Laura Drake - Her Road Home

This is even better than it looked from the outside.

They retraced their steps to the front porch.

“How long since anyone lived here?” Sam asked, while Honey vainly attempted to remove a smear from her designer skirt.

“Almost seven years.”

“Has it been for sale all that time?”

“Yes.” She sighed. “It was in better shape then, but the owners wanted too much for it.” Her sparrow eyes brightened. “Now, of course, the area is in higher demand.”

Sam cut in before Honey could launch into a discussion of the local market.

“Okay, I get it. So, keeping in mind that the roof is a complete loss, the left half of the house is severely damaged, all fixtures need replacing, not to mention any dry rot, termite damage, or structural unsoundness I might find—how much is it?” Sam calculated the balance in her business account.

Honey seemed dazed, but rallied and quoted a price.

Sam smiled; they must be desperate to sell, given the home’s condition. Mentally decreasing the quote by twenty percent, she gave Honey her offer.

“Now, you don’t know me, but please believe me when I tell you that this is my only offer. It is contingent, of course, upon a termite and structural inspection. How long until I can expect an answer?”

Honey looked at her as if she were from a different planet.

Sam took pity. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound rude. I just don’t enjoy price negotiation.”

“You want it? Just like that?” Her pouty voice made it clear Sam had taken away all the fun by cutting to the chase.

“I wouldn’t put an offer on a property I didn’t intend to buy.” Sarcasm was lost on the woman, who seemed confused that the deal wasn’t proceeding according to her formula.

“I guess I could call the family when I get to the office.” Honey jotted Sam’s cell number, then wandered off through the tall grass to her car, dusty smears marring the butt of her peach skirt.

God save me from real estate agents named Honey. Sam went to investigate the carriage house.

She guessed the large structure could house six full-size cars. The large wooden door opened in a shriek of protest. Cool air washed over her. The smell of damp soil drifted from the dirt floor. She stood just inside the door, letting her eyes adjust.

A rough staircase against the wall appeared out of the gloom. She ascended it gingerly, testing the integrity of the staircase and her injured knee at the same time. The door at the top landing stood locked, so she peered through the glass panes into a large unfinished room.

Of all the homes she’d renovated, this one could be the most beautiful.

And bring in the most profit.

Roof replacement would top the long list of tasks. And the upstairs floors were so unstable it would be economically impractical to repair them. Her brain worried at the puzzle.

“Relax, Crozier, you don’t even own the thing yet.”

But I think I may have found the next dream, Dad.

CHAPTER FOUR

NICK STOOD IN Josh and Annette’s backyard, alternately flipping burgers and throwing passes to their nine-year-old, JJ. The other twin, Courtney, was in the kitchen “helping,” making cookies. He’d have to apologize for the mess when Annette got home.

He’d agreed to watch the kids for his friends’ weekly “date.” With two crazy-active children, they needed it.

“Go out long, JJ.” Nick waited, then lofted a bomb, which JJ scooted under for a neat catch. “And the crowd goes wild!” The kid’s face lit up. God, Nick loved spending time out here at the Bennetts’.

Thirty wasn’t old, but lately he’d been thinking about wanting kids. But in his mind, kids didn’t come without marriage. And marriage didn’t come without dating. He fielded the wobbly pass from Josh, and fired back a hot one. If it were up to him, he’d skip the whole dating thing. Who needed the angst, the awkwardness—the judgment? Especially given his history.

Looking back now, from the long end of the telescope, it wasn’t surprising when his home life had imploded that he’d gone a bit wild. He’d had so much anger built up and nowhere for it to go. Booze was the only antidote he’d found, and he made a career of partying for a couple of years, post high school. Thank God for friends; Jesse, Carl and several others staged an intervention, making him see where he was and where he was headed.

It actually worked for a while. He decided he wanted to be an auto mechanic, and enrolled in a school in Los Angeles. Once there, though, he’d gotten caught up in the bar scene, many days arriving for school in the same clothes he’d left in the day before.

That bender ended the day he’d woken up on someone’s floor, and had been on his way to school when a kid darted out in front of his car. He swerved, took out a parked car and a fire hydrant, but thankfully, not the child. He still woke up some nights in a puddle of sweat, dreaming of what could have happened.

Luckily, since he’d finished his class work they allowed him to graduate, though he’d spent the day of the ceremony holding down a seat in a county drunk tank. When Nick sobered up, he looked around at the jail population and had a revelation—he fit right in with the drunks and losers. His mother would have been so disappointed. Hell, he was disappointed in himself.

Nick needed a plan. By the time he’d served his six-month sentence, he had one. He left L.A. with a twelve-step card in his pocket, an idea for a business and a bad case of homesickness.

Now he needed another plan. “JJ, go get washed up. Your parents will be here in a minute, and dinner’s about ready.”

Almost all the girls he’d known in high school were married now. When he first moved back, he’d tried dating, but between the hours he had to put in with the shop and the awkwardness of discussing his past, he gave it up. He hadn’t met anyone who, an hour after spending time with them, he missed.

Time to check the cookie progress, and assess the damage to the kitchen. He turned off the grill and lowered the lid. The sound of the twins squabbling in the kitchen made him smile.

Maybe it was time to try again.

* * *

SAM CRUISED PACIFIC COAST Highway back to town, breaking into a goofy smile when she drove around a bend to see the ocean, stretching like molten metal, to the horizon. It had transformed overnight from a moody, white-capped, gunmetal gray to a California picture postcard. Foam rode the small blue rollers that combed the creamy beach sand. The ocean’s chop fractured the sunlight into blinding silver slivers.

Turning inland, the road seemed guileless in the sunshine, but as she came upon the scene of yesterday’s accident, a shudder rippled through her. Her shoulder protested with an electric arc of pain. She studied the scene, but still couldn’t see anything she’d done wrong. Even if she had seen the Mercedes, she had nowhere to go. Now it appeared the accident had led her to another job.

Sam wondered how she’d look back at her time in Widow’s Grove. Each of her project pauses on her way across country seemed like a separate lifetime—as if she’d tried on different lives, to see how they fit. When she shook her head, the thought blew away in the wind ripping through her hair. Nowhere fit. That was just the way of things. A dark wisp of the nightmare edged across her light mood. Best to keep moving.

She rolled back through Widow’s Grove. The town had morphed overnight to a sparkling jewel. Tourists wandered, ducking in and out of shops. In the park, a group in bright spandex sprawled next to their bicycles. The coffee shop did a brisk business, the umbrella’s flirty skirts flipping up in the breeze.

A picture-postcard town.

And that can only help the resale value of the house.