“Sure,” I said. “Just put a tool in my hands and tell me what to do.”
“Baby, I’ve been waiting so long to hear you say that.”
I opened my mouth and closed it again, then smacked his arm. And my giggle mingled with his chuckle as he led me over to the workbench he’d set up among the debris that constituted my new mission in life.
“What kind of wood is this?” I asked as he pointed me to piles of cut boards. “It’s beautiful. It looks old.”
“It’s reclaimed wood from an old Florida factory. I thought it was appropriate for the house.”
“Where on earth did you get that?”
“I know a guy.” Landon smiled. “It’s longleaf pine. Sometimes called heart pine.”
I blinked at him and tried not to get all squishy again. I was dimly aware of the house sighing around us as I spoke. “That’s so — so sweet.”
He laughed. “See if you think so after you sand a couple dozen of them.”
Chapter 10
Two days later, the steps and railings were done. Notfinishedfinished, as in stained and sealed, but they were solid, meaning no one was likely to die on the stairs unless the ghost got pissed off.
In addition, Landon’s dad’s work crew had patched up the floorboards with reclaimed boards where necessary so the bug guys could get in and deploy what I’d been calling the pipes of death.
The bug crew was here working already, even though it was almost sunset. They blasted classic rock from their boom box as they painstakingly used a crane to drape the tall house in huge red- and yellow-striped swaths of heavy fabric and clipped the panels together to make the tent for the termite-killing gas. I’d told them to be careful of the weathervanes, so they were setting up special scaffolding around them to support the tent. The kooky things were a signature of the historic house, and I didn’t want them damaged.
“You know, it’s a little melodramatic to call what they’re doing the pipes of death,” Landon said as we walked around the gazebo. Here on the river’s edge, the wind gently rustled the oaks and palms, and the water below glowed a pretty gray-blue as the sky turned orange.
We were trying to determine how much work it would require to make the gazebo event-ready. Let’s just say that we examined the thing fromoutsidethe gazebo, because its floor resembled rotten thatch more than it did a wooden platform.
“Pipes of death, I’m telling you. They’re piping in deadly poison, aren’t they?” I looked inside the gazebo and up. There was a hole in the ceiling, too.
“Well, yes. I think it’s more tubes than pipes, though it’s not really my area of expertise.”
“Semantics. They’re going to kill every living thing inside the house. I feel bad for the ghost.”
“The ghost isn’t living.”
“Says you.”
A corner of his mouth quirked up. “But at least you didn’t have to clear around the house.”
“True. And thanks for that.” I glanced back at Milkweed Manor, where the weedy foliage hugging the house had been trimmed back to make room for the tent.
“I know a lot of guys,” Landon said.
“I’ve noticed that. When am I going to get the bill?”
“Don’t worry about it. They’re going on the plaque.”
“This is going to have to be a really big plaque.”
“Do you mind?” he asked.
“Not if they are donating stuff, no. I’m grateful. But I’m thinking that I can work on the garden myself while the fumigation is happening, since we can’t go in the house.”
“We have three days. Let’s work on the garden far away from the house. Pipes of death give me the willies.”
“Ha, see? Theyarepipes of death. Anyway, maybe you should work on this instead of the garden,” I said, gesturing to the gazebo. “Can you fix it?”
