Your Hand in Mine: A Heartwood Novel

by Brea Viragh

“I think I’ll take a raincheck on the butt kissing,” he answered with a chuckle. “Sorry I hit you so hard.”

  I shifted my hip and winced, painfully aware of the pulsating bruise near my tailbone. “Yeah, I can feel it. I’ll be fine. I promise. But anyway…what are you up to?” I would have asked anything to prolong the conversation. To enjoy how he stood and moved and talked.

  “I’m running a few errands before heading back to the job site,” he said. “Enjoying some freedom, you might say, before I’m forced back into self-imposed servitude. And you?”

  “Oh, not much. I was going to have a cup of coffee and—” sulk, “—walk around town a little bit to get my head in the right place. It ran off somewhere earlier and I haven’t managed to get it back yet.” I refused to look at the store a second time. “It’s not like I have any place to be. I’m sure you heard.”

  “Yeah, I did.” His voice was unusually sympathetic. “I’m sorry.” He dropped his hand at last and motioned for me to walk.

  My grin was genuine. “Word does get around fast.” I fell in line with Fenton and we started ambling away from the coffee shop.

  “I take everything I hear with a grain of salt. Most of it comes from the guys on my crew and they aren’t a trustworthy bunch. They gossip more than any other person I’ve met.” There was affection in his voice. “Have you found another position?” he finished.

  “Not yet. Not unless I want to drive an hour to and from or practice flipping burgers for a local fast food joint. It seems the county is having a bit of a hiring freeze at the moment. There’s a shortage of good positions paying more than dirt per hour.”

  “Dirt per hour? What’s wrong with minimum wage.”

  I snatched my empty cup off the ground and tossed it into a garbage can. It sucked to admit it, especially to Fenton. There was no point hiding my recent unemployment. Not when he already knew. “We’ll say my options are a little limited by circumstances.”

  “Yeah, somehow I can’t picture you wearing an apron and headset. The spatula in hand, maybe, ready to give some poor fool a hack.” Then he lowered his tone to something near conspiratorial. “I also heard you broke some guy’s jaw and sent him into an epileptic seizure.”

  Mortified, I turned to stare at him. “Are you kidding me?”

  He stifled a laugh. “So which part is true? The jaw or the seizure?”

  “Only the first, thanks,” I answered, “and not even that. I slapped him around a little bit. I didn’t draw blood. He did that himself when he bit his lip.”

  “What a shame.”

  “The guy thought he could come at me and grab my wrist, make some threats. I told him in no uncertain terms that it was not okay. He didn’t get the message until it was too late.”

  “He touched you?”

  “He was skirting a line, yes. One can only hope he knows better going forward.”

  Fenton stopped, turning until we faced each other. He glanced down the street once before lowering his gaze to me. “Hey, I had a thought. I’m headed over to the B&B. Think you might want to come and take a peek? Since you have no place better to be, I’d love to give you the grand tour.”

  “It sounds like you want a distraction from those finances.” I whirled my finger in a circle near his phone. Was he asking me to spend more time with him? It was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. And wouldn’t if I could. My heart lifted. “Sure, of course.”

  “It’s close to the parkway, a side road right before you get to the actual parkway entrance. I’ve got my truck parked across the street.” He pointed. “You can follow me if you want.”

  “Sure,” I repeated. Articulateness was not my strong suit. My tongue tied itself in knots the second I met his gaze. There was something seriously wrong with me.

  “Hey, I have a coffee maker at the site. I can try to make you a cup. It won’t replace what I spilled, but it might do the trick if you need a caffeine fix,” he offered.

  My ears perked up at the mention of caffeine. “I always need a fix, so I’ll take you up on the IOU, absolutely. Lead the way.”

  Fifteen minutes later, I followed an ocean-blue Ford pickup down a dirt road. Dust rose in billowing clouds behind him and I rolled up the windows to try and keep it out of my car, choking a little on an inhale-gone-wrong.

  Fenton was right about the distance. We slowed at the gated entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway. We turned onto a smaller paved road, and a final right turn took us into an open meadow ringed by old growth maple and oak trees.

  I knew, in the fall when the leaves changed color, the place would look like it was surrounded by a ring of fire. The dilapidated two-story wood farmhouse would be magnificent with loving care and the right hand. The right vision. There were other houses in the neighborhood, charming houses, their lawns tended and flower gardens bursting with color. Once he completed the work on this one, it would fit in well. This was a nice area and not too far out of town to make people question the drive.

  The brain I’d criticized before for being mush began to run calculations. Distance from amenities, the distance between lawns and neighbors. Yes, it could work well.

  It was immediately apparent that Fenton had scored the worst house on the block. It was forgotten by time and abandoned to the weeds. The patchy front lawn was in the process of being restored, the foundation recently replaced and the flower beds overgrown or trampled, in desperate need of love and mulch.

  I parked the car and got out, breathing in the fresh air. Unsurprised when the darn thing sputtered and the motor gave a single pop. Sooner or later I was going to have to get around to a tune-up. Sometimes the engine didn’t want to start for me.

  There were chainsaws buzzing in the distance and before I knew it, a tree limb in the backyard crashed to the earth, a poplar with limbs stretching in every direction. The property’s fence line was covered in brambles and overrun with long grass. Honeysuckle trailed along tree branches in beautiful white and yellow perfumed lines.

  Workers milled around in a sort of organized chaos, trying to fix the neglected and weedy space. Replace the sagging roof and de-vine the English ivy crawling up the pillars of the front porch. Fenton’s crew, I thought, the ragtag team he’d assembled to turn his dream into a reality.

  Despite the mess and the years of neglect, it was a beautiful place. I could see it in my head like a brief fantasy; the picture of everything the house and surrounding property could be. It would be a champion with a little elbow grease and a lot of hard work.

  A fierce zing of excitement shook me at the prospect.

  “I didn’t lose you in the ruts,” Fenton said, striding over and fastening a tool belt around his waist. It emphasized the wide planes of his shoulders. Oh boy, it was enough to make a sane girl request a straitjacket. “The potholes are deep enough to swallow an elephant in the driveway. Maybe you should have ridden with me. I took care of the shocks in the truck. You need ‘em out here.”

  My mouth went dry. “I know how to navigate country driveways, thanks. And you got lucky with the location. Until you turn toward the house it’s an easy, straight shot from the light.”

  “You’re right, it’s not all bad. Most of the drive on the parkway is paved. It’s the last turn off toward the house. I need to get another couple loads of gravel and then I’ll be set. I’ve been hesitant to spend the cash now when we have so many trucks coming in and out.” He shrugged. “At least I didn’t lose you.” Then he gestured toward the porch. “Come on. Let me show you around and you can tell me what you think. I know it looks like a piece of work. Still, for my first flip, I think it’s coming along.”

  “You can definitely tell there are some things left to do. But you’re making progress.” I shielded my eyes from the sun and took in the roof lines. I didn’t know anything about construction however, I could tell when a place had good bones. And I saw where little touches could be added to take an ordinary house and turn it into something spectacular.

  I called it my designe
r’s eye. My sister told me I was full of crap.

  Still, imagine what the house would look like with new windows, crisp white trim. A new roof and copper accents emphasizing the lines, the peaks and dormers.

  I pushed my hair out of my eyes and stared at the roofline again. It was the perfect pitch for a weathervane.

  Walking ahead, Fenton waved to a couple members of his crew. There was pride there, I thought, following him and making sure to watch where I stepped with my sandals. Pride and a certain amount of naivete. It was also easy to see how he could get over his head on a project of this size and scope. Especially when this was his first flip. There was a greater potential for mistakes, a lot of situations that could go wrong, and I would hate to see him trip up.

  His time, money, and energy were invested in the house, the bed and breakfast with his name on the deed. And I knew, even from the brief amount of time we’d had to speak to each other, that Fenton was the type of person who wouldn’t stop until his dream became a reality. Despite the massive amount of work and responsibility.

  I was the same way.

  My hands twitched at my side. There were so many things I could do with this house. I wasn’t an interior decorator by any means, and I never claimed to be, yet staring at the front porch, I began to tick along the list of improvements I would make if I owned the house. The excitement in my belly grew until a warm heat rose and curled beneath my collarbone. In my head, I went over color schemes. Cream shutters, a navy-blue paint on the siding. Which would all have to be replaced, of course. And wouldn’t the place look brighter with a porch swing painted fire-engine red? I’d offset it with a neutral rug and a couple of three-feet tall lapis lazuli-colored planters from a local guy I knew. A few flowers and palm grasses to add visual interest…

  Gosh, yes. This would be a fabulous mountain escape. A place to come and relax. Welcoming, like coming home to an open door waiting for you. With the right vision, Fenton could have people lining up around the corner for a reservation. The place could practically market itself!

  “From what I understand, an old farming family built the house in 1901,” he told me, jolting me back to the present moment. “The family owned the property and lived here until about ‘75. Then the bank repossessed. It’s been sitting abandoned ever since. I ended up applying for a county grant on a whim, something to help me purchase and fix up the property. You can imagine my surprise when I got the phone call. Honestly, I think they’re glad someone made an offer on the place. It comes with about five acres.”

  I quickly did the math in my head. “That’s a lot of time to sit empty and let the elements batter and damage. I can’t imagine the work you’ve already done to get it where it is today. It looks great!”

  “We’ve been at it for a couple of months and it’s been a lot of sweat and blood. More sweat than blood, but I gotta say, where there’s renovation there’s bound to be blood. I had enough for the down payment and the grant is helping me cover the cost of the renovations, although I still pay a mortgage. I went into this without a home inspection, cash deal, so I was expecting the worst. This was a whole other level. You wouldn’t believe the mess we found in the crawlspace. Snake skins, rocks, insulation. Even old cans of food someone had dumped and shoved out of sight.”

  “Sounds horrible,” I agreed.

  Fenton stared at the porch, his attention focused on some tiny detail only he could see. “Pretty much anything that could be wrong with the place was wrong. I’ve made it through most of the structural issues in the first month.”

  “I see a huge pile of rotten wood and old siding.” I pointed over my shoulder. “Where’s your dumpster?”

  “I don’t have one,” he answered. “Mostly we take care of the trash ourselves. We’ll fill up the back of a truck and me or one of the guys drive to the dump.”

  My head shook and before I thought to censure my response, it was out of my mouth. “Nope. That is not how things are supposed to be done.” I barreled forward before Fenton had a chance to retaliate. “I was with Rayne when she decided to redo her own house. I have a couple numbers of people I know do business with the town and I’m sure I can get a dumpster here within two days. You can’t work like this. It’s ridiculous! You’ll end up spending more time and money driving to the dump instead of doing it right. I’m surprised no one has come out to check on you yet. You said the county gave you money?” Hands went to my hips and I stared up at the porch ceiling, tongue prepared to cluck at him.

  Rayne had invited me over to see the progress on her kitchen when she decided to tear out the rear half of her thousand square foot cottage and start again. It was inside the main town limits, which meant a few more restrictions than there might be otherwise, but I imagined most renovations followed the same rules. Especially since Fenton had been given the grant to help with the project.

  Or maybe I was completely off of my gourd.

  “Are you always this bossy?” Fenton asked with a chuckle. He tilted his head to the side and pursed his lips, gaze shooting through me.

  Did he want the truth? “Yes. Yes, I am.” I pulled out my cell phone and tapped in a contact number. One I never thought I’d have the opportunity to use. Giddy excitement brought my insides to life.

  I’d met some crazy characters over the years at the gallery. Most of the shipping guys knew each other and had a wide array of connections in their various fields. Among them was a man who made the rounds on the antique auction circuit. He’d know who to call. There was no way in the cold annals of hell I was calling Rayne to ask who she had used.

  I typed out a text before slipping the phone back into my pocket. “Done. The process has been started. Trust me. You’re going to be thrilled when you pay a one-time fee rather than paying each time you drop off at the dump. And if you need help with the demo, I can call in a few favors there, too.”

  He shook his head, hair flopping across his forehead. “You’re unbelievable.”

  I executed a short bow at the waist, breasts pressing against the V of my tank top, probably giving him an unimpeded view of the goods. “Thank me later. And show me what you have in mind for the place. I’m excited to see the rest of it.”

  “Follow me and watch your step. Some of these boards are tricky. I wouldn’t trust the rotten ones to hold our weight. The porch is next on my list.”

  His grin made me want to drop my pants. Sick, right? Then he held out a hand and helped me up the stairs. I’m thankful to say I didn’t swoon. But I was close!

  Fenton talked as we walked over the bad wood and the particle board they’d laid down to prevent an accident. “The front entryway was nothing more than a five by six hallway leading to the back of the house. Kitchen, pantry, you know. It’s the old-fashioned style home where every room is a tiny box. You can see we started demoing here and I have plans to open up the walls and make it a parlor for receiving. We shape up the staircase, turn it into a grand feature. Front desk to the left and pots of flowers near the door. There’s enough space for five rooms upstairs, once I finish installing a rear dormer to match the front and a honeymoon suite on the main floor. It will make six bedrooms, four bathrooms. I’ll reduce the size of the dining room to encompass an expanded kitchen and living room combination. Keep the front parlor closed off and the back open concept. I think it will make the guests feel more welcome.”

  “Are you planning to keep the property once you finish rehabbing?” I asked, following behind him. “Or will you sell it off and start on your next project?”

  He shot me a look over his shoulder. “Financially, I know I should sell it and start again. Still, there’s something about the property. It tugs at me. This feeling here.” His index finger burrowed between his pecs. “I think I might want to keep it. But don’t tell anyone. I’m still trying to decide my next move.”

  We walked the rooms and Fenton outlined the rest of his plans. He could see the finished product in his head. He knew the details, small and large, and how they fit togeth
er in a cohesive whole. He also had a good idea about the scope of work and what it would take to change the interior of the house.

  As he described his vision, I began to see what he had in mind. Clean, contemporary lines married with farmhouse grandeur. I could see it so well, in fact, that I knew which specific pieces from Doma would look perfect in each space. And who to contact for custom jobs.

  There was a hand-thrown bowl practically tailor fit for the upstairs east-facing bathroom. A local artist had a series of landscapes done in watercolors, one of which begged to be hung above the antique mahogany mantle in the living room. The others I could make work for the dining room and parlor, a subtle way to tie the three spaces together.

  I saw urban farmhouse chic married with rustic charm.

  Unfortunately, when Fenton led me into the back room he was using for a temporary office, things went south. Way south.

  “Oh my god.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “You must have set off a bomb before I came over,” I remarked.

  He stopped. Blinked at me. The picture of a confused male. “What do you mean?”

  “There are papers everywhere!” My heart stuttered. “Why do you have ledgers strewn on the floor? Is this your idea of organization?” No wonder he’d needed a distraction. If I was forced to work in a room like this, I would want to run away and bury myself in anything else too.

  “The windows are open,” he tried, “maybe a breeze—”

  “And these.” I pointed. “Are these your receipts? They’re in a pile rather than organized by date and purchase type. Who taught you how to balance books?”

  I’d thought Rayne absentminded and scattered? This was Rayne’s idiosyncrasies cranked up to eleven.

  Through the tour, Fenton had been in control, speaking with an understated confidence and outlining his plans in a sure and confident manner. I could tell he was thrown for a loop by the sudden shift in dynamics. Now he blinked, stared from me to the floor to the piles of papers, and kept fidgeting with the leather loop keeping his hammer in place. “No one taught me, I’ve been figuring it out on my own. Was that something you did at the gallery? Balance books?” He scratched his head, eyeing me from head to toe and all the nooks in between.