Four fricking bedrooms including a newly remodeled master suite. Gas fireplace, killer views, attached bath nearly as big as the bedroom in his old shitcan.
Everything about the house pulled at him, and pushed against his reality. He met the handy Cody, talked a little construction before CiCi waved him off.
“Go on up to the widow’s walk.”
“Oh yes, you should!” Barbara Ellen agreed. “It’s the crown of the house. I don’t go up anymore. Just don’t trust myself on the narrow stairs, but you should take it in.”
Narrow, yes, but sturdy—Cody at work again, Reed thought.
Then he stepped out onto the circling deck, and couldn’t think at all.
He could see everything. The water, the woods, the village, CiCi’s amazing house to the west, then the fanciful lighthouse to the east. The world in all its color and beauty spread out for him like one of CiCi’s paintings.
It could be his.
Not once, he thought, in all the houses he’d walked through, studied, considered, had he ever felt not that it could be his, should be his, but already was.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” When he, without thinking, dragged a hand through his hair, his shoulder snarled.
“It’s crazy. I’m crazy.” He rubbed absently at his shoulder. “Maybe not. Shit. Investment property. What about that? Rent it out during the season, use it for long weekends, for vacation time off-season. What’s wrong with that?
“Can’t do it. Can’t,” he muttered as he took one more stroll around the railed deck. “Can’t.”
As he went back down, he heard CiCi asking Cody what he planned to ask.
“Well, once we get the last bathroom up here gutted and redone, and the last bedroom remodeled, a little more trim here and there, and some this and that. Give everything a nice, fresh coat of paint, and some more landscaping…”
He named a price that made Reed wince. Not because it was out of his range, but because it wasn’t that much out of his range.
“Of course,” Barbara Ellen put in, with a twinkle of a smile toward Reed, “if somebody wanted it before we put it on the market, saved us that trouble, those fees, we’d adjust that price. Wouldn’t we, Cody?”
“Some, sure. But we’ve still got the work left.”
“What if you didn’t?” Reed heard himself ask, knew he’d just tied a rock to his leg. “I mean, if you didn’t gut the bathroom, add more landscaping, the paint, the bedroom. If, say, you finished what you’re doing in here with the closet, and that was that?”
“Well now.” Cody sniffed, rubbing his chin. “That’d make a difference, wouldn’t it?”
Enough of one, when Cody ballparked another figure, to tie on the next rock.
He didn’t commit—wouldn’t let himself. He needed to run some numbers, give some hard thought to what it would mean to his life. He’d never afford a house in Portland if he did this. But … he didn’t want a house in Portland.
“You want it,” CiCi said as they rode home.
“I want a lot of things I can’t have. Like you.”
“What if you could?”
“Have you? Pedal faster.”
She laughed her glorious laugh. “I’m mad for you, Delicious. You said, and I agree, a cop lives where he works.”
“Yeah, that’s a sticking point.”
“What if you could do that? Live and work on the island. Chief Wickett’s retiring. He isn’t saying so officially as yet, but he told me. He’s giving it until February, maybe March, so he’s telling the island council next month. To give them time to find his replacement.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Chief of police? That was just more craziness.
CiCi let it drop on him, then blithely went into her studio.
So he took a solo walk on the beach, hoping the air would blow his brain back to sanity.
He sat on the rocks and brooded. He walked some more.
When he finally went back, CiCi sat on the patio, a cozy throw over her legs and a bottle of wine, two glasses, on the table.
“You need a nice glass of wine.”
“I can’t be a police chief.”
“Why not? It’s just a title.” She poured the wine.
“It’s not just a title. It’s being in charge of a department. It’s administrative.”
She patted a hand at the chair next to hers. “You’re smart, and the current chief would work with you until you got your rhythm. You’ve told me enough over these past days and entertaining evenings for me to know you’re not happy in Portland. You’re not happy with the box your own chief or captain or whatever put you in. Get out of the box, Reed.
“You have a purpose,” she continued. “Your aura absolutely pulses with it.”
“My aura pulses with purpose?”
“It does. And you’d fulfill that here. You’d also fulfill your just-as-essential purpose of working on the investigation of that Hobart psycho. The off-season here isn’t without work for a police chief, but you’d have that time and space.”
She looked at him. “Tell me you’re happy where you are, and I’ll stop.”
He wanted to, but shook his head. “No. I’ve thought about transferring, but there’s Essie. And some others. My family.”
“You’re less than an hour from your friends and family here. You want that house. I don’t have to be psychic to know that because it was all over you. But since I am a little bit psychic I know you’ll be happy here, happy in that house—because it’s your place. Clear as day. You’ll have your purpose, your home. You’re going to find the love of your life.”
“I already did,” he interrupted.
She reached over and took his hand. “You’re going to find the one who’ll share that home with you. You’re going to raise a family there.”
“I can barely afford the house. Who knows if I’m qualified for chief of police, or if the island council would offer me the position?”
She smiled over the rim of her glass. Silver hoops with bloodred drops glinted at her ears. “I have some not inconsiderable influence. We need good, young, bright blood in the job. And here you are.”
“You’re biased because you love me, too.”
“I do, but if I didn’t think this was right for you, for the island—not even just right for you, but the answer—I wouldn’t have spoken with Hildy yesterday.”
“Hildy?”
“Mayor Hildy Intz. She’d love to talk with you.”
“Jesus, CiCi.”
Laughing, she poked him in the arm. “Shit’s getting real, am I right? It makes me think of Simone. I told you how she tried to fit in the box, and finally realized she couldn’t. When she took that leap, she found the answer. Or one of them. Don’t let them keep you in their box, Reed. Damn, that’s my phone. I left it inside.”
“I’ll get it.”
He hurried in, brought it back to her.
“Huh. Barbara Ellen.” With a wiggle of her eyebrows, she answered. “Hi, Barbara Ellen. Yes. Hmm.”
She listened, nodded, sipped wine.
“I see. Oh, I absolutely will. It was wonderful to see you, too. And Cody. Yes, he’s done beautiful work. It’s no wonder you’re proud of him. Uh-huh.” She gave Reed an eye roll. “I know you will. Let me get back to you? Bye now.”
She ended the call, set the phone down, took another sip of wine.
“Barbara Ellen’s anxious to pack up and move, just go back with Cody and be done. Factoring that, she’s nagged Cody into lowering the price—for you, if you take it as discussed—another seventy-five hundred.”
“Oh, shit.”
“She knows you’ll love the house she loved, the house where she raised her children. Obviously, she’s right about that.”
“I shouldn’t have gone up on the widow’s walk.” More rocks, he thought, sinking fast. He rubbed a hand over his face. “It was bad enough before that. It was bad enough just feeling that place, but going up there did it. I can’t talk myself out of it.”
“I’ve never understood why people are always trying to talk themselves out of things they want. You just got another signpost, my man. You ought to follow it.”
“Yeah.”
“Why don’t I call Hildy, invite her over for a drink?”
He looked at her, nodded. “Why don’t you do that?”
*
As soon as he returned to Portland, Reed contacted Essie, asked her to meet him at the park. He sat on the same bench where they’d sat more than a decade before. He’d taken a new direction right there, with her help.