AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Twenty-Five
Zack didn’t make the mistake of thinking that Laurel wanting to see the house meant she’d decided to live there. With or without him. It was hard not to get his hopes up, but…she was acting weird. So he pretended that taking her to see the house, the house he wanted to live in with his family, was no big deal.
On the drive over, he admitted his stomach hadn’t gotten the message.
When they arrived the first thing they saw was a bunch of people in the yard, working industriously. It already looked better as they’d managed to clean up the trash and broken glass and moved on to the grass and plants. Zack thought with a lot of work and a little TLC the yard might even look pretty.
“I didn’t realize the crews worked on weekends.”
“Harlan put a rush on it, so I suspect they’re pulling overtime.”
“Did you ask him to hurry and get it ready?”
“I asked him to hurry and make it livable. Enough that you and the kids could live here if you decided that’s what you wanted to do. But he was already putting it in high gear. Harlan thought another week or so would do it.”
Laurel continued up the front steps. “What’s all that?” she asked, spying a roped-off area of the porch.
“The boards are rotted so they’re going to block off that part of the porch until they can fix it.”
Zack hadn’t been inside in a couple of weeks and he was surprised at how much better the house already looked. He heard banging coming from the upstairs. “I wonder if they’re doing something to the bathrooms up there. Harlan wasn’t sure they’d gotten to those yet.”
They went upstairs and found the plumber replacing the toilet in one of the bathrooms. Zack introduced himself and Laurel and after talking about the other upstairs bathroom and what needed to be done, they left him to his work.
“Did you have a particular reason for coming here today?” Laurel asked him as they went downstairs.
“I wanted to see the progress but I also wanted to make sure that everything it needs to make it habitable is being addressed.”
“Is it?”
“Harlan is overseeing the remodel personally. What do you think?”
Laurel laughed. “Knowing my big brother, I’m not worried.”
The master bedroom was spacious and filled with light. There were two closets, neither one of them large. “You’ll probably want to see about enlarging the closets, but I figured that could wait.”
“I love the wood floors. I can’t believe they originally covered them up with carpet.”
She walked into the master bath and stopped at the threshold.
“Harlan said everything works,” Zack offered. “He said if you’ll decide what color you want on the tub’s exterior he’d have it painted for you.”
Laurel had been quieter than usual. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking. He wasn’t even sure she liked the house, though the first time she’d seen it she had seemed to.
Zack was having an increasingly hard time not peppering her with questions. Questions like, “Have you decided what the hell you want to do?” and “How long are you going to torture me before you make a decision?” But he didn’t say either of those things.
They wandered through the other rooms, the kitchen, family room, dining room, office and finally the second downstairs bedroom. “This would make a perfect nursery for the twins,” Laurel said. “Once it has new carpet, anyway.”
“I’m getting the impression you don’t like the carpet in this house.”
“You’re very perceptive.”
Zack grinned.
“Is there wood floor beneath this carpet? If there is, we might want to keep it and just add rugs.”
“Let’s see.” Zack pulled up a corner of the rug. “Yep, wood. The same pretty wood that’s in the rest of the house.”
“Oh, good. Then we’ll have the floor refinished and buy rugs. Lots of rugs. I don’t think I ever realized how big this house was,” Laurel said.
