LITMIR.BIZ

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      A tall gentleman with a luxurious crop of snow-white hair and a suntanned face peered down at her quizzically. “Well, now,” he said, then cleared his throat and began again. “Well, now. Stimulating stuff, no?”

      Allison blinked. Lying was not her style, not even teeny-tiny white lies, if she could get away with the truth. “Er, they are very detail-oriented,” she commented.

      “Got to be,” he said with a satisfied nod. “Got to watch every jot and tittle. Don’t want any anachronistic details to spoil the effect, you know? And people will try you. They’ll test you. Got to hold the line.”

      “You mean...about the flowers?” Allison asked. It was as if the man could peer into her very soul and know that she was conspiring to slap vinyl siding onto Belle Paix.

      “About it all. I’m on the preservation committee. I should know. All manner of wild-eyed schemes come before us. People wanting to paint their Victorians white. Put Georgian columns on ’em. Enough to turn my stomach, I tell you.”

      Allison’s own stomach sank like a stone at the news that this hard-liner was one she’d face at her variance request hearing. If she ever managed to fill out all that paperwork. Please...don’t have any clones on the board just like you.

      “I can see you take this very seriously,” she said.

      “And well I should! That young Kyle, he’s turned this place around. You ought to have seen the mess this neighborhood was in...well, you can! Let me show you the before-and-after gallery—it’s right out in the hall. You’ll be astonished!”

      “Uh...” She looked down at the man’s hand, which he’d wrapped around her arm. Likely planning to take her to the display whether she wanted to go or not.

      “Ease up, Herbert, will you? Don’t want to frighten her off on her very first visit, do we?” Kyle’s welcome voice interrupted them.

      “Oh! Kyle! I was waiting for you.”

      There, that was true. She was. She wanted to be a polite guest and say her goodbyes, and then totter off to her bed.

      Herbert shot her a disappointed glance, but covered it up with a good-natured dip of his head. “I’ll show you next time, how about? It will be something to look forward to.”

      “Yes. It will be something,” she said brightly.

      As soon as Herbert had drifted off to join the others at the table, Kyle said, “You look all done in. Did you stay up late painting after I left?”

      “Uh, actually...about ten minutes after you left, the hospital called and begged me to come in. They were short an RN for the ER last night. What could I say? I’m the new kid in town.”

      “You worked all night? With no sleep today?” His eyebrows shot up and he shook his head in disbelief. “If I had only known.”

      “No, no. I got some sleep. Would have gotten more if I hadn’t had to wake up to meet the electrician.”

      “So you’re rewiring the house?” Kyle asked. “Who’d you get?”

      “Nobody yet. The guy was a no-show. Let’s face it. He probably Google-Earthed it, saw what a disaster the place was and didn’t bother coming.”

      “How frustrating. Listen, I have a list of good electricians who are willing to work on old houses. Let me go grab it for you from the office—no, no, I insist. I have to get that source list for Paul, anyway.”

      “Ahem, can...can I come with you? Because I’m really not up to small talk right now. It’s all I can do to get out guttural cave-woman speech. Even the weather is beyond me, as tired as I am.”

      He laughed and jabbed his finger toward her, then back at his chest. “You, Jane, me Tarzan. You come.”

      “Sold!”

      The two of them made their way to the office, where Kyle deftly picked a few sheaves of paper from two pigeonholes. “Commonly requested items—pays to keep them handy,” he explained.

      “You are just too organized. You make me feel like a complete slob. You know, you didn’t spill a single drop of paint last night, and your paintbrush, when you cleaned it, looked brand-new.”

      “Didn’t yours?” he asked.

      “Er, no. Mine wound up looking more like one of those troll dolls. I’ll probably toss it and buy another.”

      “I did happen to notice it wasn’t a very good quality brush,” he said.

      “Aren’t brushes brushes?” she asked.

      “No. A good brush is something to go to war over to protect. Trust me, after you’ve done all the trim work on your house—outside and inside—you’ll have found the right brush for you. And you’ll threaten to kill anybody who so much as lays a finger on it.”

      “Does this violent propensity extend only toward paintbrushes? Or should I be worried about touching other things that belong to you?” she teased.

      He blushed. He really, honestly blushed. She hadn’t meant anything risqué with her comment, but now could see the double entendre.

      “Mainly paintbrushes,” he muttered. “I’ll give you...fair warning about the other stuff.”

      To take her mind off her own flaming face and Kyle’s awkwardness, she stared down at the pages. “Well, I guess I should be—”

      “I’ll walk you home. Let me hand this to Paul.”

      And in a flash, though she wouldn’t have expected it two minutes earlier, Kyle’s hand was on her back as he ushered her out the society office’s front door and toward her house.

      “You didn’t much care for the meeting, did you?” he asked.

      “Really...I couldn’t say.” For sure. Because then I’d hurt your feelings, and you seem like a nice guy. Probably you share Herbert’s hard-liner approach about historical accuracy, but even so, you’re a nice guy. “Maybe I was too tired to give it a fair shake?”

      He didn’t say anything for a few steps. The silence stretched between them, interrupted by the sporadic rush of a car barreling down the street past them, and crickets and a dog barking when the car had passed.

      “I liked the idea of going over the antique source guides,” she said at last. “That would have been really useful. I mean, to someone like me.”

      “We should do that. Form a group of people who are in the middle of renovating. So many of our older folks have already done their time in the trenches. They’ve got all their work done, and they tend to be jealous when it comes to sharing information. I hate to say that.” He glanced her way, as if to make sure she didn’t instantly hate him for speaking so bluntly about the society members. “But it’s true.”

      “Why would they be that way?” she asked.

      Kyle shrugged. “Who knows? Honestly? Sometimes I think it’s a sport to some of them. Take Herbert, for instance. He’s a great guy, really believes in historic preservation, but...”

      “Ya know, I kind of got that vibe, too,” she said. “But you have to admire people who stick up for what they believe in. One of Gran’s tenets, and mine, too.”

      “He’s done a marvelous job with his house. There it is, up ahead.”

      Allison came to an abrupt stop as she let her eyes follow Kyle’s finger. A huge Queen Anne encrusted with all manner of gingerbread trim stood back on a picture-perfect lawn.

      “The old Kilgore house! That’s his? Wow. Back when I was little, the place was empty and the windows boarded up. My friends teased me, claiming that it was haunted, and that mine was, too. But that one especially.”

      “Herbert has worked hard on it. He bought it about ten years ago, when he

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