I held my hand out to him a second time. “At your service, Mr. Hernández.”
“Please, just Dylan,” he said, wrapping his dry palm around my moist one.
His shake was firm, and he smelled like an orchard. I would have called the fragrance feminine, if not for the underlying notes of earth and salty sweat. He withdrew his hand and ran it through his dark sweep of hair, drawing up the hem of his shirt and further scrambling my brains.
“Look, Zelda said if anyone could find a buyer for this place, it was you. So...tell me what you need.”
To have your babies, I thought, then shook my head. More like, an ice-cold shower.
“Why don’t we start with a tour of the house?” I suggested, fanning myself with the clipboard. Fall had settled in, and it couldn’t have been more than sixty degrees outside, but my skin was balmy.
Dylan licked the corner of his mouth thoughtfully, and I held my breath, resisting the urge to swoon. I needed something other than him to focus on. The creepy old house would have to do.
“Sorry I didn’t dress up for our meeting,” he said, giving me a once-over before turning toward the porch and taking the stairs ahead of me. “I’ve been doing a little work on the house. You may have noticed it’s not in the best shape.”
He paused halfway up the steps and glanced over his shoulder, holding his hand out to help me over the boobytrap of busted boards. I rubbed my palm down the side of my skirt, attempting to dry it first before hooking my fingers over his. The orchard smell engulfed me again, making my head swim.
“You’ve been working?” I asked breathlessly. “On what?”
“I’ll show you.”
He pushed open the front door, and a stale gust of dusty air rolled out to greet us. Then a nest of spiders scrambled over the doorjamb and scattered across the porch. I squealed and hid behind one of Dylan’s beefy arms, stamping my heels to hopefully discourage any of the nasty creatures from crawling up my legs.
“Just spiders,” he said with a tight smile. “Not even the poisonous kind.”
“But definitely the icky kind!” I raked my hands over my face and hair, sure that one or fifty of them had made it past my spaztastic defense dance and were now on their way to feast on my eyeballs. Dylan merely stared at me until I regained my composure.
“Are you...sure you’re up for this?” One of his dark, broody eyebrows hitched.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I asked, trying to keep my voice from trembling. Heat crawled up my neck and into my cheeks. So much for first impressions. I straightened my blazer before turning my attention back to the house.
The open doorway revealed a dark, ominous foyer that promised more spiders and other ickyness. If only I’d brought Broomzilla with me. She would have gladly cleared the creepy-crawlies from my path.
Dylan opened his arm to one side. “Ladies first.”
I snorted at the obvious taunt. Of course he thought I was a scaredy-witch now. How could he not? I’d taken on houses with backed up sewage, sinking foundations, and hyena cult graffiti. What could I say? Spiders were my kryptonite.
But was I really about to let a few creepy crawlies send me packing? I side-eyed Dylan again, ogling his broad shoulders and the way his jeans hugged his nicely-shaped butt. Then I thought of the stack of bills sitting on my coffee table.
Not today, Dorothy.
I swallowed and stepped over the threshold. Nothing jumped out to grab me, and I didn’t die, but I reserved my relief. Just in case.
Dylan moved past me and pushed back the curtains over one of the windows, allowing the waning daylight to filter through the streaky glass.
The front of the house was open concept. I could easily picture the sanctuary it must have been back in the place’s church days. A dining table was centered near the back wall, and formal sitting space flowed off to the right side of the room. To the left, a parlor-esque area with more seating and an old, rolltop desk was situated inside the boxy, paneled walls beneath the u-shaped staircase.
“The electric company is coming to turn the power on tomorrow morning,” Dylan said. “But at least the water is working.”
“Good.” I needed cleaning supplies to scrub muck the same way I needed ingredients for my recipes. Of course, the Hernández house was going to need a lot more than hot water to get it ready for sale. My blinky, dust-zapping trick wasn’t going to get us very far either.
There were holes in the walls. Lots of them. Dylan followed my gaze past the sheet-covered furniture scattered around the room and winced.
“I’ll be patching a lot of drywall tomorrow, too.” He paused to scratch the back of his head. “My brother was... He thought that he heard... Well, it’s not important. Let me show you the kitchen.”
“Oookay.”
I followed him through an arched opening just beyond the dining table without further comment on the whack-a-mole condition of the walls, though I couldn’t help but wonder if the crazy ran in the family. Was I walking deeper and deeper into a house with a hot psycho? Did a few loose screws matter as long as he had a tight ass? Maybe my dry spell was getting out of hand.
The kitchen was in better shape and looked more recently updated. Cozy even, with a breakfast nook tucked along the back wall under a bay window. A narrow island divided the cooking area, and a hanging rack displayed cast iron pots and pans strung with cobwebs. I blinked, zapping them out of sight along with a thick layer of dust.
“I’m replacing that window,” Dylan said, pointing at the broken pane over the kitchen sink. The pieces were still intact, but a long fracture ran diagonally across the glass.
“No need.” I blinked a few more times, and the crack mended seamlessly. As long as all the pieces were there, and not shattered into a zillion tiny shards, I could put it together in a snap.
“Nice. Thanks.” Dylan gave me an impressed smile, and I blushed—half from the flattery and half from the fact that I knew where things would go from here. Straight downhill.
“It’s nothing,” I said, brushing off the compliment.
“Don’t suppose you have a similar...spell that works on drywall?” he asked.
“Sorry.” Casseroles and quick fixes were one thing, but my tricks didn’t get much fancier than that. He’d find out soon enough. “Not everything mends so easily,” I added at his crestfallen frown, and then breathed a sigh of relief when he shrugged.
“Let’s see what you can do in the basement then,” he said, opening a door in the back corner of the kitchen.
More darkness greeted us, but as I neared the doorway, I spotted a pale shaft of light at the bottom of the stairs, likely coming from a dusty window. Or one covered in spiderwebs.
“What’s out here?” I glanced through the tiny window of a door that looked like it might lead to the backyard, wondering if I could convince him to show me the rest of the exterior first. Maybe there was a shed that we could kill some time by measuring while I worked up the nerve to inspect the basement.
Dylan waved a dismissive hand at the back door. “The garden is overgrown, but I’m going to clean it up tomorrow—or maybe the day after, depending on how long the walls take.”
“Oh...” I pressed my lips together and glanced back the way we’d entered the kitchen. “What about the upstairs?”
“There’s less work needed up there, and I wanted you to see what I’ve already done.”
“Right. Of course.” I clutched my clipboard closer to my chest and took a deep breath.
“The stairs are a little rickety,” Dylan confessed, holding his hand out to me as he descended the first few steps beyond the shadowy mouth of the doorway.
I let him take me by the hand again, ignoring the way my pulse jumped at the feel of his skin against mine. My knees wobbled, but it had little to do with the unstable stairs we were navigating in the near dark, and my train of thought charged ahead on autopilot.
Please don’t be a serial killer. Please don’t let there be dead bodies down here. Please don�
��t let there be any more spiders. Please let the HVAC be up to code.
Dylan let go of my hand as soon as we reached the bottom of the stairs, and he turned to click on a spotlight hanging from a beam overhead. The clunky device was neon yellow, like one used at a construction site. It flooded one side of the basement with stark light, revealing every nook and cranny. Something skittered under an old washing machine in the far corner, but I swallowed my scream.
“Here,” Dylan said, thankfully leading me into the opposite corner. “I replaced the thermocouple for the hot water tank and added an insulation blanket. Repaired a few leaky pipes, patched a foundation crack—”
“What is that?” I asked, my eyes snagging on a monstrous contraption that loomed in the shadows behind the stairwell, a dozen tentacle-like arms reaching up into the ceiling.
Dylan put a hand on his hip and sighed. “Yeah, I know. The furnace is ancient—but the right antique collector would love it. When my cousin George lived here, he had the asbestos ducts replaced and converted it to natural gas. So, there’s that.”
“That thing heats the whole house?”
“Sure—well...” he scratched the back of his head and gave me a sheepish grin. “Mostly. The rooms on the second and third floors have radiators.”
“Ooh, boy.” I clicked open my pen and jotted a few notes on the page fastened to my clipboard. “You wouldn’t happen to have any of the most recent utility bills from when the house was occupied, would you?”
Dylan shrugged. “We could check the desk upstairs.”
“Do you know how well the walls are insulated?”
“Uh....”
“What about the attic?”
“Attic?” He scratched his head again. “You mean the old belfry?”
“Whatever you wanna call it. Is it insulated?”
“It’s not really—well, see—” Dylan sighed again. “The bats don’t like to be disturbed.”
“About that.” I clicked my pen a few times and glanced up at him. “I have numbers for two services that give free quotes.”
“Services?”
“Yeah, removal services.”
“Whoa there! Hold your horses, lady.” Dylan shook his head. “That bat colony has been living in the belfry for over a century.”
“Rent-free, I assume?”
“They’re not hurting anything or anyone.” His face flushed, and a deep crease appeared across his forehead. “I can’t just evict them. Why the hell do you think I’m working with you and not letting the bank bulldoze the house?”
I stared at him. “What exactly do you think the next owner is going to do about them?”
“Can’t you write a clause in the contract or something?” he pleaded. “These bats... They’re a different species, and they’re not Shifters, but they’ve been around here for so long that they might as well be family.”
“Different species?” I frowned, and then it dawned on me. “You’re a bat!” I announced as if it were the answer to a million-dollar trivia questions.
“Uh, yeah.” Dylan snorted. “It’s not a big secret. Everyone in town knows.”
“Everyone except the new girl.” I gave him a tight smile and stuffed my clipboard down into my bag. “Well, considering this town’s interesting circumstances, maybe we’ll get lucky with an understanding buyer.”
“Now we’re talking.” He rubbed his hands together and headed back toward the stairs. “And if they can see past the bats in the belfry, maybe the ghosts won’t be such a big deal either.”
“Great.” I sighed as I followed after him. “I was really hoping that one was just a rumor.”
“Nope, but most of them are harmless. You really only have to watch out for Papa Nando.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“He’s a bit...prejudice.”
“Against white people?” When he didn’t confirm, I tried again. “Women? Non-flying Shifters?”
The door at the top of the stairs slammed so hard that the entire house shook. I gasped and clung to the stair railing. Dylan gave me an apologetic smile.
“Try witches.”
Chapter 3
I WOULD HAVE HYPERVENTILATED right there on the basement stairs if I hadn’t needed that breath to give Dylan a piece of my mind.
“Your grandfather’s ghost hates witches? Don’t you think that’s maybe something you should have told me before luring me inside this house of nightmares?”
“House of nightmares?” He gave me an offended scowl.
“There are spiders and bats and an angry ghost!”
“It’s an old house. What’d you expect?”
The construction spotlight at the base of the stairs flickered and then went out, drawing a miserable groan from me. I imagined whatever had crawled under the washing machine creeping through the darkness toward me, all its friends in tow.
“And Papa Nando is my great-great-grandfather,” Dylan corrected as he fiddled with the doorknob and bumped his shoulder against the solid wood door a few times.
“I don’t care if he’s the Great Pumpkin! He’s still a poltergeist!”
“He’s never hurt anyone. Unless you count the time Zelda twisted her ankle on the attic stairs,” Dylan said. The step beneath me wobbled threateningly at the revelation.
“Oh, that’s just perfect!”
“He didn’t push her or anything. Just spooked her a little.”
“But he clearly knows how to push!” I waved a hand at the door, keeping my other firmly wrapped around the railing. I was terrified and shaking, but when my teeth began to chatter, I realized that the temperature in the basement had dropped suddenly.
“That’s odd,” Dylan said, his shoulders trembling with the sudden chill. “The furnace should have kicked on.”
A plumbing pipe that ran along a beam of the basement ceiling gurgled, and then it burst. A jet of icy water sprayed my cheek and drenched my hair. It soaked through my blazer as I scrambled up the stairs, pushing Dylan aside so I could ram my own shoulder into the door, squealing like a banshee the whole way.
“If Papa Nando doesn’t knock this shit off, I’ll bulldoze the damn house myself!” I screamed over the sound of more pipes bursting below.
“She doesn’t mean it,” Dylan shouted over my wailing.
As if on cue, the door sprang open, and we spilled onto the kitchen floor like two castaways on an unforgiving coast. A puddle quickly formed beneath us, the water dripping from my clothes and hair. Dylan edged away from me as I glared up at him.
“Let me grab you a towel,” he said, struggling to stand on the slippery hardwood.
My jaw was clenched so tightly, I couldn’t reply. I considered slipping off one of my heels and throwing it at him. If Broomzilla had been here, I would have ordered her to give him a good thrashing.
Dylan opened random drawers and cabinets until he found a tattered dishtowel. He gave it a skeptical look but then shrugged, apparently deciding it was better than nothing. I would have demanded his fruity-smelling shirt, except it was wet, too. And I didn’t exactly feel like ogling his abs right now.
I used the edge of the counter to pull myself upright and snatched the towel out of his hand, pressing it to my neck and cleavage first before running it down my legs, sopping up the icy water.
“You’re welcome,” Dylan grumbled under his breath.
I would have scoffed at his nerve, but my jaw was still frozen shut. Instead, I dropped my purse on the counter and stripped out of my blazer. I slapped the soaked garment against his chest, enjoying his sharp inhale of surprise.
It was warmer upstairs, but goosebumps still covered my arms. The blazer had saved my blouse from most of the assault, but my collar was damp. I dabbed the dishtowel at it as I stared Dylan down, imagining all the ways I’d make him pay if I were a better witch.
Blink. A walrus mustache.
Blink. A unibrow.
Blink. Dumbo ears.
Dylan’s eyes darted away from mine, and he cleare
d his throat. “You might want to, um, fix your face again.”
“You’re lucky I’m not fixing your face,” I said through clenched teeth.
I upended my purse on the kitchen counter, digging around until I found my compact and a tissue that didn’t already have lipstick on it. I popped the mirror open and sighed at my pitiful reflection. Maybe I should have thanked Mr. Holloway for the head’s up and called it a day before he resorted to insulting my character.
As I scrubbed the streaks of mascara under my eyes, Dylan cleared his throat again.
“So, um, wanna see the upstairs?” he asked.
The compact creaked in my hand as I snapped it shut and turned to glower at him.
I wanted to say no. I should have said no.
But thinking of Mr. Holloway and his condescending tone, the suggestion that I didn’t know what I was doing—the flat-out accusation that I was a money-hungry vulture, just like him. There was no way I could quit now.
Not even with the spiders, bats, and ghost, oh my.
“First,” I said, holding up a finger, “you’re going to tell me why your grandfather hates witches.”
“Great-great-grandfather,” Dylan reminded me. “Sorry,” he added as my nostrils flared.
“The truth, or I leave now.”
“It’s complicated.”
“It usually is.” I folded my arms.
Dylan sighed and turned away from me long enough to drag one of the barstools tucked under the kitchen island over to a grate in the floor. The furnace was working again, so he draped my blazer across the stool, letting the warm air blow up the sleeves and dry it out.
“My great-great-grandmother, Mama Ellie, was a witch,” he finally confessed.
That wasn’t what I’d expected to hear, but I could see where it was going. “Nasty divorce?”
“Not exactly.” Dylan pressed his lips together. “From what I’ve heard, they were desperately in love. Papa Nando moved to the States from Cuba in 1915, after the rest of his colony was slaughtered in the Banana Wars—many of the rebelling workers were Shifters.”
How to Sell a Haunted House Page 2