. Bing, you never really knew about a person’s personal finances.
Still, darn it all, she’d been providing the woman with a monthly income in the form of rent for two years now. Why couldn’t Mrs. Bing have given her a chance? Greed. It came down to that.
Well, she wasn’t going to let her house go without a fight.
That’s the spirit, whispered Marvella, who sometimes hung around even when Noel wasn’t working on a story.
She returned to the Fordham Enterprises home page and studied her nemesis. What a phony, insincere smile! She studied that naked ring finger on his left hand. The man was single, which might make him susceptible to female persuasion. A hot outfit, a plate of cookies...
Except, unlike Riley, she was a lousy baker. Okay, then, wine. Most people liked wine and that was more sophisticated, anyway. She knew nothing about it, but there was a new shop in town that sold wine. They could help her choose something classy.
That took care of the bribe. The hot outfit was another matter. The clothes in her closet fell into the lukewarm category.
