Last Chance Hero, page 7
“Kramer? Who is that, besides the weird guy on Seinfeld reruns?”
Sabina shook her head. Her still-pickled brains kind of rattled around. “I can’t believe you guys talk about everything and he’s never told you about Kramer. Kramer was his dog. I got the feeling that Kramer was like his best buddy. He took him fishing and hunting and man stuff like that. Ross’s ex got custody of the dog, and he’s really heartbroken over it.”
Sabina turned and headed toward the checkout counter. Thank goodness Lucy didn’t follow her. Because while she was annoyed at Ross and Lucy right at that moment, she was even more annoyed at herself.
Lucy had every right to be ticked off. Sabina should never have stayed and listened to Ross pour out his sorrows. She should never have had a second glass of wine. She should never have danced with her sister’s fiancé. And she should never have called Lucy a brat.
Just then Momma came breezing through the front doors. “Girls,” she shouted, her voice knifing through Sabina’s pounding head, “I’ve just come from visiting Ross. Both of y’all should expect an apology. Probably after he gets over his headache.”
“What?” Lucy’s voice exploded like a Fourth of July rocket. “Momma, you did not go to Ross’s house and talk to him this morning, did you?”
“I most certainly did. And he had a few things to say about you, young lady. Why on earth are you being so hard on him about Sparky? He wants that dog, and you should let him have it. The dog is going to spend most of its time at the firehouse anyway.”
“See,” Sabina said as she sat down behind the checkout counter, “I told you he’s all torn up about the dog.”
“Really?” Lucy sounded utterly mystified, proving that her sister wasn’t a dog person. But maybe she could learn to be.
“Really,” Momma said.
“Oh.”
Momma put her arm around Lucy. “Honey, Ross was hurting last night, and he went looking for someone to talk to. Unfortunately, your sister got in the way of that. I don’t think Sabina did one thing to bring this onto herself. For goodness’ sake, Lucy, think about what Ross did to your sister’s date.”
Lucy nodded. “Yeah, I guess.”
“You need to give in on the dog, honey,” Momma said. “Ross Gardiner is the best husband material in town. He’s ready to do anything to please you. Y’all need to get on with this wedding.”
Lucy stood there quietly, her lip quivering. And every time Lucy blinked back tears, Sabina’s guilt redoubled. It was true that she hadn’t asked to hear Ross pour out his heart. But it was also the undeniable truth that she’d enjoyed that slow dance way more than she should have.
Sabina was about to open her mouth and make a full confession followed by an apology, when Lucy shrugged Momma off. “I need to think about this,” she said and hurried from the store.
“She’ll be all right,” Momma said in her infernally optimistic tone. “Give her an hour at the shooting range and she’ll be right as rain.”
Lucy walked down the sidewalk, her head down. Furious. Sabina had no reason to call her a brat. She hadn’t done one thing last night except go home and watch TV by herself. And Momma needed to quit trying to run her life.
She felt trapped by the people who loved her best.
Tears sprang to her eyes, and her throat knotted up. She looked up from the sidewalk only to see Wilma Riley coming out of the post office. Oh, great, the last thing she needed right now was Wilma spouting her feminist BS. So Lucy ducked into the Wash-O-Rama, expecting it to be deserted this early on a Saturday morning.
But Agent Zach Bailey was sitting on the broken folding chair in the front by the dryers, looking decidedly out of place in his freshly pressed khakis and his navy ATF golf shirt. He looked up from a faded and dog-eared copy of Cosmo—the same copy that had been sitting up on the folding table for months. It was the issue with the headline “Your Ultimate Guide to Oral—for Both of You” in bright red type on the cover.
Lucy had never gotten up the nerve to read that article, not even hiding out in the Laundromat. Heaven knows just about every other single woman in Last Chance had read that article. Of course, Wilma Riley anonymously left those random copies of Cosmo at the Wash-O-Rama. Wilma was on a mission to liberate every female in Allenberg County.
Agent Bailey obviously had no qualms about picking up feminist magazines. Or turning right to the article in question. And there was something soft and sinful about his mouth. It was open a bit, and she could almost see his tongue. And even though he didn’t appear to be carrying his weapon today, Lucy’s body still went hotter than the blacktop on Palmetto Avenue on a sunny day in August.
Oh, man. She wanted that mouth in a carnal way, which surprised her. Because carnal thoughts were scary. And besides, he was a complete stranger.
Who was obviously learning something from reading that article.
She rushed to the back of the Wash-O-Rama hoping the guy would just stay put and go back to reading the article on, well… you know.
But no. He didn’t do that. He’d obviously noticed her distress. So he stood up and followed her. For which he kind of got points, given the subject matter of the article in question.
“Uh, can I help?” he asked. He sounded like he came from somewhere up north. But she didn’t hold that against him. She sniffled and wiped her cheeks with both hands.
“No, I’m okay.”
“Obviously not.”
She sniffled again and willed her eyes to stop weeping but they were not following orders. “I’m just mad at my fiancé.” Of all the words she could have blurted to this hot guy who probably had sex on his mind, why had she chosen those?
Short answer: Hot guys who read sexy articles in Cosmo scared her. Zach Bailey didn’t look like the kind of person she could control, precisely. And she liked being in control.
Which was sort of why she was so ticked off at Momma and Sabina right at this moment.
Agent Bailey pulled a handkerchief out of his carefully pressed khakis and offered it.
Wow. She hadn’t expected that. And it made him seem a tiny bit less frightening. Obviously he was a gentleman. Only gentlemen carried monogrammed handkerchiefs, right? So she took it and dabbed at her eyes.
“Who carries a handkerchief these days?” she found herself asking.
He shrugged in a bashful sort of way that knocked her right off her feet. Figuratively.
He had white teeth that shone in his tan face. And dimples. And a square chin. He was movie-star gorgeous. And he sometimes carried both a handkerchief and a weapon—probably the standard-issue Glock.
Wow.
“My dad carries one, and I’ve always wanted to be like him. He was a cop on the Boston PD. He’s retired now,” he said.
She had a moment’s confusion as to whether Agent Bailey was talking about handkerchiefs or handguns. It probably didn’t matter. If his daddy was a cop he had packed heat, too.
“So what’s with the tears, huh?” he asked.
“It’s complicated,” she said, reeling in her runaway emotions. “I mean, since the house burned down.” She paused again, this time gathering her thoughts. “Actually it’s more complicated even than that. It started getting complicated when I was thirteen.”
“That far back, huh? Well, I’ve got plenty of time and nothing good to read. I’m happy to listen.”
She almost choked. He had sure looked kind of riveted to that article when she’d first walked in.
“What are you doing here?” She asked as she looked around the shabby interior of the Wash-O-Rama. “Besides reading back issues of Cosmo that Wilma makes available from time to time?”
Was that a tiny blush? It was hard to see in all that beautiful tanned skin, but maybe his ears reddened. “Please give her my thanks for the magazine,” he said. “And I, uh, had to leave Columbia unexpectedly and was kind of behind on my laundry. So I packed a suitcase of dirty clothes. I’m staying out at The Jonquil House for a few days, but they don’t have laundry facilities for guests. So here I am.”
“Reading Cosmo.”
He laughed. It was a sweet and rich laugh, like sunlight on butterscotch. “Yeah. It was all that was available. And it looked more interesting than my emails. So what happened when you were thirteen that has you crying today?”
He leaned back on one of the washers. He seemed genuinely interested.
“Come on, Agent Bailey, you can see the scars. Don’t pretend that you can’t.”
“Call me Zach.” He tilted his head and frowned. “Oh, yeah, I guess now that you mention it. So what happened when you were thirteen?”
“My family’s house burned to the ground. And I was caught inside.” She looked down for a moment and expected him to say something like “I’m sorry.” People always did that. They always pitied her.
But when a few moments passed without him saying a word, she looked up. Right into his deep brown eyes.
There wasn’t any pity in them. In fact, his gaze shifted, taking in everything—her jeans, her t-shirt, her boobs. The guy was actually checking her out.
She tried to remember if Ross had ever checked her out that way. Well, of course he looked at her, but maybe not like Agent Bailey was looking right at the moment. Her face went hot.
And she started to babble. “Ever since the fire, my older sister has been treating me like I’m fragile or something. And my mother never misses an opportunity to remind me that my sister gave up a bunch of things for me. And my boyfriend is being impossible. And everyone in town is telling me what to do. And then the house at Jessamine Manor burned down, which was kind of scary. And Ross got a dog, and I don’t like dogs.”
Zach’s gaze traveled back up to her face. “I do get it. It definitely sucks having the environmental Looney Tunes torch your dream house.”
She blew her nose and then realized she couldn’t give his handkerchief back in that condition. So she stuffed it in her pocket. “You know, Zach, I realize that you’re all over the arson thing and all, but if you want to know the truth, I’m not all that upset about the house.”
“No?”
She shook her head. “I was kind of planning to get the house and all that next year, after I finish my associate’s degree in interior design. I figured Ross and I would get the house and get married then. But everything got moved up because of Sabina.”
“Sabina?”
“My sister. It’s complicated.”
He hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his khakis and tilted his head. “I’ve got time. And I’m a good listener.” He flashed one dark eyebrow.
Oh, boy, was he flirting? Kind of. Maybe.
No, not possible. A man that handsome would never look twice at someone like her, all scarred and everything. No, he was just being nice. Because he was a nice guy who carried a handkerchief and never ever wore pants that weren’t pressed. She wondered if he ironed his jeans. Did he even own jeans?
She was suddenly dying to know. So she told him all about what Sabina had done at Dot’s Spot, and what Miriam Randall had predicted, and what Momma expected of her, and how Ross was suddenly in a hot hurry to move up the wedding date. She had plenty of time to give Zach all the details. And it turned out he was a very good listener.
And when his laundry was done, she discovered that Zach Bailey wore white boxer briefs and liked them folded.
CHAPTER
6
By two o’clock on Saturday afternoon, Ross’s headache was bearable enough to do something about the situation he’d created for himself. Henrietta had called him not more than fifteen minutes after she left his place to let him know that Lucy and Sabina had had a big fight.
Which was both stunning and troubling news, because he knew he’d been the cause of the rift. So he needed to do something truly heroic to rescue the situation.
He decided that giving Sparky back to the animal shelter was not heroic. But finding another home for Lucy—that would be.
So he cleaned himself up and hiked into town (since his truck was still parked at Dot’s Spot) and strolled into Arlo Boyd’s real estate office. He intended merely to schedule an appointment, but it turned out Arlo was actually there, instead of out showing properties to prospective buyers.
He found Arlo back in his office, finishing off a late lunch that looked like a pulled pork sandwich from the Kountry Kitchen. Ross’s stomach growled, suggesting that he might actually be on his way to recovering from last night’s stupidity.
Arlo was a big man who filled up his small office. He had once been a member of the 1991 state champion Davis High football team, and he was now a regular booster of Pop Warner football programs. His office walls were festooned with decades of team photos. Arlo was a friendly guy and a near celebrity in town. Which explained why he was pretty much the only real estate agent of any note in all of Allenberg County.
“Ross,” he said, standing up and wiping a little grease from his mouth with a paper napkin, “I’m sorry to hear about what happened out at Jessamine Manor. I gather one of those new houses had your name on it.”
Ross sat down in the facing chair. “Yeah, it’s a bummer. And it looks like it’s going to be months and months until they rebuild those homes. So that’s why I’m here.”
Arlo gave him a sober look. “Trying to get back into Lucy’s good graces, huh?”
“What?”
Arlo shook his head. “Son, everyone knows about how you behaved last night at Dot’s.”
Ross’s headache made a sudden reappearance, and he idly rubbed the space between his brows. It didn’t help. “Yeah, well, so I’m here to do something heroic.”
“Heroic?”
“You know, like buying flowers except much bigger. Lucy wants a house. So that’s why I’m here. What’s available that doesn’t cost a zillion dollars?”
The real estate agent leaned back in his chair. “Well, that’s the problem. There’s a housing shortage in Allenberg County these days. Which is a good problem to have, if you know what I mean. DeBracy Limited has breathed new life into our economy. Did you hear they just landed a new contract and will be expanding?”
“Uh, no, I didn’t.”
“Well, that’s the problem, see. We don’t have much in the way of available homes for sale—not in any price range. I can check listings for you. What are you looking for?”
Ross rattled off a few requirements and a price range, and Arlo entered the parameters into his computer. The search came back with exactly no results.
“Okay, how about a little more money,” Ross said, although he couldn’t afford more.
Arlo searched again and the results were the same. “I’m telling you, Ross, there just aren’t many houses for sale. It’s a complete sellers’ market. Just a week ago a couple came in here and actually wanted to see the old Smith house. They decided to pass on it, of course.”
“The Smith house?”
“Yeah, you know that run-down Victorian at the intersection of Julia and Baruch.”
Oh, yeah, he knew that house. Its backyard bumped up against a tiny brick ranch house his parents had once rented. Momma had always talked about how one day, when Daddy’s ship came in, they would live in a big ol’ house like the one owned by Miz Evelyn Smith, the old, unmarried neighbor lady. Unfortunately, Daddy’s ship never came in. He’d worked his entire life as a handyman and janitor at the elementary school. And then he’d died of a heart attack. Five years ago Momma moved away to Atlanta to take care of Great-Aunt Beth.
But the idea of buying that house and restoring it, and then having Momma come visit, truly appealed to him.
He suddenly wanted the Smith house. It was a visceral thing.
“How much are they asking for that old place?”
“Not much.” Arlo rattled off a price that was astonishingly low—no more than unimproved land, which was still a bargain in Allenberg County.
“So little?”
“The house is falling down. You’d have to tear it down and build a new one.”
“I’d like to see it, Arlo. Momma always loved that house.”
Arlo shook his head emphatically, as if to say that Ross had truly lost his mind. “It would need to be gutted from the inside out. All the plumbing and electrical would have to be replaced to bring it up to code. It’s a money pit.”
“Maybe not in a sellers’ market, Arlo. I could probably flip that house and make a profit on it.”
“Maybe, but you’d exhaust yourself. And do you have the money to renovate?”
That was a slight problem. But maybe he could float a construction loan or something. “I want to see it.”
“No, you don’t. There are dead rats in that place. I know Lucy, and this is not what she wants.”
That got Ross’s dander up. “I think I know my fiancée pretty well. She loves to restore old things. This will be the project to end all projects.”
Ross could hardly temper his enthusiasm as he strode into the Last Chance Around Antique Mall in the late afternoon. He’d just come from looking at the Smith house, and while the place was an absolute pit inside, the bones of the house were sound.
It was a classic example of a Victorian farmhouse with a hipped roof, opposing peaked gable, and two tall, corbeled brick chimneys. It had a wraparound veranda with a spindle railing and some truly beautiful, if weathered, fretwork above the bay windows. Inside, the oak floors seemed to be mostly intact. There were four fireplaces. The staircase balusters were hand-carved and ended in a graceful spiral at the newel post.
Momma had talked about that staircase for years. Old Miz Smith used to invite her over for sweet tea from time to time, since they shared a backyard. And Momma always said she wanted a house with a swirly newel post like that.
Of course there were problems with the house. The 1920s-vintage bathroom and the ancient kitchen were both complete gut jobs. Arlo was right about the wiring and the plumbing. It would have to be redone.
