Nancy Warren - Final Score

“While I’m taking care of that, you’ll need to pick your bathroom fixtures and kitchen cabinets. Appliances, too, sooner rather than later.”

“I’ve got some ideas already. I’ve been filing clippings and pictures.” She was so unsure and he must have heard the hesitation in her tone.

“Want me to take a look? I’ve done a lot of this stuff.”

“Would you?”

“Sure.”

She had several files of material, pictures she’d torn from magazines, ideas she’d printed off the internet and of course the ads from the flyers that appeared constantly in her mailbox.

“I like this kitchen,” he said after flipping through her idea file. “You could replicate the cabinets using Ikea or Home Depot stock. I’ve got a buddy who can get you those countertops. For the flooring, do you really want that tile?”

“What’s wrong with it?”

He pointed to the tile in the photo and she noticed that his finger was burn scarred. “See those ridges? It’s going to make the floor hard to keep clean. And if you drop anything, it’s going to shatter.”

“What do you suggest?”

“I’d go with cork. I think it suits your look, and it’s environmentally friendly and easy to clean.”

“Thanks. I’ll think about it.”

He flipped through some more of her stash and stopped. “Yes!” He said it with such enthusiasm she wondered what he was looking at. It was a magazine makeover from a bathroom like hers to a modern one that looked like a spa. “I was going to ease you into this idea, but you’re way ahead of me. If you move the bathtub so it’s across the back wall under the window, that gets rid of the ugly alleyway. You’ve probably got room for a stand-alone shower, too, if you go with a smaller vanity.”

“Really?” She was as enthusiastic as he was. “I could have this?”

“Absolutely. It will cost a little more since you’re moving plumbing, but it’s so worth it. We’ll save money in other places.”

She nodded. “Deal.”

“Okay, then. You start shopping, and I’ll start pulling out carpet.”

As she got busy, her initial excitement about buying this house resurfaced. She’d let herself become overwhelmed, she realized. All she had to do was take the renovation one step at a time.

She had a feeling that hiring Dylan had been an excellent first step.

He was soon on his hands and knees pulling up the ugly carpet from the living and dining rooms. Fortunately, he was wearing a dust mask, because she could see billows of old dirt flying into the air whenever he pulled a new piece up. He cut and rolled the rug into sections and then hefted them all out to the truck he’d parked in her driveway.

Then he came back and began removing the nail board tacked around the edges of the floor.

The transformation was amazing—no more ugly shag.

The floors weren’t perfect—there were a few paint splotches and all those nail holes—but they’d been covered with carpet for so long that they were barely worn.

“This looks so much better,” she said, hearing her voice echo in the empty room. “And it doesn’t smell so dusty. I don’t even want to think about what was in that carpet.”

He glanced up at her from his position, kneeling on the floor and said, “I won’t sand them yet. We’ll get most of the dirty stuff done first. But I like the impact getting rid of that old carpet makes. You start to see the possibilities.” He leaned right back onto his heels and glanced at her thoughtfully. “That’s what you bought, after all.”

She stared right back at him. “I did. I bought myself a houseful of possibilities.”

3

DYLAN LIKED THIS HOUSE. It was the kind of place he might have bought himself if he’d been looking for a project. Instead, it was nice to work for somebody else for a change, not be responsible for all of it, not live in the mess.

He hadn’t been sure how Cassie would manage living in a construction zone. It wasn’t for everyone. But after that first day, when she’d seemed as though she thought she’d made a terrible mistake, she’d come on board. He thought her ideas were good and she was smart enough to take advantage of his experience. She was easy on the eyes, too, he mused as he hefted the butt-ugly vanity out of the main bathroom and set it beside the even uglier turquoise sink.

He stretched out his back, knowing his next task was to remove the old bathtub. That old beast had hulked in that spot for fifty years or so—he didn’t figure it was coming out without a fight.

Cassie wouldn’t be home from work for an hour or two, so the noise and occasional swearing weren’t going to bother her. He had the place to himself. The bathroom window was wide open to let in the fresh air of a bright spring day. After this, he promised himself, he’d sit outside with a soda and enjoy the sunshine for a few minutes.

As he prepared to do battle with the tub, he heard what sounded like a baby crying.

He paused, thinking the noise had been awfully close, almost as if there was a baby inside the house. He stopped, listened carefully and heard the sad, plaintive cry again.

Dylan had been a firefighter too long to ignore any sound of distress. He jogged quickly through the house but no one was there.

Outside he ran. No one in the front. Around to the back. He heard the sound again. Louder now, and coming from above him.

Shading his eyes with his hand, he looked up. The tree was an old one, gnarled and solid, the cedar standing probably fifty feet tall. And halfway up a kitten was crying its heart out.

“Oh, no,” he said to himself. To the kitten he tried the positive approach. “Come on, kitty. You got up there. You can come down.”

The reply was an even more pathetic howl of distress.

He glanced around as though a neighbor might be outside, maybe with a ladder. But on a sunny Monday afternoon, Dylan seemed to be the only one around.

He tried calling to the cat again. No dice.

Then he ran into Cassie’s kitchen and found a can of tuna in her cupboards. He dug through her kitchen drawer and pulled out a can opener. Took a nice chunk of tuna on a saucer out to the cat to try and lure it out of the tree.

The cat only sounded more woebegone than ever.

At this point, Dylan had to accept the kitten was stuck in that tree.

Glad none of his colleagues or friends was around to laugh at him for being such a cliché, he put the tuna on the ground, rubbed his hands on his filthy jeans and pulled himself up to the first branch of the tree.

He’d been climbing trees as long as he’d been walking. The first time he’d fallen out of one his mother had claimed he must have nine lives. Lately she’d been warning him that he’d used most of them up.

It was sort of fun to climb a tree at the age of thirty-five. And it was giving a good stretch to the muscles that had been bent over doing grunt work at the house.

When he drew closer, he saw that the cat was very young. And very scared.

“You’re not going to scratch my eyes out, are you?” he asked when his face was level with the cat’s. In answer, the animal butted its small head against his hand.

He chuckled. “Okay, then.” He took a moment to scratch the kitten behind the ears until he heard it start to purr. Then, very gently, he scooped the small, warm body into one hand and lifted it toward his shoulder. A glimpse at the back end told him the animal was most likely a female. The cat caught right on and crawled up so she was hanging over his shoulder, digging in tight.

Dylan winced as tiny, sharp claws grabbed him through his thin T-shirt, but at least he had his hands free and the animal seemed to recognize that he was trying to save her.

“Going down,” he said, as though he were an elevator operator.