Page 89 of Hound Dog
“You got it.”
Even cleaning up with Haylee was fun. That was something I hadn’t quite wrapped my head around yet.
But my heart ached every time we left each other for the day.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Haylee
I hadto duck to avoid a plastic water bottle smashing into my forehead. Granted, itwaspractically empty, but even still.
“Aunt Meryl! Stop that!” I scolded.
Well, one thing was certain; even though her ankle was sprained, there wasn’t a damn thing wrong with her throwing arm.
For as long as I’d known this woman, it was always a question as to who between the two of us was more mature, even when I was just a kid.
When I was about eight years old, Aunt Meryl came for a visit. She decided that after school one day, she and I would surprise my mom with freshly baked bread and a redecorated house.
Except ‘redecorated’ meant us cutting out a hundred paper snowflakes and stringing large wooden beads to hang as curtains in every doorway. In our haste, we forgot about the loaf in the oven… which exploded.
Then burned to a crisp.
In the end, we cost my mom an entire weekend day cleaning up the messes we’d made.
I remember sitting next to mom on the floor, sniffling and sliding the bucket of soapy water closer to her. “I’m sorry, Mom. Aunt Meryl said you’d like it.”
Mom paused and removed the latex glove from her hand. Then, she pulled me into her, holding me as my tears saturated her pink t-shirt.
With a sigh, she’d said, “Aunt Meryl means well, baby. Shealwaysmeans well. She loves us both so much. But when it comes to Meryl, you have to remember to ask yourself if her well-meaning actions are actually for the well-being of the person she’s doing it for. Because let’s just say she gets carried away sometimes.”
A cork coaster smacked into my left arm, yanking me from the memories and bringing me back to the present. Again, it wasn’t anything heavy or breakable, butstill.
“Aunt Meryl!” I yelled. “Stop throwing things! Ben is going to be here tomorrow, and Ijustfinished cleaning!”
“Then pay attention when I’m talking to you!”
“Iampaying attention—”
“Well then you’re sure notlistening! Because no matter how many times I tell you that I’mnotselling my house, you don’t seem to get it! That realtor lady called here again this morning.”
Dammit. I’d told Robin to call my cell phone andnotthe home phone.
“Aunt Meryl, there’s no harm intalkingto her, right? Property values in this area are so high. You could downsize, move to a ranch-style home—”
“And lose my rental income from the guest house?Ha!”
I stopped myself short of rolling my eyes at her. “The guest house can’t be earning youthatmuch—”
“That little one-bedroom out there gets me twenty thousand dollars a year! And that’s only counting tourist season—most years, I make extra during ski season!”
Holy crap. I didn’t realize that. And here I’d been using that space to teach my virtual classes. “Why didn’t yousayso? Aunt Meryl, I won’t use that space if you could be making that much money off of it!”
She waved away my concern. “A visit with you is more important than that income. But if I sell the house, then where would I get my extra spending money?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. That did change things a little. “Well, that’s what Robin can tell us if we meet with her. You might make so much from the sale that you wouldn’t even need that rental income.”
Aunt Meryl pushed herself up from the couch, and I rushed over to help her.
