As we approached the house, my breath hitched at the sight unfolding before me. How had this happened in the span of the seven hours I’d been gone?
There was already scaffolding along the second level where the bedrooms were located and long pieces of plywood lined the spot where the crooked, caving steps leading to the front porch once were.
The porch steps had a temporary railing made of two-by-fours attached to them, making it easier to cling as I avoided the pratfalls on my way up to the front door.
“I see my guy’s here. Good show.”
I looked at the big 4x4 truck parked down at the end of what I prayed was a driveway and pushed the door open, stepping into the entryway with a gasp. “Who is this guy?” I murmured.
“Only the best in the business. He did some incredible renovations for a friend. He’s a bloody miracle worker.”
“I’ll say,” I muttered as I looked into the previously debris-filled parlor, now cleared entirely. A fire glowed in the fireplace, and there was a lone wingback chair alongside the hearth with the once three-legged table propped up next to it.
Hammering from somewhere else in the house had me off to investigate.
“Hello?” I called, making my way out of the parlor and down the entryway hall to the kitchen—or what I’d secretly referred to as Nightmare on Samantha Lane.
As I rounded the corner, I caught sight of the alleged miracle worker, his overalls covered in sheetrock dust and paint, his dark hair sprouting from a Yankees cap as he studied the wall between the kitchen and the dining room.
Holding out my hand, I approached him from behind. “Hello? I’m Stevie Cartwright. You are?”
“The guy who’s about to drain your bank account dry,” he said in a heavy New York accent. Then he chuckled at his own joke. Dropping the hammer, he turned around and wiped his hand on the bib of his overalls, offering it to me. “Name’s Enzo. Good to meet ya.”
As we shook hands, I caught my first real glimpse of the kitchen. It was enormous, but gone were the cabinets falling off the walls and the avocado-colored fridge, now replaced with a small temporary fridge.
The countertops were completely wiped out, totally removed but for one where Enzo had covered it with more plywood and placed a shiny microwave and coffeepot. The windows on the opposite end of the room, tall and elegant, sprawled the wall from the base of the window seat to almost the top of the ceiling.
My heart melted when I saw the view. Mountains dipped in snow crested the dark purple and bruised-blue skyline; the Sound below them rose and fell in gray, choppy waves. In the summer, I imagined, there’d be colorful sails on boats, bobbing past me as I had my morning coffee while a warm summer breeze wafted in, and for the first time in a month or so, I smiled at the pleasurable peace the vision brought me.
Rejuvenated, I turned back to Enzo. “First, thank you for cleaning some of the debris out and getting the fireplace going. It almost felt like home when I walked in. Second, have you worked out estimates for me?”
Enzo nodded and pointed to the plywood countertop next to the microwave, where a ream of paper sat, before he went back to hammering out the wall between the kitchen and the formal dining room.
Surely he was kidding. I crossed the room and lifted the first page of the thick manifesto, where it listed a breakdown of the costs involved in renovating just the kitchen. My mouth fell open.
“Enzo?”
Without missing a beat, he grunted, “Uh-yup?”
“This can’t be right.” I held up the paper with the estimate for the kitchen.
“Nope. It’s right.” He went back to hammering as though I hadn’t questioned his sanity.
“Your guy is a shyster, Winterbottom,” I muttered, in case Win had decided to join me.
He gasped in that squealing way he used when mocking me. “How can you say that? Enzo’s the best in the business. He’s worth every penny.”
“Of sixty thousand dollars?”
“Sculptures of David urinating coffee and champagne waterfalls cost the earth. Didn’t you know that?”
I began furiously flipping through the pages to see just how much a fountain costs. “You are not putting a champagne waterfall in the kitchen. Are you?”
Was he?
“Why aren’t I shocked to find a waterfall disturbs you far more than a coffee-urinating sculpture of David?”
“Because coffee is coffee and I don’t care where it comes from.”
Win snickered. “No. But I am putting in a state-of-the-art chef’s package. It’s not cheap to install a wood-fired pizza oven, you know.”
“But I don’t cook. I can’t even make a Pop-Tart. So let’s save some money and go on a cruise or something fun, huh?”
“But I can cook, and I can teach you.”
A thought flashed through my mind at that point. Did Win think he could somehow get back to this plane to use a fancy chef’s package? It made me stop and consider other angles he might have for giving me this house.
“But you don’t need to cook. You can’t eat.”
“But you can.”