Chapter 4
Chapter Four
“ P erfect,” Shiloh purred as she pulled up along the curb. It had been three days since she’d become a dust monster, and while she’d been working, the city had delivered the garbage containers she’d asked for. They were right in the middle of the driveway, which wasn’t good for parking, but was awesome for throwing things out of the house.
Getting out of her vehicle, she walked around to the trunk to grab the supplies she’d brought this time. A mask, her trusty gloves, enough cleaning supplies to rid the world of germs, an industrial vacuum cleaner, and a few other odds and ends.
The only thing she was lacking was the manpower to move the furniture.
“Next time,” she promised herself.
Just before going into the house, her phone rang in her back pocket, and she had to stop to dig it out.
“Hello,” she said, adjusting the phone against her shoulder and hefting the supplies with her hands.
“Hey, Shi. You at the house today?”
“Jett! Just who I needed to speak to. I need some men with really big muscles. Know anyone?”
Jett snorted. “I’m glad it’s me on here and not Tate.”
“I wouldn’t have said it if it was Tate,” Shiloh agreed with a laugh. “But there’s a ton of furniture in this place, and it’s aaaallll gotta go.”
“Good to know. I’ll look at the schedule and see when I can spare the guys. But I have an hour this morning and was hoping you were there so I could actually go inside this time.”
“Uh, huh,” Shiloh said. “You were just waiting until I killed all the ghosties.”
“I’m not stupid. Did you get them taken care of?”
“Considering there were none to begin with, it was a pretty easy job, Chicken Feet,” Shiloh teased. She did the little shoulder shove again to get inside, grunting with the impact.
“No need to get spicy, Shi. I said I’d come over.”
“I was pushing open the door open, doofus. It sticks.” She froze in the doorway, her eyebrows furrowing. Something was different.
“Guess we’ll have to look at that too. I’ll be there in ten, and I might be able to get my landscaping guy over. No promises.”
“There never are,” Shiloh said in a distracted tone. “Thanks. See you soon.” She hung up and tucked the phone in her back pocket. What was she missing? Something was different, but she couldn’t quite place her finger on it.
She’d swept and cleaned this front room the other day, but…Shiloh shook her head. “Maybe there really are ghosts,” she muttered, forcing herself to stop studying the space. Even with her cleaning, the place was still a dump. Of course it would look weird.
Setting her cleaning supplies to the side of the door, she went back to pull in more. It took two more trips to carry everything she needed, and by the time she’d pulled in her huge vacuum cleaner, Jett’s truck came roaring into the small leftover piece of driveway.
“Shiloh!” Tate called, hopping out of the passenger side. “Fancy meeting you here.”
Shiloh gave him a sour smile. “Tate. Just the man I was hoping to put to work.”
Tate flexed. “I heard you called out the big guns. Of course, I came running.”
Shiloh rolled her eyes. “Afraid your name is at the bottom of that list, Shortie.”
Tate bounced up the front steps and patted her head. “Look who’s talking.”
Swatting him away, Shiloh waved her arm toward the door. “Come on in. The weather’s fine.”
Jett walked up behind Tate. “If there’s a doll staring at me in there, I’m out.”
“If there’s a haunted doll, I want to bring it home,” Tate whispered loudly.
“I thought you already had a girlfriend,” Shiloh joked, making Jett chuckle.
“Not for me,” Tate argued. “I just want to leave it in random places around the house to scare the snot out of Jett. It would be awesome.”
Jett groaned. “He’d do it too,” he muttered. Stopping, Jett, imitated Shiloh’s welcoming stance. “Ladies first.”
“Chickens last,” Shiloh taunted, stepping inside. Ignoring Tate’s imitation of a barnyard chicken, she walked to the middle of the room. “I only got this far last time. Haven’t even looked in the bedrooms, closets or the attic.” She gave a fake shiver. “The last one might require a hazmat suit.”
“No kidding,” Jett grumbled, his eyes going over every wall and part of the ceiling. “I’m actually a little worried about the structural integrity of this place. With as long as it’s been sitting, there could be water damage or termites or weather?—”
“Or you could stop imagining and just look,” Tate drawled.
“Or you could,” Jett shot back.
“Someone needs to…” Tate gave Shiloh a sidelong look.
She huffed. “I’m sure I’ll get around to it eventually, but it’s not on today’s agenda, so if you need to know now, it’s on your scrawny shoulders.” Grabbing her bucket of supplies and broom, Shiloh headed to the kitchen. “I’m gonna start cleaning out the smaller stuff and start putting it in the dumpsters outside. Do what you need to do, and then we’ll set up a time to create a reno plan.”
“Sounds good,” Jett called out.
“I went up in the last attic,” Tate began as Shiloh walked away.
She grinned, laughing softly at their bickering. Those two were always fighting about something, but it just made them feel more like family. Their relationship might mostly be about work, but the twins felt more like siblings than Shiloh’s own family did.
Annoying as they were, she thoroughly enjoyed their time together, both in and out of the workplace.
Standing in the threshold of the kitchen, Shiloh grimaced. The place stunk. She was surprised she couldn’t smell it from the front room, but there was definitely something not quite right in here.
“Cat urine.”
Shiloh spun around. “What?”
“That smell,” Jett supplied, his nose scrunched. “It’s cat urine.”
“Crud,” Shiloh whispered.
“Not the word I would choose, but whatever,” Tate added, coming up to the group and pinching his nose. “I think you’ve got an infestation.”
Shiloh rubbed her forehead, a headache forming. This was going to be more work than she’d imagined…again “Guess I better find the nest.”
“Do cats have nests?” Tate whispered.
“They do now,” Shiloh said, straightening her shoulders.
“You look ready to do battle,” Jett teased with a chuckle.
Shiloh glanced over her shoulder. “There are unwanted squatters on my property. Battle is right.” Shiloh headed into the filthy kitchen, pulling her gloves on and getting ready to start opening cabinets and doors. She was going to find where those buggers were if it killed her.
Which at this point, it was at least going to kill her pocketbook, so…
“Remind me to never become a cat,” Tate whispered again, though his tone said he definitely wanted her to hear.
“If you became a cat,” Jett began, “Maybe Gemma would finally keep you around.”
Shiloh ignored the sounds of the resulting scuffle from the boys’ teasing. She was on a timeline here.
The time for hunting had begun.
Granger kept his desire to curse to himself as he pulled out of the daycare. While he understood why Tiffany didn’t want Zane around until his arm was better, it really put Granger in a bind to have his son with him all day every day.
“Dad?” Zane asked softly from the backseat.
“Yeah, bud?”
“What are we gonna do?”
Granger took a deep breath and started the engine. “I guess the next couple weeks just became ‘bring your child to work day.’” Granger smiled into the rearview mirror. “What do you think?”
Zane frowned. “You’re going to take me to work with you?”
Granger nodded. “I think that might be best.”
“But what will I do?”
Granger shrugged and pulled up his GPS. He needed to find that house that Jett had asked him to visit. “I don’t know,” Granger said distractedly. “But we’ll figure it out.”
“Can I play games on your phone?”
Granger set the coordinates and began driving. “Maybe. We’ll have to see. I don’t want you glued to a screen for the next month. It’ll rot your brain.” Even without looking, Granger could see Zane’s eye roll.
“It won’t rot my brain.”
“Well, it certainly won’t help it.” Granger glanced at the GPS before taking a turn.
“Where are we going?”
“To a house that Jett asked me to come see.” Granger took another turn. “He says it needs a lot of work and might require more than just cutting the grass to make it look good.”
“Is Tate building it?” Zane asked.
“No. A friend of theirs bought an old home. They’re gonna help fix it up.”
“And you’re going to fix up the yard,” Zane supplied.
Granger grinned. “Maybe. I haven’t decided if we’ll take on this project or not.” Truth was, Granger wasn’t sure he could turn it down. The surgery to fix Zane’s arm wasn’t going to be cheap, and he was almost due for another alimony payment. With his usual schedule a little light at the moment, he was going to need projects like this.
But if it was as bad as Jett described it, Granger wasn’t sure he was up to the task either. Especially with a little boy following in his wake.
“Why not?”
Granger shrugged again. “Just don’t know. I’ll have to look at it first.”
Zane grunted and began kicking his legs, which kept him busy until they arrived at the house.
By the time Granger had put the truck in park, his eyes were about to bug out of his head.
“Whoa…” Zane breathed. “That grass is taller than me!”
Granger slowly shook his head. “They don’t need a landscape architect, they need a blowtorch,” he muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing.” Granger shook his head. This had disaster written all over it. But Jett’s truck was at the end of the driveway, so Granger figured he could at least say something before leaving.
Getting out, he came around to the passenger side to grab Zane, who immediately raced toward the house. “Hey, bud!” Granger called out. “Slow down!” He sighed. “Just what I need. Him tripping after barely getting on his cast.”
Granger came up beside his son who was standing at the edge of the grass, running his hands from side to side. “What are you doing?” Granger asked.
Zane grinned, looking up at his dad. “Look at the waves it makes.” He did it again, the grass shifting like wind in a wheatfield. “Cool, huh?”
Granger chuckled and ruffled his son’s hair. Shoot. He needed a haircut. Reaching for the back of his neck, Granger grimaced.
They both needed haircuts.
“I thought I heard my Big Z,” Tate said, coming out of the front door. “Wassup, big guy?”
“Tate!” Zane raced over, holding his broken arm in the air and shouting a mile a minute.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Tate put out his hands, trying to calm the boy down. Squatting, he took Zane’s arm and looked it over. “Dang. That is the coolest cast I’ve ever seen. Can I sign it?”
“Dad!” Zane shouted. “We need the marker!”
Granger smiled and shook his head. “Hang on. I think it’s in the truck.” He jogged back, digging around in the glove compartment until he found what he was looking for. It wasn’t the gold, metallic marker they had at home, but it should still work.
Granger shut the door and walked back up to the driveway. “What about this—” His words cut off, and Granger’s eyes widened. “You.”
The exotic beauty from Luca’s wedding raised a single eyebrow at him. Dang, the woman was gorgeous. Which is exactly why Granger had refused to dance with her.
She’d won the point though by refusing right back and taking Zane for a spin on the floor. It had taken two weeks for Zane to stop talking about the pretty wedding lady.
I only dance with men in bow ties.
“Me,” she said with a sarcastic smile, which turned genuine when it was aimed at Zane. “How are you going to dance with me with a broken arm? I’ve been itching to turn on some more music lately.”
Zane was smiling wider than Granger had ever seen him. “I can still dance. Watch!” Zane began bouncing around, wiggling his hips.
Jett covered his smile with a fist, while Tate laughed and clapped his hands. “Boy has moves!”
The beauty began to wiggle her hips right back, smiling all the while.
Granger was completely dumbstruck. Somehow, his brain and his body had completely stopped talking to each other, and he couldn’t move. He couldn’t turn around and go home, and he couldn’t take his eyes from a very, very enticing set of hips.
Tate whacked Granger’s arm, finally breaking him out of his trance.
“Grange,” Tate said in a loud whisper. “You got a little drool right here.” He grinned while indicating the corner of his mouth.
Thank heavens for idiot friends. Shoving Tate to the side, Granger scowled while Tate laughed.
“Come on, Z. We gotta go home.” There was no way Granger was sticking around to make a bigger fool of himself. Medical bills or not, he knew better than to tangle with someone like her.
The dancing abruptly stopped.
“But, Dad!” Zane cried. “We just got here! And I haven’t seen the pretty wedding lady in forever!”
If ever a man had a time to drop into a fiery pit, it was now, because Zane’s name for the woman only had Tate howling.
Death by embarrassment from a six-year-old. It wasn’t how Granger had expected to meet his maker.
“Aw…” The woman cooed, bending over to get more on level with Zane. “You think I’m pretty?”
Zane nodded vigorously.
“You gotta give it to him,” Tate whispered. “He’s got moves, and he knows how to sweet talk the ladies.”
“Who the heck is she?” Granger ground out in an undertone.
Tate frowned and turned to give Granger an incredulous look. “Dude…that’s Shiloh. Our real estate agent.”
Granger’s stomach fell to his feet.
“This is her project. Better be nice because she’s the boss-woman.”
Would the grass hide puke? Because Granger was sure he was going to lose it. And wouldn’t that just make his embarrassment-caused death even more fun? Granger could only imagine what his headstone was going to say. Good thing he’d be too far gone to ever know.