Or it could have been Slade’s breath. He was right behind her. But that would have been a pleasurable skim.
The house was poorly lit, leaving shadows in the hall and up the stairwell.
The twins stared at her. They sat on the couch sharing an iPad. Dirty dinner dishes staked out space on the cluttered coffee table, surrounded by a line of cups with various levels of different beverages in them, as if the twins had changed their mind several times about what they wanted to drink.
There was a stack of business magazines next to a brown leather wing-backed chair, the kind of chair you saw in pictures of exclusive men’s clubs, places where they smoked cigars and drank bourbon straight. A stuffed lion the size of a Great Dane sat in a corner, the one spot of energy in an otherwise drained room.
Oh, boy. He’d let her inside. She had to follow through. But that didn’t mean she had to give the depressing house power. “Girls, if this house ever seems too creepy, you’ll have to tell your dad. None of that subtle twin speak. I want full-on hand waving, moonlight-madness screaming. Are you on board?”
They nodded their heads solemnly.
“First off, let’s open the windows and get some air in here. It’s cooled off outside and there’s a breeze blowing.” She dumped her bag on an empty corner of the curved-legged, low coffee table and made for the front windows. She had to walk behind the tan velour couch to reach them. Cobwebs brushed over her bare calves. She yanked open the rose-colored drapes, dousing herself in a shower of dust.
“I’m sorry. Do you live here?” Slade. Angry.
Christine chuckled, but she was pretty darn desperate to get some fresh air into the house and not be bitten by a spider. She struggled with the first window. “When was the last time these windows were open?”
“Eight years ago.”
That creeped-out feeling made way for a bit of sadness. What had happened here that Slade knew how long the windows had been shut? “Okay, girls, raise your hands with me. Your dad’s freaking me out. How about you?”
That too-brief stereo sound was definitely a contained couple of giggles.
The twins raised their hands.
Slade came to stand next to her. His hip gently bumping her out of the way so he could open the window.
One window up and the breeze rushed in. It might have been Christine’s imagination, but the house seemed to sigh in relief.
Soon Slade had all four windows in the front room open. A cool breeze was lifting the curtains gently, as if even the wind knew change had to come slowly.
* * *
“WE GOT A LOT done tonight,” Christine said to Slade as he walked her home. “With the cuts we came up with, we can afford to arrange for storage in town. And the way you recalculated those columns in your head got us there that much quicker. Thanks for letting me in.”
Slade made a noncommittal sound. He hated that Christine had been in the house, hated more that she’d opened the windows. That house was his penance. He didn’t want anyone, including Christine and the girls, coming in and making it seem livable.
“It’s kind of odd.” Christine could talk nonstop, and generally did, punctuating her words with smiles and a swing of her hair as she twisted to look at him, “I feel as if I’ve known you forever.”