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p; Okay, this is doable.
How much could it cost to replace a roof? She’d never owned a house or had any home maintenance costs to deal with but surely they could raise the money for a roof during an afternoon beer crawl. Her heels clicked on the cracked sidewalk leading from the street to the front door. She jiggled the knob, opened the door and took a single tentative step inside the abandoned building.
A puff of stale, putrid air slapped her in the face, making her eyes water and her stomach roil. She slapped her hand over her mouth and nose and stumbled back out the door and straight into something hard and immovable that sent a delicious shiver right down her spine.
“Finally coming to your senses and giving up?” Mateo’s fingers curled around her elbows, steadying her.
“You showed up.” Until that moment, she wasn’t sure he would. The fact that he had, made her as nervous as she’d been the first time she’d strutted down the runway in five-inch heels, lingerie and a giant pair of wings. She stepped forward and turned around to face him.
Thank God he wasn’t in full uniform or her panties might have melted.
Who was she kidding? The strap of silk covering the good china was already toast just looking at him in his form-fitting jeans and a black polo with the Salvation Police Department logo. The morning sun reflected off his aviator sunglasses, the bottom of which touched the scar twisting its way up the left side of his face.
As if he knew she was looking, he turned his head and stared at the center’s leaf-stuffed gutters, blocking her view of that side of his face. “I told you I’d be here.”
For somebody who told her the other night to look her fill, he sure didn’t like anyone actually doing so. She didn’t blame him—staring strangers were never fun—but it pissed her off that he felt the need to hide part of himself.
“And you always keep your word.”
That brought his focus back to her. “Always.”
Simple and succinct, there was enough cocky self-assurance in that single word to make Olivia realize she needed to regain control of the conversation. The veterans’ center. Fundraiser. Hot guy.
No! Not that last one.
She inhaled a deep breath and immediately regretted it. Some of the funk from inside the building clung to her clothes. “I think something died in there.”
He poked his head in the center’s door and sniffed. “That’s urine, not decomposition.”
Okay, if she had to pick between the two, she’d go with pee but still… “How can you be sure?”
He took off his sunglasses and quirked an eyebrow. “So are you determined to do this?”
“Yes. Photos will help get people talking.” Pulling her phone out of her cross-body purse, she walked to the door.
“Like folks have trouble with that around here.” He didn’t move from the doorway.
He wasn’t completely blocking her entry, but to get in, she’d have to squeeze through the narrow pocket between his biceps and the doorframe. That wasn’t gonna happen. She pushed against his arm with one finger, ignoring the electricity that sizzled up her own.
“True, but now they’ll be talking about the center and how it needs to be fixed. We’ll include the pictures on the fliers for the fundraiser.”
Mateo pivoted, giving her just enough space to walk through the door. “Nothing like a little exploitation, huh?”
Her step faltered, but she tamped down her annoyance. The idea was to charm Grumps Garcia into coming over to her side. Telling him to fuck off wouldn’t help her cause.
Faking it like the cameras were just around the corner, Olivia turned and gave him her best America’s-sexy-sweetheart grin. “Nothing like helping people understand that their help is needed.”
It only took three steps inside the center to discover just how much help was needed. Two years of only a poorly secured tarp between the building’s interior and Mother Nature hadn’t been pretty ones. The hardwood floor was warped from rain that had gotten through the loose tarp and broken windows. Dirt and leaves covered nearly every square inch of the mangled floorboards. Then, there was the stench. Cats, vermin, and God knew what else had used the veterans’ center as home base at one time or another, leaving behind now-rotted food scraps and worse.
Olivia squirmed as the urge to get the hell out of there clawed its way up the back of her neck. She may have grown up in the sticks but that didn’t mean she’d ever been a fun-loving outdoorsy girl. Dried leaves crunched behind her. Her shoulders jerked up to her earlobes. Don’t let it be a rat. Please don’t let it be a rat.
“You seem a little tense.” Mateo was a big guy but if it wasn’t for the leaves, she never would have realized he’d left his post by the front door. “More work than you expected?”
A giant “hell yes” to that one. “Not really.” He already thought she was in over her head. She wasn’t about to confirm it.
She took out her phone and started snapping pictures of the mess while mentally working on the marketing plan. Fliers. Social media. She’d get together with the other craft brewers in the area for the beer crawl, where they’d bring the beer to the customers instead of having people travel from brewery to brewery to sample the latest beers. She could raise money, but could she raise enough to gut the place and start over? Because that’s what it was going to take.
