and I mentioned that I needed to pay you a visit. She said that as soon as she’s unpacked, she wants to tell you all about her trip over lunch.” He grunted. “For your sake, somewhere other than Tables.”
Cora Michaels loved it there, and often commented on the quaint Kearney Street location, the restaurant’s white picket fence and eclectic collection of mismatched tables and chairs. Eden would happily have met Cora at the interstate rest stop if she’d suggested it; Brett’s mother was a lovely woman...and one of Latimer’s most generous donors. At their last meeting, Cora confided that if it hadn’t been for Duke’s firm hand—and his willingness to adopt her sullen, unruly only child—Brett would have ended up in a place like Latimer House.
But why had Brett told Cora that he needed to visit today?
“How soon will she get home?”
“Who knows? She was supposed to get back last week. Now it’s next week.” He shook his head. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say she’s taken up with another old geezer.”
Eden laughed. “How old are you that geezer is the first word that popped into your mind?”
He took another sip of coffee and met her eyes over the mug’s rim. “Maybe someday you’ll share your secret coffee recipe.”
“It’s no big secret. I don’t follow instructions.”
He raised his eyebrows as he put down the mug. “Beg pardon?”
“On the coffee can. The instructions say to use a rounded scoop. For every cup. Too strong. Way too strong, and in my opinion, I think it’s because they want you to use up the grounds faster.” Nervousness was to blame for her stubby fingernails, and fear tended to make her talk too fast. Waiting for Brett to deliver his bad news was making her feel both. Eden took a deep breath and willed herself to calm down because if history repeated itself, she’d start stuttering next.
“So I use half as much, er, many. Coffee grounds per pot, that is.”
“Makes sense,” he said, dusting crumbs from his fingers.
He sounded bored. Uninterested. Distracted, no doubt, by the awful message he’d come to deliver.
“So about this proposal I was telling you about...”
She squeezed her hands together so tightly, her knuckles ached.
“I thought it only fair to run it by you, give you a chance to make a counteroffer before I sign anything.”
“A counteroffer?” Could he hear her pounding heart from his side of the table?
“Yes. Someone wants to buy Latimer House.”
“You’re joking.”
Brett bypassed her comment. “Not as a rehab center for young criminals, of course. The buyer wants to rehab the house and live here.”
Yet again, she ignored his unkind reference to her boys. “And you think I can present you with a better offer?”
“Well, that’s the general idea. But—”
“Oh, now I know you’re joking,” she said. “My savings account balance doesn’t even have a comma in it anymore!” Thanks to you, she finished silently.
Brett chuckled. “Always the kidder.” His expression went stony and professional as he leaned back in the chair. “But you didn’t let me finish.”
In truth, her bank statement did show a comma—and a few digits preceding it—thanks to the small estate she’d inherited from her grandparents. Their house on the other side of town wasn’t as big as this one, but it would do...if Brett forced her hand. Denver officials would no doubt demand an inspection before issuing a permit to house the boys at Pinewood, and sadly, the tenants hadn’t left it in very good condition. Eden had no idea what it might cost to bring it up to code.
Brett knocked on the table. “Earth to Eden...”
“Sorry. You were saying?”
“Are you okay? You look a little green around the gills.”
Green. As in money. “How much did your buyer offer for Latimer House?”
When Brett named his price, her heart rate doubled.
“Oh my,” she whispered. “How soon do you need an answer?”
He shrugged. “How much time do you need?”
Why this constant game of cat and mouse! Couldn’t the man answer just one question straight-out?
“How much time do I have?”
Brett’s face softened slightly. “For anyone else, I’d say sixty days. But because I like you, I’ll stretch it to ninety.”
Her gaze darted to the calendar on the wall behind him. He might as well have said ninety minutes. Plus, his timing couldn’t have been worse. Most of the boys were making steady progress, changing from angry, mistrustful teens into productive, hopeful young men. This place, along with the steadfast work of Kirk and the handful of volunteers—psychology students, mostly—who helped run it, had given the kids stability and taught them that some adults, at least, could be trusted to act in their best interests. If Brett sold the place right out from under them? She shuddered.
Brett got to his feet. “Give the offer some thought and get back to me, one way or the other. Just don’t wait too long, okay?”
Eden stood, too, wrapped half a dozen cookies in a paper napkin and handed them to him.
“Gee, thanks,” he said, tucking them into his jacket pocket before making his way to the foyer.
As soon as he drove away, Eden went back to the kitchen and slid her to-do list from under the napkin holder. “Go to Pinewood,” she wrote across the top. Maybe Shamus had exaggerated when he’d described the mess her tenants had left behind. The visit would have to wait until tomorrow, though, because after teaching two classes and preparing tonight’s supper, there wouldn’t be time to drive to the other side of town. She pictured the clothesline she’d rigged in the basement to aid the limping dryer, and every clean-but-wrinkly shirt and pair of jeans that awaited her steam iron.
On her way to the classrooms at the back of the house, Eden peeked into the hall mirror. The boys were shrewd, and one look at her troubled expression would make them worry, too. She smiled and fluffed her hair, and felt a strange connection to Scarlett O’Hara.
Because for the first time, Eden truly understood the quote, “I’ll worry about it tomorrow.”
THE MINUTE EDEN pulled up to Pinewood, her heart sank.
She parked the van near the deep wraparound porch and hoped the interior of her grandparents’ three-story farmhouse was in better shape than the exterior.
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