AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The tour continued as they followed the real estate agent up the stairs to the massive master bedroom with an equally massive attached bath and a closet that was as big as the room he had slept in last night. Bigger probably.
“Now, this is a little insider information that I’m probably not supposed to know,” the real estate agent said, as though he were sharing some great secret. “There’s a lawyer from Chicago who’s thinking about purchasing this house. He’s already seen it twice, and I suspect the only thing that’s keeping him back is he has to juggle a few things so that he can spend the money without his wife knowing.” The man looked smug as he lifted his brows, looking for their reactions to the gossip he just relayed, then he turned around and walked down the hall.
Clara did not seem impressed, and that honestly impressed Alex. She wasn’t the kind of person to gossip on the job, and he liked that she didn’t go for too much small-town gossip either.
He supposed she engaged in the typical back-and-forth that often happened in small towns where people talked about other people’s business, but Clara had always stayed away from speculation and insinuation.
They checked out the basement, and then they enjoyed the lake view from the porch before they got in their separate cars and drove to the schoolhouse. It was just a five-minute drive away, a little out of sight of the mansion that they just toured.
“What did you think?” he asked as they were on their way with the real estate agent leading in his car.
“It was big.”
“That’s it? It was big?”
“Well, there is plenty of room for an office. And you have a nice view.”
“It would be your view too. This would be the office that we would share.” He wasn’t sure why it was so important to him that she understood that.
“Of course. And it wouldn’t be far from my home.”
“Would you find some place to buy? If you were going to live here full-time?” The attic room or her tiny cottage wasn’t much if she were going to stay in it all the time.
“I don’t know. I don’t really need much. And if I were here all the time, I’d be helping Mom with the bed-and-breakfast, so I wouldn’t need a kitchen.”
“That’s where you packed our lunch this morning?”
She’d packed a lunch for them, and they’d eaten after church. Church wasn’t as bad as what he was afraid it was going to be. The message was actually pretty good and made him realize that maybe he had drifted away from the Lord, or maybe he’d never been as close to God as what he should have been.
It inspired him to want to make some changes, but he tucked all those ideas away to examine later. He didn’t want to do anything rash. Being a Christian had a tendency to change people’s lives, and he didn’t want to be one of those people. The kind of person who was unrecognizable after having a relationship or whatever it was with God. He just wanted to do enough to skate himself into heaven and maybe do a little good while he was on earth.
“Yeah. I mean, of course I would talk to Mom about it first, but she’s always okay with it. Especially because I help her every chance I get.”
“I see.” He didn’t understand the whole family dynamic. It was still a bit of a mystery to him. Even at church, Clara had been hugging and laughing and talking to pretty much everyone, and it was a friendly, noncompetitive type of group that made him feel...like an outsider looking in. Except, people just accepted that he was with Clara. They seemed to understand that they weren’t together together, but that he was her...friend or something.
It had been kind of nagging at the back of his head that he wanted to put more of a label on what was between them, but he also understood that because of their working relationship, pushing for that could be dangerous. He could end up completely losing her. And he certainly didn’t want that.
Honestly, for the first time in his life, he wasn’t sure what he wanted.
He pulled in beside the realtor who was already parked in the school parking lot.
“That used to be the playground over there.” She nodded at a weedy spot over behind the building. The building wasn’t excessively small, but it was much smaller than the mansion they’d just visited. And a lot more run down.
“Looks like everything’s been carted away or has fallen down.”
“Yeah,” Clara said, and she sounded sad. Maybe she’d want to bring everything back and build it up to its former glory. He wasn’t sure what it was about her, but whatever she wanted, he wanted to do it for her.
“All right, I don’t know much about this property except it’s being sold as is,” the realtor said, obviously not wanting to sell this property to them. It was one million dollars cheaper than the one they had just seen, for starters, and his commission would be much less.
But as they were walking toward the front steps, that light Alex had been looking for on Clara’s face, the one that had been missing when they looked at the mansion, now shone brightly in her eyes.
“I’ve walked up these steps so many times. I sat on them talking to my friends. I always loved sitting here looking at the lake.”
Sure enough, the front of the building faced the lake, and the view was glorious.
“I was told that the doors probably weren’t locked.”
“I can’t imagine they are. Or they would have trouble with vandalism.”
