LITMIR.BIZ

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I’m sorry. You’re tired. I should get you home.”

      But Kyle’s easy company and the sweet scents of gardenias, night phlox and petunias in the cool evening air had banished the worst of her exhaustion. “Really, I’m better now. Why don’t you tell me about the ones on the way home?”

      “Yeah? You’d like that? It wouldn’t...bore you?”

      “No. I have to admit, I am impressed with how neat and clean and picture-postcard the old neighborhood looks. It didn’t look like this when I was growing up.”

      “No. It didn’t. It was in a sad state. And it’s been only in the last two or three years that we’ve seen real progress. There are just a few holdouts left and they’ll—” Kyle abruptly clamped his mouth shut, stopping himself in midsentence.

      “Cry uncle? Sell out? Or get with the program?” she teased. “Or...or do you make them...” she grinned and used her fingers to form air quotes “...‘disappear’?” she asked in a mock-sinister tone.

      “Now, how did you guess what we do with the really stubborn ones?” Kyle said with a laugh.

      “It’s probably right out of The Stepford Wives manual,” Allison teased. “A complete reeducation program in the renovation camps.”

      “No!” He played along with a theatrical gasp, and clutched his chest. “You can’t have tumbled to the secret of our success! Why, now I’ll have to make you disappear!”

      But then the next house came into view, and he suddenly grew serious. “Oh, this is one of my favorite stories—this house got rescued from the wrecking ball. Literally.”

      “That’s gotta be one dramatic tale. Sounds like something on TV.”

      “It just about was. It was horrible, the condition the house was in. Vinyl siding. The wrong windows. A cheap asphalt shingle roof. Oh, and glass blocks in a back bathroom window. Ugh. Walter and Mary, the couple who own it now, found out that some guy had bought the property to make a parking lot out of it. There used to be a—”

      “Law office next door, I remember. Really snarly guy.”

      “Yeah. He’s gone. You don’t have to worry about him anymore. I disappeared him.”

      Allison chuckled and punched Kyle on the arm. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. Go on.”

      “They bought it. The day the wrecking ball was due to knock it down. And they started, bit by bit, to restore the old girl to her glory.”

      Allison gazed at the massive Georgian, with its white columns and its side porches. “It’s gorgeous. They must have sunk quite a lot into it.”

      “Labor of love. But they wouldn’t have it any other way.”

      “Kyle...” She couldn’t look at the Georgian anymore. She stared off in the opposite direction, only to find that another old house, this time a beautiful Victorian, stood in perfectly restored, accusing beauty.

      “Yeah?”

      “Not everybody has the money or the time or the inclination to do that.”

      “Allison...” He took her hands in his. It was an astonishing move that normally would have weirded her out. But it felt right to have him touch her like this, even though they didn’t know each other very well. “I know. I know.”

      “You know...” About the vinyl siding?

      “How overwhelmed you feel. I’ve been there. It’s okay. You’ll get through it. I’ll help you. We’ll get Belle Paix looking just as good—no, better! Better than all of these. She’s the jewel of the neighborhood. And you’re going to polish her up until she positively gleams. I promise. It will happen.”

      She couldn’t meet his eyes. To Allison, the earnest honesty in them was as guilt-inducing as the picturesque houses all around them. Instead, she focused on his hands, strong and capable and holding hers.

       No. No. You have no idea. If you knew how ridiculous I thought this whole rigmarole is— Oh, Kyle. I am not the girl you think I am. All I want is a good roof over Gran’s head.

CHAPTER SIX

      KYLE HESITATED BEFORE he pushed the tarnished brass doorbell a third time. Allison surely would have come to the door by now. Maybe she’d changed her mind. Maybe the historical society had scared her off. Maybe his little tour last night of the old neighborhood had backfired and left her feeling overwhelmed instead of motivated.

       She said she’d see you this afternoon. And there’s a car in the side yard.

      But the only sign of life that he could find was through the wavy, 126-year-old glass in the mahogany front door: Cleo glaring at him, her blue eyes filled with contempt.

      What did Allison call her when the Siamese sprang out in a full-frontal attack every time he walked through the door? Ninja cat? Yeah. No need for a Doberman when you had a guard cat like Cleo.

      Kyle stepped back from the door and walked down the porch steps. Yep. The vehicle in the side yard was her little compact car. So she wasn’t at the hospital. Maybe she’d gone for a walk? Or she was asleep? He hoped the hospital hadn’t called her again last night, because she’d been so tired she could barely stumble up the steps.

      He surveyed Belle Paix from his vantage point on the front steps. It was in amazingly good structural shape, really—yes, it needed an accurate paint scheme, and he’d spotted some dry rot in a couple places. But the siding still seemed sound, the windows looked intact, and the wrought-iron porch posts Ambrose had used in lieu of his own heart pine showed only the need for a good scraping and painting.

      There were home owners who would kill for a house in this near-perfect shape, where all they had to do was refresh. His own house’s renovation had been a scavenger hunt for missing pieces and obsolete moldings or parts.

      He glanced at his watch. Still no sign of life. Okay. He pivoted on his heel and headed for the front gate. He’d go pay the water bill and then swing by again to see if Allison had gotten back—

      Suddenly, from above him, came a horrendous screeching of long-stuck wood and a shout. “Kyle! Hey! Don’t go! I’m coming down!”

      He looked over his shoulder and saw Allison framed by the open window above the porch. Her face was swathed in pale blue paint and something white covered her nose and smeared across her cheek. “I thought you were gone.”

      “Only in my dreams! Just a minute.” But the stubborn window resisted her efforts to close it as vehemently as it had resisted opening a few minutes earlier.

      “Sounds like you need a little graphite on that,” he called up.

      “Dynamite, you say? Bring it on! This old house—” The rest of her grumble was shut off by the sudden cooperation of the window. Kyle could hear the powerful slam reverberate in the afternoon air.

      Allison opened the door, a very unhappy Cleo wriggling in her grip. “No, Cleo, you must learn some manners. Nice Kyle, see? No, you cannot bite the guests—or me, for that matter!”

      Kyle shut the door behind him, and Allison released Cleo. The cat streaked off with a series of unhappy yowls.

      “You’d think I tortured the creature,” she said.

      “So you were upstairs, then?” he asked. “I wondered if something had happened—”

      “I heard the bell, but I was in the middle of something that I couldn’t let go of...and so I just crossed my fingers that you’d be patient. Well, mentally crossed my fingers. I had a problem with a wall in Gran’s room, but I think I’ve got it licked.”

      They started up the stairs. Kyle saw that, unlike last night, Allison had some spring in her step.

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