The Family Solution

CHAPTER TWO

HE WAS GOING TO HAVE TO find a way to soften her up, Charlie decided as he’d climbed into his battered Ford truck and backed out of Bella’s driveway. He was going to get the listing for her house, even if it damn near killed him.

“It’s an FSBO, a tough one,” Rick had warned, using the acronym that meant for sale by owner. “The location’s prime, and there’s a thousand dollar bonus in it for anybody who changes her mind. Why not give it a shot, bro?”

Charlie knew that everyone else in the office had already tried to get the listing. Being low man on the totem pole, he also knew they were likely laying bets with Rick that he, the new boy, couldn’t change the lady’s mind, either.

Charlie longed to prove them wrong. It wasn’t that he had a knack for selling real estate. So far, he pretty much hated it. He was a lousy salesman and he knew it. He was far too inclined to point out water stains on the ceiling and signs of dry rot in the attic. But he had to earn a living, and the career options for an ex-cop who was also a recovering alcoholic, had alimony payments to meet and a daughter in university, weren’t good.

He needed a sale, and he needed it soon. Vancouver real estate was hot; everybody knew that. As Rick had told him far too many times, here was his chance to get out of the financial hole he’d dug for himself since he left the police force. His brother had never said it, but Charlie was all too aware that he also needed to pay back the sizable amount he’d borrowed from Rick. Becoming a licensed real-estate agent didn’t come cheap, and Rick had been generous.

So Charlie had screwed up his courage and knocked on the lady’s door.

He fingered the gash on his forehead and grinned. Spunky, he’d give her that. And sexy—there was something about the way she moved. Skinny. Stubborn. Intense. Challenging. He needed to figure out some angle that would break through her defenses.

That house of hers needed work. She was okay with a paintbrush, but he hadn’t noticed any carpentry tools around. She wouldn’t be painting it herself if she could afford to hire someone. And her husband had done a runner. Surely there were all sorts of possibilities. He just had to use his imagination, which was about all he had for collateral.

THE FOLLOWING THURSDAY afternoon, Bella was in the washroom at Monroe’s, splashing cold water on her face in an attempt to wake herself up enough to get through to closing time in an hour and a half. She’d started falling asleep in the afternoon, head down on the counter, dozing on the receipt forms. She still wasn’t sleeping at night, but at least she could now play three songs on the harmonica she’d bought for her birthday. “Golden Slippers” had been especially tough, but she’d conquered it.

Her body was telling her that naps were in order, but taking them at the store wasn’t exactly reassuring to the slow but steady stream of customers the closeout sale had attracted.

From the bathroom she heard the ding that told her another customer had just come in. She hastily dried her face and curled her eyelashes. At least that might make her look semiconscious.

She emerged to find Charlie Fredricks standing in front of the pyramid of paint cans she’d erected in the middle of the room.

Bella walked toward him and stopped just inside what should be his comfort zone. She knew from experience that was one sure way of making troublesome customers head for the door.

“Can I help you?” She made herself meet his gray-green eyes—arresting eyes for a guy with such dark hair, she thought again.

“I think we can help each other.”

“Oh, yeah? And just what makes you think that?”

“You’re closing out, right?” He pointed at the bright red sign in the window.

“Whatever gave you that idea?” Her sarcasm was thick as jam.

He gave her a steady look. “Do you want to discuss business or just trade insults?”

“What sort of business? Because if this has anything to do with you selling my house, I’m not interested.”

One of his eyebrows went up. “You’re not interested in selling your house?”

She put her hands on nonexistent hips. “Don’t play word games, I’m not in the mood.”

“Okay, here’s the deal. I’m the low man at my brother’s agency, and I’ve been given the listings that nobody can move. Shotgun shacks, Rick calls them, because it would mean holding a buyer at gunpoint to get an offer. There are three of them, and they all need work, to put it mildly.”

“Who owns them? Why isn’t the owner fixing them up?”

“They’re all owned by an absentee landlord. He lives elsewhere, and he’s been renting these dumps out. Now that real estate is high, he wants to unload them, and I’d like to sell them, if only to spite the ones at the office who think I’m riding on my brother’s coattails.” He moved away from her, seemingly intent on a rack of screwdrivers.

“Are you?” She boosted herself up on the counter. This was getting interesting.

He shrugged. He had good shoulders under that denim jacket, and she was relieved to see he’d gotten the bloodstains out. “At the moment, yeah, after a fashion. My brother paid for my real-estate course. See, if I move these babies, the owner will give us listings on other properties he owns, more expensive properties. Problem is, he wants top dollar for them.”

“And Rick will benefit if you make this guy happy.”

“I’ll benefit, too. I’ll earn the commissions. I’ve shown them lots of times to people who think they want a fixer-upper, but these go way beyond the basics.”

“So they’re more like tear-downers?”

He blew out a frustrated breath. “A couple of developers have looked at them with the thought of tearing them down, but the owner wants too much for them to make it feasible. So the only answer is make them look better.”

He turned and came back to where she sat, putting one hand on either side of her. Clearly, perching on the counter had been a tactical mistake. Maybe she was higher than Charlie, but he was way too close. She could see how thick his hair grew on top of his head. And he smelled very pleasantly of coffee and soap.

“I don’t have a clue about colors and decorating,” he admitted, looking straight into her eyes. “And I can’t stand painting. But I can do minor repairs, carpentry, some electrical work and plumbing.” He took his hands away and drew in a deep breath. “So this is what I thought. You need to sell your house, but it could use a bit of work, too. It looked to me as if you’re pretty good with a paintbrush—I liked what you were doing to your walls that day.” A grin came and went. “What I saw of them before you booted me out on my ass, that is. But that so-called powder room of yours should really be finished, your landscaping is nonexistent and the kitchen could stand backsplash tile and some molding.”

Gordon had wanted the house. The contractor who built it had gone bankrupt and the asking price had been well below market value, because it wasn’t finished. She wasn’t about to tell Charlie all that. Instead she tried for righteous indignation. “You nosed around quite a bit while I was upstairs.”

“What can I say?” He’d probably used that crooked grin before to get his way. “I’m a curious guy, and I’m also pretty good with landscaping. So here’s the deal, Bella. I can call you Bella, right?”

“Suit yourself.”

“If you supply the paint for my listings and do some of the scut work to help me spruce them up a bit, I’ll do what I can with your garden and also put in a toilet and shower for you. I can show you how to tile. It’s a valuable thing to learn.”

Bella didn’t answer right away. She got down from the counter and stood looking at him, wondering what his ulterior motive was. He had to have one. People didn’t just wander in off the street with offers to help her solve some of her immediate problems.

“How come you don’t just hire painters for those shotgun houses? There’s lots of painters around. I have a list as long as your arm.” She just couldn’t afford to hire them herself.

“Same reason you don’t. I don’t have a whole helluva lot of spare change at the moment.”

“How come? You were a cop—don’t you have a pension? And everyone says the real-estate market’s hot in Vancouver now. I thought all Realtors were practically millionaires.”

“Think again. Selling real estate is no easy road. Sure, I wrote my exam and passed the course, but you need contacts. You need listings. You need clients. You also need a ‘patter,’ which I seem to lack, according to my wildly successful brother.”

“Too honest?” She meant it to be sarcastic.

He squinted at her and nodded. “Could be.”

“So what about that solid pension?”

“I didn’t have pensionable service. I worked for a contractor after I left the force, doing rough laboring jobs to meet expenses. See, I have a daughter in university and an ex who isn’t working. All of which means I don’t have much of a bankroll.”

Okay. God knows Bella could understand being broke. She wondered what his reasons were for leaving the police force to work as a laborer, but she didn’t ask. Even in her present state of mind, that felt too much like prying.

She thought over what he was suggesting. “I don’t have a lot of spare time,” she finally said. “The store will close at the end of the month, which is about twelve days from now, and then I’ll be unemployed. But until then…” She gestured with an arm. “I don’t have employees. I have to be here.”

“Time is one thing I do have,” he said with a smile, flashing those good straight teeth. “So I could start working at your house during the day, while you’re here. Unless you figure I’d walk off with the silverware.”

“Huh. If I’d had any, Gordon would have taken it,” she snapped.

“Gordon being your husband?”

“My so-called husband. Soon to be ex, if I can locate him to serve him papers. And get the damn Volvo back.”

“He took your car?”

The familiar sense of outrage returned. “The brand-new car we leased together. He drove off with it, along with every last cent we had, plus a bundle he got from our charge cards.”

“So you’re stuck with the lease payments.”

“Right. And the mortgage, and the rent, and the overdue invoices, and the credit-card debt. And he knew the business was doomed.” She could hear a hint of hysteria creeping into her voice. “There’s my kids’ dental bills, groceries, school fees…”

He whistled. “Gordon sounds like someone you’re well rid of.”

“Thank you. You’re a very perceptive man.” Bella realized she was smiling at him, and quickly scowled instead. What did she know about him, really?

“I still have contacts, and I could probably help you find him if you wanted to.”

Now that was interesting. “You could? I really want to get that Volvo back. As far as Gordon goes, he can stay lost for all I care. But I think it’s a case of find him, find the car.”

“Where do you figure he is?”

“Mexico. He lived down there before we were married, and he’s fluent in Spanish.” It was one thing they’d had in common, their interest in the language. In fact, it was how they’d met, at a night-school class. He’d taught her how to swear in Spanish.

“Write down all the particulars.”

She grabbed a pad and pen and scribbled down age, weight, height and name.

“Big country. Any location come to mind?”

“West coast, I’d guess. He spent time in the Puerto Vallarta area before we were married. And we went there for our honeymoon.”

Bella handed him the paper, with Gordon’s full name and description, and the Volvo’s license plate number and color.

“I’ll need a photo.”

“Damn, I tore them all up and burned them.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Kidding. Okay, I can hunt one up.”

“A minute ago you were looking at me as if I was pulling a con.” Charlie laughed at her surprised expression. “You know, your face really is an open book.”

He pulled out his wallet. “Here’s my driver’s license, my Realtor’s ID, my social insurance number. I’ll give you my brother’s cell number, my mother’s name and my home address. You’re welcome to check me out. In fact, being a former cop, I’d recommend you do exactly that.”

Bella glanced at the pile of cards, but only for a moment.

“I don’t need these. All I have to do is call my mother and give her your name and she’ll know everything about you in ten minutes, including whether or not you dye your hair. She has an amazing network of blue-haired sleuths.”

He stuck his wallet back in his pocket. “Whatever works for you. I just want you to know I’m a man of my word.”

“Yeah? Well, it doesn’t run in the family, then.” Bella’s voice hardened. “I told your brother up front I was selling my own house, and he said no problem—he’d help me with pricing. Public service, he said. And then he sent every real-estate person in Greater Vancouver after me.”

Charlie nodded. “Rick tends to be a bit overenthusiastic about his work.”

“No kidding.” A customer had come in, but for the moment he was browsing among the nails and screws. “How did you end up working for him? I mean, wouldn’t it be less stressful with strangers?”

Charlie glanced at the customer and lowered his voice. “Probably. Unfortunately, no other person recognized my incredible potential.”

“You couldn’t get a job anywhere else.”

His smile was rueful. “You could say that. So, Bella Monroe, what’s your decision on my really excellent proposal?”

She looked at him seriously. She knew you couldn’t tell by a person’s appearance whether he was honest or not, but you could tell whether or not he might recognize the business end of a shovel and a hammer.

She liked the way Charlie met her eyes and held her gaze. His face was weathered, good-humored and lived-in, with smile lines radiating out from his mouth and bracketing his eyes. She liked the fact that he looked strong and that his nails weren’t manicured—in fact, several of them were cracked and all of them were cut short. His big hands looked as if he’d done his share of manual labor. And he didn’t have any sign of a potbelly, the soft, little kind that Gordon had been working on.

Quite emphatically not. This guy’s body tapered in quite an interesting fashion down from his significant chest, inside its checked green shirt, into narrow blue jeans worn low on his hips. Not designer jeans; these looked more like the kind you bought at the Army and Navy. Utilitarian.

She said slowly, “I guess we could give it a try. When would you start?”

He shrugged. “No time like the present. I could go over to your place right now, take some measurements in that bathroom and figure out what we’re going to need in the way of materials.” He glanced around. “You’ve probably got most of the stuff we’ll need right here. I can pick up the rest at Foster’s.”

She gave him a look. “Wash your mouth. I’d drive to Richmond for an hour in rush-hour traffic to buy a single washer rather than shop at Foster’s. They’re the reason I’m being forced out of business. A small hardware store like this can’t compete with a big-box store like that.”

He shrugged. “A guy I know says we never know what anything is for. Maybe what seems a disaster for you right now might turn out okay in the long run.”

“Oh, yeah? My mother has some of those sayings, too, such as, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Which makes me want to be sick.”

His laugh was low and deep and even gentle, and sounded as if he meant it. As if he was genuinely amused. But amused or not, there was no way she was handing over house keys to a relative stranger. She told him so.

“I can understand that—it’s wise on your part. How about I go over there and assess the landscaping issue, then? I didn’t take a close look the other day, but I did get the general impression it was sort of like an undeveloped parking lot.”

“The guy who was building it went bankrupt before he could finish. My soon-to-be ex wanted to live in a posh neighborhood, and that about sums it up.” What harm could it do to have him look around outside? “I’ll be home in—” She squinted at the clock. “Less than an hour. My kids should be there around the same time. We can make a list of supplies, then. Do you happen to have a pickup?” Monroe’s had people with trucks who would deliver orders, but using them was expensive.

“I do, lived-in but reliable. See you in an hour.”

The minute he was gone, she had second thoughts. If Charlie did what he said and she managed to sell the house, she’d be too busy finding a place to rent and getting settled to do much painting for him. And how many houses was he talking about here? Just the three he’d mentioned, or had she just made a commitment that could last the rest of her natural life?

The good thing was she hadn’t signed anything.

The bad thing; neither had he.

CHAPTER THREE

WHEN SHE DROVE up to her house an hour later, a battered old blue Ford pickup was parked at the curb and a red wheelbarrow was positioned beside Charlie Fredricks, who was already digging, turning over clods of earth and putting them into the barrow.

“Hey,” he called cheerfully. He’d stripped off his green shirt and put on a ratty old, long-sleeved tee. His pants were different, too—jeans still, but old and holey in the knees. He’d changed into brown, well-worn work boots.

“What are you doing?” She eyed the growing pile of clods.

“Making a berm, first one over there and then we’ll see.” His voice was excited, eager. “You have to imagine a garden as a series of rooms. I thought we’d make this the entrance hall, raised beds of flowers, trees along here to shelter the sidewalk…Which is going to be shaped irregularly, winding slowly to the front door. It makes it interesting for guests. And it’s good feng shui.”

Entrance hall? Feng shui? She glanced at him, thinking he must be joking, but he looked as serious as he ever did—which wasn’t very. His face was so good-humored that he always seemed on the verge of a smile. Bella told herself she found that irritating. Nobody could be in a good mood all the time.

“Your youngsters are in the house. I suggested they might want to help, but they weren’t too enthusiastic.”

No kidding. Getting them to do anything remotely productive these days was almost more effort than it was worth.

“I’ll see if I can change their minds about that.” Bella decided she’d rout them out and do some digging herself before dinner. It would be good to do something out of doors, together. The day was typically overcast, but it wasn’t cold and it wasn’t raining, both of which were bonuses.

Inside the front door, she tripped over Kelsey’s book bag and then kicked aside Josh’s trainers. A trail of cookie crumbs and tortilla chips led from the kitchen to the den. Bella followed.

Josh was sprawled on the sofa, television turned up to an earsplitting level as a NASCAR race unfolded. Two empty soda cans, a flattened milk carton and discarded cookie package lay on the carpet, along with more crumbs.

Bella picked up the remote and turned off the TV.

“Hey.” Josh sat up. “Chill, Mom. I was watching that.”

“You can watch television later. Right now I’d like you to pick up this mess, put on some old clothes and come outside. We’re all going to work in the garden.”

“Says who?” His tone was verging on insolent. “The dude out there with the old truck?”

“Says me.” Determined not to lose her patience, Bella tried reason. “I have to sell this house, and in order to do that and make some money so we can move and keep on buying groceries, it has to be landscaped. I don’t know how to do anything with a garden, but Mr. Fredricks has offered to help. C’mon, it could even be fun.”

“I’ve got homework.”

“Well, you weren’t exactly working on it. You can do your homework after dinner.”

Muttering under his breath, Josh headed for the stairs. Bella looked at the mess he was leaving behind and decided one battle at a time was just about enough.

Upstairs, Kelsey’s door was closed. When there was no answer in response to her knock, Bella opened it. Piles of clothing covered the floor. Kelsey reclined against her pillows on the unmade bed, grubby shoes resting on the sheets. She was eating chocolate ice cream and was listening to her iPod. Until Bella was standing over her, she didn’t even notice her mother was there.