by SUE FINEMAN
The woman’s face glowed. She obviously liked what she saw. The man asked a lot of questions, and he examined each of the pictures before stacking them in the middle of the table.
“I’m impressed,” he said, “but that’s too much house for us. We’re looking to downsize now that all the kids are gone.”
Al flipped through his plans and pulled out another one. “What about this one? It doesn’t have a basement, and it has three bedrooms instead of four. We can leave the sun porch off if you like.”
“Oh, no, I love the sun room,” said the woman.
Nick winked at him, and Al knew they had a sale. The wife chose the home with the features she liked and, if the price was within their budget and the husband was convinced the property was a good investment, the sale was in the bag. It didn’t always work that way, but Al had been involved in enough of these discussions to know that was the way it usually worked.
The man looked up and asked, “How many plans do you have?”
“Five so far. As I said before, they’re preliminary plans that can be customized to meet your needs. They all have stone and clapboard exteriors and they’ll probably all have sun rooms. Nick’s wife loves their sun room.” They all knew who Nick was married to. That statement would no doubt be repeated to this couple’s friends and family when they showed people through their completed home.
“What about landscaping?” the man asked.
“Included,” said Nick. “Every house will have patios and decks for outdoor living, grass, shrubs, and a water feature of some kind. The lots are bigger than any view lots you’ll find in this area.” At this price, they could afford to spend a few thousand on landscaping, and Vinnie’s creative landscaping would make the entire development look good.
Nick talked price with them for several minutes, and they didn’t blink at Nick’s, “Up to two million, depending on square footage, lot, and features.”
After talking about the exclusive community of luxury homes with stairs down to the beach, Nick took the buyers outside again. “We’ll only have nine lots. We could have packed in a few more, but this way everyone will have an open view of the sound. We’ll put in some steps down to the beach, but the homeowners will have to maintain them.”
“Yeah, yeah,” the man said. “Whatever you put in will have to be maintained.”
Nick moved in for the sale. “Are you interested enough to make a commitment?”
Husband and wife looked at each other, and the man nodded. “We’d like time to study all the plans before we decide which one we want, and we’ll take one of the waterfront lots, whichever one my wife wants.”
The inn had to come out, and soon, so they could get started, but Al wasn’t anxious to move now that he had Jenna living here with him. He could always live with his mother, but Jenna wouldn’t live there again. She’d made it clear that she wanted her own space, and he didn’t want to go anywhere without her.
The buyers left with a copy of Al’s plans. They’d study them and figure out which one they wanted, and then they’d return after the inn had been torn down to choose a lot. It would be next year before this couple would be living at Dead Man’s Point and the following year before all the homes were built and occupied.
Nick asked, “Are you moving in with Aunt Sophia?”
“Probably, but I need to find a place where I can work undisturbed.”
“How about if we put one of those construction trailers on your new property?”
“Why don’t we just build a studio with a garage back in the trees? I can use the garage for a workshop after we get the house in.”
Nick nodded. “Get it drawn up and the plans approved, and we’ll get a crew started.”
Al had the plan for the studio nearly finished when Jenna came home from work and called up to him. “If you want to go out for dinner tonight, I’m buying.”
He smiled, saved his file, and walked downstairs. “What are we having?”
“I’m in the mood for Mexican, and Katie loves tacos.”
“And green stuff,” said Katie.
Al drove them to El Pueblito in downtown Gig Harbor, where Katie had a taco and ‘green stuff.’ She dripped it all over her shirt, but she looked happy. Cute kid, and well behaved for a kid that age. He was getting quite attached to the little squirt.
Jenna cleaned Katie up with a napkin and took her to the restroom to wash her face and hands. While Jenna was gone, Brian Baxter slid into the booth. “How come you can take them out and I can’t?”
“I didn’t hear you ask Jenna to come along.”
“Yeah, well, my old man isn’t any too crazy about Jenna. He wouldn’t come here anyway.”
“Why? Because it’s a non-smoking restaurant?”
“Yeah. He smokes cigarettes when they go out. Jenna makes a big deal out of everything. Katie was catching a cold or something that night.”
“It wasn’t a cold, Brian. Go down to Urgent Care and talk with the doctor about it. Ask him what happened and how serious it was. Katie has asthma, and she can’t breathe around smoke. If Katie was my kid I wouldn’t let her near your father again.”
Brian stood. “She’s not your kid, she’s mine, and don’t you forget it.”
Brian Baxter was a jerk in high school and he was still a jerk. Katie deserved better, but Al couldn’t say much because Brian was right. Katie wasn’t his kid.
After Brian left, Jenna came back with Katie. “Was that Brian?”
“Yep. He thinks you’re making too much of his father’s smoking.”
“That’s Bruce putting words into his mouth. I wish Brian would get a job and distance himself from his parents, but he won’t because he stands to inherit their money someday.” She picked up her purse. “He won’t work as long as his father keeps supporting him, and I don’t think Bruce is rich enough to support him forever.”
Al stood and put some bills on the table. “Katie’s health is more important than money.”
Jenna waited until they were in the car before asking, “Did Brian have a girl with him?”
“No.”
“He must have broken up with Gabriella, which means he left my apartment.” She sighed. “He wouldn’t let me move back before and now I’m stuck with an apartment I can’t live in and furniture I can’t afford to move.”
“Can you sell it?”
“It’s not worth much, and I’d have to be there to do it. I guess I could put an ad in the newspaper and spend the weekend in Seattle. I need to get the baby furniture anyway.”
“I’ll borrow Angelo’s pickup and help you get whatever you need.”
She sat beside him and watched him drive home to the inn. Alessandro didn’t ask what she needed, he just stepped in to help. He was trying so hard to do what was right, to help her get settled and ready for the baby. She knew he wanted more than a supportive role in their lives, but he was letting her call the shots on their relationship.
There were times when she lay awake at night wanting him so much she cried herself to sleep. Other times she saw the longing in his dark eyes and wanted to go to him and tell him how much she loved him. But she hadn’t apologized for not telling him about the check and he hadn’t apologized for assuming the worst of her. Alessandro wanted them to resume their relationship, but they couldn’t with the check business between them.
Trust was a huge issue for her. She’d trusted her mother more than anyone in the world, but Mom hadn’t told her about her real father or that she had a brother. Charlie could have told her when she got older, but he hadn’t. All he said was that she’d own the inn someday, but he died without a will. And Mattie owned the inn.
Spending her parents’ money to help Tom was not an issue for her, but not telling her was. Finding out about these things after Mom and Charlie were both gone had destroyed Jenna’s ability to trust anyone. If she couldn’t trust those two people, who could she trust?
Katie had fallen asleep in her car seat, so Alessandro carried her inside
and up to bed. Jenna pulled her shoes off and she woke enough to go potty, brush her teeth, and put her jammies on. Jenna sat on one side of the bed and Alessandro on the other. They watched Katie hug her stuffed doggie and drift into sleep.
“I can’t wait to have one of these of my own,” he said. “If I could get Brian out of the picture, I’d take the whole family. If Katie’s mother would let me.”
Jenna stared at him. Was he saying he wanted a permanent relationship? He stood and took Jenna’s hand. They stepped out into the hallway and pulled the door partly closed. She thought he’d explain what he meant, but all he did was lean down to brush a gentle kiss on her cheek.
“When you’re ready for more, you know where to find me,” he said softly. He hugged her and then returned to his office, leaving her alone, confused, and wanting more than a kiss on the cheek.
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Mattie had drifted in and out of sleep for days when she finally woke enough to realize where she was and why she was there. She’d attacked a doctor, screamed at her attorney, and sworn at an officer of the law. They’d drugged her and brought her here to the hospital, where they’d locked her in a room with another woman who was obviously crazy. The woman picked at things all day – threads on the sheet, hairs and freckles on her arms, even invisible dust bunnies on the floor.
One day the other woman was sent somewhere else and Mattie was left alone. The doctor came in and talked with her about her obsession with the inn. He didn’t call it that, but she knew what he was getting at. He asked her if she felt calm, if she understood that she wouldn’t ever be going back to the inn, and if they could trust her not to hurt anyone again.
Knowing she had to tell him what he wanted to hear or she’d never get out of this place, she said yes, she understood. The inn didn’t belong to her anymore, and she was sorry she’d hurt anyone.
He asked her what she’d intended to do with the matches in her pocket, and she told him she was keeping them away from Jenna’s little girl. “She’s only four, you know.” He seemed satisfied with her answer.
“Will I have to stay here?” she asked him.
“No, as soon as we get the medication adjusted, you can go back to the nursing home. Would you like that better?”
“Yes, I would.” She didn’t like the nursing home, but they didn’t lock her in there. Her television and chair and all her new clothes were there, and she didn’t have to share a room with crazy people.
“We’ll talk again in a day or two,” said the doctor. He smiled. “It’s nice to see that you’re feeling better.”
Sure she was feeling better, now that she knew the score. She’d have to stay in the hospital until she could convince these people that she wasn’t going to hurt anyone. And then she’d go back to the nursing home, where she’d sneak out again and take care of what she should have taken care of before.
It was just a matter of time.
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Jenna called Brian on his cell phone. “Sorry I missed you at the restaurant. Are you still living in Seattle?”
“No.”
“Did you give the landlord notice?”
“Hell, no, it’s your apartment, not mine.”
She sighed. “Is the rent paid?”
“Until the end of the month.”
She had to give notice and probably pay a couple more weeks of rent. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What do you care?”
“Because it’s my credit that gets ruined when the rent isn’t paid.”
“So what?”
She didn’t want to get into a fight with Brian. He was in a bad mood, probably because his girlfriend left him and his father laid into him again. She’d take care of the apartment. “Are you living in Gig Harbor now?”
“For a few days. My parents want to see Katie, and they don’t want to take her out to a restaurant. My old man says if you don’t let them see her, he’ll take you to court.”
“Fine, tell him to take me to court. Goodbye, Brian.”
It wasn’t the first time Bruce had threatened to sue her. First he denied Katie was his grandchild and threatened to sue her for claiming ‘the kid’ was Brian’s. Then he threatened to take Katie away from her and raise ‘the kid’ himself. He’d done that twice so far, and knowing Bruce, he was a long way from finished. Four threats in as many years.
Jenna didn’t intend to fight over the child support. She was making enough money to support her child, and it would do no good to go to court, since Brian didn’t work. And she didn’t want to be obligated to his parents.
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Nick’s other buyers came out to see the property the next day, and the visit went much the way the other visit had. The woman was enchanted with the inn and asked what they were doing with it.
“Tearing it down,” said Nick.
“What a shame,” she said.
Yeah, it was a shame, thought Al. The old building had a lot of character.
The buyers scanned plan after plan and eliminated three before they found one they liked. It was the smallest of the plans, but it was still a substantial size at nearly five thousand square feet. The man said, “I don’t want to pay waterfront taxes, so we’ll take one of the back lots.”
The woman argued with her husband until Nick stepped in to help settle the argument. “Every lot here will have a good view of the water. We’re also putting stairs down to the beach. What would you think about putting a hold on the lot across from the stairs? You can see the rocks at Dead Man’s Point from there, and you can’t see them from all the waterfront lots. We’ll put a sun room on the south side, a water feature in the yard, maybe a pergola in the back with a hot tub, where you can watch the stars while you soak.”
The buyers wrote a check for fifty thousand to hold that lot and said they’d get back to Al about any changes they wanted to make to the plan.
“That’s two,” Nick said after they left.
Before Cara came into their lives, none of the Donatelli men had ever dreamed they’d be designing and building million-dollar homes. Before they married, Cara had given the fledgling Max and Company to Nick as payment for helping her with a business problem in California. It was a nothing little company back then, but Nick had built it into one of the most well-known and respected construction companies in the area.
Max and Company had built the house Cara and Nick lived in now. They’d done earthquake repairs and remodeling before, but that was their first new construction project, and it was a highly visible one. People came from all over the Puget Sound area to take pictures of Cara’s house. Boats sat off shore with long-range cameras, and newspapers and magazines printed articles about it. Since Cara Andrews was so well known, the company became well known, and so did Al and his work.
Max and Company had requests for plans designed by Al, but until he finished college, he wasn’t an architect, so they found a local architect who would take Al’s preliminary sketches and turn them into finished plans.
Al was proud of Nick and his brothers for making a nothing little company into something special, and he was proud of himself for what he’d accomplished.
Now, if he could just get his love life in order.
Chapter Eighteen
Jenna called her landlord in Seattle and told him she’ll be moving out that weekend, and then she put an ad in the Seattle paper for her furniture.
Katie stayed with Grandma while Al drove Jenna up to Seattle in Angelo’s pickup. When they arrived early Saturday morning, the apartment was a mess. Jenna groaned. “Gabriella left before Brian, because this place was clean when I came up here last time.”
“So Brian is a slob. Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Alessandro walked around picking up newspapers and magazines off the furniture and the floor while Jenna worked in the kitchen.
She loaded the dishwasher and turned it on. “You’d think he could at least wash his dirty dishes.”
He called from the bedroom, “Is there a washer in this place?”
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“In the kitchen, but it isn’t mine, if that’s what you’re thinking. None of the appliances are mine.”
He came in looking for a clothes basket for the dirty sheets and towels. “I take it Mr. Clean doesn’t know how to use a washer either. Okay if I throw away his dirty underwear I found under the bed?”
“Ooh, gross!”
The first people arrived before nine, and the apartment was straightened up by then. By ten, the kitchen table and chairs were gone and Alessandro had the mattresses and box springs loaded on the truck. By noon, most of the other furniture had been sold, and they had the baby furniture and kitchen things all loaded in the pickup. She was practically giving the furniture away, but it wasn’t worth much anyway. Alessandro ran the vacuum cleaner they’d brought from the inn while she cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen sink.
Two women arrived in a pickup truck looking for baby furniture. Alessandro shook his head. “We’re going to be needing that.”
“You can have anything that’s left in the apartment,” said Jenna, and the women took it all. Better to give it away than lug it back to Gig Harbor.
Jenna gave her landlord the key and asked for her cleaning deposit, since they’d just cleaned the apartment. He asked for an address and said he’d mail it to her, but she had a feeling she’d never see it. “Why don’t we trade the cleaning deposit for the rest of the rent and call it even?” They wanted thirty days notice and she was only giving them two weeks.
“Deal.”
She lost money on the deal, but if she wanted to rent an apartment in Gig Harbor, she couldn’t afford to pay this guy another two weeks of rent.
After a short stop at a fast food restaurant for lunch, Alessandro drove her back to the inn and they unloaded the truck. Jenna hated to see the baby furniture and clothes stuffed into a garage, but they wouldn’t be there long. She’d be moving soon.
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