LITMIR.BIZ

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      It was not.

      A slow tour of the house where she and Stuart had spent so many happy years proved that weathered clapboards and lopsided shutters were the least of her worries.

      Last time she’d been here—to deliver the lease to a nice young family—the chandelier had painted a thousand minuscule rainbows on the tin ceiling. Now, years of cooking grease and cobwebs clung to each crystal teardrop. A fresh coat of paint would hide the scrapes and fingerprints that discolored the walls, but repairing the gouged, dull oak floors would require hours of backbreaking labor. Things were worse in the kitchen, where cabinet doors hung askew and floor tiles showed hairline cracks. There were glaring, empty spaces where the stove and fridge once stood. And in both bathrooms, missing faucets and broken medicine cabinets, dumped unceremoniously into the claw-foot tubs, made her tremble with anger.

      Eden sat on the bottom step of the wide staircase and held her head in her hands.

      “Hey, half-pint.”

      She looked up. “Hi, Shamus. It’s good to see you.”

      The elderly neighbor drew her into a grandfatherly hug, then held her at arm’s length. “I suppose you’ve taken the grand tour.”

      She nodded.

      “Bet you thought ol’ MaGee was exaggerating, didn’t you?”

      “Not exactly. But I did hope you had overstated things a bit.”

      Scowling, he shook his head. “Don’t know how they sleep at night, leaving Pinewood in such sorry shape, ’specially after all you did for ’em.” He studied her face.”

      How did she feel? Worried. Sad. Embarrassed, because Gramps had been right: “You think with your heart instead of your head,” he’d said, time and again. “Someday, that good-natured personality of yours is going to hurt you.”

      The way Eden saw it, poor judgment, not temperament, had hurt her. She was almost as much to blame for this mess as the Hansons. All the signs were there: Unkempt children. Unmowed lawn. Undone household chores. Late payments—and for the past six months, no payments at all. She’d bought into every one of their excuses. Harold lost his job. Lois’s car was rear-ended, putting her out of work, too. The oldest boy cracked a tooth eating walnuts. The youngest girl broke her toe trying to stop the playground merry-go-round. “Just give us a month,” they’d said, “and we’ll get back on track.” She’d suspected all along that they saw her as a pushover, but she couldn’t evict them midwinter, or midsummer, for that matter.

      “Desperate people do desperate things, I guess,” she said at last.

      He eyed her warily. “You don’t believe that any more than I do. The Hansons are deadbeats, plain and simple.” His tone softened. “You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t pull the wool over this old man’s eyes.”

      Since childhood, she’d wondered whether Shamus’s mixed metaphors were inadvertent, or a quirky attempt at humor.

      “In your shoes, I woulda booted ’em to the curb after they missed the second payment.”

      “Please,” she said. “You aren’t hard-hearted enough to put asthmatic, anemic kids into the street.” Eden hadn’t wanted to do it, either, even after they’d fallen so behind.

      “Quit lookin’ so guilty. You did what you had to do. You couldn’t keep paying the taxes, insurance, county fees—without sinking yourself.” He snorted. “You should have let me handle them, instead of Joe Templeton.”

      She’d let the owner of the property management firm get away with a lot, too. “Well, what’s done is done, I guess.”

      “You’re well within your rights to take the lot of ’em to court. My grandson just got his law degree. Right now, he’s playing gopher to some big shot at a downtown legal firm, and he’s itchin’ to sink his teeth into a case of his own. Bet he’d give you a real good price, just for the privilege of flexing his law muscles against those deadbeats and that lousy excuse for a property manager.”

      The way things were going, she probably couldn’t even afford Shamus’s inexperienced grandson.

      “Want me to talk to Ricky for you?”

      “Ricky...not that little blond kid who used to picked Gran’s roses as presents for Maggie?” Eden pictured his sweet-tempered wife.

      Shamus beamed. “One and the same.”

      “Wow. Hard to believe he’s old enough to have completed law school.”

      “Now, now,” he said, “you can’t change the subject on a fella with tunnel vision. I’ll email his contact info to you, and tell him to expect your call.”

      “I appreciate the offer, but...” Even if she could scrape up a few extra dollars to pay Ricky’s fees, Eden didn’t relish the idea of getting entangled in what would likely be a lengthy, unpleasant lawsuit. “Let me do some research first. Get some estimates. Find out what it will cost to bring Pinewood up to code. Double-check my contract with the property managers. Because I’d hate to waste Ricky’s time.” Or my quickly vanishing savings.

      Shamus had been a fixture at Pinewood for as long as she could remember. After her grandfather’s fatal heart attack, the elderly widower stepped in to help her grandmother with minor repairs and acted as a sounding board when she needed to purchase not-so-minor things such as replacement windows, the new roof, a car. And since Eden’s grandmother passed, Shamus had become the self-appointed guardian of the house and grounds. It was comforting to have a substitute grandparent of sorts, but Eden didn’t want to take advantage of his good nature. That’s why she’d hired Joe Templeton.

      Shamus frowned. “Bring it up to code? Does that mean you’re thinking of moving another tenant in here?”

      “Not exactly...” Eden explained the tight spot Brett’s proposal had put her in.

      “Aha, I get it now. If this old place can pass all the inspectors’ tests, you want to move the Latimer House boys in here.”

      “Only as a last resort. Their lives have already been too chaotic. I hate to uproot them just when they’re settling in and doing so well.”

      “Let me give you a little something to think about, half-pint. When soldiers get the order to pack up and move from one base to another, or some corporate type accepts a transfer to a new city, their families go with them. Whole kit and caboodle. The kids might not like it, at least not at first, but they adjust. Same as you and Stewie did when you came here from Baltimore.”

      Eden had to admit, he made a lot of sense. Still...

      “You homeschool those boys, so it isn’t like they’ll need to transfer into a new district. Something else to think about. I can help out if you’re shorthanded. Teach the boys to use power tools, maybe even put ’em to work on a big vegetable patch out back.”

      Shamus would love that. With his only son and every grandchild but Ricky out in California, he spent a lot of time alone. It might be a great arrangement for everyone concerned—if moving became necessary. If she could convince city authorities to allow her to relocate the boys. If she managed to come up with the money to make the house safe and comfortable for them.

      If...the biggest little word in the English language.

      Shamus leaned against the newel post. “Can I ask you a question, half-pint?”

      “Sure, as long as it isn’t ‘how do you expect to find a man, settle down and have kids of your own while you’re in charge of those ruffians?’”

      He laughed quietly. “I imagine you’ve heard that one a time or two.”

      “Or three.”

      He saluted her. “On my honor,” he said, smiling, “I will never ask you that question.” His expression grew serious. “So whatever happened

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