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And maybe even more to the point,mostof his property-flip experience had been in vacation spaces—namely condos. Single-family, private-house flips, he’d discovered in the past six months, were different. Not harder different, but different nonetheless. And then there was the added fact that this was Luna. He had zero contacts in the area, and the nearest hardware store was an hour away.
It all made for a discouraging first impression.
Shoulders dropping, Lelsie nodded. “I get it. But the thing is . . .”
“There’s not a lot to pick from in Luna.”
Again, she nodded. “The only other property I have available that would maybe suit your needs is a trailer house on the other side of Elk Creek. But winters in a trailer house . . .”
“Yeah, no thanks.” He’d visited Hazel in February and had a clear memory of the amount of snow that had piled up and over the deck at her cabin. Though he knew cold well enough, having lived in Chicago his whole life, he had no intention of doing mountain-level snow and cold in a trailer house.
With that thought, he wished Hunter the best of luck in his camper for the season. Oy. Maybe Hunt should reconsider sharing the cabin with Hazel. Surely by this point the siblings were past the feral impulse to kill each other.
Bennett turned a slow circle, his brain absorbing the obnoxious assault of colors with a filtering eye toward possibilities. Leslie was right—he did flips. He could handle this. Probably. This one would just require a little more planning. And flexibility.
And patience.
His examination landed on Gemma’s bewildered—or perhaps horrified—expression.
“Not loving it, huh?” he asked her.
“It’s . . .” She cast a worried glance toward Leslie. “Colorful?”
Leslie smiled, making her lovely face more attractive. For a skip of a beat, Bennett wondered how Jeremy had met her and how she liked living in Luna—because Bennett knew that Leslie had grown up near Billings. From all that he could see, the woman was settled and happy, and that gave oxygen to his own gasping hope for the same.
Love was worth sacrifice.
“It is that,” Leslie replied to Gemma’s comment. “The woman who lived here is . . . exceptional.”
Hazel chuckled, drawing Bennett’s attention. “You knew her?” he asked and then immediately wondered why that would surprise him. She wasn’tentirelyreclusive, and she had lived her entire life within reach of Luna.
“Marvel Elliot.” Hazel raised a brow while she surveyed the madness of vibrant color. “She would give me a dime every Thursday when I stayed in town for school.”
“Why?”
“She’d come into the Pantry for her groceries, her permed hair poofed out to its full five-inch length, and often wearing tiger-print leggings of some neon color, and say, ‘Happy Thursday!’ then press a dime to my palm. Then she’d say, ‘Tell Essie hi from her Marvelous friend and that I expect her to come off the mountain sometime to see me.’ She’d wave her ring-laden fingers over her head, like she was in a parade, and sashay out the door.” Hazel laughed again. “I always thought she had come from the circus or something. When I asked Nan, she said Marvel came from the moon and might well be the reason this town was called Luna.”
Bennett and Leslie both chuckled, and Gemma looked marginally less horrified by the house as she turned a slow circle in the middle of the room.
“I suppose some paint would fix a lot of this kray kray.” Gemma’s soft comment was likely her trying to talk herself into being okay with this.
Bennett appreciated her effort. He walked toward a rip in the carpet near the jaundiced-cased opening from which Leslie had emerged and bent to tug on the dirt-laden weave. Ah. Good bones, as Leslie had said. “There’s pine flooring under this. We can hope its decent enough to refinish.” He stood, sending an encouraging nod toward Gemma. “And you can pick your room first, since Nathan didn’t come.”
“I’m here.” A low grumble came from the front doorway, followed by the boy with a hoodie tugged over his head and hands tucked into the pockets of his ripped skinny jeans. Bennett wondered how Nathan’s city-grunge style would go over at Elk County High School. His guess? Not super great.
Concerns for another day. “Welcome, Nathan. Nice of you to join us.”
Nathan shot a fiery glare at Bennett and then stepped into the room. His eyes widened, and he pulled his hoodie off his head as he took in the wild scene. “Sweet.”
By his monotone, Bennett wasn’t sure if he was being sarcastic or serious. He guessed sarcastic. Nathan was particularly fluent in mumbling sarcasm and off-the-cuff snark.
But then Nathan added, “Let’s leave it.”
“What?” That didn’t sound sarcastic.
Gemma rolled her eyes. “You can’t be for real, Nathan. It looks like my old Barbie Beach House partied a little too hard in here and the walls took the consequences.”
Bennett didn’t even want to consider why eleven-year-old Gemma went straight to a nasty hangover analogy, even if she’d nailed it. “We will definitely be getting rid of the . . . Barbie Beach House walls.”
