Page 7 of Cold Case, Warm Hearts

“Stick around. It’s not always winter.”

She didn’t think she’d be staying long enough to experience the other seasons. She just wanted to find her mother. But, aslong as she had to be there to do that, she might as well renovate the house before she put it on the market. It would give her an excuse to get to know the town where she’d spent the first year of her life. The town where Dad had grown up and Mom had lived.

She’d sold Dad’s restaurants to the manager of his first one. Gene had worked for Dad as long as Aspen could remember. Though she’d hated to part with the places that meant so much to her father, she wouldn’t be going back to Hawaii anytime soon. Truth be told, even though she’d worked for Dad since she was old enough to wipe tables, she didn’t love the restaurant business. The problem was, she didn’t know what else she could do.

Now, with no job, Dad gone, Jaslynn in Nepal, and the rest of her friends marrying or moving away, Kona held no appeal. When she finished up here, she was going to college in Florida to study hospitality and tourism. She’d probably be one of the oldest full-time students, but what did that matter? Though the school she’d chosen had a great reputation, she’d chosen it more because it was near her dad’s parents. She hadn’t seen them much as she’d grown up, but they were the only family she had any contact with anymore.

There was no chance she’d be staying in the great white north.

“Should we continue?” Garrett pushed open the door he stood beside.

She stepped through. Same floors, bare walls, small windows that looked out at a snow-covered hill.

“No closet,” Garrett said, “and there’s no shower or bath on this floor, so it wouldn’t work as a bedroom. Could be a second living area or an office, or even a formal dining room.” He knocked on the wall behind him. “Kitchen’s right here, so we could open it up.”

No chance she was getting that deep into renovations.

She jotted down what he’d said. When she was finished, he stepped out, and she followed him through the living area to a door beneath the open walkway above.

“This is the current dining room,” he said.

The space was barely large enough for a table for four. She crossed to the window on the back wall beside a narrow doorway.

Beyond a snow-covered yard, the naked branches of a thousand trees were covered with a thin layer of snow. Dark green pines rose higher than the rest, reaching toward the bright blue sky.

It was gorgeous.

“I guess you don’t see a lot of scenes like that in Hawaii,” Garrett said.

“When I drove up yesterday, the world seemed gray and dingy, but this is… Wow.”

She was still staring at the scene when he cleared his throat.

“Like the living room, this room doesn’t need much.”

The yellowing paint needed to be covered, as did the brass light fixture on the ceiling. It was dark even on the sunny day, the one small window not nearly large enough to take advantage of the view.

“I don’t know your budget,” Garrett said, “but I have some recommendations for this room and the kitchen. If it were up to me, we’d tear this down”—he knocked on the wall separating them from the living room, then pointed to another wall with a door—“and that one, open this up and make it a great room.”

“That’s an idea.” One she wouldn’t be implementing.

Garrett pushed open the door and waited until she walked through.

The kitchen. It was as dark as the dining area, and everything was brown, from the cabinets to the wooden backsplash, from the butcher-block countertop to the vinyl floor. Even the walls,which might’ve once been white, were so dirty they were practically brown.

She groaned, and Garrett said, “Yeah. I know. It’s outdated in every way.”

There was an almond-colored refrigerator and a green built-in oven that must have come straight out of the seventies. The dishwasher matched it in color and age.

She couldn’t help a laugh. “It’s dreadful.”

Garrett smiled wide. “But imagine how beautiful it can be. Once we tear down these walls, it’ll be open and spacious. You’ll be able to see the fireplace from back here. We can put a bar where I’m standing, or maybe a peninsula that connects by the window, or maybe not. We could leave it open to the dining area. It would make the room so much more spacious.”

She could picture his vision. “It would be lovely, but?—”

“The cabinets are in great shape. I don’t know how you feel about a white kitchen, but we could paint them white or even light gray. Replace the backsplash, add granite or quartz countertops.”

Catching his vision, she swiveled and pointed to a tiny window beside a door. “Any chance we could enlarge that?”

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