“Absolutely not. This is like stepping back in time to my grandparents’ house. They lived on a farm, and I spent a few weeks with them every summer. Daddy moved around a lot back then with his job, so their place was my stability. I still miss them even though they passed away more than ten years ago.”
He took in the living room with a sweeping glance. Spots on the walls showed where the blue paint had been brighter originally. Geneva must have taken the family pictures that had hung there back to southern Louisiana with her. An old trunk served as a coffee table, with a blue and burgundy floral sofa and matching wing-back chairs, one on either side of it.
“Does that mean you wouldn’t throw out this furniture and start all over?”
“Not a single piece. It’s not very masculine, but that big old burgundy leather recliner would fit your frame really well. Does all this stuff come with the house?”
“Geneva told me that she had already removed what she wanted, and the house went with the property just as it is.” Knox wandered into the kitchen. Cast-iron skillets hung from hooks below shelves that held pots and pans. He didn’t remember Eula Faye being very tall, so that meant there would be a stepladder hiding somewhere. The stove and refrigerator were green and matched the ivy on the wallpaper. Salt and pepper shakers sat next to a sugar bowl in the middle of a yellow chrome table with four matching chairs around it.
“What’s the first thing you will change?” Lottie asked.
“Nothing for a while, other than maybe painting the walls to cover up those spots where pictures used to hang,” Knox answered. “What would you make different if you had just bought this place?”
“I took a quick peek into the rooms down the hallway,and I would put a king bed in the master bedroom, but that’s about it,” she answered.
Knox walked through the rest of the house and then headed back to the living room. “It will be easy to add onto the existing place by using that bedroom on the end as an office and turning the window into a doorway to a new master bedroom, a walk-in closet, and a second bathroom.”
“Why would just one person need that much more room?” she asked.
“For now, the place is totally livable, and it’s peaceful set back here in the woods. But the closets are small, like they were when the house was originally built. And I would want a room big enough that a king-sized bed would not take up all the floor space. I also would like a private bathroom.”
“Good solid reasons,” she said with a nod.
“Would you have bought it?” he asked.
“Maybe not before I even looked at it, but after being in here a few minutes, I would have written a check in a heartbeat. But to buy more than six hundred acres would take a lot more than I have in the bank,” she answered.
“So, if we were a real couple, you would move into this house with me when we finish the project we are working on?”
“Maybe. I really like the place and the location, but we are not a real couple,” she answered.
* * *
At the burger shop, Lottie wadded up the red-and-white-checkered papers that lined the plastic containers with theirhot dogs and fries in them and tossed the two balls into the nearby trash can. “Thank you for supper and, again, for leaving early with me. And FYI, I do not intend to go with you every weekend.”
“We promised Bo we would help with the senior thing in two weeks,” Knox reminded her.
She groaned. “I don’t make promises I won’t keep, so we’ll drive up in two vehicles that day. I’ll come home after the event is over, and you can stay as long as you want. Besides, since I don’t leave very often, I usually stay on the site to prevent any vandalism.”
“You do remember that Aunt Bernie will be at the bar that day,” he reminded her.
“I can avoid her for a couple of hours, but not a whole weekend,” she told him.
“Well, well, well!” a familiar voice said. “Is this the new boyfriend that Thomas told me about?”
“Damn it!” She swore under her breath.
“Yes, it is,” she answered. “Micah, meet Knox. Knox, Micah, who is Thomas’s brother. What are you doing here? The next crew isn’t supposed to be here until Wednesday evening.”
Micah extended a hand toward Knox. “We finished up early, and Jack said he could use an extra hand if I wanted to help finish framing the first house.”
Knox shook with him and then draped an arm around Lottie’s shoulders. “We can always use an extra set of hands. Did you bring a trailer?”
“Nope,” Micah answered, but his eyes lingered on Lottie.
“He usually bunks in with Thomas,” she explained.
“I’ll be going. See y’all in the morning bright and early,” Micah said.
