Page 3 of Housebroke

He frowned. “You prove it. Who’s the owner of this place?” He wasn’t about to give her a lead.

“Ginger and Greg—”

“Powell,” he finished for her.

Her eyes widened. “They sold the house?”

“Yeah.”

She lifted her chin, a defiant look on her face. “I don’t believe you.”

Now that his heart rate had come down to a more manageable level, he could think a little more clearly. And since whoever this woman was seemed to know the former owners, she was likely scared, too. Which was so not his problem since she was the one squatting in his house. “You should call her. Now.”

She grabbed her phone off the corner of the peninsula while she eyed him warily. She pressed a button and waited.

“Ginger. It’s Hazel. I’m at your house and some guy just came in and said he bought the place.”

She listened, still staring at him.

“It’s okay. I just didn’t know. I would have left if I’d known.”

She listened some more.

“I’m fine, honestly. Nothing happened other than both of us scaring the hell out of each other.”

Then she laughed, and it was such an amazing sound. Light and easy.

He didn’t care how she sounded. Why would he care? His first objective needed to be getting her the hell out of there.

“Yeah, I don’t think either of us would want to see pics of what just happened. But we’re both okay. No harm, no foul.”

Linc motioned to her. “Mind if I have the phone for a second?”

She hesitated. “Uh, Ginger? He wants to talk to you.”

She listened, then gave him the phone. He put it on speaker and laid it on the counter. “Hey, Ginger, how’s it going?”

“Linc. I am so embarrassed. For some reason I had it down that you weren’t coming in until next month. And then with our move and everything going on, I totally spaced and forgot to tell Hazel that the house had sold. This is all my fault. I’m so sorry to both of you for this.”

Linc looked over at the woman, who still had her arms wrapped around herself but seemed a lot less terrified than she had a few minutes ago.

“Hey, it’s okay. We both survived the scare. Is Greg there?”

“Oh, he’s here, trying not to laugh.”

“I wasn’t laughing,” Greg said. “Glad you didn’t get arrested, bud.”

He saw Hazel cock her head to the side. “Greg and I know each other.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“I’m so sorry, Hazel,” Ginger said.

“Me, too,” Greg said. “But it’s still Ginger’s fault.”

“Hey, you could have called Hazel, too,” Ginger said.

“I could have. My bad.”

---