Page 1 of A Little Love

Chapter One

“Admittedly, no one’s lived here in years,” his realtor, Tricia Jenkins, said as she struggled to get her key to turn in the lock. Standing a few feet behind her, Nolan tried not to ogle. “But if you’re willing to look beneath the dust and neglect, I think you’ll agree this house has some great bones, lots of character, and tons of potential.”

She bent over, the long curly wisps of her ponytail falling over her right shoulder. He’d always been more partial to blondes, himself, but he liked the way it looked—that soft length of brown infused with a single stripe of hot pink where she’d colored an inch-wide width of her grown-out bangs. That single strip made the soft grey of her eyes pop against the near-goth-like palette of her dark eye makeup, which also popped against the crimson red of the dress-suit she wore, which absolutely popped as it hugged each and every one of her curves. That outfit was ‘DebbieDoes Oregon and Real Estate on the Side’, complete with nylons so sheer all he could see of them was the black seam that ran straight as an arrow up the backs of her slender legs.

He was a sucker for black seamed stockings. Preferably thigh-highs clipped to garter belts. Sexy clothing that had to be removed by lacey layers.

Fifteen years ago, a woman like this would have rocked his world. Eight years ago, he’d have rocked hers, too. He’d have stripped her luscious frame down to nothing but nervous shivers and a smile, put her up on a St. Andrew’s cross, and done all the things to her that he barely thought about doing anymore. Right now, however, Sergeant First Class Nolan Anderson’s thoughts, as he stood on the rickety porch steps not more than three steps behind her, had less to do with crosses, or garters, or even the beguiling wiggle of her rump as she fought with the stubborn lock, and more to do with whether or not her stiletto heels were going to punch straight through the rotted porch floor and break her shapely ankles. That right there said something. What Nolan didn’t yet know was whether it was saying something about him (fifteen years in the military did tend to wear a guy out) or the sad state of this house.

Thirty-five was way too young to feel this worn out, so he preferred to believe it was the latter. And really, nothing about this porch was salvageable. The whole thing, from steps to posts, and all the way up to the sagging eave of each rafter, would have to be replaced. So would the roof. And so would the turn-of-the-century siding which, the longer he stared, began to look more and more like asbestos to his eyes. In his mind, the dollar signs were stacking up almost as high as the sweat equity.

“You wanted a project,” Tricia reminded, grunting a little as she struggled with the key. She was trying to smile, the way people brand new to a job and wanting very much to impress (even when everything was currently going wrong) might try tosmile, but her frustrations were visibly rising. She gave a yank at the lock and her hand slipped. All four of her knuckles cracked hard against the peeling white paint of the jamb. Releasing both key and lock, she spun, a Goth ballerina in pain, muffling curses that would have done a marine proud. She sucked on her wounded forefinger. “Ow… damn it! That hurt.”

He bet it did.

Watching his footing, Nolan climbed the steps. “Careful where you walk,” he cautioned, heeding his own advice as he took hold of both lock and key. As if the house had been waiting for his command, the key turned like a dream and the realtor’s lock sprung open, dropping the house key in his waiting hand. “You loosened it for me,” he said when Tricia frowned.

Opening the door, he stepped aside to wave her on ahead of him. Shaking out her scraped knuckles, Tricia swept inside. Stepping over the threshold seemed to help her get back into her sales groove.

“Welcome to your first potential new home,” she exclaimed with far more cheerfulness than such a declaration required and, as they stood side by side on the filthy three-by-three square patch of brown linoleum that qualified as a front foyer, they both knew it.

The living room was massive, but full of all the furniture and random bits of garbage the previous tenants hadn’t bothered taking with them. Five floor-to-ceiling windows (two by the front door and three more along the long wall that stretched back towards the open-arched kitchen) let in not only the light but the afternoon breeze, as well. All had at least one broken pane of glass. A bird’s nest (no longer occupied) crowned one arm of the drop-candle chandelier. A giant paper wasps’ nest (very much still occupied) dangled high from the far corner of the room. Owl and pigeon droppings decorated the dust-laden furniture covers, and giant circles of water damage coated the ceiling in ever-expanding ripples of black mold. And the floor… He toed at the carpet with his boot. Any minute he expected his phone to ring. No doubt it would be the Seventies, asking for their god-awful, four-inch-long orange shag back. Hanging on the longest wall, evenly positioned between the two closed doors that were placed between the front door and the kitchen, presiding over all, was a massive oil painting of Jesus on the cross.

Rubbing her knuckles, Tricia waited long enough for him to take it all in, then offered another smile. It was slightly weaker than before. “Um… it could use a little paint.”

“Or napalm.” He stared at that painting, trying hard not to laugh. Not that he found any part of this house particularly funny. His therapist had once called it a coping reflex. More than once he’d been known to laugh while lying face down in the dirt and sand, hands over his neck to protect it from the falling rocks and shrapnel of the latest extremist binge-bombing. In Iraq, they liked to do those first thing in the morning. Those earth-shaking booms and subsequent screams were the best alarm clocks he’d ever had. Some mornings, they still woke him up.

“Oh, but no!” Turning in a full circle, Tricia counted off the dilapidated home’s many virtues on her fingers, her hot-pink fingernails sparkling with black and silver glitter. “A split-level three-story home with four bathrooms, eight bedrooms, two offices, living room and family room, 4500 square feet—which does not include the full, unfinished basement—and workshop-slash-garage, complete with the original servant’s quarters above it, already updated… um, almost… into the most… um, cozy rental unit. So not only do you have all this—” She threw out both arms to encompass the whole mildewing, nesting, buzzing, breezy, quite orange and highly religious living room. Though her enthusiasm remained high, she did have the grace to blush. “—but you also have potential income property, too!”

Nolan resisted the urge to laugh again. Renters were not the kind of people he intended to bring to this house… if this was even the place he chose to buy. No, wherever he ended up, Nolan intended that house to be his return to normal. And, by God, he intended that to be his home second, and his dungeon first.

“You asked for a fixer-upper,” she reminded.

“Fixer-upper implies it can be fixed,” he replied. “How much is this diamond in the rough listed at?”

“That is the best question you’ll ask all day.” Tricia grinned. “Thirteen thousand.”

“How the hell did that happen?” Pacing as far as the first closed door, he pushed it open onto a brightly lit office, the first of three bathrooms, and another paper wasps’ nest, which the bottom of the door bumped as it swung inward. Military reflexes took over. He slammed it shut again before the nest hit the floor and then stood there, listening to the tap-tap-tapping as angry wasps filled the inner hallway and bumped aggressively against the wood panels. Only two tried to crawl under the door. He stomped on one. Tricia and her high heels ground the other into the shag carpet. Snatching a sheet off the abandoned sofa, he threw it across the bottom of the door and that kept any more from creeping vengefully into the living room after them.

“Nine years’ worth of back-owed taxes,” she declared, clearing her throat and surreptitiously using the carpet to clean the bottom of her shoe. “All you have to do is pay it off and all this will be yours.”

Nolan shook his head. She was chipper; he would give her that. “I’m surprised it hasn’t gone to auction.”

“It did.” Her ponytail bobbed as she nodded. “Twice, in fact.”

“I’m surprised nobody bought it.” Except that he wasn’t. Looking around, he knew exactly why both auctions had failed. Slipping past the suffering Son of God, he cautiously opened the second door. No wasps’ nest, he noted. Not really a bedroomeither, since it didn’t have a closet. It did, however, have a tiny cubby of a dumbwaiter in the far wall, the old sliding door yawning open on the pulley ropes that operated it. He had no idea if the actual dumbwaiter itself was currently locked into place in the basement or one of the two upper floors.

“Well,” trailing unobtrusively behind him, Tricia said, “I suppose being twenty-three miles away from the nearest Wal-Mart, home improvement store, post office or, indeed, any town with a population of more than three hundred, does tend to turn off most prospective buyers. Most house-flippers want a place they can resell quickly, and considering the problems associated with this place, not to mention the expense of the repairs required, it would take a very particular buyer to move it once it hit the market again. Also, it won’t pass for a bank loan, so… there’s that.” As if suddenly remembering she was supposed to be trying to sell this house, she added, “Oh, but Scio is a nice place to settle down. We have our own school; K all the way through twelve, and right within walking distance. People are real friendly here. It’s got an incredibly low crime rate. Not a lot of people lock their doors. A real Mayberry kind of place.” She stopped when he looked at her and rubbed at her scuffed knuckles again. She was stubbornly holding on to that smile of hers, although by now it had taken on an almost cringe-like quality. “Nearest grocery store is only eleven teensy little miles down the road. Kay’s Gas and Deli Station.” She bobbed another nod, then in a sing-song voice added, “They have Chocodiles.”

“A sustainable source of Chocodiles should always factor in on anyone’s smart home-buying decision,” he joked, and her grin lost its cringe. Ignoring the fact that eleven miles was not teensy when it came to buying basic grocery necessities, Nolan instead focused on what had first caught his attention. “You said ‘our’.”

“Mm hm.” She stepped into the doorway far enough to point through the bedroom’s only window (two panes broken out ofthis one, although the entire top of original stained-glass squares was still intact). He gazed over the fence into the neighboring yard, filled to overflowing with flowers of every color, size and kind. “That’s my place, right there. Which is why, when you said you were looking for a project, this house sprang immediately to mind. You know, three men founded this town and this was one of their first homes built here. It’s heart-wrenching to see it just… rotting here like this.”

Nolan looked at her, seeing her as he had earlier that morning and yet somehow it was like seeing her for the first time—light brown hair bound up in a ponytail that hung past her shoulders, soft grey eyes, small breasts and round hips, the former concealed within the bright red dress suit which amplified the latter. Not a classical beauty, but pretty nonetheless. Not to mention possessed of a smile incapable of admitting defeat for very long. When he’d met up with her at the realtor’s office that morning, his first thought had been that she looked too eager and too nervous to have as much experience as she was trying to portray. He’d almost asked (as gently as possible, of course) for another agent. Standing in the midst of this massive living room, with one wasp nest in the corner and another still tap-tap-tapping behind Door Number One, a perpetually dying Jesus on one wall and sheetrock sagging from water damage on the other, he almost… almost… found himself regretting not having done it. And yet, there was something to be said for doing one’s job with the kind of passion that so animated her face and voice.

“Want to finish showing me the house?” he asked.

Beaming, she led the way to the kitchen—a bright, brothel red, with black painted cabinets and a floor that sloped slightly toward the center. Nolan made a mental note to check the supports under this section of the house once he was shown the basement.

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