by Amy Vastine
“Yeah, the bank was specific about not selling to Bonnie Windsor, but they didn’t say anything about the company she works for.”
Aaron hated that he couldn’t express how he really felt about this discrimination. His stomach turned at the reality of what his dad and sister were capable of doing. “Which bank am I dealing with here?”
“Golden State Bank. Jeff Caplan is in charge of this property.”
Cole Industries did plenty of business with Golden State Bank. Jeff Caplan had gone to high school with Lauren and Bonnie. His father played golf with Aaron’s father all the time. His mother participated in the planning committee for the Cole library gala every year. Clearly, Jeff had already received a call from someone in his family, but he was about to get another.
Aaron finished up with Brad and found the contact number for the bank. He had to make sure Bonnie could get the commission on this sale while keeping her name from getting back to his father. If not, there was no reason to even look at the house.
“I can’t believe your sister has even gone as far as calling the banks in town.” Bonnie was understandably livid. “Will anyone give clients of mine a loan? Is it even legal for them to refuse services to people because of whom they associate with?”
“Let me handle this,” Aaron assured her. Someone from the bank answered the call, and Aaron got straight to the point. “Aaron Cole for Jeff Caplan, please.”
After a short wait on hold, Jeff picked up. “Aaron! How are you? I don’t think I’ve seen you since that scramble at the club a month ago.”
“Hey, Jeff. It’s been too long.”
“We should get out there again soon. What can I do for you today, though?”
“I’m interested in buying the house that foreclosed on Greenbriar, but I have a question.”
“Awesome,” Jeff said, his fake enthusiasm gross. “Although I can’t imagine what you’d want with that dump.”
“I need to know that I can trust you to be discreet about my business with you if I do make an offer.”
“Of course.”
“Even if Bonnie Windsor was the one who submits the offer to your Realtor.”
“Excuse me?” Jeff’s shock was evident in his tone. “I’m not sure I understand. We were told it was in our best interest to not work with anyone associated with Bonnie if we wanted to keep our business relationship with Cole Industries. Why are you working with her if that’s the message we got?”
“Jeff, you’ve known Bonnie and my sister for a long time, correct?”
“I don’t know, maybe since grade school.”
“Have you ever known Bonnie to be anything but a kind and good-natured person?”
“Bonnie’s always been a real sweetheart. I was shocked to hear that she did what she did. I felt terrible for your sister.”
Aaron pinched the bridge of his nose. He couldn’t believe how easily people would believe a rumor even about someone they had known their entire life. It was incredible that so many of them would quickly choose a side without getting all the facts first. “Bonnie didn’t do anything to my sister. Bonnie is and always has been one of the sweetest people in all of Blue Springs. She is kind and generous. She doesn’t gossip about others or put people down. She has the patience of a saint. She is a good person, Jeff. That is why she is my Realtor, and that is why you should tell Brad that the bank will sell to anyone willing to buy the house.”
“Does your dad know about this?” Jeff asked a bit warily.
“Jeff, I am a twenty-nine-year-old man. I do not have to get my father’s permission to do anything. You are a twenty-seven-year-old man—do you need your father’s or my father’s permission to do your job?”
Jeff was quiet on the other end, and Aaron feared he had blown everything before he had a chance to see the first house Bonnie had found for him.
“I will let Brad know to send me your offer when it comes through.”
Aaron let out a relieved breath. “Thank you, Jeff. Way to man up.” He hung up and pulled back onto the road.
“Thank you for what you said.” Bonnie’s voice was much calmer. “About me.”
“I appreciated that as well,” David said.
Aaron made eye contact with Bonnie in the rearview mirror. She had the most beautiful eyes. They were the softest green and reminded him of spring. “It was the truth. More people need to know the truth.”
CHAPTER SIX
IT HAD BEEN a long time since someone said that many nice things about Bonnie to her face. She tried to be a nice person. She did her best to treat people the way she would want them to treat her. It was something her mother had not only preached but practiced as well.
Aaron had definitely given her the warm fuzzies. It was especially appreciated after all the negativity she had experienced this morning. It was still baffling that he was being so good to her. She understood why Jeff was confused about Aaron working with her.
Why would he risk so much potential backlash from his family for her? She still couldn’t wrap her head around it. He could have used any Realtor to find him houses. Bonnie wasn’t sure what she could offer that someone else couldn’t.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been on this side of town. It’s nice,” her dad said as they pulled up to the house on Greenbriar.
She had made an effort to find Aaron houses that had more to offer than just a chance for him to remodel. She also took into account that the properties were in areas where some teardowns had already begun popping up.
“I do love the location of this one,” she said. “It’s at the quiet end of the street. The lot is one of the biggest in the neighborhood.”
Aaron pulled into the driveway and put the car in Park. “I knew you would think this through, Bonnie.”
She punched in the code and retrieved the key while her father and Aaron walked around, inspecting the outside of the ranch home. It was built in the 1950s, and everything outside looked like it was original. The bushes were overgrown, and there was garbage scattered all over the front yard.
“Gonna need new gutters, and Lord only knows what the roof looks like up close,” her dad said. “Brick is in good shape. We could paint it to give it a face-lift.”
“Is that pile of bricks on the roof a broken chimney?” Aaron held a hand over his eyes to block the sun as he stared up at what did appear to be a crumbling chimney.
Bonnie unlocked the front door that was painted two different shades of blue. “I told you this place needs a lot of work. You two might be biting off more than you can chew with this one.”
“I don’t see anything that scares me away,” Aaron assured her.
“You haven’t even been inside yet.” She stepped back as she was hit by a horrific stench. It smelled like a mix of death and rotting food.
“I have a feeling I’m going to love it.” His grin was wide and toothy, forcing her to smile back. Heat warmed her neck and cheeks. An unfamiliar tingle danced across her skin. Aaron was proving himself to be more than she’d expected.
“Well, after you then,” she said, waving him in ahead of her.
Aaron waltzed into quite possibly the narrowest foyer on the planet and was quick to cover his nose and mouth with his hand. “Oh my goodness, did something die in here?”
Bonnie followed him in, plugging her nose and stepping over the pile of newspapers on the floor. There was no room for her dad to come inside until she moved into the living room straight ahead. Things weren’t any prettier in there. The former tenants must have left in a hurry. That or they realized all their stuff was trash. A broken, ripped-up couch was in the living room, along with piles of garbage. Old soda cans, more newspapers and fast food wrappers were scattered all around, along with one of the reasons it smelled the way it did. “I don’t know about something dying, but I’m pretty sure the last people to live here had a dog that wasn’t potty trained.
At least, I hope it was a dog and not something else.”
“I hope I can take this wall down,” Aaron said, running a hand across the floral wallpaper on the wall to his right. “What’s on the other side?”
Bonnie moved farther into the house. She peeked her head into the room Aaron was curious about. “I’m guessing it’s the dining room. There’s a hideous chandelier hanging in here.”
Walls would have to come down to give the place a true open concept. The kitchen was tiny, less than half the size of the dining room, and seemed like some kind of afterthought. It was as if the designer had realized they’d forgotten the kitchen and plopped it and a breakfast nook at the far end of the decent-size living room. Cabinets separated the two rooms instead of a wall. If she stood in front of the stove, she could look out into the living room. Bonnie hated everything about this layout.
“These guys really liked wallpaper,” Aaron noted as he joined her in the living room. “But I like the windows on either side of the fireplace.”
“Gives this room some good natural light,” her dad added. As if immune to the smell, he walked around like normal. He had his notebook out and a pencil behind his ear. He grabbed his pencil and started jotting down some notes. “We could take out all these walls and open this up. I would knock out this side of the kitchen and put in a large island.”
“Let’s check out the bedrooms.” Aaron’s excitement was as contagious as his smile. He took off for the other side of the house and came back shaking his head. “Master bath is way too small. And the fourth bedroom is the size of my walk-in closet. How terrible would it be if we got rid of the supersmall bedroom and made the master huge? Would people be happier with having three good-size bedrooms compared to four small bedrooms? Or is it more desirable to have more bedrooms regardless of size?”
Bonnie made a note on her phone. “I can run some comps in the area and compare the two. Generally, the more bedrooms you can list, the more you can ask, but if you give people three amazing bedrooms, the wow factor might pay off.”
Bonnie and her dad went back there to check it out. The bathroom and the closet each took up a corner of the far end of the bedroom, with a gap in between that served little purpose. There was a window there, looking out to the backyard, but it certainly didn’t add anything significant to the room.
“I think you could definitely knock down this wall, get rid of this little hallway going to the master and make all this a giant master suite. Blow out the wall of the bathroom, make that whole area back up to the closet en suite. We could even come this way into the room and make more space in the closet and bathroom if we’re going to add square footage on this end by adding the fourth bedroom and hall to the master.”
It was hard to picture what he was saying. Bonnie didn’t have the ability to envision changes the way her dad did, but Aaron was nodding along like he could see it all.
With one hand on his hip and the other covering his nose and mouth, Bonnie could see by the way the skin around his eyes crinkled that a grin was back on his face. “I want this house,” Aaron said.
How could he fall in love with this pigsty? What did he see that she didn’t?
“You should really have my dad look at things a bit more, let me check some of the comps in the area and run some numbers for you before you jump all in, Aaron. I know money is no object, but the point is to make a profit so you don’t have to spend your savings on the next house as well.”
“What do you think, David? Do you think we could handle this?”
“I think Bonnie’s right about looking at the numbers. I can do the work, but it’s going to cost a ton. We’d be gutting the place. Who knows what the electrical looks like. We should get a better look at that roof.”
Aaron seemed to hear something completely different than Bonnie did. “There you have it,” he said. “Your dad can help me with everything. This is the house I want. I don’t need to see any others. Its potential is huge, and I can’t wait to get my hands dirty to make it beautiful.” He strode confidently past Bonnie and her father into the living room.
Bonnie wasn’t sure why she hadn’t expected him to act like a typical Cole. Coles got what they wanted because they didn’t take no for an answer. They didn’t have to worry about being wasteful with their money. This was exactly what Bonnie had been worried about—that Aaron would make decisions based on his emotions and she’d have to stress about him walking away if things went badly, leaving her dad high and dry.
“You really should let me run some comps at the very least.” As she followed him into the trash-littered living room, some kind of vermin came running out of the kitchen. Bonnie did what any self-respecting woman in that situation would do. She screamed bloody murder and practically climbed onto Aaron’s shoulder.
* * *
BONNIE WINDSOR WAS afraid of mice? That would have been hilarious if Aaron wasn’t equally terrified of those disease-carrying creatures. There was something about them that gave him the creeps. They were so small and quick. It was like they had no bones in their bodies, because they could squeeze themselves through something as tiny as a buttonhole. Not to mention they did freakish things like run up pant legs or nibble on people if they get too close.
Aaron somehow managed to hop up on the dilapidated couch with Bonnie on his back. “Are there more?” he asked David, who seemed completely unfazed by the possibility that this house was infested with rodents.
“You two going to be all right over there?” David said with a chuckle. “Two grown adults afraid of one teeny mouse.”
“I am not coming back inside this house until you two have finished remodeling it,” Bonnie said. She set her feet down on the couch as well.
Aaron turned to face her, holding her waist to steady them both. “So you’ll put in the offer for me?”
“If you still want this house after you see the numbers, I’ll put in the offer. It’s your money.” Her tone made it clear she thought he was foolish.
As much as his sister would hate him for thinking it, he couldn’t help but notice how pretty Bonnie was, even when she was being a little sassy. “As long as you and your dad get paid, you couldn’t care less, right?”
“That’s why we’re here,” she said, pushing him away and getting off the couch. “Because my dad and I need to work. Something your family has made it almost impossible for us to do.”
“Hey,” her dad snapped. “Aaron is not responsible for what the other people in his family have done. He’s as much to blame for what is happening to us as you are for Lauren and Mitch not being married. Remember that.”
Aaron was impressed with David’s level head. He was grateful the man could see him as more than a last name.
“This house is going to be the first of many your dad and I are going to flip in Blue Springs. I’d say trust me if I thought there was any chance of that happening.”
“Well, there’s not.”
“Bonnie!” David was visibly disappointed.
“Dad, I heard what you said. I don’t blame him for what’s happened, but that doesn’t mean I trust him to do right by us. I have no idea what we’re getting ourselves into. Right now, all I know is that he wants to buy this pit. I know when Lauren finds out that he hired me to find this house for him, she’ll do whatever she can to make me pay for it. And when his dad finds out he hired you to help him remodel this house, he will also make me pay for it.”
Aaron got off the couch. It was clear that Bonnie’s fear of his family was greater than their fear of mice. He needed to squash some of that right now. He took his phone out of his pocket and dialed Lauren and put the call on speaker.
“Aaron,” Lauren said, answering the call.
“I need you to hear something, and I need you to hear it from me first.” Aaron took note of how wide Bonnie’s eyes got in that moment. She shook her head. He mouthed to her that it was fine. Ev
erything would be fine. He wasn’t going to tell her everything, just enough to make Bonnie relax.
“Oh, I can’t wait to hear this. Why do I fear you have done something that is going to make Daddy even madder than he already is?”
“I am sure the fact that I am not coming back to work for him will make Dad mad, but that is not going to deter me from following my own path.”
“And what path is that, dear brother?”
“I am going to flip houses. In fact, I have already found the first house I want to buy and flip.”
Bonnie had her hands over her ears and continued to shake her head from side to side.
“You’re going to flip houses?” his sister replied in disbelief. “What in the world do you know about flipping houses?”
“I know a little, but I’ve hired someone who knows a lot so he can teach me as I go along.”
“Oh, really?”
“I hired David Windsor.” Silence came from the other end. Bonnie not only had her ears covered, but now she turned her back as if not being able to see would prevent what came next. Unfortunately, he had to come clean about something else. “Dad contacted every contractor in town. No one would work with me, so I had no choice but to work with David since Dad let him go the other day.”
Still nothing from Lauren. It was quite possible, given how quiet it was on the other end of the line, that she had put him on mute while she screamed. Or maybe she was taking it better than he thought she would. The former being the most likely. Bonnie’s eyes were on him now. She looked just as mad as Lauren probably was.
“I know you’re probably angry,” he said to both of them. “But I need you to understand that Dad backed me into a corner and I didn’t have any other options. I’m not doing this to hurt you and really do have a lot of respect for David. He’s a good man, and I’m grateful to him for working with me.”
The call disconnected.
“I’m dead,” Bonnie said, throwing her hands in the air. “I thought it was bad when I couldn’t buy milk. I’ll probably get stoned in the middle of the street now.”