by Sara Whitney
Not Thea’s house though. It was located at the very end of the road and was far more modest than its showy neighbors. In fact, Thea’s house could be stowed inside the living rooms of most of the Point houses.
“If you have a house on Prospect, you go all out for the holidays. Everybody spends the weekend after Thanksgiving getting ready for all the traffic that drives by to see the decorations.” She pressed her forehead against the cold window glass, imagining twinkle lights lining the picture window and a cascade of pine and mistletoe gracing the front door. “Isn’t that nice?”
“It’s a Norman Rockwell nightmare.”
His reply was unapologetically horrified, and on instinct, she reached out and flicked a finger against his bicep. Even though it would barely have registered through all his winter layers, she froze, a nervous smile fixed on her face. They definitely didn’t have a touchy-feely relationship, and she’d probably made it weird.
But he just laughed and wrapped one of those workman’s hands around his upper arm. “Geez, killer. That’s some left hook.”
The pressure in her chest dissolved at the curl of lazy amusement in his voice. “Ha, sorry,” she said weakly. God, she hated when her natural exuberance went to war with her fear of rejection. But his grin assured her she’d worried for nothing yet again. Story of her life. She shrugged and returned to the topic. “After years of apartment living, the thought of being part of a community like that is intriguing.” Intriguing and a little scary actually. But there was no sense dwelling on whether she was brave enough to commit to a house before knowing if she could even afford the damn thing.
“So if the neighborhood is all about community, what caused this?” Aiden gestured toward the property in front of them.
She sighed. Age hadn’t been kind to her house. The timber beams badly needed a coat or three of paint, and the gutters sagged drunkenly off the roofline in all directions, soggy leaves and tufts of birds’ nests sticking out haphazardly.
“Okay, you know Faith Fox?” Thea asked. “She graduated in my year.”
“Faith Fox…” He frowned in thought. “Tall, blond hair, blue streaks?”
She nodded, and he shrugged. “Yeah, I’ve seen her around.”
Of course. Good ol’ Thea never got a second glance from Aiden in high school or beyond, but he knew exactly what the brash, gorgeous Faith looked like.
“Well.” She cleared her throat and pressed forward. “Faith’s parents know half the people on the block, and apparently the owner moved into assisted care about fifteen years ago. Mrs. Rebhetz’s family tried it as a rental property for a little bit but got tired of the maintenance, so it sat empty until she died last winter.”
She fought back a wave of sadness. Doris Rebhetz had loved this house and lavished it with care until she wasn’t able to anymore. Now more than anything, Thea wanted to be the person to set the house to rights and make it a beloved home once more, even if it required the biggest commitment she’d ever made.
“That’s a shame.” Aiden’s eyes moved across the bedraggled, overgrown landscape, dressed in the dead brown of winter.
“It is,” Thea said fiercely, her anger surging at the thoughtless family who let this beautiful place fall into disrepair. “I guess it took a little while for her estate to settle. I’ve had my Realtor friend stalking the listings for me, and… here we are.”
“What’s your renovation budget?” Aiden asked.
“Yeah. Umm, about that.”
The only good thing about 201’s sad state was that it made the listing price almost—almost—within the realm of affordability for her. If it were in even slightly better shape or anywhere approaching the size of its fancy neighbors, it would be comically far out of her price range. She gnawed on her lip for a second, then blurted out the renovation amount she’d calculated based on the house’s listed price, the estimated monthly payments, and the lack of zeroes in her bank account.
Aiden grabbed a zippered portfolio from the center console and opened it to jot the figure down. And then because she was still a little nervous and being nervous made her talkative, she filled the truck with more chatter.
“So it’s got three bedrooms, which is perfectly cozy, and a master bath with a claw-foot tub. Oh! And there’s a breakfast nook and built-in bookshelves, and I know the landscaping’s a mess, but I think there’s something salvageable in there once summer rolls around. And look! The front door’s round on top, like something out of the Shire.”
“Bilbo-approved,” Aiden said. “What else?”
She cut her eyes to him, searching for sarcasm, but his mouth was curved into a relaxed smile as his gaze traced the steep roofline, so she plowed ahead.
“I know its interior was last updated in like 1973, and since it was built near the turn of the century, I’m sure it has wiring issues and God knows what else, but I don’t want somebody to buy this house and tear it down so they can build something bigger and fancier,” she said. “Too many people overlook the small and the cute in favor of the extravagant and the obvious, and that’s too bad.” She blinked and stopped talking.
Aiden had turned in the passenger seat to face her, his eyes alight. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll give you a fair estimate of how much work it’s going to take to make your small little charmer into a habitable home.”
Before she started burbling a monologue of gratitude, the Realtor’s SUV pulled into the driveway behind them.
“Showtime.” Aiden tossed open the door and let a blast of cold air invade the cozy interior.
“Thea!” Melinda May, with her steel-wool hair and her red blazer peeking out from her faux-leopard coat, greeted her with a hug when they reached the round-topped hobbit door. “I didn’t know you were bringing your boyfriend.”
“Oh, he’s not my boyfriend!” Thea exclaimed, and Melinda looked more closely at him once they were inside and out of the cold.
“No, he’s definitely not.” She inclined her head. “You’re Aiden Murdoch.”
He returned her nod with a curious lift of his brows, and she explained, “Your company did a remodel on my office building about five years ago. Most of the girls took long lunch breaks when you were there working.”
“I had no idea I had fans in the real estate biz.” Aiden grinned as he said it, but it didn’t look as natural to Thea’s eyes as those white flashes of teeth he’d treated her to in the car.
Melinda nudged Thea. “You probably remember. You were answering my phones back then, right?”
“Sure was!” she chirped, glancing nervously at Aiden.
Now his smile was the real thing. “Did you take in the show over lunch, Ms. Blackwell?”
Busted for ogling half a decade later. That had to be some kind of record. She cleared her throat and spun toward the living room. “Smells musty,” she said loudly. Anything to get off the topic of the three weeks she’d spent eating turkey wraps and watching Aiden’s lean, strong arms flex as he climbed up and down a ladder.
“Not surprising. The grout around the stone at the entrance looks a little patchy. Water might’ve gotten in.” He’d jumped into all-work mode too, thank God. “You’ll want the home inspector to make sure it’s not a major leak or hiding a bunch of mold. It’s fixable but could be pricey.”
He brushed against her in the narrow entryway on his way to the living room, and she briefly imagined that she could feel the heat of his body through their thick winter coats.
“So are you still at the dentist’s office? That’s who you left me for, as I recall.”
Melinda’s words pulled Thea back. “Hmm? Oh no. That was”—she studied the ceiling as she counted back—“maybe four jobs ago?”
“Weren’t you working customer relations at the Beaucoeur zoo?” Aiden’s question came from the far end of the room, where he had his pen tucked behind his ear as he stretched a tape measure across the front window.
How the hell did he know about that? It had been her shortest employment stint to date
, at least until her ill-fated radio career. “Yep,” she said brightly. “After the dentist but before the bakery.”
He gave a hum of acknowledgment and went back to measuring, although Thea could feel the unspoken questions from both of them pressing against her: What is this chick’s problem with work?
God, if they only knew the half of it.
“Kitchen’s through that door.” Melinda took control of the walk-through again. “And it flows into the dining room, then the hallway leading to an office, a bathroom, and the stairs to the second floor.”
Aiden fiddled with the light switch on the wall. “Knob and tube wiring?”
“Used to be,” Melinda said. “They replaced it in the seventies.”
He nodded and scrawled another note as she herded them along. Thea ran a hand along the faded rose-patterned wallpaper in the hall on the way to the kitchen, stopping short in the doorway. “Wow.”
Aiden whistled long and low. “You can say that again.”
“Okay. Wooooow.” They stood side by side in silence, taking in the fussy, dark-stained cabinets with gaudy curlicue handles. The countertops were avocado, the worn linoleum had flecks of orange and green, and the crowning glory was the ancient harvest-gold refrigerator.
“Yes. It needs a little work,” Melinda acknowledged before she moved on to the dining room.
“‘A little’ is an understatement,” Aiden whispered.
She wrinkled her nose and whispered back, “Isn’t it awful?” Then she looked around again and pictured it when it was shiny and new. “I bet Doris was so excited when she picked it all out.”
“Nice thought.” He ran a finger through the dust that had accumulated on the kitchen windowsill. “It goes on the list. At least I don’t see any signs of busted pipes or vermin.”
“Vermin?” Thea glanced up at him sharply. “What kind?”
“Termites, spiders, sometimes rats.”
She took a nervous step toward him. “Rats?”
He slung an arm around her shoulder and gave her a quick squeeze. “Don’t worry. I’ll fend ’em off.”
She shuddered and allowed herself to shrink into his side for one brief, heady moment before pulling away to follow Melinda through the dining room and up the stairs to the second floor. She was intensely aware of Aiden right behind her on the steps, no doubt eye level with her butt. Not that he’d be tempted to take a peek.
The second floor was a little smaller than the first floor, with two bedrooms facing the street and the master suite facing the river. The ceiling in the bedroom was low enough that Aiden barely had to stretch to poke at the drop ceiling.
“Whatever’s under here has to be better than this.” He nudged her and gestured upward. “What do think? Skylight potential?” Before she could answer, he’d turned to Melinda. “What’s under this carpet?”
“Let’s find out.” She carefully knelt in her suit skirt and pried up a corner of the dusty shag carpeting, revealing scuffed wooden boards. “The original flooring was oak all through the house, I believe.”
“It’s hard to say what shape it’s in now,” Aiden said, more to himself than either of the women. “Might be nice if it’s refinished. Might be a disaster if it’s got too much damage though.”
He knelt to look more closely at the exposed bit of floor, adding more notes to his book. Thea had been nervous about spending so much time with him this afternoon, but his laid-back questions about the house had eased her jitters. Plus she really had worried for nothing after she’d swatted his arm in the truck. Aiden was a toucher—not inappropriately, but he didn’t hesitate to put a hand on her back to guide her toward the stairs or bump her shoulder to point out the glass-front, built-in bookcases along one wall in the bedroom. It chased away the last of her self-consciousness so much that when he came to stand next to her as she looked out of the sliding door that opened onto a balcony off the bedroom, she spoke without thinking.
“My dad loved this house.” The words were out before she could call them back, and Aiden tipped his head toward her as he listened. “Doris hired him every summer to maintain the landscaping, so he spent a lot of hours here. He always said it would be the perfect fairy-tale cottage for his princess.” Her eyes stung at the memory.
“I noticed the rosebushes outside. Do you think he planted those?” Aiden asked.
She’d seen the overgrown bushes too. “I do. As far as I know, nobody touched the landscaping after she moved out.” She couldn’t speak for a long moment as she battled back emotions at the thought of buying a house with roses that her father had selected and placed in the ground.
“Your dad’s the one who taught me how to prune rosebushes.”
She looked at him in surprise. “Did he? I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah. I was ten or so, and he joked that the Murdochs worked on the inside of houses and the Blackwells worked on the outside of houses.” He shifted from foot to foot. “That was just before he…”
“Yeah.” Before the cancer burned through him. Lee Blackwell died three months after his diagnosis, and Thea’s life changed overnight. A hot lump rose in her throat and she swallowed hard, relieved that Melinda had descended to the first floor and was out of earshot.
“Anyway.” She cleared her throat and willed away her melancholy. “I’ve been waiting my whole life for this house to go on the market, and now here we are.”
“Here we are,” he repeated, and together they turned back to the view of the river from the master bedroom. “Nice. I’m starting to think I should bid against you for this place. It’s got potential.”
She wheeled to face him, mouth open in horror. Then she saw his lips twitch. “Funny guy.” She jabbed her elbow into his ribs, no longer afraid of overstepping now that she knew how tactile he was. “Back off. I saw it first.”
He laughed and rubbed his side. “My God but you’re pointy, woman.”
They descended the stairs together, and Melinda busied herself in the front of the house, leaving the two of them alone in the glassed-in sunroom that ran the length of the house on the main floor. It had a spectacular view of the backyard and the bluff as it fell away to the river. At this time of day in February, the water caught the ruddy orange glow of the setting sun. They stood in the center of the empty room, the air turning their breath visible as they exhaled. They were silent for a few beats before Aiden spoke.
“I get why you want to bring this place back to life.”
It thrilled her that he saw the beauty of the house too. “What do you think? Is it hopeless?”
He squinted as he flipped through the notes he’d taken on the tour. The dying daylight painted him in stripes of orange and pink, and the thick eyelashes resting on his cheeks briefly distracted her from her worry that she’d never be able to afford the repairs. Then he tapped his pen on the paper in a quick little rhythm, drawing her attention away from his face.
“It’s not hopeless. The wiring’s old but in decent shape. The bathrooms look okay. Some of the problems are cosmetic, like the shag carpeting and the drop ceiling. Others are more serious. That kitchen’s a mess, and the exterior needs a whole overhaul. Oh, and I wouldn’t walk out on that balcony until a structural engineer examines it more closely.”
His pen never stopped moving as he spoke. “Of course, you’ll need an actual home inspection prior to purchase; that’ll tell you what shape the roof’s in. But here’s what I’m thinking.”
He pushed the pad under her nose, and she saw a circled dollar amount that brought tears to her eyes.
“This is only a rough estimate,” he said. “I’ll need to draw up an official bid back at the office…”
His voice trailed off at Thea’s shaky exhale.
“That’s… There’s no way I can afford that. Not along with actually buying the house.” Even with the money from her dad’s life insurance sitting in her account, she couldn’t make it stretch that far. The knowledge settled heavy on her heart, and she stared at the reflection
of the setting sun in the slow-moving river in front of them, blinking rapidly to keep the tears at bay.
Her dad had been wrong. She wasn’t a princess, and this wasn’t the house for her after all.
Four
Aiden parked in front of his parents’ white-shuttered ranch house but didn’t make a move to leave the cab of his truck. His was the third company vehicle on the property: his truck, license plate Murdoch 2, was on the street because Trip’s Murdoch 3 was already parked next to his dad’s Murdoch 1 in the driveway. Seeing the two trucks side by side ratcheted up his anxiety, as did the crooked mailbox at the edge of the property. It looked like someone had backed into it and hadn’t bothered to secure it to its base again, which was an unsettling departure in form for his persnickety father.
The slam of his parents’ front door pulled his attention to the porch where Trip stood waiting, arms crossed forbiddingly over his chest. Fuck, he hated this. He was built for chatting people up and organizing schedules, not fighting the people he loved over every decision. But judging by his brother’s scowl, not fighting wasn’t going to be in the cards today. Great.
He turned off the ignition and stepped outside, welcoming the cold bite of the metal on his skin when he pushed the door shut. He paused before walking up the sidewalk to face Trip and whatever was waiting for him at Sunday family dinner. Instead, he turned to the house across the street where grayish clumps of snow dotted the front yard. His gaze kept traveling until it landed on the wide driveway, and he was smacked by the memory of a knock-kneed little girl wobbling by on her first bicycle. Thea’d been the neighborhood socialite, always stopping to say hello to every neighbor she met and chattering away about school or unicorns or whatever it was that little girls were into.
And then her dad had died, and he hadn’t seen her again until his senior year of high school. He’d figured she had enough sadness in her life by then, so he and his newly forming player reputation had steered clear of her. And that’s how it’d been ever since. Casual hi, how are yous were the extent of their interaction over the past decade or so. Regret swirled in his stomach. He should’ve talked to her sooner, really talked to her, as someone who knew her full history.