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“Well, you are no stranger to houses that have been empty a while,” he joked, poking at his lo mein and getting a large number of noodles out of the container in one shot, spilling one on his shirt.
“Isn’t that the truth,” I said. “It’s everything that I want, though. Big and roomy, and it has this charming, Victorian look on the outside and a big spiral staircase in the foyer. I want it so bad for my bed and breakfast. I just have to figure out how to make it happen.”
“Going by the success I can already see in this house,” he said, “I have no doubt you will figure it out.”
“I hope so,” I said. “I really do.”
11
RYAN
I had the next day off and figured I could get up early anyway. If nothing else, I wanted to offer to go help Allison. Eating Chinese food and talking about her dreams the night before had made me want to do what I could for her. Just from looking around, I could see there was going to be a fair amount of work needed to get her place ready for sale and doing it alone would be difficult and time consuming. I had the time. Why not help? It’s what good neighbors do.
It was a complete coincidence that she was insanely attractive, and the chemistry was only getting stronger between us.
The alarm went off at six, and I rolled out of bed and directly into my slippers. I padded over to the coffee machine to get it rumbling and then back to my bedroom to get dressed. As I always had, there was a pair of jeans I wore specifically, and exclusively, to do work in. They were more comfortable, if less stylish than my other jeans, and had deeper pockets for whatever I needed to stick in them. A basic white tee, comfortable sneakers, and a hat later, and I was ready to go.
I happened to have a couple of thermoses for backup purposes and filled two of them up. If Allison wanted creamer or sugar, she could always drop by the house and get them. I wasn’t going to lock the door. Murdock, Texas might have been many things, but a high-crime area was not one of them.
The only thing left to grab was my tool belt. I hadn’t used it since I moved in, having nothing to really work on other than the guest room, and that was mostly fixtures I wanted to swap out. From a gray bin in the hallway closet, I pulled out the belt, my heavy-duty toolbox, and a bag of rags and other assorted items. Carrying it all in one hand so I could hold the handle of the thermoses in the other, I headed out and over to Allison’s place.
When I got there, I noticed the door was already open and Allison was at the front door. She was turning the handle of the doorknob experimentally, and I realized she had replaced it with a new one. It was larger, for one, and shinier. It also probably came with a new key, which I was sure she would be pleased about.
“Morning,” I said as I reached the door.
She looked up and smiled, then saw the coffee. Her eyes closed in relief, and she waved me in.
“You brought coffee,” she said.
“I did,” I said. “Here you go.”
“I know it’s been only a couple of days, but I am pretty certain you are in the running for best neighbor ever.”
“Glad to hear that,” I said. “I do what I can. Did you change the doorknob?”
“I did,” she said proudly. “I figured there can be a mountain of stuff to do in here, but if I can’t get into the house reliably, it won’t matter.”
“Fair point,” I said, opening the top of the thermos and pouring some into the cap.
“It might be the only thing that can get done right now anyway,” she said, suddenly sounding dejected. “The inspectors have already told me how much work needs to be done. Apparently, I’m looking at thousands and thousands of dollars’ worth of work just to get me to a place where I can even show the place.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah,” she continued. “I’m not in a place where I can pay professionals to do all that. So it’s going to be a slow, arduous process.”
She tried to force out a laugh, but it was clear that there was pain and worry behind it.
“Well, that’s fine,” I said. “We can do it together.”
“No,” she said. “I can’t ask you to do that.”
“Sure you can,” I said. “And anyway, you aren’t. I’m offering.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, and there was a pause as I sat down next to her on the floor of her hallway.
Her blue eyes sparkled in the early morning sunlight from the open door. I searched those eyes for a moment and felt the heat building between the two of us. It was palpable, electric. If I lit a match, the world might explode. I smiled.
