Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 115468 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115468 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
I’d also called my uncles about the woman named Lys my mother kept mentioning in her diary entries, but they didn’t remember hearing her name. Who was she? And why had she disappeared completely from my mother’s life after she returned to Mud Gulch?
“This is the property your company owns?” I asked. Gage had called me out of the blue, asking if I wanted to check out the sunset from the roof of a property his company had recently purchased. It’d seemed like a semi-odd invitation, but in all honesty, and to my own great dismay, I’d been hungry to see him, just like I’d been when he’d called about the bridge night, and so I’d accepted immediately.
“Yeah. It was the old Calliope Savings and Loan. It closed many years ago and another company bought it but whatever they intended for it never materialized. Anyway, we obtained it from them.” He smiled somewhat tightly. “It’s a fantastic location. My father plans on demo’ing it and building here. Our other hotel location in Calliope is several miles away, so this makes sense.” He stuck a key in the lock of the massive wooden door and pushed it open. “Anyway, it’s in rough shape. But I thought, being the sunset-lover that you are, we might take advantage of the view while it’s still here.” He glanced at me. “While we’re still here.” We both stepped inside and Gage pushed the door which squeaked closed and then shut with a solid thud that echoed in the mostly empty space. He smiled, and though it was dim where we were standing, I swore I still saw something that looked like apprehension in his gaze. Why does this old building make you nervous, Gage?
I stepped forward, tipping my head back to gaze up at the carved ceiling and the elaborate trim. The marble counter stretched all along the right side of the space, wrought iron teller windows with numbers at the top separating the spaces where bank employees had once stood. “It’s incredible,” I murmured. “The things someone could do with a space like this. Your father’s really planning on tearing it down?”
Gage gave a singular nod as he massaged a spot on his chest like he might have strained a muscle there. “Well, the lot is more valuable than the building. Anyway, the view…it’s this way.” He pointed to a rickety spiral staircase that wound up to a second floor and when I followed him over to it, I caught a glimpse of the massive vault just around the corner.
I sucked in a breath and headed in that direction instead. “Wow,” I said as I entered. But then I looked back at the wide-open door, ensuring that it wasn’t going to swing shut at any moment and lock us inside. The thing was about three feet thick and made of steel. If we got stuck in here, no one would ever hear us scream. I walked to the back where there was a wall of safe-deposit boxes and ran my hand along the numbers. Here was where the original crème de la crème of Calliope kept their treasures, whatever those were. “What is it about old buildings that’s so fascinating?” I asked, turning to Gage. “Even when they’re practically empty?”
“The stories,” he said as though he’d already considered my question and come to his own conclusion. “There are stories here, ones we’ll never know.” He walked forward, joining me where I stood. “But maybe part of them lives on as whispers in the walls, ones you can feel, more than you can hear.”
I tilted my head. “Why, Gage Buchanan, who’s the romantic now?”
He laughed and pushed off the wall. “I’m full of surprises, Cakes.”
I smiled. I didn’t disagree, although I had a feeling he was more full of secrets than surprises, and perhaps ones he even kept from himself. What is that intensity radiating off of you right now, Gage?
“We’d better get upstairs if we’re going to catch that sunset.”
Gage and I clanged up the spiral staircase and stepped onto the second floor. Whatever had once been up here had been demolished as it was just an open space, taken down to the studs. “Careful,” Gage said as he stepped over a discarded board and started climbing a second staircase situated near the back. I followed him up, and then exited through the door at the top where we walked outside into the soft summer breeze. I blinked as I looked around.
It was gorgeous.
Faith had a charming outside area set up behind her gallery. It was pretty and cozy and she told me she often hosted intimate cocktail parties there. But that space was nothing like this.
Oh, the possibilities.
And yet Gage’s father couldn’t see that? What a shame to demolish something with so much potential.