Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 79850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
“Yes. So much,” he confessed and bolted from the room without another word.
“Coward,” I yelled after him.
“I’m showing restraint, you shit,” he growled.
He wanted me but didn’t want to mess up. I couldn’t think of anything more romantic. I would have told him so, but my phone distracted me with all the pinging notifying me of texts and emails. The Farley name said money, and everyone wanted to help me.
When I got out of my bedroom, changed, I heard Misha’s bells jingle and let him out into the tiny enclosed yard behind the house. The fence slats were too close together for him to get through, and while I stayed out there and watched him, eyes peeled for predators, I was thinking that whatever would try and get him had to be damn ballsy to get him so close to the back door.
Inside, Ada had made me an egg scramble with pepper-jack cheese, turkey sausage, green peppers, onions, assorted spices, and had garnished it with jalapeños. I also had toast with lavender honey from a nearby farm that Ada made decorative-lidded jars for.
“I also do creamer-and-sugar sets,” she explained as I took a seat at the table.
“I had no idea you could cook.”
“Oh, only breakfast. My governess insisted that all her charges learn to boil water, fry an egg, and be able to make a proper cup of English tea. It was very important.”
“Is English tea different from American tea?”
“Oh my, yes,” she assured me. “For starters, the water must be utterly scalding.”
“Okay.” I grinned at her. “Why don’t you sit down.”
“I will. I just need to pour the coffee Gale made. Such a lovely man. I think the idea of the two of you dating is charming.”
“What?” When had she heard that? “Did he say something to you?”
“Oh, darling, I’m neither stupid nor unobservant. I can draw my own conclusions.”
“And you think us dating is a good idea?”
“I think it’s simply grand.”
Of course she did.
“Also, we should call the deli after breakfast and tell them what we want for lunch, don’t you think that’s a wonderful idea?”
“Certainly.”
She smiled. “I love how agreeable you are.”
I scoffed. “No one has ever called me agreeable in my life.”
The way she looked at me, as though confused, made me smile.
“I find that terribly hard to believe,” she told me.
The building inspector showed up at noon. Hector Guerra was horrified at the state of the underground pools and agreed with me that drained and filled was the only way to be certain of the house’s foundation. He marked the bearing walls for me, again agreed that the attic needed to be completely removed and that the entire house needed to be treated for mold.
“You know, it would be cheaper to bulldoze the entire home to the ground.”
But money wasn’t the issue. “I know, but if we make your changes, the house will be up to code?”
He nodded. “The bones are good.”
Which was a relief to hear.
He put me in touch with a biohazard cleanup team, and before anyone else could look at the house, that needed to be done. He would be back once that was completed and look at the house a second time to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. I appreciated his thoroughness, as I was the same way myself.
After touring the house with Pansy Tucker from Dream Clean, we sat downstairs in the kitchen, which was enormous, with a butler’s pantry, a wine room, and four ovens. I could only imagine what used to be cooked in the house and for how many.
Pansy said, “Other than the attic, the basement pools, and two other rooms, this house is not nearly as bad as others I’ve been to.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Hoarder homes, with the trash, are far harder to clean and take much longer.”
She explained that while the black mold would need to be treated, it was confined to a very small space of the house, there was none at all in the basement, and once the attic was cleared and everything up there incinerated, we needed to have everything, including the level itself, removed.
“That’s what I figured.”
“Have you called Animal Control about the iguanas?”
“Pardon?”
“The ones living in the sauna.”
Jesus. “I had no idea there was a sauna.”
“Yeah. Behind the pools.”
“Okay, well, the answer is no. Not yet.”
She nodded.
“They can’t be her iguanas, can they?”
“Well, they live about twenty years, so I doubt they’re the same ones she brought with her or, you know, someone brought with them. They’ve probably been breeding down there.”
“Great.”
“My son runs an iguana sanctuary in Warrenton. I can give him a call if you want.”
“You’re kidding.”
She shook her head.
“Yes, please. I would love you to give him a call.”
“Okay, good. Now listen: you need a new roof, and maybe a landscaper.”
“Perhaps,” I said sarcastically.
She chuckled. “You’re a wiseass, just like my husband.”