High Plains Hearts (50 page)

“How will you protect yourself?”

She shook her head. This was not going at all well. “I will protect myself by being careful and using the brains God gave me. I have never been in the practice of putting myself in bad situations, and it’s usually served me well.”

He nodded, his gaze never leaving her face. “That’s good. But what if you find yourself staring down a rattlesnake?”

“A rattlesnake.” She shrugged with an assurance she didn’t feel. A rattlesnake had never been part of her plan. “The chances that I’d have a loaded gun at my fingertips and that I’d know how to use it without blasting off my own foot are pretty minimal—no, they’re nonexistent. So I guess I’d have to say I would stand still and wait for him to go away on his own.”

“That’s the right answer.”

“It’s the only answer. Trust me, Hayden, if I went into the kitchen to get coffee one morning and there was a snake in there, I would be paralyzed with fright. I’d have no choice but to stand stock-still.”

“You wouldn’t have a rattlesnake in your house anyway. They’d be in the outbuildings and in the rocky parts on the edge of the grounds. They don’t want to see you any more than you want to see them. Now, if you were a plump rabbit, that would be different.”

“Ah. So I should probably ditch the fuzzy bunny slippers just in case, huh? It would be just my luck that I’d see Mr. Snake and he’d think I was wearing breakfast on my feet.”

Hayden laughed. “Fuzzy bunny slippers? That’s quite the image.”

She pretended to fluff her hair. “We Bostonians are all about fashion. But back to the question. I see this as a challenge, one that I’m willing to take on. I’ve never backed down before when confronted with something that makes me work a little harder, learn a little more, dig a little deeper.”

“Do you know anything at all about buildings?”

“I was in real estate management in Boston for several years. Actually, I was until a couple of weeks ago.”

“Did you ever hammer a nail?”

She had to think fast. She’d hammered her fingernail one time with a can when she was trying to fix the edge of a countertop that had worked loose, but that was too far from the truth. She’d hung pictures, but that wasn’t really hammering and they weren’t really nails but tiny tacks. The heel of her shoe that was coming undone, the top of a can of touch-up paint for her apartment, the cabinet door that wouldn’t quite close—she’d smacked a lot of things into place in her life, but hammering a nail?

“Not really. I mean, maybe years ago—but how hard can it be? You hit the nail with the hammer.”

“I see. And have you ever used a saw?”

“No.”

“A level?”

“No.”

“A screwdriver?”

“Yes! I have!” She felt ridiculously happy about this. Finally, he mentioned a tool that she had used.

“What did you do with it?”

“I fixed my sunglasses. And my laptop. The little screw that holds the monitor on was coming out and I tightened it.”

This was not coming out at all as she planned. She took a quick moment and regrouped her thoughts, drawing on the skills she’d learned from Mr. Evans. She could almost hear his voice:
“Never play defense. Always have the right of way. Steer the ship. ”

He’d been quite the fellow for folksy adages, but he’d made her an effective agent for closing deals.

And his advice was apropos here. She took control of the conversation.

“I have years of experience in real estate. I know buildings. I know construction, even if I haven’t done it myself. I know what has to be union-labor, and what can be done by handymen—or handywomen. The best contractor doesn’t do it all. He or she knows when to call in help. And let’s face it, Hayden—” She used a trick she’d employed many times in getting an unsure client to agree with her. She got closer, and dropped her voice. “All construction workers had to get in at the ground floor, no pun intended. Everybody starts somewhere.”

“But they had skilled people training them. Who will train you?” Hayden asked. His logical query poked an immediate hole in her argument.

“I have resources to help me when I need help.” It was true … sort of.

“Oh.” He sagged in obvious relief. “You’ve got a crew?”

“I have resources,” she repeated, although she could count them on two fingers of one hand: the book and the Internet.

“Super,” he said, “because if you’re relying on the Internet, good luck to you. There’s no signal out at Sunshine.”

No Internet. She tried not to choke.

“So the next question Gramps and I came up with,” he said, referring to his list again, “is if you intend to live there while the remodeling is being done.”

That one was easy.

“Yes.”

“How soon do you need to move in?” he asked.

“As soon as possible, of course, but I know that you and your grandfather need some time to move out and get settled.”

“I have a place here in town, and I’d be happy to have Gramps with me, but he says he won’t.”

“He’s too independent, I gather?”

“That’s part of it. He doesn’t want to be a bother, that’s what he says.” Hayden stared sadly into his nearly empty coffee cup. “As if he could ever be a bother.”

“One set of my grandparents lives in Arizona, and the other one lives in Maine.” She chuckled. “My parents are always trying to get them to move closer to me, and I’d love it, too, but they have absolutely no interest in it.”

“I would like Gramps to be close though. I’m hoping I can get him in at the senior living apartments, but you can guess what he says. ‘They’re for old people!’ ”

“I understand the need to get him settled, that it’s a priority,” she said. “Did you say you can help me find a place to live in Obsidian? Oh, wait. That’s a lot to ask of you, since you need to deal with moving your grandpa, too.”

“Actually, yours is easy. I hope you don’t mind, but I think I have a place for you. This morning I dropped off some eggs—yes, we have the world’s orneriest chicken but she does lay eggs, even if you do have to find where they left them—at Jeannie Baldwin’s house, and got to talking with her. She said she had turned the garage into a guesthouse for her cousin, who, in Jeannie’s words, ‘up and married some fellow’ and now wasn’t going to use it. She’s fretting because she spent a lot of money fixing it up.”

“Maybe I could rent it!”

“You could. Knowing Jeannie, it’ll be sparkling clean. The only thing that might be an issue is that she’s taking off soon to go to Africa on a mission tour so you’d also have to watch her house.”

“I can do that!” This was working out wonderfully, and a rush of relief coursed through her.

“And her dog. And her bird. And her fish. And her crab. The rabbit escaped or else you’d have to watch it, too.”

“That’s quite the menagerie,” she said.

“It’s a zoo, that’s what it is. The only thing missing is a monkey and a zebra, and that’s only because she hasn’t thought of them yet, I’m sure.” Hayden shook his head.

“She must like animals.”

“That, my friend, is an understatement. I think we can get the bird and the fish moved to the church. I’m not sure about the crab. It’s one of those that live in a painted shell. She saw it at a mall, at one of those kiosks, and felt sorry for it. So she bought it and carted it all the way back here to Obsidian.”

Jeannie Baldwin was sounding like a fascinating woman.

“What kind of dog is it?”

He didn’t answer at first. Then he said, slowly, “I have no idea. It’s big. It’s got a lot of fur and a lot of drool.”

“It’s friendly, right?” she asked, cautious about this beast. She had about as much experience with dogs as she did with hammers.

“Friendly? Oh yes. Friendly. Very friendly. He doesn’t bite. The worst he would do is lick his enemy’s face off, or maybe drown him in drool. But he will like you.”

“And after six weeks, he goes back to Jeannie, and I go to Sunshine, right?” She ran the calendar in her head. Based upon her experience in the projects she’d managed in Boston, six weeks should be plenty of time.

Plus, as she had seen countless times on her favorite television shows about flipping houses—buying them, rapidly remodeling them, and selling them for a profit—six weeks would give her lots of wiggle room.

Fixing up Sunshine should take three weeks, tops, once she got in there and could work in a fairly empty place. She knew that much from the house remodeling programs she’d watched on television. The key was to have the place free of furniture and carpet, so time wouldn’t be wasted cleaning during the renovation, but instead could be done in one great swoop—or sweep—at the end.

“Are there other questions on your list?” she asked.

“Just one. What are you going to do with Sunshine?”

The world, which had been spinning so merrily, came to a dead halt.

This was the one part of her plan she hadn’t figured out, and it was the most important part. Without it, this was a journey without a destination.

She quickly weighed her options of how to respond to the question.

She could lie and come up with some scenario of investors and plans. That wasn’t going to happen. Lying was never a good idea. It might get you past an immediate situation, but it had been her experience that lies had longer legs and greater staying power than she did, and they always caught up with her.

Plus she couldn’t lie to Hayden and Gramps, even if she knew she’d never get tripped up on her own words. They were honest people. She could not imagine either of them telling a lie.

They deserved what she knew—and what she didn’t know.

“Well,” she hedged, “I haven’t decided yet if I will do anything more than live there, at least for the time being. I was thinking about a fishing resort.”

He shook his head. “I’m afraid that probably won’t work. Folks here don’t go to a resort anymore to fish. They’ve got their own boats.”

“Whatever I do, I can assure you that I won’t turn it into anything that would bring embarrassment to you or your grandfather. It won’t be a bar or anything like that.”

“There’s not a lot you can do with that property,” Hayden warned. “It’s too far away from the interstate to be commercially appealing.”

“So you’re saying I can’t make it into a discount mall?” she asked. “Or a twenty-plex movie theater? Or a fireworks warehouse?”

The horrified look on his face let her know that he didn’t understand she was kidding, and she backtracked quickly. “I was just kidding. Just kidding!”

“Fireworks! You had me going there for a moment. At any rate, I think it’ll all work out for both of us. How soon do you want to do this? Do you need more time to think?”

She probably did, but she didn’t dare let herself think any more. She might talk herself out of it.

“No,” she said. “No, I don’t.”

With those words, she felt as if she’d walked to the edge of a cliff—and taken one more step. She hadn’t seen all of the house, she hadn’t had an appraisal done on it, she hadn’t looked at a plat map—she hadn’t done anything she should have done.

“All right then. I’ll talk to the real estate agent later today and get things started. Meanwhile, let’s go look at Jeannie’s guest house.”

Clara waved them on past regarding the bill. “I’ll put it on Charlie’s tab. Tell the old coot to come in and see me sometime. I’ll make him a Charlie special.”

“A Charlie special?” Livvy asked as they left the café.

“My grandfather invented it, or so he claims. Scrambled eggs, loaded with onions, garlic, jalapeños, and sausage. I make him stay on the other side of the house for twenty-four hours after he eats one. Those things are lethal.”

The sun had come out, and the morning mist was drying quickly. “Good fishing weather,” Hayden said.

“Really? That’s one thing I’ve never done.”

“Do you want to learn?” he asked, apparently not bothered that just moments before she had been planning to embark on a career dependent on fishing.

“I should if I’m going to be living at Sunshine, I suppose. Does it involve worms?”

“Not necessarily.”

She shrugged and smiled. “Then let’s do it. Can we see Jeannie’s guest house and also the real estate agent this morning? They’re not far away, are they?”

“Livvy, we’re in Obsidian, not Boston. Nothing is far away. Jeannie’s place is right up the block, and the real estate agent is next to the Badlands Vista Motel.”

Jeannie was in her backyard at the clothesline, a basket of laundry at her feet. Her mouth was full of clothespins, and she stuck them on the sheet she was hanging up.

“I’m so glad the sun came out,” she said, “or I’d have had wet sheets draped across my living room like some house of horrors.”

Hayden laughed. “You could never have a house of horrors, Jeannie. This, by the way, is Livvy Moore. She’s going to buy Sunshine.”

Livvy immediately liked Jeannie. A mop of reddish-gold curls topped the middle-aged woman’s head, and her ready grin took Livvy in as if they were old friends.

“I’m glad to hear that! It’s a great place and we have wonderful memories, but it’s time to let someone else have at it and begin their own,” Jeannie said. “I just don’t want to see Charlie out there one more winter alone. I know you go out and see him, Hayden, but he really needs to be in town.”

“I agree,” Hayden said. “It’s still going to be difficult.”

Jeannie straightened one edge of the sheet she’d just hung on the line. “After church last week, you’d gone to get some coffee, and I found him headed out toward the street. Now, he’s not a two-year-old who has been warned about going into traffic—and I guess we all know that there really isn’t anything like traffic here anyway—but what worried me was I asked him where he was headed, and he said he had to get the mail.”

“The mail?” Hayden asked, clearly at a loss. “What did he mean by that? It’s delivered to Sunshine.”

“That’s what I asked,” she said, “and he stopped for a moment, shook his head, and turned and went back into the church.”

The pain on his face was clear. “It’s the right thing,” he said almost to himself. “It’s the right thing.”

“Well, let’s see about getting you out of that nasty Badlands Vista Motel and into a more comfortable place. Hayden tells me you’re from Boston—”