by Nicole Ellis
“I did?” He looked up the street. She was right. “Oh. I’m not very familiar with Candle Beach.” He started walking back up the hill, hoping she’d believe his feeble excuse.
She gave him another funny look as she caught up to him. “You sped right past the outside tables and the huge sign with the name of the restaurant on it.”
With a sinking feeling, he forced himself to focus. People were already eating on the outside patio and the blue umbrellas flew like bright flags over it all. Real heart lamps lit up the space. How had he missed that?
She put her hand on his arm, forcing him to stop. “What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?” He pulled his arm away and fidgeted with his hands in his coat pockets.
She tilted her head to the side, assessing him. “Did you really want to go out with me, or did Sarah make you do it?”
“What? No, of course not. I agreed to this date.”
“Well, then what’s wrong? I don’t know you, but I can tell that something is distracting you. What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” He kicked a stray pebble off of the sidewalk. “Maybe it’s just been a long day for me and I’m not good company.”
“If you’d rather, we can just go home.” She scanned his face. “No hard feelings.”
“No,” he said sharply. “I want to go on this date.” She stepped back, and he winced at the tone of his voice. She had every right to be wary of him. It didn’t matter if he had feelings for Sarah, he was on a date with someone else. From somewhere within the exterior patio area of the Seaside Grille came the telltale sound of glass hitting the ground. He wasn’t the only one having a bad evening.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Look, I’m a guidance counselor at a middle school. I know when something is bothering someone. And don’t try to hide it from me, I deal with tweens and early teens. Lying comes second nature to them.”
He started to protest, then stopped. What was he supposed to tell her? That he was hung up on her friend? Before he knew it, he’d blurted out that very thing.
“Oh,” Maura said in a small voice. His stomach twisted. He’d never meant to hurt her. She was a nice woman and she didn’t deserve to have her night ruined by her blind date professing his love for another woman.
Surprisingly though, she brightened quickly. “Does Sarah know that you feel this way?”
“No!” he said loudly. Several patrons at the nearby patio tables stopped eating and stared at him. He lowered his voice. “She’s made it pretty clear that she’s not interested in me. Please don’t say anything to her.”
She sighed. “I won’t, but I think you should be honest with her. I’m sure she’d like to know because, um…” She stopped. “I mean, what if it doesn’t work out between her and that other guy?”
He looked up, suddenly hopeful. “Is it not working out?”
She sighed, and her eyes were troubled. “I don’t know. Like I said, you should talk directly to her.” She glanced behind her at the front door of the restaurant. “Now what? Should we call it a night?”
His stomach grumbled, and she laughed.
He grinned. “Well, I’m obviously still hungry. Do you want to still have dinner together? As friends,” he said quickly. “I’m apparently not in the right state of mind to be dating right now.”
She smiled at him and held out her hand to shake with him. “Friends. Now, let’s go eat. I’m starving too. I’ve been checking out their menu all day, trying to decide what to get and I have my heart set on some surf and turf.”
“Well then, by all means, let’s go. I’m pretty sure I owe you dinner after how I’ve behaved.”
She rested her hand on his arm and smiled up at him. “Don’t even worry about how you’ve behaved. I can’t be mad that you have feelings for my best friend. She’s a great girl.” She grinned widely. “But I do intend to get a nice dinner out of this for keeping my silence.”
He laughed. “Deal.”
They walked together into the restaurant and had a lovely dinner – surf and turf, which he paid for. When they finished their last bites of buttery steak and shrimp, he tried to talk her into dessert with hopes of plying her for more information about Sarah, but she declined his invitation.
After he walked her home and said goodbye, he left his car parked near her house and returned to the downtown area to tour Main Street for a while longer, enjoying the clear evening. Now that most of the tourists were gone, it wasn’t as lively as it had been when he’d come here with Parker, but he liked it this way too. He could see why Sarah was so enchanted by her hometown. There was something calming about walking down the tree-lined streets with the sound of the ocean roaring in the background. An evening fog had rolled in and he stopped to breathe in the dense, salty air.
He still felt bad about unintentionally deceiving Maura, but he was grateful for the gracious way she’d handled things. Although she’d given him hope that Sarah and Derek might part ways, Sarah herself had told him that things were going well between them and he didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize that. Hopefully Maura wouldn’t say anything to Sarah about his feelings for her until he’d figured out what to do.
9
Sarah couldn’t get past her desire to see Patrick, so she figured the best medicine would be to see him and be forced to realize that he only saw her as a friend. The idea of buying a house had been weighing heavily on her mind and she’d enlisted the help of her friend Gretchen, a local real estate agent, to help her see what was available in her price range. She’d called Patrick to see if he would go with her to look at houses since he knew more about them than anyone else she knew. Besides, if it turned out that the only thing she could afford was a fixer-upper, it would be nice to have him with her to provide cost estimates to get things in working order.
When the Saturday morning that she’d arranged to meet Gretchen arrived, she found herself staring at her reflection in the mirror. She’d tried her best to do something with her wavy, shoulder-length hair that was somewhere in between brown and dishwater-blonde, but it refused to fall into neat layers like Maura’s hair. Grey-green eyes full of anxiety stared back at her.
From the other side of the room, a squeaking noise tore her away from her worries. Chuck, her grey and brown hamster, was happily racing to nowhere on the wheel in his cage. She couldn’t help but laugh at the earnest expression on his face. Someday, maybe when she had her own place, she’d have a dog but, for now, Chuck was a good roommate.
She took a deep breath and turned back to the mirror, smoothing the soft fabric of her charcoal-gray sweater dress over her hips. Why was she so worried anyway? If the house hunting didn’t work out, she’d re-evaluate her desire to own her own home. Although, as much as she’d tried to limit her expectations, she’d secretly be devastated if she couldn’t find anything decent that she could afford. And as for Patrick, well, if her plan to see him and get over him didn’t work out, she’d figure that out later.
Gretchen had given her a list of available properties in the area and she’d decided to tour everything within her price range that was also within walking distance to the elementary school. They were scheduled to see the first one in ten minutes, so she slid her feet into the tall black boots that she wore for teaching because they were comfortable enough to stand in for hours, and threw on her coat before exiting the apartment.
The first house Gretchen wanted her to see was only a few blocks away – a pretty white Craftsman house with a wide front porch and a cheery yellow door. The garden had seen better days, but then again, it was the middle of October and nothing around there looked at its finest in the gloomy weather. Gretchen was sitting on the porch steps, waiting for her. Patrick had already arrived as well and was circling the exterior of the house. He bent down to examine the foundation, running his hands over a crack in it, then inspected the side of the porch.
Then he noticed she’d arrived and walked over to her.
“Hey,” he said, giving h
er a quick hug that sent shivers all the way down to her boot-encased toes. She stiffened and pulled back, but he didn’t seem to notice. “How’s it going?”
“Good.” She bit her lip. Should she ask him about his date with Maura? She mentally debated with herself and finally spat it out. “How did your date with Maura go? I haven’t had a chance to talk with her since then.”
He looked down and toed the ground, then looked up, smiling. “It went well. We had a nice time together.”
“Oh.” Her heart twinged and she looked away. “That’s great. I’m glad it worked out for the two of you.”
He nodded but didn’t respond to her comment verbally.
She pointed at the porch. “Is everything okay with the foundation?”
“It looks good to me. I would expect to see a few cracks in the foundation of a house of this age, but there was nothing too serious. Although when you get to the stage of having a house inspected, they’ll be able to look at it in more detail.”
She nodded, her anxiety returning. There were so many things to remember about the home-buying process. It was all a little overwhelming.
Gretchen cleared her throat. “So, this is a three-bedroom, one-bath house that was built in the early 1900s.”
“Great.” Sarah ran her eyes over the front of the house. A thrill ran through her. This was really happening. She wasn’t sure yet how many bedrooms she needed, although she wanted at least two, but she wouldn’t object to more. As Maura had said, her craft items needed room to spread out.
Gretchen climbed the steps and unlocked the front door. The lock stuck, and she had to jiggle it, but then the handle turned easily, and the door swung open. They entered a living room with thick brown carpet and a fireplace with the original unpainted bricks and mantel. It was small, but plenty big enough for her.
Gretchen led them down a small hallway to the back of the house where they found a kitchen with torn vinyl flooring, oak cabinets and laminate counter tops.
“As you can see, the kitchen was last remodeled in the mid-eighties, so it’s not in the best of shape cosmetically, but the good news is that they renovated all of the wiring and plumbing at the same time. Some of the houses in this area still have knob and tube wiring that should be replaced for safety.”
“Is that type of thing expensive?” Sarah definitely didn’t want to have an unsafe home but rewiring a house couldn’t be cheap.
“Yep. They can be,” Gretchen said. “That’s definitely a plus for this property versus some others we may see.” She gestured to a door. “This leads out to the backyard. Do you want to see it now, or later?”
Sarah glanced at Patrick and he shrugged. “Now is good,” she said.
The sheer curtain over the window in the door fluttered as Gretchen pushed the door open. The backyard was a normal size for the city and, like the front yard, was badly in need of some landscaping. However, there was a nice surprise in the corner of the yard – a built-in firepit and patio.
“I love it,” she said softly. Visions of backyard barbecues with all of her friends flowed through her mind. Maybe someday there would be little kids here, if she was ever fortunate enough to find the right person to settle down with. There was just enough room for a small swing set toward the other side of the yard.
She shivered as a cool breeze swept across the yard.
“Let’s see the rest of the house.” Gretchen led them back into the kitchen and then into a dining room with a built-in cabinet with leaded glass door panes.
Patrick crossed over to it immediately to inspect it further. “This is a beautiful piece of craftsmanship.” He pulled a drawer open and it slid easily. “They’ve added some slides to this to help with functionality, but otherwise it’s original to the house.”
Sarah pulled a drawer open as well, loving how the coolness of the cut glass knobs felt beneath her fingertips. When she’d talked to Gretchen about houses, she hadn’t known exactly what she wanted, but now she knew that having a house with history was important to her.
“Ready to go upstairs?” Gretchen pointed at a back staircase. “We can see the main floor bathroom when we come back down.”
“Sure,” Sarah said as she followed Gretchen up the stairs.
The three bedrooms upstairs were in decent condition, as was the bathroom downstairs, with its wide subway tiles and vintage standing sink and claw-foot bathtub.
Soon they were standing outside of the house, staring up at it as they had when they first arrived.
Sarah glanced at Patrick’s face. It was poker straight and she couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
He walked closer to the house with his hands in his pockets, gazing up at it.
“What do you think?” Her stomach churned. There were other houses to see, but she wasn’t sure any of them would top this one. If there was something major wrong with it, she’d be crushed.
His eyes met hers and his face erupted in a smile. “For the price point, I think it’s in great condition. There’s a few minor things that I see that need to be fixed, but from a quick walk-through of the house, the bones of it appear to be good.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. “But you don’t think there’s anything that would be too costly to fix?”
He shrugged. “I mean, you never know until you get a formal inspection, but I’m not seeing anything that’s triggering any alarms for me.”
“Is having a second bathroom important to you?” Gretchen asked. “Some of my clients are adamant about the need for more than one bathroom.”
Sarah shrugged. “It’s just me, so I can’t see that I’d need more than one.”
“I think you could put one in upstairs next to the landing if you’d like,” Patrick said, staring at the house as if trying to remember the layout. “It would be on top of the other bathroom, so the plumbing shouldn’t be too tricky.”
She nodded. “Good to know.” If she ever had more people living there with her, having an extra bathroom might be nice. Good thing Patrick had agreed to come see houses with her or she’d never have known adding a second bath would be possible.
Gretchen looked from Patrick to Sarah. “Do you still want to see the other houses?”
“Yes,” Sarah said. Although this particular house spoke to her, she wanted to make sure she wasn’t experiencing some weird effect from it being the first and only house she’d toured.
“Okay, let’s go then.” Gretchen locked the front door and placed the key in the lockbox, then guided them a few blocks over to the next house.
This house was in a similar style to the first, but much care had been given to the exterior of the house. It had been painted navy-blue with a red door and accents, and gave her a cheery feeling, even in the dullness of winter.
“So this one is a little smaller, a two-bedroom with one bath. However, it’s priced quite a bit lower than the first.” Gretchen let them into the house.
The interior was just as nice as the exterior and had obviously been remodeled in the last five years or so. The kitchen had been renovated, although the fixtures weren’t high-end. Although a fancy kitchen would have been nice, Sarah would be happy with anything with more space than the kitchen in her rental. Like the other house, there was a door leading outside from the kitchen.
Sarah walked over to it, turning the knob, not sure what she’d find. When she saw the backyard, she felt a twinge of sadness. It was much smaller than the other house’s backyard and didn’t have room for a playset, much less for a firepit. It was big enough for a compact table and chairs and a vegetable garden, but maybe that was all she needed. Still though, it didn’t give her the same feeling as the first house.
The rest of the house was unremarkable, and they found themselves standing outside in a few minutes.
“What did you think?” Gretchen eyed Sarah.
Sarah hesitated.
“You didn’t like it as much as the first one, did you?” Gretchen asked.
She sighed. “No.” Even thou
gh this one was cheaper, it didn’t have as much potential as the house they’d seen earlier.
“I think the first one had more going for it,” Patrick said. “The house itself was bigger and so was the yard.”
Gretchen looked at Sarah. “Do you want to put an offer in on the first house or do you want to see the other houses on the list?”
“I don’t know. I did love that first one.” Sarah bit her lip. She hadn’t expected to find something she loved so quickly. “How fast do you think it will go?”
Gretchen checked the listing that she’d printed out and attached to her clipboard. “You never know, but I would think it will sell fairly fast. It’s a new listing and while it’s not the prettiest house on the block, it’s a good size and condition for the price.”
Sarah took a deep breath, her heart hammering. “Okay. I’ll do it.”
Gretchen gave her a small hug. “I know it’s scary. It’s probably the biggest purchase you’ll ever make, but I think if we can get you this house, you’ll love it.”
Sarah nodded. Was anyone ever sure they were making the right decision when it came to buying a house? She took another deep breath and smiled at Gretchen.
Gretchen smiled back. “Let’s go back to my office and we can write up an offer, okay?” She glanced at Patrick. “Did you want to come too?”
He looked at Sarah and then quickly away, as if he couldn’t wait to get away from her. “No, I’d probably be a third wheel for that. I think I’ll head back to Haven Shores – I’ve got some things I need to do today. Sarah, I’m glad you found something you like. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help you.”
“I will. Thank you.” Sarah stuck her hands in her coat pockets and turned her attention back to the house to take her mind off of him.
“It was nice to meet you, Patrick,” Gretchen said warmly. “And if you decide to sell the house you’re working on, I’ve got some clients that are looking for something like it.”
He laughed. “Are you trying to snag my house out from under Parker?”