Cynthia Reese - What the Heart Wants

“I’ll walk you home. Let me hand this to Paul.”

And in a flash, though she wouldn’t have expected it two minutes earlier, Kyle’s hand was on her back as he ushered her out the society office’s front door and toward her house.

“You didn’t much care for the meeting, did you?” he asked.

“Really...I couldn’t say.” For sure. Because then I’d hurt your feelings, and you seem like a nice guy. Probably you share Herbert’s hard-liner approach about historical accuracy, but even so, you’re a nice guy. “Maybe I was too tired to give it a fair shake?”

He didn’t say anything for a few steps. The silence stretched between them, interrupted by the sporadic rush of a car barreling down the street past them, and crickets and a dog barking when the car had passed.

“I liked the idea of going over the antique source guides,” she said at last. “That would have been really useful. I mean, to someone like me.”

“We should do that. Form a group of people who are in the middle of renovating. So many of our older folks have already done their time in the trenches. They’ve got all their work done, and they tend to be jealous when it comes to sharing information. I hate to say that.” He glanced her way, as if to make sure she didn’t instantly hate him for speaking so bluntly about the society members. “But it’s true.”

“Why would they be that way?” she asked.

Kyle shrugged. “Who knows? Honestly? Sometimes I think it’s a sport to some of them. Take Herbert, for instance. He’s a great guy, really believes in historic preservation, but...”

“Ya know, I kind of got that vibe, too,” she said. “But you have to admire people who stick up for what they believe in. One of Gran’s tenets, and mine, too.”

“He’s done a marvelous job with his house. There it is, up ahead.”

Allison came to an abrupt stop as she let her eyes follow Kyle’s finger. A huge Queen Anne encrusted with all manner of gingerbread trim stood back on a picture-perfect lawn.

“The old Kilgore house! That’s his? Wow. Back when I was little, the place was empty and the windows boarded up. My friends teased me, claiming that it was haunted, and that mine was, too. But that one especially.”

“Herbert has worked hard on it. He bought it about ten years ago, when he retired. Gutted the whole place and renovated it from stem to stern. He’s one of the main ones who got me involved in having the initial preservation ordinances passed.”

Allison smothered a snort. It would be someone like Herbert who’d had the idea to make things supremely difficult for her. “I can definitely see that.”

“A lot of the neighborhood has changed. You know, in the last three years, we’ve started drawing serious numbers of tourists, and that’s having a huge impact on our local economy. We have walking tours and ghost tours and Christmas tours of homes. Let me take you on—no, I’m sorry. You’re tired. I should get you home.”

But Kyle’s easy company and the sweet scents of gardenias, night phlox and petunias in the cool evening air had banished the worst of her exhaustion. “Really, I’m better now. Why don’t you tell me about the ones on the way home?”

“Yeah? You’d like that? It wouldn’t...bore you?”

“No. I have to admit, I am impressed with how neat and clean and picture-postcard the old neighborhood looks. It didn’t look like this when I was growing up.”

“No. It didn’t. It was in a sad state. And it’s been only in the last two or three years that we’ve seen real progress. There are just a few holdouts left and they’ll—” Kyle abruptly clamped his mouth shut, stopping himself in midsentence.

“Cry uncle? Sell out? Or get with the program?” she teased. “Or...or do you make them...” she grinned and used her fingers to form air quotes “...‘disappear’?” she asked in a mock-sinister tone.

“Now, how did you guess what we do with the really stubborn ones?” Kyle said with a laugh.

“It’s probably right out of The Stepford Wives manual,” Allison teased. “A complete reeducation program in the renovation camps.”

“No!” He played along with a theatrical gasp, and clutched his chest. “You can’t have tumbled to the secret of our success! Why, now I’ll have to make you disappear!”

But then the next house came into view, and he suddenly grew serious. “Oh, this is one of my favorite stories—this house got rescued from the wrecking ball. Literally.”

“That’s gotta be one dramatic tale. Sounds like something on TV.”

“It just about was. It was horrible, the condition the house was in. Vinyl siding. The wrong windows. A cheap asphalt shingle roof. Oh, and glass blocks in a back bathroom window. Ugh. Walter and Mary, the couple who own it now, found out that some guy had bought the property to make a parking lot out of it. There used to be a—”

“Law office next door, I remember. Really snarly guy.”

“Yeah. He’s gone. You don’t have to worry about him anymore. I disappeared him.”

Allison chuckled and punched Kyle on the arm. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. Go on.”

“They bought it. The day the wrecking ball was due to knock it down. And they started, bit by bit, to restore the old girl to her glory.”

Allison gazed at the massive Georgian, with its white columns and its side porches. “It’s gorgeous. They must have sunk quite a lot into it.”

“Labor of love. But they wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Kyle...” She couldn’t look at the Georgian anymore. She stared off in the opposite direction, only to find that another old house, this time a beautiful Victorian, stood in perfectly restored, accusing beauty.

“Yeah?”

“Not everybody has the money or the time or the inclination to do that.”

“Allison...” He took her hands in his. It was an astonishing move that normally would have weirded her out. But it felt right to have him touch her like this, even though they didn’t know each other very well. “I know. I know.”

“You know...” About the vinyl siding?

“How overwhelmed you feel. I’ve been there. It’s okay. You’ll get through it. I’ll help you. We’ll get Belle Paix looking just as good—no, better! Better than all of these. She’s the jewel of the neighborhood. And you’re going to polish her up until she positively gleams. I promise. It will happen.”

She couldn’t meet his eyes. To Allison, the earnest honesty in them was as guilt-inducing as the picturesque houses all around them. Instead, she focused on his hands, strong and capable and holding hers.

No. No. You have no idea. If you knew how ridiculous I thought this whole rigmarole is— Oh, Kyle. I am not the girl you think I am. All I want is a good roof over Gran’s head.

CHAPTER SIX

KYLE HESITATED BEFORE he pushed the tarnished brass doorbell a third time. Allison surely would have come to the door by now. Maybe she’d changed her mind. Maybe the historical society had scared her off. Maybe his little tour last night of the old neighborhood had backfired and left her feeling overwhelmed instead of motivated.

She said she’d see you this afternoon. And there’s a car in the side yard.

But the only sign of life that he could find was through the wavy, 126-year-old glass in the mahogany front door: Cleo glaring at him, her blue eyes filled with contempt.

What did Allison call her when the Siamese sprang out in a full-frontal attack every time he walked through the door? Ninja cat? Yeah. No need for a Doberman when you had a guard cat like Cleo.

Kyle stepped back from the door and walked down the porch steps. Yep. The vehicle in the side yard was her little compact car. So she wasn’t at the hospital. Maybe she’d gone for a walk? Or she was asleep? He hoped the hospital hadn’t called her again last night, because she’d been so tired she could barely stumble up the steps.