Prologue
“Jack? Are you still there?”
Jack O’Malley took a seat on the front steps of the house he’d just finished restoring in Spruce Lake, Colorado. He cradled his cell phone against his shoulder and wiped his brow. It was hot. Damned hot for June. Especially June in the Rockies. “I’m still here, Mike, and the answer’s still no.”
“C’mon, it’s only an estimate. You’ve got time for that, haven’t you?”
Jack groaned. It was flattering to be in demand for his services as a contractor who specialized in high-quality home-building and renovation, but one day he’d like to be able to take a holiday. With the way work kept piling up, that wasn’t going to happen any time in the next decade. And now his friend and lawyer, Mike Cochrane, wanted to heap on more work. He’d already turned down the same job late last week, when Mike first contacted him about it. Now Mike was sounding desperate.
“Like I told you, Jack, my client’s a doctor. And you know how much I need new clients—wealthy ones.”
Jack gave a snort of disgust. “And like I told you, Mike, the answer’s still no.”
“Aw, c’mon, Jack. Buddy,” he said, drawing out the last word. “You’re the only person capable of restoring that Victorian on Lincoln.”
Just as it had last week, Jack’s heart rate kicked up a notch at the mention of the old house. Gracie Saunders, the girl he’d dated in high school, had lived there. Missy Saunders, her great-aunt, had owned the house, but she’d moved to the Twilight Years retirement home a decade ago. The place had been rented out over the years, until it fell into such a state of disrepair no one wanted to live there. Missy had passed away a couple of years back and Jack assumed the house had been sold to the doctor—who’d probably, like too many of Spruce Lake’s second-home owners, use it two weeks a year and leave it vacant for the other fifty.
He took a long swig of orange juice. “Since when did you start pimping for clients wanting their houses restored?”
“Since a friend of a friend told this doctor I had contacts here in Spruce Lake. Contacts who were reliable.”
Jack didn’t miss the inflection in Mike’s voice. If he said no to the estimate, he’d be letting Mike down. Mike had done a lot for the O’Malleys, especially helping Jack’s brother Will foil the development company that had wanted to tear down half the old buildings on Main Street and put up a bunch of condos and a shopping mall. Their plan would’ve destroyed the Victorian-era character of the town. Instead, Will and his supporters had saved the buildings from destruction and Jack had spent the past few years restoring many of them.
But his next project was building a new home for Adam, his wife, Carly, and their kids. Adam had got land at a bargain-basement price from Will, who’d recently subdivided the ranch he’d bought a dozen years earlier into ranchettes of around ten acres each. The ranchettes had funded the purchase of buildings on Main Street to save them from destruction.
Jack couldn’t disappoint Adam and Carly. The house they presently lived in was getting to be way too small for Adam’s growing family. Jack’s youngest brother had married a widow with four children. Then they’d adopted two dogs and a cat from the animal shelter. And now Carly was pregnant.
“I’d love to restore that beauty to her former grandeur, Mike, but right now I don’t have the time. You know I’m slated to start work on Adam and Carly’s place next.”
It sure would be nice to renovate the old Victorian, though. The house had stood empty and neglected for too long. Jack scratched the rash on the inside of his elbow, then felt the need to scratch the one behind his knee. He’d have to see a doctor about the damned things pretty soon. Another doctor. That senile old fool Jenkins and his expensive creams hadn’t helped the rashes he’d been plagued with for the past couple of months. In fact, they just kept getting worse. The guy ought to be put out to pasture. “When’s your client going to be here?”
“Tomorrow. And I’m supposed to have found and employed a contractor by then.”
“Again, I don’t understand why you’re so hung up on me doing this. I didn’t know lawyers did stuff like that for their clients.”
“Jack, lawyers would walk barefoot over hot coals for their clients.”
Jack let out a guffaw of derision. “Yeah, right! Pull the other leg—it plays ‘Jingle Bells.’ What you mean is—so long as they pay you enough, you’d do the hot-coals walk.”
“I’ve already received a hefty advance for finding the right contractor. Naturally, the doc is now one of my most important clients.”
“Yeah, he’s probably, apart from me, your only client!”
He could hear the smile in Mike’s voice. One thing Mike wasn’t short of was clients. Too bad a lot of them failed to pay up. “C’mon, Jack. Gimme a break and get an estimate to me, ASAP?”
Jack grimaced. He knew what Mike was saying and it wasn’t too far from the truth—his lawyer could do with building up his client base. A paying client base. Too often softhearted Mike ended up footing the bill for his clients. Snaring a doctor, one prepared to send an advance, was a coup.
Spruce Lake, nestled in the Colorado Rockies, was a ski and summer resort that, until a decade ago, had been a well-kept secret. However, it was now being discovered, and those in the know had been snapping up properties for a good few years. That helped boost the local economy, but Jack wasn’t sure he welcomed the change to his formerly sleepy hometown.
In Jack’s opinion, Spruce Lake was picture-postcard perfect. Filled with a mixture of old Victorians and more modern homes, its main attraction was an unsurpassed ski mountain during the winter. It also offered myriad summer activities from hiking and bike riding to golfing and white-water rafting, fishing, mine tours and a thriving Main Street market.
The only problem, according to the Chamber of Commerce, was that the rest of the world had barely heard of the place. Sure, Aspen and Vail were household names for the dedicated skier, celebrity and socialite, but Spruce Lake had yet to be discovered by the glitterati—which suited Jack just fine. Small-town life was what he knew and loved. He didn’t want to live anywhere else, and if this rich doctor client of Mike’s wanted to preserve some of the town’s unique beauty by restoring Missy Saunders’s old Victorian, then he should be willing to help out—a little, anyway.
“I’ll see what I can do about an estimate, Mike.”
“Great! I knew I could rely on you, buddy. Can I have it first thing tomorrow?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No, I’m serious. This is urgent.”
Jack sighed. Mike was certainly keen to impress his client. “You seem to forget there’s more than the carpentry to quote on. There’s also, plumbing, electrical, roofing—”
“Yeah, yeah. A guesstimate will be fine. I just need something!”
Jack shook his head. Mike wasn’t going to quit nagging until he agreed. “I’ll get it to you by noon. How’s that sound? And listen, it’s just an estimate for comparison purposes. I really don’t have the time to do the work. I’ve made a promise to Adam and Carly.”
“Yeah, yeah. Listen, I gotta go.” He suddenly cut the connection.
Jack stared at his cell phone. For someone who claimed he didn’t have enough paying clients, Mike sure was busy. Since moving back to town from a big practice in Colorado Springs, the guy had gotten himself elected to the Chamber of Commerce, so maybe he had some business to attend to there.
He wasn’t due anywhere for a couple of hours so Jack figured he might as well head over to the house. He wouldn’t need a key to get in—one of the front windows had been smashed recently by some kids