by Gina Wilkins
Apparently she was following through on her warning that she would tell him exactly what she thought today.
“Yeah? How come?” he asked, genuinely curious about her reasoning.
She lifted one shoulder slightly. “You aren’t excited about it. It’s something you feel obligated to consider because your mom likes the idea and because you think it would be doing a favor for your brother-in-law to take the place off his hands.”
“I’m not really excited about buying any house,” he reminded her.
“You should be. Buying a house isn’t like buying a pair of shoes. You’re talking about a home. A private retreat for you and for the family you might have someday. It’s a long-term investment and commitment and it should be important to you. Or you might as well just rent.”
Maybe she was afraid she’d revealed a little too much about herself in that lecture—as perhaps she had, he mused. Before he could respond, she had her door open and was standing impatiently in the parking lot.
“The location of this one isn’t ideal,” she said, her tone emotionless now. “A lot of traffic between here and the hospital at rush hour.”
“I don’t usually keep a typical rush-hour schedule,” he commented lightly, locking the car behind them when he joined her. “But you’re right, this wouldn’t be my first-choice site.”
“We should look at it anyway. Maybe there will be other assets that will outweigh the location.”
“Of course.” He followed her obediently to the rental office.
Jacqui didn’t have to tell him her opinion of that first apartment. He had no trouble at all reading her expression as she wandered through the boxy, sterile, white-painted rooms.
“You might as well live in the O.R.,” she said as they climbed back into his car after a very short tour.
“I pretty much do,” he replied with a laugh and a shrug.
She snapped her seat belt into place. “But there’s no need for you to come home to the same environment. You should feel welcomed and comfortable when you walk into your house, not as though you’re still at work.”
Fastened into the driver’s seat, he started the engine. “Is that the way you feel when you go home to your apartment? Welcomed and comfortable?”
The brief pause that followed his question was heavy, but when she spoke, her tone was even. “No,” she admitted. “But that’s what I’ll look for when I finally buy a place of my own.”
He wondered if she’d ever had a home where she had felt safe and welcome. From what little she’d said of her background, he somehow doubted it. Was that why she’d made a profession of taking care of other peoples’ homes?
The next stop was another apartment, this one somewhat nicer and in a beautifully landscaped gated complex. Jacqui gave that one higher marks, both for location and decor. He couldn’t say she looked enthusiastic, he thought as they drove away, putting a “maybe” checkmark by that place on the list. But then it was just an apartment. He could be comfortable there, so he’d definitely keep it in mind.
They toured one more apartment and a condo before stopping for lunch. As he had promised, Mitch treated Jacqui to a very nice meal at a popular bistro that specialized in the type of healthy foods she preferred. She seemed to enjoy the meal, but she kept their conversation strictly business, discussing pros and cons of the places they had toured thus far and the advantages and disadvantages of buying versus renting.
Maybe he would have liked to talk about other things during the meal, but he kept reminding himself this wasn’t a date. He’d asked her to help him find a place to live, and she was focused intently on doing just that. He wondered what she would say if he told her he was actually enjoying this mission that he’d dreaded all week, mostly because he was having a good time watching her reactions to the places they visited.
He supposed it was only natural that the rental and sales agents they had met assumed they were a couple. Jacqui didn’t bother to correct anyone’s misconceptions, but he saw her tense a little each time it happened. Maybe it was best if he kept his pleasure in her company to himself. At least for the remainder of this outing.
He’d reserved the three houses on his list for afternoon visits. The first was a big, French-themed house in an exclusive gated neighborhood off Chenal Boulevard in west Little Rock near a golf course and country club. Only two years old, the house had been built to impress, with soaring windows and doorways, impeccable landscaping, top-of-the-line kitchen appliances and decadently luxurious bathrooms. It was all very nice, but he couldn’t see himself coming home to this place any more than he could the sterile apartment they’d first toured that morning.
“Honestly?” he said to Jacqui as they drove away, “I prefer Seth’s house to that one.”
“So do I,” she agreed.
Although not as visually impressive as the house they had just seen, Seth’s previous home was still a very nice place. It was a safe, clean, quiet neighborhood and Mitch figured he would be comfortable there. He just wasn’t sure he wanted to invest in a house when there was always a chance he could decide to take a new position somewhere—maybe as soon as next year, he thought with that familiar ripple of restlessness. Seth’s house was a prime example. Seth had bought that house only weeks before meeting Meagan and had lived in it just less than a year before they had married and decided Meagan’s house was more suited to the family’s needs. Now Seth had to try to find a buyer. Even as nice a place as that one took a while to unload these days.
The second house was a Colonial style, also in west Little Rock but in a more established neighborhood. Mitch liked it well enough, but he couldn’t say he liked it more than Seth’s house. He could tell Jacqui preferred it to the larger house. She studied all the rooms and poked around in the closets and cupboards. He could almost see her mentally arranging furniture and decorating.
“Nice place,” she said about that one afterward.
“It was,” he agreed. “But I’m leaning toward the second apartment we saw this morning. Good location. Nice, big rooms. Plenty of parking and storage—not that I have anything to store at the moment. Have to sign a year lease, but that shouldn’t be a problem. If I should break the lease for any reason, I’d only have to sacrifice a month’s rent.”
She murmured something he didn’t catch, but there wasn’t time to ask her to repeat it. They had arrived at the final house he had scheduled to tour that afternoon.
He thought he heard a muffled sound from Jacqui when he parked in front of the Craftsman-style house in one of Little Rock’s oldest, still-well-respected neighborhoods. According to his information, this house had been built in the 1920s. It had been renovated several times since but still retained the flavor of that period, as did most of the houses in the historic area.
Although significantly older and slightly smaller than either of the other houses he’d toured, this one was just as expensive, at the top of his price range. He could see why. All the houses on this block were immaculately maintained, the lawns landscaped and manicured. A curving driveway ended in a discreetly placed garage that matched the house. A roomy front porch was furnished with inviting rockers beneath a lazily turning, antique-style ceiling fan. Flowers bloomed in beds around the porch, and a fountain added the sound of tumbling water to the already idyllic setting.
The inside of the house had been just as skillfully staged. Soft lighting from antique lamps and fixtures cast a welcoming glow over the Mission-styled furnishings arranged for comfort and conversation. Because it was July and still hotter than Hades outside, no fire burned in the old site-built brick fireplace, but it wasn’t hard to imagine flames crackling there on a dark winter evening. Built-in shelves held old books and pottery, and antique rugs softened the gleaming wood floors.
The kitchen, though still retaining the flavor of the period, had been renovated into a chef’s dream. A sunroom opened off the back, overlooking the small but appealing backyard. They toured a laundry room, a study and a dining ro
om downstairs, then climbed the wooden steps to explore the three bedrooms upstairs. Two smaller bedrooms were separated by a Jack-and-Jill bath, and the master bedroom included a sitting area in a bay window, a bathroom that was as charming as it was luxurious, and not one but two walk-in closets. Because roomy closets hadn’t been a feature of this style home at the time it was built, Mitch suspected some walls had been removed to create the space, but the construction had been seamless. It all blended very well.
As many amenities as this house offered, it was more warm and homey to him than the newer places they’d toured earlier. Maybe it was the age, maybe the abundance of honey-toned wood in contrast to the white-painted trim of the other two houses or maybe he just preferred this style. Whatever the reason, he liked it better.
Jacqui, he noted, had very little to say about this one. She’d kept up a running commentary at all the other places and it hadn’t been hard to interpret her reactions to them. She studied this house just as closely, if not more so, than the others, but she kept her observations to herself for the most part. She spent an especially long time in the kitchen, gazing at the glass-fronted cabinets, wood-paneled appliances, dark granite countertops and amber-glass light fixtures. If he’d had to guess, he would have said she was transfixed, but it was hard to tell when she made a deliberate effort to mask her thoughts.
She was just stepping out of one of the walk-in closets when he started to enter. Had he not reached up instinctively to grab her shoulders, they would have collided in the doorway. Startled, she laughed. “Oops.”
He grinned down at her. “Careful. Even as big as this closet is, there’s not room for both of us to get through the doorway at once.”
“Then you should move aside so I can come out,” she advised him humorously.
He found himself reluctant to release her. It felt good to have his hands on her, to be standing so close he could see the little specks of amber in her dark brown eyes and just a hint of freckles across her lightly tanned nose.
Her smile faded. “Um, Mitch?”
“Yeah.” He dropped his hands and moved out of her way. She didn’t glance back at him as she wandered off to explore the master bath.
He noted that she looked over her shoulder when he drove away a short while later, her gaze on that house until he’d turned onto busy Kavanaugh Avenue and she could no longer see it. Only then did she turn forward again, adjusting her seat belt and looking through the windshield with a pensive expression.
“That was the last one today,” he said, breaking the silence between them when he stopped at a red light. “I don’t think my brain can process any more choices.”
She smiled faintly, though she didn’t turn to look at him. “I’d say you looked at a nice range of options today.”
“Yeah. I can tell my mom I saw apartments, condos and houses, so she can’t say I’m not taking the search seriously.”
She looked at him then, their eyes meeting for a moment before he directed his attention back to the road ahead. “You’re looking at houses to please your mom?”
“I’m looking at houses because I need to move out of my sister’s guest room.”
“But none of the houses you’ve seen today have excited you. Not even that last one?”
“It’s a house,” he answered simply, though he didn’t miss her emphasis on the last place they’d seen. She really had liked that one, apparently. “A nice house but still just a place to sleep and stash the stuff I’ll eventually reaccumulate.”
“You shouldn’t rush into anything. Maybe you should wait until some place does excite you.”
“Honestly? I don’t think that’s going to happen. I mean, nothing will really change except my mailing address. I’ll still go to work every day at the hospital, still be on call for my mom when she needs me, still hang with my friends when I get the time. A house would add some responsibilities like maintenance and lawn care, but I’d probably have to pay someone to do that stuff most of the time. Mowing and weeding isn’t my idea of a good time when I’m off work.”
“I wouldn’t mind taking care of my own yard, if I had one,” she murmured. “Maybe tending some flower beds. But I guess that’s not your thing.”
He remembered how long she’d gazed at the tidy flower beds around the last house. “No,” he replied with a light shrug. “Gardening isn’t really something I’ve had a strong urge to do.”
“You want to get away from Little Rock, don’t you?”
The seemingly disconnected question caught him off guard, so he hesitated a bit before answering, “I think I’ve mentioned before that I wouldn’t mind seeing what it’s like to live somewhere else, because I never have. Every time I thought about moving away for a while, something came up with the family and I felt as though I needed to stay.”
“So, what’s keeping you now? Your family’s in good shape. Your surgical skills are probably in demand just about anywhere you want to move to. Or are you still playing George Bailey?”
Mitch frowned. Was her tone just a little cross? And if so, why? “George who?”
“George Bailey. It’s a Wonderful Life. The movie.”
“Ah.” He remembered now. “The guy who kept trying to leave home and couldn’t because of the family banking business?”
“Yes.”
He chuckled. “I’m no George Bailey. I haven’t tried all that hard to leave yet. And, like you said, there’s no reason I couldn’t move now if I want. I mean, I like my job here, and my family and friends are all here, but still, I can see the appeal of checking out new places. Maybe I’ll just find a good home base here and travel when I get the chance—like my upcoming trip to Peru.”
“You’re really looking forward to that, aren’t you?”
“I really am.”
“Then I hope the trip will be everything you want it to be.”
“Thank you.”
As he turned into the driveway of his sister’s house, he glanced across the street toward the for-sale sign in the yard of Seth’s former house. He knew it would make his mom happy if he bought that place. Not to mention he’d be doing his brother-in-law a favor. It wasn’t as if he didn’t get along well enough with the family to live that close. It just didn’t— Well, it didn’t excite him, he thought, recalling Jacqui’s words.
As he followed Jacqui into the house, it occurred to him that the only time that day he’d been anywhere close to excited was when he’d stood in that closet with Jacqui’s slender shoulders beneath his hands, her face very close to his.
Something told him that wasn’t the type of excitement she had urged him to pursue.
Awakening with a start, Jacqui rolled over to look at the illuminated clock on her bedside. 3:00 a.m. Great.
Knowing she wouldn’t sleep again with the echo of her sister’s voice in her head, she climbed out of the bed. The house was silent, and she figured Mitch was sound asleep, but she still thought it best not to go traipsing around in nothing but a thigh-length nightshirt—even though he had seen her in that outfit before, she remembered with a slight wince. She pulled on the jeans she’d left draped over the foot of the bed. Figuring that counted as at least mostly dressed, she walked barefoot out of the room, making her way silently down the stairs to the kitchen.
She opened the refrigerator door and reached for a bottle of water. A half bottle of wine caught her eye, but she left it sitting there. That was her mother’s sleepless-night crutch, not hers.
Too restless to sit, she leaned against the counter to sip her water. She stared at the table across the shadowy room, but what she saw instead was the kitchen of the Craftsman house she and Mitch had toured that afternoon. She had taken one look at that house and fallen in love. Every step she’d taken inside had only fanned the flames of that passion. The house had been perfect. Exactly the style she and Olivia had always talked about when they’d lay awake at night in a cheap apartment or motel and fantasized about the home they would have someday.
She wan
ted a house like that. Oh, not that particular one. As much as she had loved it, it had been well out of her price range for any foreseeable future. But she could find a less expensive little house in a less expensive neighborhood and decorate in a similar style. She could paint and hang wallpaper, and she figured she could learn to grout tile and refinish secondhand furniture.
Maybe it was time for her to start haunting estate sales and garage sales on her days off, collecting a few things for the little house she wanted to buy. She’d been in the habit of not accumulating possessions so it would be easier to move when the time came, but she hoped her next move would be into a little house where she could stay for a nice long while. Her goal had been to own a home by the time she turned thirty, just less than a year away. She saw no reason why she couldn’t fulfill that dream.
If she had needed any evidence of how different she and Mitch were, she figured their outing today had done the trick. He had looked at apartments and condos and houses with little enthusiasm, seemingly willing to settle for the first reasonably suitable option. From what she could tell, he’d seen the houses as potential anchors, more long-term commitment and responsibility than he was looking for. For someone who had just spent—what had he said, six years?—living in a rented duplex, he certainly saw himself as the footloose type.
Just her luck that the only man who had made her pulse race in the past busy year was a restless surgeon related to her employer—so many strikes against him that it was almost funny. So why wasn’t she smiling?
Her somber thoughts were interrupted by a strange sound from the backyard. Frowning, she looked toward the door. Maybe Waldo had heard her moving around and was trying to get her attention. It hadn’t sounded like his usual whine, though. Something was…
The sound came again. Catching her breath, she set her water bottle on the counter with a thump and ran toward the door. It took her only moments to disarm the security system and open the locks. “Waldo?”
She could tell at a glance that the dog was in trouble. The trees silhouetted by the backyard security lighting threw long shadows over the pool, patio and lawn, but there was still enough light for her to see that Waldo had somehow become trapped in the fencing designed to hold the adventuresome dog in the yard. His head jammed between a post and a fence slat, he was unable to move anything except his hind quarters. He pumped his back legs wearily, as though he’d been trying for some time to extricate himself, and he whimpered in pain and frustration.