Page 4 of Crash and Burn

Maggie almost sighed, it was just one more thing on her list. “The rest of the house needs work—more work than I estimated. I'm supposed to have more rooms to use … And now I have a toddler every third day.”

And then some.But she didn’t add the last part. More than once, Rex had asked her to babysit so he could sleep or go to the grocery store or run some errand. She was going to have to start saying no.

Sebastian nodded, the move looking a little tight, as though there was something else he wanted to say. When he did speak, it seemed he was biting his tongue. “Well, I'll see you around then.”

Once again, Maggie wondered what would have happened if Rex hadn't asked her out first. Was she brave enough to find out?

Chapter Four

Maggie pulled her front door open at the knock, hoping it was a client.

“Come in!” she offered cheerfully, still looking down at the document she’d just printed. That was bad form, and she swiveled her head to glance at him, her gaze traveling up the tight-fitting jeans and navy blue t shirt. She hadn't needed to get past the biceps to recognize that it was Sebastian Kane standing on her doorstep.

Surprise,she thought,he knows where I live.Then again, he had commented she was seeing clients, so clearly he knew how to find her.Small Town,she reminded herself.

Maggie really hadn’t considered that factor when she decided to live and work in the same place. She’d simply wanted to get away from the city, away from running into her ex-fiancé or anyone who wanted to talk about her canceled-at-the-last minute wedding. And she needed to get away from a job that she hated. Had she gone too far coming to a town as small as Redemption?

“You look nice,” Sebastian told her as he stepped across the threshold. The floorboards squeaked underneath his feet as he stepped inside. Yet another thing she really needed to fix. She could just add it to the very long list.

Maggie closed the door behind them, suddenly feeling intimately close in the small, poorly lit space. She wanted to blurt out,why are you here?But she didn’t. Maybe he was here as a new client. So she left her voice professional. “How can I help you?”

“Oh,” he replied, his smile almost shy. “I just wanted to check in. Make sure you got some sleep …” he let his voice trail off.

Maggie waited him out. Was he being sweet, checking up after she was clearly upset about the box of jewelry and Kalan’s offhand serial killer comment? Or was there really nothing else to do in town except check on the neighbors?

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to overstep. It’s just that you seemed a little upset when I was leaving the station the other day and I wanted to be sure everything was all right.”

For a moment Maggie paused. Everything was not all right. In fact, she’d tried twice to sit down and talk to Rex, but he’d brushed her off, not even able to find a few minutes to listen to her.

She needed him to find a real babysitter for Hannah and she wanted him to check into the jewelry. He was, after all, a former cop. As far as she knew, Sebastian had no such background. Yet, Sebastian was here and Rex had been a relatively crappy boyfriend of late, though that wasn’t his fault.

“Maggie?” Sebastian pressed, leaning a little forward and trying to catch her eye as, clearly, she'd hesitated too long.

So, she gave in with a sigh and everything tumbled out. “I’m not as good at DIY repairs as I thought I would be. I have these creaky floorboards …” she started to point toward the back room, but that was ridiculous, they almost all creaked! “Actually, I have a lot of them.”

“I can help,” Sebastian offered, maybe a little too quickly and she must have looked at him oddly because he explained. “My dad's a carpenter. I can build a mean bookcase, install a new doorframe, and repair squeaky floorboards like nobody's business.”

Maggie found herself smiling when she hadn’t expected to. His grin was infectious.Thank God for Sebastian,she thought. Heading toward the back room, she heard him follow. “This was the squeaky board I tried to fix where I found the box.”

His curiosity was obviously piqued and as she led him into the room, she asked, “What do you know about the house?”

He took a deep breath as though this were a pop quiz. “Well, it was a boarding house for a long time, up until a handful of months ago when Sabbie passed away.”

“Why does everyone call her Sabbie?” Her aunt’s name was Abbie, and Maggie thought she’d been mishearing everyone until now.

“She was always Miss Abbie … and my dad always knew her when he was little and couldn’t say it right. He said a lot of the kids called her Sabbie.” He paused a moment. “It’s sweet that she left you the house.”

“She had no kids and I was her favorite of her sister’s grandkids. She left me the house and everything in it. The money—not very much—went between the other three grandkids.” Maggie replied. “I thought I could do an estate sale for the furniture and things in the house to cover the cost of repairs, but there’s not enough of it for me to have any furniture if I do that.”

“They’re not antiques?” he asked.

“Honestly,” Maggie stopped and turned toward him there in the hallway. “I don't know enough to tell what's valuable and what's not. So I'm still at the stage where I need to find someone to tell me what to keep and what to sell.” She didn't addsomeone I can trust.

And she also didn't add that it should have happened well before now, but the house was rapidly becoming a money pit and time suck. The to-do list had been long when she arrived. Then, each thing she attempted revealed three more repairs. And then she’d lost so much time taking care of Hannah.

“If I remember correctly,” Sebastian either caught her hesitation and understood or serendipitously turned the conversation. “The tenants left when she died.”

“Close,” she told him again. “I wasnotready to run a boarding house full of people I didn't know. So I had the estate attorney handle getting them out.”

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