Page 5

G inny shut her eyes tight as she leaned back against the porch railing.

She felt a teensy bit bad about the man’s ruined suit, but she hadn’t asked him to grab the ladder.

She’d gotten ahold of the gutter and was using it to pull herself safely back against the house when he’d muscled it forward ( typical man!

), knocking a gallon of paint down onto himself.

And none of that would have happened if he hadn’t squealed up to the place like a formula one racer, startling her nearly to death.

She felt worse about first ignoring his plight and then laughing about it. Neither of those behaviors had been very polite, but they were all she could manage in the moment. Even dripping with baby blue paint, the guy looked like a Roman god.

She’d quick invented that stupid line about imagining a man-shaped chip of paint, because what she’d really been imagining was him completely covered in blue paint—and only paint.

He would have looked like a Michelangelo carving with his soft curls, deep-set eyes, and strong nose.

Even through the fabric of his suit, she could tell he was fit.

Plenty of rippling abs and taut calves hidden there for an ancient sculptor to lovingly chisel from cold, hard stone.

Rather than stare at him as if he were priceless art on a pedestal in a museum, her brain had switched into say-something-childish-or-stupid mode.

Stopping herself from imagining such things was the main reason she was keeping her eyes closed even now. As long as she wasn’t looking at him, she wanted him to leave.

There was no chance that a guy in a tailored suit and driving a car that expensive also owned—or had any interest in owning—a tiny, run-down old house on a misbegotten street.

Whatever was happening here, he was clearly confused.

Figuring stuff like that out was Monique’s specialty.

Once Monique called her back, Ginny was confident her sister would send him on his gorgeous way back to ancient Rome or wherever.

In the meantime, sexy man had sexy walked his sexy self forward to within feet of where Ginny sat. Even if she’d wanted to, she couldn’t help overhearing snippets of the conversation with his attorney. They were both controlled yelling, though the lawyer’s voice sounded tinny and far away.

“What do you mean, ‘Oh, my God’?” he was saying. “That’s not something I ever want to hear my attorney say.”

The lawyer’s reply was rushed and urgent. “What does she look like?”

“I don’t know,” the man said, sounding flustered. “It’s not like I’m gawking at her—freckles. Shoulder length, light brown hair.”

“Oh, my God!” the lawyer said even more loudly. There was a brief pause, then Ginny heard her say, “Ask her how long she’s lived there.”

Ginny opened her eyes to the see the man staring straight at her. Clearly, he knew she was listening, and clearly, he expected her to answer the lawyer’s question directly.

She fake-examined her fingernails, pretending to be distracted by her exquisite manicure job, which was actually blue paint. “About five years, I’d say.”

“Did you hear that?” the man barked.

“I did, and it’s not good. Listen,” the lawyer said. She lowered her tone so that Ginny had to strain to hear the rest of it. “Whatever you do, don’t mention squatter’s rights.”

Ginny immediately looked up, blinking her eyes in doll-like innocence. “What are squatter’s rights?”

“Argh!” she heard the lawyer say.

Something about the tenor of the lawyer’s voice suddenly struck Ginny as familiar, but she was too busy typing “Squatter’s rights” into Google to think about that.

Many links popped up, but there was one specific to California.

She clicked on that one. “Oh, lookee lookee. It says someone legally owns a property if they’ve lived there for five years. ”

“Nico,” the lawyer barked, “I’m on my way there. Don’t do anything . Don’t touch her. Don’t touch the house. Don’t call the police. Don’t do anything . Understand?”

“You’d better sort this out for me. This property is?—”

“On my way,” the lawyer said, cutting him off. “Just sit tight.”

Ginny kept reading. “Huh. It says I have to have used the house in an ‘open and notorious way.’” She gave a self-satisfied giggle. “I’ve never been notorious before.”

The man, who apparently had the unusual name of Nico, stuffed his phone back into his pocket and looked around, tapping his foot—and probably wishing she were a cockroach underneath it.

Ginny kept reading. “And I have to have lived here in a ‘hostile’ way, which means without the original owner knowing.” She tilted her head as she tapped at her chin.

“I don't see what’s hostile about that though. Seems responsible to me. Perfectly good houses shouldn't sit empty when there’s people who need a place to live, don’t you think? ”

“I think,” the man said, “people shouldn’t try to steal things that other people worked hard for.”

“People shouldn’t abandon useful things, letting them fall to ruin.”

“In business, sometimes temporary ruin is necessary to make way for progress,” he said, sounding suddenly like a haughty college professor. “Something tells me you don’t know much about business though.”

“Thank you. I try very hard not to.” She glanced up from her phone and back down again. “It also says I have to have beautified the place.”

The man made a show of staring up at the house, one eyebrow arched. “If used bubble gum is beautiful.”

He reached out as if to touch one of the uprights holding up the porch’s roof, but Ginny waggled a finger at him. “Ah, ah, ah. Your lawyer said no touchy.”

He shoved his hands back into his pockets. “There, now you’re safe.”

“I don’t know about that. I don’t feel safe at all. You’re obviously very confused, but you seem to want to take my house.”

“This is not your house. You can’t just claim a whole house because you feel like it! What did you do five years ago, break a window? That’s breaking and entering. It’s illegal.”

“I did not break into anything. I had a key. And since then, all I’ve done is fix this place up.” She corrected herself. “No, wait,” she said, and tapped her phone screen lightly. “I’ve beautified it notoriously.”

“There’s no way you had a key.”

She hopped up and headed for the front door. Reaching inside and to the left, she pulled her key ring off its hook. “I did and I still do, see?” she said as she dangled the unusually large brass house key toward him.

His face registered genuine shock as he held out his hand. “Let me see that.”

She quick tucked the key down the front of her shirt. “As if.”

“Where did you get it?”

“I was sent out here to clean the place.”

“You were not.”

“I was. Some fool thought it could be rented. But there were actual mushrooms growing like stalactites from her ceilings, holes in her rotted front porch, and a cracked toilet in the only bathroom. Not even a craven capitalist such as yourself would get away with housing another human being in it. I certainly wasn't going to steal anyone’s money by cleaning her in that state, so I took pictures and sent them to my sister. The guy at least had the sense to cancel the cleaning.”

The man was rubbing his forehead as if trying to smooth out the wrinkles that had just erupted all over it like a Ripples potato chip. “I…that can’t be right, I mean…”

“It is right, and it is what happened.”

“But even if all that’s true, it was just to clean it. It doesn’t explain why you’re still here.”

“Well, obviously, I came back.”

“Why, though, if it was so disgusting and unlivable?”

Ginny’s face blushed for real now. He had no idea how private the answer to that question was to her. “I…don’t want to tell you.”

“Because it’s a lie you haven’t finished making up yet?”

“Because you’ll laugh.”

He bit his lower lip as he stared impatiently at the sky. “I promise I’m not in a laughing mood.”

In five years, Ginny had never spoken aloud her true feelings about the house to anyone.

It was just too personal, too precious. But now that someone had directly asked, she suddenly very much wanted to talk about it.

Once Monique got there and cleared this confusion up, the man would leave anyway, never to be seen again, so what harm could come from telling him?

She slid down slowly into a cross-legged position with her back to the front door.

“Fine. What do I care if you laugh? You’re probably not even capable of something so human as humor.

After I left, there was something about the house, something almost…

calling to me.” His eyes flickered toward hers, and she was worried he was going to interrupt.

He didn’t, but to keep from being annoyed at his reactions, she closed her eyes tightly and pressed on.

“I went back and, walking through the rooms, I could just feel how much she had been loved, you know? How much love there still was in her walls. I mean, the place is small, and she isn’t going to win any house beautiful competitions, but she’s solidly built and even has some sweet little eccentricities. ”

“Eccentricities?”

His tone was dismissive, but she barely registered that fact.

The more she spoke about those first magical minutes at the house, the more she was right back there on that day.

Her voice took on a dreamy quality. “There’s a tall, narrow window in the bathroom that sends this cheery slice of natural light sweeping across the room like a sun dial.

” She formed her right hand and forearm into a vertical line and demonstrated how the band of light moves.

“And the fireplace surround has legit Dutch Delft tiles in it. In one, there’s the cutest tiny blue and white couple walking hand-in-hand by a windmill. ”

“You don’t say,” the man said in a droll tone, but she wasn’t going to let him ruin the very first telling of her memories of the place.

“I do say! And there’s a built-in kitchen breakfast nook that reminds me of a booth at a diner I used to have brunch at every week.”

By now, she felt as if she were musing out loud to herself.

“It just felt… feels …like home.” She placed her palms flat on the porch boards to commune with their energy.

“That first day I returned, I laid a tarp over the holes in the roof to protect it from rain. I didn’t even know why I bothered.

But then the next day, I came back with a bunch of tools and a sleeping bag and started living here.

And whenever I’m not on a cleaning job, I’m fixing her up.

” She reached both arms up over her head and gave the front door a friendly pat.

“This ol’ gal needed work, but she didn’t deserve to be given up on. ”

There was a short silence, and then Ginny heard the man give a slow clap. “Very nice performance.”

This type of mockery was somehow worse than laughter. She stiffened and opened her eyes. “Go away.”

He kept slow clapping. “Yep. Very nice. But you made one little mistake in your romantic fairy tale of domesticity.”

She sent him her coldest glare through slitted eyes. “What was that?”

“You said you’d called your sister when the place was in bad shape, but your sister doesn’t have anything to do with this place, does she?

I bet you don’t even have a sister. I bet she’s a figment of that ‘stuff’ your brain does.

Either that, or you’re a compulsive liar and you’re making her up just like you’re making up all the rest of that sentimental gobbledygook about walls full of love calling to you.

” He moved toward her, and there was menace in his voice that she hadn’t caught there before.

“What’s really going to happen is this—you’re going to leave. Today .”

She looked at him full on as she tried to come up with a reply, but all she could think was how hideous he’d suddenly become—his features too angled, his deep eyes emptier and colder than the stone she’d imagined him carved from.

How could she have ever thought him attractive?

From his swagger to his too big feet, he looked just like the bully he was.

Just then, they both craned their necks at the sound of a car turning onto Placard. A bright red Miata barreled toward them. A bright red Miata owned, Ginny knew, by the one and only Monique Heppner, Esquire. Ginny smiled. This bully was about to meet his match.

“Finally!” they said in unison. “Monique’s here.”