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“Can we talk next door”—she glances at my clients’ home—“at my house so we can have some privacy?”

“All right,” I agree once more, hiding my frown as I follow her in my heels across the damp grass. When we reach her house, she lets the dog inside, then holds the door open for me. I swear I catch a whiff of alcohol as I pass her but brush it off. It’s only eleven in the morning, and even though I joked about having tequila with breakfast, I doubt many people are drinking this early.

“Sorry about the mess,” she tells me as we walk through her living room, which is cluttered with boxes. “My husband is in sales, and he has all his stuff sent here.” She looks back at me. “We ran out of room in the garage, so things keep piling up in the house.”

“It’s okay.” I walk behind her to the kitchen, which isn’t cluttered with boxes, but there is a lot of clutter. Every surface is covered with stuff, from mail to dishes and other odds and ends that have been dumped in the room. There are also more than a couple of vodka bottles around, some still full but a couple completely empty. Stopping at the island, she picks up a couple of cups and carries them to the sink, which is already full. “So what did you want to talk to me about?”

Turning to face me, she leans back against the counter. “Can this conversation be kept confidential?”

“That depends on what this conversation is about,” I tell her honestly, knowing that if it has anything to do with my clients, her neighbors, I won’t be able to keep it to myself. I’ll have to tell them that she and I spoke.

“It’s about the Daileys, or not them but their property.”

“Then unfortunately I won’t be able to keep things between us. As you know, the Daileys are my clients, so if you tell me something pertaining to them, I can’t promise that it will stay between us. I have a binding contract with them and an obligation to tell them when things come up.”

“I thought you might say that.” She sighs. “The thing is I really like Jessica and Liam—it’s just that we’ve had some issues over the years, and I’d like to get everything sorted out before they sell.” Instead of asking what she’s had issues with, I wait. It’s obvious from her running over next door when she saw me placing the sign out front that something is on her mind. “Before they moved in, the owners who lived in the house before them agreed to let us hook a fence onto theirs, only they never put in a fence, so we didn’t have a chance to do that.”

“Okay,” I agree when she doesn’t say more.

“When Liam and Jessica put in their fence, I spoke with them, told them about our previous deal and asked if we could hook a fence onto theirs, and they said no.”

“Did you have something in writing with the previous owners?”

“No, we had a verbal agreement.”

“Then, unfortunately, there isn’t much I can do to help you with that issue. The Daileys are not under any legal requirement to let you attach to their fence, and it’s their right to say no.”

“Our other neighbors, on the opposite side of us, agreed to let us hook up to theirs.”

“And that’s their prerogative,” I tell her, and she presses her lips together, obviously unhappy that I won’t just force Jessica and Liam to agree to let her hook on to their fence. Something she probably wants to do so that she won’t have to pay as much to completely fence her yard, which can be very expensive.

“There is also the issue of their trees. They have branches hanging over their fence into our yard, and we are constantly having to clean up their leaves and pine cones.”

“The properties around here are surrounded by trees, and with you all backing up to the woods, it’s kind of impossible to avoid leaves and pine cones,” I point out as politely as possible.

“Yes, but their trees are the worst.” She waves a hand toward the back door. “Just look at our yard. It’s completely covered, and my husband raked a few days ago before he went out of town.” Doing what she asked, I walk to the back door, which looks over a small wooden deck and the backyard. The ground is covered with leaves, but her property is surrounded by trees on all sides, so there is no way to tell what trees the leaves have fallen from. “I’ve spoken to them about trimming back their branches, but they’ve refused over and over again.”

“Unless a tree is at risk of falling and causing harm to the structure of your house or your property, there isn’t much you can do about that.”

“Of course you’d agree with them,” she mutters. “Isn’t it something that you can talk to them about? I really don’t want to cause issues for them when they are trying to sell and don’t want this situation stopping them from selling their property.” That’s a lie—if she wasn’t trying to cause issues, she wouldn’t have run over to talk to me and we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.

“Them not allowing you to tie on to their fence or not cutting back their trees won’t have an impact on the sale of their house.”

“If I go to the city, it might, and again, I don’t want to cause any problems for them.”

I drag in a breath and let it out slowly as I count to ten in my head. Unfortunately, I’ve met a lot of people like her, people who claim that they don’t want to cause problems for other people but are the constant cause of problems for other people.

“If you’d like to go to the city, you can do that. But I can tell you that the city won’t force the Daileys to allow you to attach your fence to theirs, even with your verbal agreement with the previous owners, and it’s doubtful that they will force them to cut back their trees if they aren’t causing damage to your property.”

“Their leaves in our yard are causing damage. If we don’t clean them up, they’ll ruin our grass, and we’ll have to spend money on replacing it.”

“I’m sorry, I really have to disagree with you about that.”

“You know what?” she snaps, obviously angry. “I’ll just talk to my husband about it and see what he has to say. Maybe we’ll talk to a lawyer.”

“That’s a good idea; you should always get legal advice when you want to know your rights.” I fake a smile. “Is there anything else you’d like to tell me about?” When she shakes her head no, I turn my smile up a notch, then lie through my teeth. “All right, I’ll get out of your hair, then, but it was really great meeting you.”

“Yeah, you too,” she lies right back before following me to the front door. Stopping with my hand on the handle, I turn to look at her over my shoulder.