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World Week was one of the top news magazines in the country, covering international affairs, finance, politics and the arts. “Wow. That must be fascinating.”
“It is. Obviously the nature of my job requires me to cover war zones, famines, devastation both natural and human made. As you can imagine there isn’t a Starbucks on every corner.”
She sipped her own coffee, for once stopping to enjoy the flavor. How often did she even really taste her morning brew? But, with only thirty-four minutes left, she couldn’t waste time savoring coffee. She had work to do.
“Do you have a wife and family?”
The question obviously startled him. He nearly choked on his coffee. “No.”
“Are you planning to live in this house?”
She asked it innocently, but he had to know where this was going.
A crease formed between his eyebrows. She could see that he was actually thinking about her question. She decided to help him along. “A house this size might not fit with your lifestyle. I imagine you’re not home very much.”
“See the thing is—”
He stopped talking when they both heard the front door open and a female voice called, “Can I come in?”
Julia. “Sure. In the kitchen,” she called back.
“So the coast is clear.” And then Julia walked in, a swish of red cashmere coat and black pants, saw the man sitting there and said, “Oh.”
His lips twitched, which made her feel once more that strange sense of connection with him. “Julia, this is Robert Klassen.”
“I go by Rob,” he said as they shook hands.
“Hi, Rob,” she said, and flicked Hailey a glance. “Are you interested in buying Bellamy House?”
“I might be, if I didn’t already own it.”
In a few seconds Hailey had filled her friend in on the situation. Julia poured herself a coffee and sat down. “It’s great that you’re here to see Hailey at work. She’s fantastic. This place will sell in no time.” She turned to Hailey. “How did the MacDonalds like it? I think we were genius to stage the small bedroom as a nursery.”
“I think they’re interested,” Hailey said, keeping her tone carefully neutral.
“They’re not the right people for this house,” Robert Klassen, call-me-Rob, announced.
Hailey and Julia exchanged glances. The unspoken message being trouble ahead.
There was an awkward silence, then Julia broke it. “I dropped by to see if you want me to finish the staging on Tuesday night. I had to rush on the upstairs.”
“Don’t you have a date Tuesday night?” Hailey had been so excited about the blond guy that she had added a notation to her agenda just so she’d remember to phone and ask how the date had gone.
“No. He had to postpone. His business trip has been extended. He’s got to go to Nigeria next week. I’ll meet him the week after.”
“Oh, too bad.”
“Gives me time to lose a couple more pounds before we meet.” She turned to Rob. “We connected through LoveMatch.com.”
“What kind of work does he do?” Rob asked.
“He’s a civil engineer.”
Hailey said, “I’m not sure about Tuesday. Can I let you know?”
“Sure.” Julia took another quick sip of coffee, and then rose. “Sorry to run, but I’ve got to write up a staging proposal and head to an old friend’s baby shower. And I’m already running late. Nice to meet you, Rob.”
“You, too.”
“I’ll call you,” Hailey said.
When her friend had gone, she only had twenty minutes to convince this man to let her keep the listing. She opened her mouth to get back to business when he surprised her.
“So your friend hasn’t met that guy?”
“What guy?”
“The one she has the date with?”
“No. Not yet. Why?” He was messing with her careful arguments on why she should keep this listing. And besides, what business was it of his if two people he didn’t know had a date?
“Tell her he’s probably a scammer.”
“What?”
“Nigeria is the scam capital of the world. And something about ‘civil engineer’ sounds fishy to me.”
“How can you be so judgmental? She’s talked to him on the phone. I’m sure it’s fine.”
“Maybe. You spend long enough in the news business, you get an instinct.” Between telling prospective buyers ghost stories and trying to kill her friend’s happy buzz, she wasn’t too sure about his supposed instincts. Apparently he didn’t have much of an instinct for dodging bullets. “Just tell her, whatever she does, not to send the guy money.”
“All right. Fine.” She shifted and glanced at her watch. “Can we talk about us?”
He had the sexiest way of looking at her. She’d known the man all of about an hour and every time he looked at her thoughts she had no business thinking flitted through her mind.
“Us?”
As their gazes connected, she thought maybe Julia had a point. It had been way too long since she had sex if a shaggy drifter who was trying to mess with her career could make her overheated with a mere glance. She crossed her legs. “You know what I meant. The listing.”
He leaned back in his chair, savored another sip of coffee. Then he said, “Okay. Here’s what I propose. You can keep the listing. I’ll be living here so you have to work around me. I don’t want open houses. Appointment only. We’ll see how it goes.”
She was so relieved not to find herself fired before she’d started that she nodded. “Okay.” However, she wasn’t a complete fool or a pushover. “I have a condition of my own.” And she drilled him with her serious-business-woman look. “No more stories about your grandmother dying in that bed. As I’m sure Mrs. Neeson taught you, if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”
4
AFTER THE HOT REALTOR LEFT, Rob drained the rest of the coffee into his mug and began to wander through the house.
She was right, of course. It didn’t make any sense for him to keep the place. It was too big, with maintenance issues always cropping up. It was a house meant for a family, and now that his grandmother was gone, he didn’t have one anymore.
Maybe he hadn’t been able to say goodbye formally at her funeral, but he could for damn sure make certain that the next people who lived in this house were a family his grandmother would have approved of.
He suddenly realized that was what had brought him back to Seattle.
He needed to hand on the house to the right people. Then maybe he could let his memories go and get back to his regular life.
If he owed anything to Agnes Neeson’s memory it was not to let weenies who were scared of their own shadows live in her place.
He didn’t have much of an idea what he was going to do with himself for the next several weeks, apart from get his strength back, so he called Dr. Greene’s office and wasn’t remotely surprised to get an appointment that very afternoon.
HAILEY BARELY MADE the weekly office meeting at Dalbello and Company, sliding in as the office manager was in the midst of his weekly speech. Normally she worked from home, not interested in renting an overpriced desk. She dropped by to use the photocopy machine and to visit with her mentor and friend, Hal Wilson, who’d been in the business for thirty years.
She saw Hal standing near the water cooler and went over to him. “Did I miss anything?” she whispered.
“Ted says listings are up overall in the city and the house prices are starting to creep up.”
“Good news.” There were about thirty Realtors in the open area where they held the weekly meetings. Rows of desks stretched out behind her all currently empty. Two high-end printers and photocopiers sat to the side underneath a line of windows. A big whiteboard dominated this end of the room.
Ted told a couple of jokes, gave them a weekly sales tip, and then moved on to the reason she had raced to get here.
“Let’s look at the new listings.”
He boomed out the listings like an auctioneer. The standard mix of houses, condos, a couple of commercial properties. “And Bellamy House. Listed by Hailey Fleming. Her biggest listing yet and the biggest listing for our office this week.” He turned to her with a big two-thumbs-up. “Way to go, Hailey!” He started clapping and all the assembled Realtors joined in.
Sure it was cheesy, but the clapping and cheering worked to make her feel more confident.
Naturally she didn’t bother sharing with a group of sharks, all of whom would love to list and sell Bellamy House, that her listing was hanging by a thread.
When the meeting was over, a stylish redhead walked over to Hailey and Hal. “Congratulations again.” Her name was Diane and her congrats were as fake as her smile. She was a successful Realtor with a reputation for ruthlessness. “When’s the agents’ open?”
She shook her head. “The client’s very clear. He doesn’t want any opens. I’ve got photos on my website. Give me a call if you’ve got clients who might be interested. We’ll arrange a private showing.”
“Will do.” Diane asked a couple of questions about the kitchen and made a few notes, then walked off when her cell phone buzzed.
When Diane was out of earshot, Hal said, “I heard she tried to get that listing. She has a contact in the hospital. If a property owner dies, she hears about it before next of kin.”
“No!”
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t put it past her.”
Good thing the lawyer was a family friend. “Hal, I’ve got a problem. I need some advice.”
“Okay.”
She told Hal about Rob and the tentative agreement they had that she could keep the listing as long as she didn’t disturb him. “I’m sure the MacDonalds would have made an offer if he hadn’t scared them off with stories of his grandmother dying upstairs in the bedroom.”
Hal took his time answering her, finally, saying, “This is a great opportunity for you. I don’t want you to lose it.”
“Me neither.”
“Some clients don’t even know what they want. Sounds like he’s one. You’re going to have to manage him.”
“Manage him? How?”
“Hailey, my dear. Use one of your greatest assets. Your charm.”
DR. GREENE’S OFFICE smelled the same as it had for the thirty years he’d been dragged here, Rob thought, as he sat leafing through an ancient golf magazine. And the decor hadn’t changed since he was a kid either, he realized as he shifted on the cracked vinyl seat in the waiting room. He tossed the magazine aside. He didn’t even like golf. He took out his phone and checked his email. Nothing interesting.
He hated waiting rooms. Hated anything with the word waiting in it. He checked the time on his phone. He’d been here fifteen minutes. It wasn’t even his idea to be under a doctor’s care. Damn Gary and his officious dictates. So his leg hurt. It would heal.
A mom and her kid emerged from the treatment room. The kid hunch-shouldered and coughing. This family doctor was so old-fashioned he only had one room. As soon as the outer door closed behind the cougher and his mom, the receptionist, Carol, who’d been sitting behind that old oak counter since before Rob was born nodded toward him. “You can go on in.”
Horace Greene had to be closing in on seventy. His hair, what was left of it, was salt-and-pepper, his beard was Santa Claus–white and his pale blue eyes focused as keenly as ever from behind bifocal lenses. Doc Greene had been his grandmother’s family doctor longer than he’d been alive, and if he had a family doctor, he supposed it was this one. Doc rose to his feet as Rob limped into his office and held out a hand.
“Rob, how you doing?”
“Been better, Doc.”
The physician gestured to the oak chair in front of his scarred oak desk and took his own seat on the other side. “Haven’t seen you in a long time. How long’s it been?”
“Must be five years.”
He nodded. He might be chitchatting, but Rob wasn’t fooled. Those old eyes didn’t miss a thing. “Sorry about your grandmother passing. It was a big loss for you.”
“Yeah.”
“And what’s this? You’re limping. What happened?”
“I got shot.”
If Doc was surprised by the news he didn’t show it. “Mmm-hmm, so when was this? Who’s looked at it?” He pulled out a notepad and began scribbling.
“About a week ago. On assignment in Libya. My boss pulled some strings and got me in to a military surgeon. He took some X-rays, said there were no remaining fragments. Gave me a few stitches and told me I was good to go.”
Doc glanced at him over his glasses and said, “I bet he or she also told you to use crutches.”
The military surgeon had said that and a few other less complimentary things. He shrugged. “You know what a fast healer I am. You’ve always said I’ve got a head like a rock.”
“But you’re not bullet-proof. I should take a look at the wound.”
“I’m going to need a report from you that says I’m cleared to go back to work.”
Doc Greene rose and headed for his treatment room adjoining the office. “Drop your duds and let’s have a look.”
Rob followed him, trying his hardest not to limp, and soon found himself sitting on the exam table, his pants folded over a chair, his leg bared to the doctor’s prying gaze. And fingers. “Ow.”
“No discharge on the bandage and the wound is healing nicely.” Doc nodded, tossing the old bandage into the trash. “You said it’s been a week since the injury. We’ll redress that for you and it should be okay.”
The older man fussed around in a cabinet, taking out the things he’d need. “I’m putting on a dry dressing,” he said as he began. “Dry gauze and tape. As soon as the wound stops weeping you can leave it open to the air to speed healing. That should happen in the next few days. Pat dry after showers.”
