GLENN POTTER DROVE HIS OVERSIZED SUV LIKE HE HAD A death wish.
Jake was thankful that he’d belted himself in when they pulled away from the last rental house Glenn had shown him.
“This next place just came on the market. I haven’t even seen it myself.” Without taking his eyes off the road, Glenn reached into the backseat of his Land Cruiser, rifled through an open briefcase and finally pulled out a manila folder. The car swerved to the left and started to cross the center line.
They were speeding away from a view home in town. Everything Glenn had shown him had been too large, too pricey, too modern for Jake’s taste, even if he did have any intention of renting something for the summer.
So far he had wasted an hour and a half with Potter. They’d talked baseball and investments, but Jake hadn’t yet broached the subject of Carly Nolan.
Glenn stuffed the folder in the space between his seat and the center console. As the realtor continued to chat amiably, Jake wondered why in the hell Glenn had put their lives in jeopardy to grab the folder if he wasn’t even going to look at it.
“This next place is an old house with quite a history. Seems it was built in the twenties by a silent film star. Craftsman style. Wood frame construction with river rock and shiplap siding. Owned by the same family since it was built.” He jerked the wheel to the left to avoid a pothole and put the car in four-wheel drive and passed a sign marked Lover’s Lane as they started up a winding, narrow gravel road. They crossed the rolling hillside above the scenic overlook Jake had stopped at yesterday.
“It’s been years since any of the family has even come to California. They live back in Massachusetts or New Hampshire or one of those cold New England states. The matriarch recently passed on, and the estate is being settled, which they claim will take months. The family is interested in leasing the house with an option to buy, but they can’t give any firm time frame yet.”
“Sounds interesting.” Jake gripped the armrest and concentrated on the view from Lover’s Lane as the car wound its way up the hillside. The panorama of the coastline and the cove below went from stunning to spectacular as they climbed higher. Billowing white sails of boats skimming the water contrasted with the deep green ocean. Nothing other than jet contrails marred the azure sky.
They dipped into an arroyo, took the right fork in the road and passed a derelict wooden no trespassing sign.
A horseshoe-shaped, gravel drive curved back on itself in front of the house. Glenn Potter slid to a stop, exciting a cloud of dust. He set the brake. When the dust finally settled, he took one look at the house and shook his head.
“Wow. I’ve really wasted your time on this one.” He pulled the file out of the crack beside his leather upholstered bucket seat, flipped it open, and made some notes on a long listing sheet tucked inside.
Jake caught a glimpse of a smiling Ken and Barbie head-shot of Glenn Potter and his wife imprinted on the upper left corner of the page. He turned away to study the house.
No movie star had crossed the threshold in decades. The place was beyond quaint. He couldn’t even call it rustic. No doubt it had passed the “fixer-upper” stage ten years ago.
It was a dump. A tear down.
Jake loved it.
He stepped out of the car and headed for the porch. Craftsman in detail, two boxy stone and wood columns framed the sagging top step of the wide porch. Carefully negotiating holes and dry rot in the steps, he turned around. The view down the hillside to the coast almost took his breath away.
A vision of two rocking chairs positioned to take in the view came to mind. When he found it all too easy to imagine Carly Nolan sitting on one of them, he tried to concentrate on what the porch would look like painted a high-gloss shine.
Glenn was out of the car now, climbing the stairs, shaking his head as he sidestepped a loose board.
“I’m really sorry, Jake. I should have checked this out before I brought you here. I had no idea the place was such a mess.”
It was a mess. He was wasting his and Potter’s time.
Jake continued to stare at the house. “Can we go inside?”
Glenn’s expression went from embarrassment to calculation. A smile slowly replaced his mortification. His hand hit the doorknob. There wasn’t a key or the need of one.
“Jeezus.” Glenn cleared his throat when the door swung open to reveal the squalor inside.
Jake figured Potter wasn’t very often speechless. Taking advantage of the moment, he shoved his hands in the pockets of his Levi’s, crossed the threshold and took in the living room. A cheap, hideous rust-and-green shag rug from the seventies. He could date it exactly because he’d had one just like it in his room as a kid. The carpet hid what he suspected were original hardwood floors.
Built-in bookcases flanked a river-rock fireplace. The woodwork around every door and window had been painted but was intact. The room felt spacious, the living area connected to the formal dining room with another large built-in sideboard along one wall. Glass was missing from a few of the panes in the doors, but otherwise the trim was in good condition.
The walls were another matter. The plaster was cracked and in some spots, the lath beneath showed through like skeletal ribs. Shredded wallpaper hung like tattered rags around the room.
The ceilings weren’t in much better shape, but the wide heavy beams that divided the rooms were exposed to add detail to the overall feel of the place.
He didn’t need to walk into the kitchen to know it was a disaster. The glimpse of worn speckled linoleum said enough. An army of field mice as well as an occasional illegal on the way up the coast had probably used the cupboards.
“How many bedrooms?” Jake started toward a long, narrow hallway.
Glenn flipped open the folder. “Three. Two down and one up.” He held his breath before opening the door to the first of two back bedrooms. Rotted draperies hung at the windows. The light streamed through the tatters, illuminating dust motes thick in the air. The same hideous carpet ran wall to wall throughout the house. There was a small, old-fashioned walk-in closet complete with an octagonal window—obviously built when movie stars had smaller wardrobes.
Jake walked to a corner, took hold of the shag, and ripped it away from the carpet tacks. Sure enough, there was hardwood floor beneath.
They walked through all three bedrooms. The largest was upstairs with its own bath. Glenn tried to flush the toilet and groaned when the handle fell off.
An open sundeck, a much later addition by the looks of it, was tacked onto the back of the house. It offered a panoramic view of the hillside and low chaparral growing in the streambed running behind the house.
Jake walked back through the house to the front porch and looked up the coast again.
Glenn caught up and fished his car keys out of his pocket.
“Well, at least I can tell Tracy I’ve seen it. We certainly can’t recommend it to any of our clients until the owners do something with it.”
“I’ll take it.” Four hours from Long Beach, from his family and business, Jake realized what he was about to do was either the smartest or the dumbest thing he’d ever done in his life.
“You want it?” Glenn Potter’s coffee-colored eyes mushroomed to the size of silver-dollar pancakes. “You want to rent it?”
It was exactly the kind of house Jake’s stepfather, Manny Olson, had always dreamed of owning but could never afford. Long Beach was full of old Craftsman homes, many in historically designated neighborhoods. Manny had always talked of buying one and restoring it to its original state.
The fact that this house overlooked the ocean, the idea that absentee owners might be willing to sell quickly for less than the place was worth made it too attractive to simply walk away from.
Jake had adored his step-dad as much as he had his real father. A talented carpenter, Manny had been kind and gentle, a man who had to work so hard on other people’s homes that he never had time to fix up his own, let alone make his dream come t
rue.
“I want it.” Jake shook his head, barely able to believe what he was saying.
“Mind if I ask why?”
Jake shrugged. “My step-dad always wanted to renovate a place like this.”
He had no idea when or how Manny’s dream had become his own. Maybe it had happened the minute he’d laid eyes on this house. He was just as shocked to discover he might have inherited a touch of his Grandpa Montgomery’s business savvy. Not everyone could overlook the terrible state the place was in and see it for what it was—a damn good investment.
He figured all he had to do was lease the house until the owners decided whether or not to sell, come up with the down payment, and make the monthly mortgage. He could always turn around, list it with the Potters as a vacation rental when he was in Long Beach, and block out time for his own visits.
That way he would know that it was here waiting for him, and if things didn’t work out, he could always resell it for a profit.
Jake mentally tabulated the amount of money he had in savings and figured it was nowhere near enough for a down payment, not for a place with a killer view like this, even a house in such poor condition. Most buyers would consider the place a tear down and build something sprawling and modern that would encompass all the views.
“I’d like to take the lease with an option to buy, but I want it locked up tight so that the house can’t be sold out from under me. I may even be in a position to make an offer after I run some numbers.”
He couldn’t buy the place outright, but a lack of funds had never stopped him from going after something he really wanted. He had started his own business on a couple of loans that hadn’t amounted to a shoestring, yet he’d managed to grow a business and survive.
Staring out at the horizon, at the blue bands of sea and sky, he decided that if he had to, he would do the one thing he always swore he would never do—ask his grandfather for a loan.
He’d never done anything so spur-of-the-moment before. Back when he and Marla had started dating at sixteen, he’d known from the first that she was the only one for him. It had still taken him five years to propose.
The night their marriage imploded she had accused him of being pedantic and predictable. To her, the assets he’d needed in his business—attention to detail, focus, organization—all added up to boring. In her eyes he was single-minded, never spontaneous. He ran his life on a schedule—had to in order to accomplish everything he needed to.
While he’d been building a business, doing surveillance, running all over hell and gone, interviewing clients, tracking down official documents, appearing as an expert witness in court, his childhood sweetheart had taken a liking to banging the doctor she worked for.
No spontaneity? If she could see him now.
“I’ve got rental applications in the car,” Glenn told him. “Fill one out and get it back to me before you leave town. In the meantime, I’ll try to contact the owners, though I may not be able to get a hold of them until Monday.”
By Monday, Jake was due back in Long Beach. He decided to cross that bridge when he came to it.
“While you’re at it, Glenn, tell them I’ll have to make some major repairs in order to move in. I’ll save all the receipts and deduct the cost from the rent.”
He could tell Glenn thought the place was uninhabitable. The realtor wouldn’t have to stretch to convince the owners the place should be unloaded immediately.
By the time they headed back to the car, Jake knew he’d waited long enough to mention Carly Nolan. He was careful to snap the seat belt in place and give it a tug first. Glenn had barely closed his door before he started barreling back down Lover’s Lane.
“Last night I visited Geoff Wilson’s gallery and met an artist whose work I really admire. Maybe you know her? Carly Nolan?”
“Carly? Great gal. In fact, she’s a friend of ours. Her son Chris plays on our boy Matt’s T-ball team.” When they hit a pothole, Glenn was forced to concentrate on the road but kept right on talking. “Carly lives down in Seaside Village. It’s an old mobile home park on the beach around the point. She’s a pretty private person, keeps to herself, but the boys are best friends. Since they’re both only children, Tracy makes sure they have play dates together.”
“How old are the kids?”
“My boy’s almost six. Chris has to be about the same age.”
Suddenly Glenn hollered, “Off road!” and veered into the high weeds. “I never get a chance to put this baby in four-wheel!” They bumped along for a few yards before he turned back onto the gravel road again. “Carly’s job keeps her pretty busy. I only see her at PTA meetings and T-ball.”
Listening to Glenn, Jake had to hand it to Caroline Graham.
She could have sought out the anonymity of life in the city, but here, her identity was guarded by locals who thought they knew her and regarded her as a friend. Because they knew her so well, they never suspected her of being anything but what she claimed.
The truth was, they didn’t really know her at all.
Forty-five minutes later, Jake sat in the park enjoying the sun, watching an old man in a baggy, worn sports coat feed the gulls on the bluff. The birds had begun to gather at the first rustle of a plastic bag filled with stale bread.
Jake took out his cell phone and punched the office memory number, waited for Kat to pick up.
“It’s me. What’s up?” He imagined her at her desk, un-smiling, leaning back in her chair, feet on the windowsill, tennis shoes wiggling as she stared out the window overlooking the water. He’d watched her do it countless times.
“I did surveillance last night on Penny Burger’s husband.” She sounded sarcastically gleeful. “She was right. He’s having an affair.” Kat never tired of exposing adulterers.
“Did you get photos?”
“Does a frog fart in a pond? I’ll call her and set up a meeting as soon as I get the prints back.”
“Have the Kleenex ready.”
“You bet. I got a fresh supply at Costco.”
It wasn’t just the job that had made them both cynics in regard to fidelity. Jake hadn’t just been burned by his significant other, he’d been fried. He guessed Kat had been, too.
Kat was barely twenty-eight and thoroughly convinced happy marriages existed only in romance novels. Suspicious husbands and wives were occasionally proven wrong, but the percentage of mistaken suspicion was low. The only truly happily married couple Jake knew was his sister Julie and her husband, Terry Avery.
He wished he’d been as lucky. He wished things had worked out for him and Marla. He wanted to believe in the dream, but time and delving into other people’s heartbreak was slowly disillusioning him.
Suddenly he found himself wondering what Caroline dreamed of and if she ever saw a man in her future.
He liked to think he was a good judge of people. The woman he’d met last night didn’t seem capable of hurting a gnat, but something had made her run from the Saunders and keep on running. She had taken Rick’s son away from family who cared about him, not to mention a potential fortune in inheritance, without any obvious motive.
He shifted on the hard cement bench as the homeless man across the grassy lawn shook the last crumbs of bread out of the bag.
“Anything else?” Jake asked Kat.
“Your granddad called. Between you and me, he didn’t sound very good. He wants you to call him. Said it was important. Something about business.”
Perfect. Maybe he’d call Jackson and segue the conversation into the property overlooking the cove. He wasn’t about to mention the possibility of renting the house to Kat yet. No sense in getting her Hawaiian-Portuguese temper riled up too soon.
She knew him almost as well as Marla had. She’d think he’d lost his mind.
“I’ll give him a call,” he promised.
“I’d say don’t wait. He didn’t sound like himself.”
8
CARLY WAS BENT OVER, TRYING TO WIPE STICKY MAPLE SYRUP off a benc
h seat in a booth, when she had the distinct impression that someone was watching her.
She glanced over her shoulder and froze when she saw Jake Montgomery standing just inside the door, staring at her rear end. Not only that, but he was smiling. The simmering twinkle in his eyes nearly undid her.
She shot up, forgot about the syrup, and tried to pretend her face wasn’t on fire.
“This is a surprise,” he said.
His smile had widened, but she could almost see the wheels turning in his head as he tried to equate the artist he’d met last night with the disheveled waitress with a wet rag in her hand and a grease-spattered apron tied around her waist.
She wondered how fast his interest would wane. It had become evident to her that professional men often considered waitresses worth no more than a passing flirtation.
“This is my real job.” She wiped her hands and brushed an escaped lock of hair behind her ear.
The way he insisted on staring did nothing to help fade her blush. “Have a seat and somebody will be right there.”
He chose a vacant stool at the end of the counter, picked up a menu but didn’t open it as he watched her finish writing up an order. Finally, still all too aware of his stare, she took a deep breath, walked over to the counter, tossed the rag, and stood over him with her order pad in hand.
Just looking into Jake Montgomery’s eyes nudged awake thrilling and terrifying sensations that scared the hell out of her. She was beginning to think he might be a man who wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“What’ll it be?” She tried to sound as if it didn’t matter that he’d stumbled upon this aspect of her life. “Do you know what you want?”
“I thought I did.” He held her stare, ignoring the menu in front of him.
“The . . . um . . . tortilla soup is Joe’s specialty. And he makes a mean patty melt, if you’re into red meat.” She noticed her knees weren’t exactly functioning properly.
“I’ll try the melt.”
Her handwriting came out uneven and shaky as she made a note on the pad. “Anything to drink besides water?”
“Diet Pepsi.”
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