“Let’s find out.” She carefully knelt in her suit skirt and pried up a corner of the dusty shag carpeting, revealing scuffed wooden boards. “The original flooring was oak all through the house, I believe.”
“It’s hard to say what shape it’s in now,” Aiden said, more to himself than either of the women. “Might be nice if it’s refinished. Might be a disaster if it’s got too much damage though.”
He knelt to look more closely at the exposed bit of floor, adding more notes to his book. Thea had been nervous about spending so much time with him this afternoon, but his laid-back questions about the house had eased her jitters. Plus she reallyhadworried for nothing after she’d swatted his arm in the truck. Aiden was a toucher—not inappropriately, but he didn’t hesitate to put a hand on her back to guide her toward the stairs or bump her shoulder to point out the glass-front, built-in bookcases along one wall in the bedroom. It chased away the last of her self-consciousness so much that when he came to stand next to her as she looked out of the sliding door that opened onto a balcony off the bedroom, she spoke without thinking.
“My dad loved this house.” The words were out before she could call them back, and Aiden tipped his head toward her as he listened. “Doris hired him every summer to maintain the landscaping, so he spent a lot of hours here. He always said it would be the perfect fairy-tale cottage for his princess.” Her eyes stung at the memory.
“I noticed the rosebushes outside. Do you think he planted those?” Aiden asked.
She’d seen the overgrown bushes too. “I do. As far as I know, nobody touched the landscaping after she moved out.” She couldn’t speak for a long moment as she battled back emotions at the thought of buying a house with roses that her father had selected and placed in the ground.
“Your dad’s the one who taught me how to prune rosebushes.”
She looked at him in surprise. “Did he? I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah. I was ten or so, and he joked that the Murdochs worked on the inside of houses and the Blackwells worked on the outside of houses.” He shifted from foot to foot. “That was just before he…”
“Yeah.” Before the cancer burned through him. Lee Blackwell died three months after his diagnosis, and Thea’s life changed overnight. A hot lump rose in her throat and she swallowed hard, relieved that Melinda had descended to the first floor and was out of earshot.
“Anyway.” She cleared her throat and willed away her melancholy. “I’ve been waiting my whole life for this house to go on the market, and now here we are.”
“Here we are,” he repeated, and together they turned back to the view of the river from the master bedroom. “Nice. I’m starting to think I should bid against you for this place. It’s got potential.”
She wheeled to face him, mouth open in horror. Then she saw his lips twitch. “Funny guy.” She jabbed her elbow into his ribs, no longer afraid of overstepping now that she knew how tactile he was. “Back off. I saw it first.”
He laughed and rubbed his side. “My God but you’re pointy, woman.”
They descended the stairs together, and Melinda busied herself in the front of the house, leaving the two of them alone in the glassed-in sunroom that ran the length of the house on the main floor. It had a spectacular view of the backyard and the bluff as it fell away to the river. At this time of day in February, the water caught the ruddy orange glow of the setting sun. They stood in the center of the empty room, the air turning their breath visible as they exhaled. They were silent for a few beats before Aiden spoke.
“I get why you want to bring this place back to life.”
It thrilled her that he saw the beauty of the house too. “What do you think? Is it hopeless?”
He squinted as he flipped through the notes he’d taken on the tour. The dying daylight painted him in stripes of orange and pink, and the thick eyelashes resting on his cheeks briefly distracted her from her worry that she’d never be able to afford the repairs. Then he tapped his pen on the paper in a quick little rhythm, drawing her attention away from his face.
“It’s not hopeless. The wiring’s old but in decent shape. The bathrooms look okay. Some of the problems are cosmetic, like the shag carpeting and the drop ceiling. Others are more serious. That kitchen’s a mess, and the exterior needs a whole overhaul. Oh, and I wouldn’t walk out on that balcony until a structural engineer examines it more closely.”
His pen never stopped moving as he spoke. “Of course, you’ll need an actual home inspection prior to purchase; that’ll tell you what shape the roof’s in. But here’s what I’m thinking.”
He pushed the pad under her nose, and she saw a circled dollar amount that brought tears to her eyes.
“This is only a rough estimate,” he said. “I’ll need to draw up an official bid back at the office…”
His voice trailed off at Thea’s shaky exhale.
“That’s… There’s no way I can afford that. Not along with actually buying the house.” Even with the money from her dad’s life insurance sitting in her account, she couldn’t make it stretch that far. The knowledge settled heavy on her heart, and she stared at the reflection of the setting sun in the slow-moving river in front of them, blinking rapidly to keep the tears at bay.
Her dad had been wrong. She wasn’t a princess, and this wasn’t the house for her after all.
Four
Aiden parked in front of his parents’ white-shuttered ranch house but didn’t make a move to leave the cab of his truck. His was the third company vehicle on the property: his truck, license plateMurdoch2, was on the street because Trip’sMurdoch3 was already parked next to his dad’sMurdoch1 in the driveway. Seeing the two trucks side by side ratcheted up his anxiety, as did the crooked mailbox at the edge of the property. It looked like someone had backed into it and hadn’t bothered to secure it to its base again, which was an unsettling departure in form for his persnickety father.
The slam of his parents’ front door pulled his attention to the porch where Trip stood waiting, arms crossed forbiddingly over his chest. Fuck, he hated this. He was built for chatting people up and organizing schedules, not fighting the people he loved over every decision. But judging by his brother’s scowl, not fighting wasn’t going to be in the cards today. Great.
He turned off the ignition and stepped outside, welcoming the cold bite of the metal on his skin when he pushed the door shut. He paused before walking up the sidewalk to face Trip and whatever was waiting for him at Sunday family dinner. Instead, he turned to the house across the street where grayish clumps of snow dotted the front yard. His gaze kept traveling until it landed on the wide driveway, and he was smacked by the memory of a knock-kneed little girl wobbling by on her first bicycle. Thea’d been the neighborhood socialite, always stopping to say hello to every neighbor she met and chattering away about school or unicorns or whatever it was that little girls were into.
And then her dad had died, and he hadn’t seen her again until his senior year of high school. He’d figured she had enough sadness in her life by then, so he and his newly forming player reputation had steered clear of her. And that’s how it’d been ever since. Casualhi, how are yous were the extent of their interaction over the past decade or so. Regret swirled in his stomach. He should’ve talked to her sooner,reallytalked to her, as someone who knew her full history.
