Chapter 7
SEVEN
Home ownership was one of those things that was both a blessing and a curse.
I loved the idea of having a new house—it was mine to decorate however I wanted—but having to deal with people to repair items that had magically been missed in the report from the inspectors I’d hired when making the offer was an absolute pain.
“I don’t understand.” I pressed the heel of my hand to my forehead. “How could I need a whole new air conditioning unit when my inspector said it was fine two months ago?”
Hal Shipman, the owner of Shipman Heating and Cooling, merely shrugged. “Take it up with them. Maybe you should have hired a better inspector.”
“And there’s no fixing it?” I was resigned to my fate, but I had to ask.
“Sure.” Hal nodded, giving me a momentary flash of hope. “It will cost about thirty-five hundred bucks. A new unit will cost about double that, but it will be under warranty, and it likely won’t fail again next year, for another thirty-five hundred bucks.”
“Right.” I blew out a sigh. “Fine. Do what needs to be done.”
“I have to order one, which I need your input for. I have some brochures.”
“Great.” I waved toward the house. “Bring them inside.” I was about to turn when I saw a car I didn’t recognize—a small two-door that looked as if it had seen better days—pull into my driveway.
“Who’s that?” Hal asked. “Did you call for a backup estimate? That’s going to cost you extra.”
This guy, I swear, was on my last nerve.
“I’m not—” I recognized Bella behind the wheel, gnawing on her bottom lip.
She looked uncertain. She’d never been to my house before—I wasn’t even aware she knew where I lived—and she seemed to be second-guessing her decision.
“A friend,” I replied finally. “She’s a friend. ”
I pointed toward the house again. “Get your brochures. We’re going to make this fast.” I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders. “I’ll go talk to her.”
Hal, who had been keen to move things along when he arrived and had eschewed all forms of small talk, suddenly seemed keen to ask questions. “She’s a friend?” he asked as Bella got out of her car. “She doesn’t look like a friend.”
I gave him a dirty look. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Just that she looks like more than a friend.”
“She hasn’t even opened her mouth yet.”
He lifted one shoulder. “She looks like she’s here to do some giggling.”
I had no idea whether that was a good or bad thing in his book. Frankly, I didn’t care. “We’re both authors. We have multiple events we have to attend in the coming weeks. I’m sure it’s just a logistics conversation.”
I caught myself almost immediately. “I don’t owe you an explanation.”
Hal’s smile was smug. “If you say so, Sparky. I’ll get the brochures.” He tipped his head when passing Bella. “Ma’am.”
“You don’t have to call me ma’am,” she said hurriedly to Hal. “I think I’m too young to be a ma’am.”
Hal merely shrugged. “It’s what I do, ma’am.”
“Right.” Bella lowered her chin then sighed. “Whatever makes you more comfortable, of course.”
That was her problem, I decided. She was too worried about making others comfortable. There was no consideration for what made her comfortable. It was kind of irritating. Not that I would say that to her or anything. She appeared to be dealing with too much as it was right now.
“This is a surprise,” I boomed out to her from the stairs of my front porch. “I wasn’t expecting to see you.”
“Yes, well…” Bella looked pained. “Can we talk?”
“Sure.” I opened the door. “Come in. Before we talk, do you mind helping me pick out an AC?”
Confusion knit her eyebrows. “An air conditioner? Why would I know how to pick out an air conditioner?”
“I have no idea, but I’m guessing that the conversation you want to have with me should be in private, and Hal has just talked me into a whole new unit. Given the heat…”
“Right.” She nodded. “You need to handle the AC first.”
“It won’t take long,” I promised. “I’m an impulse shopper. The first good thing I see, I buy.”
“You really shouldn’t say things like that out loud,” Bella said as she started up the steps, her voice carrying loud enough for Hal to hear. “That means he’s going to show you the most expensive unit first because he knows you want to get this over with.”
“That’s pretty insulting,” Hal said as he followed her up the stairs. “Are you saying I’m trying to swindle him?”
“No.” Bella’s smile was sweetly mischievous when she reached my side. “You’re obviously good at your job.”
“You don’t even know me,” Hal shot back.
“Maybe not, but I know Nathan well enough to grasp how he found you in the first place,” she replied, not missing a beat.
Despite myself, I was interested to hear her take on me. “Oh, yeah? What is it that you think you know?”
Bella leaned against the porch railing. “You typed in ‘heating and cooling repair near Savannah’ and pulled up those results,” she replied, sounding sure of herself.
“You’re savvy enough to ignore the advertised results.
Just because somebody can throw money at visibility, that doesn’t mean they’re good at their job. ”
I smirked but didn’t say anything. So far, she’d pegged me exactly right. She hadn’t stretched yet though.
“You looked at the first five results or so,” she continued. “You ruled out anything that was attached to a big corporation, like the Home Depot repairmen and the few Sears offerings that are still around.”
Okay, that was more impressive.
“You’re a firm believer in trying to hire local, even though you act as if you’re above it all.”
Still, I said nothing.
“So with the four you probably had left, you read all of the reviews,” she continued.
“This guy didn’t have the best reviews because he’s blunt.
That appeals to you, though. So when you found somebody with reviews that only mentioned his personality being persnickety and his work being topnotch, that’s the guy you went with. ”
I let loose a breath that was caught between a laugh and a snort. It came out sounding like a wheeze. “That’s pretty good,” I acknowledged as I held open the door for her. “That is basically how it went down.”
Her smile was sweet, and it tugged at something in the vicinity of my heart. “You’re not nearly the tool you want people to believe. As much as you don’t want to buy a new AC, you kind of like Hal and know he’s not bullshitting with you.”
I smiled down at her ridiculously adorable face. Up close, she had a light smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. “What other talents are you hiding, other than reading people, I mean?”
She shrugged, suddenly apologetic. “You’re not going to like why I’m here.”
I’d already figured that out. “It’s okay,” I assured her. “Let’s deal with Hal, then you can tell me the news.”
“Okay. I won’t let Hal swindle you.”
“Hey,” Hal snapped. “I don’t swindle anybody, ma’am.”
Bella giggled, and the exasperated look Hal shot her suggested she’d already charmed him too. “I’m just taking care of my friend.”
IT TOOK US HALF AN HOUR to settle on the right air conditioner. Bella refused to let me buy the most expensive one.
“That’s never the best unit,” she assured me. “The cheapest one isn’t either. You always have to land somewhere in the middle.”
Once Hal was gone with a promise to be back in two days—that’s how long it would take for the unit to be delivered—I sat with Bella on my screened porch. My ceiling fan was valiantly fighting the heat, but the house would be warmer than normal until Hal worked his magic.
“Sorry about this.” I waved toward the ceiling fan. The heat wasn’t my fault, of course—things like this were out of any individual’s control—but I still didn’t like the idea of her being uncomfortable. “The inspectors I hired didn’t mention anything being wrong with the air conditioner.”
“Isn’t that part of homeownership? Something is always ready to fall apart. That’s what my mom used to say, anyway. Luckily, we could make it through a Salem summer without AC if that became an issue. Getting through a winter without a furnace, though, that was another story.”
I wanted to know more about her. It was weird. “Did that happen?”
She nodded. “One winter, in February. We both had to move our mattresses out to the living room to sleep next to the fireplace for a month. It was cheaper to have furnace work done between seasons. They run specials then, so my Mom had to wait until March, before the AC rush, to get the furnace fixed.”
“So you slept on the living room floor for a month?”
She shrugged. “My mom turned it into a camping extravaganza. We got s’mores in bed every night. I never knew it was a terrible thing. She made it fun.”
If the memory was fun, why did she look so sad? “What’s up, Bella?” I asked, getting to the heart of matters. Something had obviously happened to disturb her. A horrific thought bubbled up. “Did something happen with Preston?”
“It’s weird that you bring him up.” She angled her head toward me, her blue eyes turbulent. “He found me yesterday at a coffee shop.”
There were so many ways I could take that simple statement that I didn’t know where to start. The first thing I did was look her over. She didn’t have a mark on her. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t hurt her.
“Did he put his hands on you?” I demanded.
“No.” She shook her head. “He’s not going to do that. I already told you.”
“You’re freaking out. If he didn’t put his hands on you, why are you freaking out?”
“I wouldn’t say I’m freaking out,” she hedged.
I gave her a dubious look. “No? How did you figure out where I live? The hoops you would have had to jump through to do that are oversized. You don’t even have my number.”
“I don’t,” she agreed. “I would say I need it, but you’re going to wipe your hands of me by the time I’m done here. You won’t want to trust me with your number.”