Page 42 of Little Did We Know
We reached the other side, and it was like being transported to what’d once been a gorgeous garden.It was big too.Past the empty pool—which probably needed more than a little tender loving—the lawn slanted down until you reached a forest.
This place had been beautiful once.An old French bistro chair was tipped over in the grass, having lost most of its white paint.Now it was mainly rusty brown.
“Watch your step here.”Reese climbed up the step to an ancient veranda.“We’re gonna replace all this.Wood’s rotten.”
Great!
I was careful to walk in his exact footsteps, and I followed him inside the house through a door that had a big crack in the window.
Oh, musty.Musty, musty smell.
“Here, we’ll want big sliding doors eventually,” he continued.
Whoa.I looked around the ginormous room and was once more pulled back in time.Wallpaper was peeling off the walls, an old chandelier hung in the high ceiling—and one probably shouldn’t walk below it—and the wooden floors were cracked in places or missing completely.Someone had yellow-taped a narrow path through the room, so hopefully it was safe to cross there.
“What’s that over there?”I pointed to a set of doors on the other side of the room, and that whole structure looked all weird.Like, they were interior rooms without windows…?
“Yeah, uh…we don’t really understand what the previous owners had in mind here,” Reese chuckled.“This used to be completely open, like a big ballroom.We’ll probably use those areas for storage.River guessed one of them was a cigar room, but there’s one upstairs too, so…” He shrugged.
Fair enough.
“Come on.I’ll introduce you to our resident fixer,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder.“River and I are leaning toward throwing money at every problem and letting a contractor take over, but Greer believes we can fix this up ourselves once the major work is done.”
“Define major,” I mumbled and followed him.Not one step outside the yellow tape.
Reese let out a low laugh.“In short, we ain’t taking on any load-bearing structures on our own.”
Good call.
We survived the trek across the room, and then we ended up in a grand foyer or hallway—it used to be grand, anyway—and sure enough, there was the huge hole in the floor.
The big staircase was still beautiful, though.
Everything here just needed love.
I could totally picture myself spending weekends here to give this estate a new golden era.
We walked down another hall, and I heard voices.I heard Lucas, in particular.And Reese slowed down when we reached a very wide doorway leading to the kitchen.
Oh boy.Big kitchen and big, big Marine.
“Hello, Macklin.”Lucas smiled at me.
“Hi, Sir.”I smiled back.Where was River lurking?
“So this is the young whippersnapper,” Reese said.“Macklin, Greer.Greer, Macklin.”
We met halfway and shook hands.
“Good to meet’chu, kid.”Holy crap, did he have a firm handshake.“I hear you wanna board our crazy train.”
I grinned.“Fingers crossed.”
“We’re only hesitant because he’s too young to already be stressed out,” Lucas explained.“Not only is he in school, but he works full time?—”
“Actually, it’s more like 75%,” I corrected.“You shouldn’t always listen to what my Master says.”
“Even so,” he hedged.“You have a lot on your plate, Macklin.Walker wasn’t exaggerating about that.”
