“Oh, that’s great. I’ve got an appointment at one and then I’ll be home to see them. I’m so happy for you.”
“Thanks, Lacey,” Bess said and handed the phone back to Maeve.
“How did the appointment go, anyway?” Maeve asked.
“Fantastic.”
“You sealed the deal? She’s listing it with you?”
“Well, no. But she is handing out my info to a bunch of her friends.”
“That’s a step in the right direction,” Maeve offered optimistically.
“I know. Fingers crossed. I’ll see you this afternoon.”
***
Maeve hung up her cell as she and Bess walked up the path to her house. Opening the door, she glanced at Bess. “Do you think you can put your feet up for a bit before you go to work?”
“Yeah, I think I’ll take about fifteen minutes.”
Maeve’s concerned gaze followed Bess up the staircase. She really did work too hard, Maeve thought, wishing she could think of a way to help that wouldn’t damage Bess’s pride.
Letting out a sigh, Maeve turned to look at the hole in the wall and the men working just outside of it. Her expression warmed, envisioning it. Her solarium. The bright sunlight would glimmer in through skylights, with upturned blooms soaking in the rays.
She imagined herself, feet up on the sofa in the living room, sipping a glass of Chianti in the afternoon and reading a bestseller as the exotic scents of rare flowers wafted through the French doors.
Her solarium.
Her solarium filled with toxic plants.
The timing couldn’t be worse.
Feeling deflated, she walked over to the ominous hole in the wall and leaned against the side of it, ignored by the workmen as they hauled away pieces of drywall and old insulation.
What if? A little voice prodded in her brain, sounding scarily like her grandmother. What if she were to put up solid walls around her solarium? Solid walls instead of glass. And maybe skip the skylights—the darn things just leaked all the time, anyway. Perhaps a set of paned windows across the far wall.
It wouldn’t be a solarium, that’s for certain. But a nice extra room. Small, but large enough for a crib, a changing table, and a dresser. She could install one of those cute chandeliers with tiny crystals and porcelain butterflies that she saw in that exclusive store in upper Northwest DC.
She’d paint the room pink, of course. Perhaps put a chair molding along the walls and do the lower side in a brighter hue.
Later, she could convert it into an office. It would be nice to have a separate home office one day rather than always using the kitchen table. She’d bet that would add more resale value to her house than a solarium, and made a mental note to confirm that with Lacey.
A baby’s room. Could she make room for that in her house? In her life? For a child who wasn’t even her own?
She eyed the foreman as he passed the gaping hole. “Hey, Rob? Can I talk to you a minute?”
CHAPTER TEN
Mick had slept on piles of rubble. He had marched across deserts in scorching heat carrying an eighty-pound rucksack on his back, not knowing if the day might be his last. He had felt the burn of shrapnel ripping into his flesh, and carried a near-dead body three miles over his shoulder, even while his fatigues were drenched in blood.
But at this moment, wedged underneath a bathroom sink with the base of the cabinet ramming mercilessly into his back and a drip soaking his head, Mick couldn’t imagine anything less comfortable.
The plumber’s wrench slipped again against the slick wet pipe, jamming his finger. He let out a salty curse more appropriate on a ship, then remembered his manners. “Sorry, Mrs. B.”
“That’s quite all right, dear. But do please give it up. I told you I was going to call a plumber.”
“No,” Mick said sharply. He had taken on this task—this battle—and he was not about to let the leaky pipe win.
“If you insist,” she sighed, sitting alongside him on the toilet, top-down. “I certainly didn’t intend for you to fix my leaky faucet when I invited you over for lunch.”
“I know,” he said through his clenched teeth. “It should be a simple fix, though. Besides, that turkey club was worth it.”
“I worry about you not eating well, Mick. You, by yourself all the time. You should be settled down by now, eating a nice meal with a family.”
The wrench slipped again, followed by the necessary curses. This time, he felt less apologetic. “Sure, and probably deciding how to drop the news that I’ll be gone to sea another six months, or how to tell my wife that we have to pull the kids out of school and move to the other side of the country. Yeah, not for me.”