After two hours, I had cleaned and weeded all the beds, throwing out wilted leaves and spindly vines and fallen fruit. My last task was to tidy up my pumpkin patch, which, for some unnatural reason, was still producing fruit. My father claimed I grew happy pumpkins and I had to agree.
As I raked out the bed and checked for any blossoms, I found a small spot of powdery mildew on one of the leaves. I knew it would spread fast if I didn’t nip it, so once I’d removed all the old plant debris, I dusted what was left with an organic sulfur product I liked. I hoped it would do the trick because I had big plans to spawn another winner for the Harvest Festival later that year.
I heard footsteps and looked up to find Mac coming down the garage stairs.
“You look wrapped up in your work,” he said.
“I got yelled at, so I thought I’d take refuge here for a while.”
“Eric?”
“Yeah. He was right. I was wrong. I’ll get over it.”
“Sure you will. He gave me an earful, too.”
I smiled. “That’s something, I guess.”
Eric probably hadn’t yelled as loudly at Mac, I thought. Still, I knew I was wrong, so I wasn’t going to hold it against the chief of police. Or Mac.
“What’re you up to?” I asked.
“I was going to drive up to the lighthouse. Want to come?”
“I’d love to,” I said, then glanced down at my grubby gardening duds. “But I’ll have to change. You might want to go without me.”
“I’d rather go with you,” he said. “I can wait.”
“Give me twenty minutes.”
*
Mac had moved to Lighthouse Cove and bought the mansion last fall. I’d heard about his purchase but I hadn’t met him yet when I rode my bike up to take a look at the exterior in hopes of bidding on the rehab job. We’d met that day under strange circumstances having nothing to do with his home purchase. Since then, Mac had officially hired me to renovate the mansion, but because of some conflicts in his schedule—deadlines, book tours, film premieres, meetings with his publishers in New York City—we hadn’t done an official walkthrough of the place yet, never mind starting the job. And now Jesse’s death had pushed the start date even further out.
Mac parked his car a dozen yards away. I grabbed the blueprints and we walked over to the house. Approached from this angle, the stalwart lighthouse seemed to jut right out of the middle of the roof. In reality, it was separated from the house by thirty feet or so.
“It’s so beautiful out here,” Mac said, gazing around. “I can’t believe the town was willing to sell this place.”
“We were only willing to sell it to the right buyer,” I said. “You were the one.”
He bent his head to gaze at me. “Why?”
“Because you love it. Because you won’t change it. Because you’ll take good care of it.”
“How do you know? I might want to paint it purple and turn it into a den of iniquity.”
I laughed. “Purple is so very much your color.”
“I think so.”
“The iniquity suits you, too.”
Chuckling, he slung his arm around my shoulders and we strolled to the stairs leading up to the front porch. As he unlocked the door, I heard a squealing sound.
“Those hinges need to be oiled.”
“Yeah.” After a long moment of struggling with the front door key, he got the door opened.
“I’ll check that lock on my next trip out here,” I murmured as I walked inside. “It’s probably rusty from years of neglect.”
“Same goes for a bunch of stuff around here.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” I said, glancing around.
He followed my gaze. “The most important thing before I move in is to get the roof fixed and update the kitchen as much as the Planning Commission will allow.”
“I don’t think they’ll care too much what we do to the kitchen,” I said. “As I mentioned before, they’re mostly concerned that we stay true to the original exterior look and also be mindful of the interior walls. In a lot of Victorians, the rooms are compartmentalized, and the first thing new owners want to do is open them up. But the interior walls are often load-bearing, so it can present a problem.”
His lips twisted into a frown. “I was hoping we could open up the wall between the master bedroom and that second bedroom to make room for a sitting area. Doesn’t have to be big, but I’d like to have a couch and a chair, at least, for sitting around upstairs. And I’d like a walk-in closet. Not that I’m a clotheshorse, but the closets are way too small. I like having the extra space.”