Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Hayden
I’m on the highway, heading north out of Boston, when my phone rings. Cara’s name appears on the hands-free screen and even being cut off by a jacked-up truck in a hurry can’t wipe the smile off my face as I hit the button to accept the call.
“Hi, Cara. How’s it going?”
“Gin Gamble is the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met,” she says, clearly frustrated. That’s not a good sign.
Penny lifts her head when she hears Cara’s voice.
The dog is clipped into a very comfortable carseat, but she looks around as if Cara magically appeared in the car.
Considering how often Penny ignores the business calls I make and accept almost constantly while I’m driving, her reaction is interesting.
“We knew it wouldn’t be easy,” I remind Cara.
“We had it out a bit last night and she’s not going to budge, Hayden. She’ll let it fall down around us rather than sell.”
Her voice is heavy with resignation, but I don’t surrender that easily. “I’m on my way back to New Hampshire as we speak. Let’s get together and regroup.”
“I didn’t know you left.”
“I set up a few meetings when I realized it would be a better use of my time than staring at my phone, waiting to hear from you.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I cringe.
Hopefully she thinks I’m that invested in buying the property, even though it sounded as if I’ve been pining, just waiting to hear her voice again.
To be honest, it’s a little of both.
“I don’t think it will do any good. She’s not wavering, even after I threw some unpleasant projections for our future at her. And you and I being seen together isn’t going to make her change her mind.”
My mind is racing, trying to work the problem of the Gamble house. Step one is making sure Cara doesn’t give up. Without her, I have almost no chance. “Do you have appointments this afternoon?”
“It was a full day, but one of my clients rescheduled because her baby’s sick—her human baby, I mean—so now I get a lunch break.”
“I’ll be back in town before lunchtime. Is that diner about five miles out of town still open?”
“Last I knew.”
“Gin thinks you’re at work, so if we meet there for a quick lunch, nobody will know.”
When there’s only silence from the other end, but I can see the call timer still running on the screen, I assume she’s getting ready to tell me no—that it’s over.
“Okay.”
Once again, Cara surprises me. She must really want out of that house. I do some quick navigational math. “I can be there for noon, if that works for you.”
“Closer to twelve-thirty would be better. My last client before lunch is a talker and sometimes I have trouble getting her out the door.”
“The dog or the human?”
Her soft laughter comes through my speakers, and if I wasn’t navigating a particularly nasty highway interchange, I’d close my eyes to savor the sound.
“The human. She’s single and works from home, so when she gets a chance for live and in-person interaction, she takes it.
I won’t have a lot of time, but twelve-thirty at the diner? ”
“I’ll be there.”
After we disconnect, I reach over and stroke Penny’s back. I’ve got just enough time to drop her and my bags at my mother’s house before heading to lunch with Cara. Luckily, Mom’s at work, so I won’t have to answer any nosy questions and Penelope will have the house to herself.
When we pull into Colleen’s driveway and Penny sees where we are, she gives me a dramatic sigh. The accompanying look lets me know if she could talk, I’d be getting quite the earful right now.
I’m running early, so once I have Penny settled, I change into jeans and a T-shirt. The entire time, I’m trying to come up with advice for Cara on how to soften Gin toward our cause.
I’m not coming up with much.
At this point, I have to admit my ego caused me to make a mistake it’ll be hard to recover from.
Cara wasn’t wrong when she said I should have made the offer in a way that obscured my identity.
Getting her to sell would still have been a challenge because of the promise Gin made to Marcus, but at least the Reilly name wouldn’t have been in the mix.
But it’s too late now. There’s no way, if I drop the offer and then another offer comes in from a different entity, that Gin doesn’t figure that out.
For the moment, it looks as if the only way to achieve my goal is to keep pushing forward and try to wear the woman down with the reality of her situation.
When I pull into the parking lot of the old diner, Cara’s getting out of her car, giving me a glimpse of her with her guard down. She’s still so pretty, with her dark hair in a messy bun and worn jeans hugging her curves, but I can see that she’s exhausted. Maybe even defeated.
I have to get her out of that house somehow.
By quickening my steps, I’m able to beat her to the door so I can hold it open for her. The smile she gives me as she steps inside doesn’t reach her eyes, but we’re quiet until the hostess seats us at a quiet booth toward the back of the old-fashioned dining car.
“I think I got most of the dog hair off,” she says as she slides across the vinyl seat, looking down at herself. “I change in the garage when I get home because Gin’s allergic to dogs, but I forgot to replace the clean set of clothes I had at the shop for mid-day appointments or errands.”
“Your mom is allergic to dogs so you made dog fur your actual job?” I chuckle as I pull two menus from the rack at the end of the table and hand her one. “I guess that’s one way to keep her from visiting you at work.”
“To be honest, I’m not sure the allergy is even real. She doesn’t like dogs and dogs don’t like her, so claiming she’s allergic to them keeps people from looking at her sideways, wondering what’s wrong with her that even a black Lab doesn’t want to go anywhere near her.”
Whether or not dogs can tell Gin Gamble isn’t a good person isn’t a topic I’m wading into. The woman’s feelings about me are entirely mutual, but I can’t lose sight of the fact she’s Cara’s mother. “Speaking of Gin, she’s not budging, huh?”
“Not even a little.” She looks at me over the top of her menu and sighs. “I think it’s a dead end road.”
I don’t believe in dead ends—there’s always a way around them—but our server steps up to the booth to take our orders.
Cara orders a BLT on wheat toast with fries, and I decide on a turkey sandwich.
Quick to make and easy to eat because we don’t have a lot of time.
Both of us get coffee and she asks for a glass of water to go with it.
Once we’re alone again, I lean forward, resting my forearms on the table. “Did you explain to her that it’s already in bad enough shape so it won’t pass the inspections needed for a mortgage? Most people couldn’t buy it even if she was looking to sell.”
“I did tell her that, and I also told her I don’t know if it’ll cave in or get taken for back taxes first, but either way, we’ll have nothing.”
The taxes are current on the property for now. It was one of the first things I looked into. “I didn’t realize she hates my family that much.”
“Oh, she does. But I think it’s the promise she made to my dad to keep it in the family that’s the real problem. Even if you had made the offer under another name, I don’t think she’d sell it.”
“Unless there’s a fortune hidden under the floorboards, I think that’s a promise she’s going to have to break. And the sooner she realizes that, the sooner she can get on with her life. And, more importantly, the sooner you can move on.”
She takes a sip of her coffee and winces.
I’m not surprised—it’s pretty bitter. “I told her how it is and how it’s only going to get worse with every passing year, but she’s convinced I’ll marry some guy from Sumac Falls and he’ll fix the house up and she’ll live with us and…
it’s quite the fairy tale. But the bottom line is that her only plan for that house is that it becomes my problem—more than it already is, I mean.
Like a my name on the deed kind of problem. ”
And there’s that detour around the dead end I’m looking for.
“Cara Gamble?” I look her right in the eye and smile. “You should marry me.”