“Thanks anyway.” Delainey moved across the living room to where the black-upholstered futon sat in front of the fireplace. The movers had even plumped the cushions, and it looked almost inviting. “Patty, remember when we looked at this place and we talked about how oddly the furniture was arranged?”
“Yeah, the couch was sitting at a really strange angle.”
“We should have moved it to look underneath.” Delainey shifted the phone from one hand to the other and tipped her head to get a better view of the carpet. Smack in the center of the room was a black patch the size of her outstretched hand. “It looks like someone spilled India ink on the carpet, and they just set the couch on top to hide it.”
“Ink? If that’s actually what it is, it won’t come out. I’ll talk to the people at the loan company.”
“You think they might actually replace the carpet?”
“I’ll suggest that it would be good for customer relations—but don’t get your hopes up too high.”
“I won’t,” Delainey said. “I worked in the mortgage department at the bank for a while—long enough to know there’s a whole different set of rules when it comes to houses that have been forced up for sale by the threat of repossession. Buyer beware is the operative phrase in situations like that.”
“And you did buy the place at a pretty deep discount because everybody admits there’s some work to be done.”
Some work to be done? At the moment, Delainey thought, it seemed a classic understatement. “Well, right now I’d say the loan company did very well for itself. I didn’t realize it would look so…abandoned.”
“Every house does on moving day. Hey, if you end up stuck with the stain, you could just pretend it’s a Rorschach test. It would make a great party game, having everyone interpret it.”
“Thanks,” Delainey said dryly. “You’re a real pal, Patty.”
She eyed the boxes the movers had stacked in the kitchen and decided that unpacking the toaster and her few mismatched dishes could wait awhile. The moving van was gone and there was no sign of the cretin-next-door, so she carried in her two boxes of special treasures from the car.
When she set the first one on the kitchen counter, she was startled to notice that right next to the stove, where a big ceramic fruit bowl had been strategically placed on the day she had looked at the town house, was a perfectly round scorch mark where someone had once set a sizzling skillet or a boiling kettle.
A carpet and a countertop needing replaced. “I wonder what other nice little surprises I’m apt to find,” she muttered as she began to unpack the box.
She didn’t know why the previous owners had been unable to make their house payments, but she was sympathetic to their plight—and she couldn’t exactly blame them for covering up the flaws. They were not only losing their home, but they’d already sacrificed the down payment they’d made when they first took out the loan. And since the loan company which carried the mortgage was looking for a quick sale which would turn just enough cash to pay the outstanding balance, the owners weren’t likely to get anything from the sale at all. Only if someone offered to pay more than it took to settle the mortgage would the owners end up with a cent—so of course they’d make it look as good as they could and hope that the buyer wouldn’t notice until it was too late.
Which was exactly what had happened. It hadn’t occurred to Delainey to move the couch, or pick up the fruit bowl to look underneath. For that matter, she couldn’t remember whether she’d actually turned on all the faucets and light switches. She’d been in a bit of a hurry that day, as she recalled.
But despite the damage, Patty was right that she had gotten a bargain. It wasn’t as if she’d have to put down new carpet or tear out the kitchen countertops right away. She could live with them as they were for a while—and that was lucky, she mused. Good deal though the town house had been, it was a big leap in monthly expense from the rent she’d been paying in her shared apartment, and what the down payment had done to her savings account hadn’t been pretty.
She unwrapped her grandmother’s small blue china bell and set it safely on a shelf. The next bundle of tissue paper contained the silver sugar tongs she’d bought at an antique store on her last trip home. Her mother had thought the gadget a waste of money—what on earth was wrong with using a spoon?—but though Delainey couldn’t have explained it, she had known she’d regret it if she walked out of the store without the tongs.
And now, finally, she might actually have a chance to use them. In the town house she could do an entirely different kind of entertaining than she’d ever tackled before. When she’d been sharing the apartment, having a few friends in for pizza and a rented movie had been a big party. Now, particularly with her new job, she would be hosting dinners and cocktail parties for clients as well. Of course, she’d need a table first, and some chairs….
Uncertain where she wanted to store the tongs, she left them lying beside the box while she unwrapped the crystal clock she’d been given for a high school graduation gift. It looked small but important in the center of the mantel, and putting it in place made her feel as if she was starting to claim the town house for her own.
She looked thoughtfully into the bare, black cavity of the fireplace. She’d never had one before. Not a real one. The fireplace in the house she’d lived in as a child had been only for show—its warm glow was provided by an orange lightbulb. And none of the apartments she’d lived in had ever been the sort to include such amenities.
The work of settling in could wait, she decided. It was her first night in her own home, and she was going to sit by her own fireside and relax. Maybe even go to sleep with the crackling of a fire to soothe her.
Upstairs, in the front bedroom where the movers had hung her clothes, she changed from her khaki-colored business suit into ivory satin pajamas and brushed out her hair until it gleamed golden brown in the bathroom mirror. She dug sheets, pillows, and blankets out of a box in the back bedroom and made up the futon, pulling it around till it sat directly in front of the fireplace. Then she found the bundle of firewood where she’d set it down right inside the front door and carried it into the living room.
The bundle was tightly wrapped in plastic, and the carrying strap had been stapled into the wood itself. She broke a fingernail, went to the kitchen to open a box to look for a knife, and cracked the tip off the knife blade before she finally managed to pry the staples loose.
“Tools,” she muttered. “I’m going to have to buy some tools.”
She knelt down to stack the wood in the fireplace, crisscrossing the splintery chunks as she’d seen others do. It was difficult to keep the wood from shifting and rolling, and even when she’d put it all in, it didn’t seem like much of a fire. It was only a small pile. She took a deep breath and struck a match.
The wood caught fire instantly, and moments later a cloud of smoke billowed out of the fireplace and engulfed her. Coughing and choking, Delainey staggered to the atrium door at the back of the living room, fumbled for what seemed endless minutes before she figured out the lock, and finally flung the door open.
Cold air and snowflakes flooded in and swirled around her. Smoke surged from the fireplace, and Delainey grabbed the plastic that had been wrapped around the firewood and tried desperately to fan the fumes toward the door.
A shadow loomed in the doorway. “What in the hell are you doing? Trying to burn the whole place down?”
It was the cretin-next-door, still in the faded jeans but without the leather jacket. Instead he was wearing a sweatshirt with the sleeves pushed to the elbows. And his voice no longer sounded like cashmere but more like canvas—rough and abrasive.
Just what I need.
At the moment, however, Delainey was desperate enough to accept help from any source. “The fire just flared up all of a sudden,” she said. “I