“All right. I’ll make up a list of questions and have it to you by tomorrow. Would one day be long enough for you to read them over and have some answers ready?”
“It should be sufficient. If not, I’ll let you know.” He seemed to relax a bit. “Okay. With that business out of the way, can I give you the grand tour?”
Pleased to feel the tension between them leaving, even if she didn’t completely understand why it existed in the first place, Mel agreed. When she struggled to stand, Ryne laughed and grabbed her arm, pulling her up to her feet. The heat from his hand burned through the thin material of her light sweater and she was sure that if she looked, there would be a mark on her skin from the contact. Sneaking a peak at his face, she wondered if he had felt anything unusual, but Ryne was already letting go and was heading towards the door. She hurried after him.
“We put a new roof on as soon as we got here and then had an electrician rewire the place. The plumbing in the kitchen, my bathroom downstairs and one of the upstairs baths has been redone, but not the laundry room.” He called the information over his shoulder as he headed towards the back of the house. “Right now I’m working on the kitchen.”
Mel found herself in a large spacious room. The floors were old worn beige linoleum and the walls were a hideous shade of pea green. She couldn’t help, but wrinkle her nose at the decor.
Ryne laughed. “Yeah. That’s how I feel too. I have all of the cupboards down and new ones should be arriving later today or tomorrow. New appliances are coming as well. After that I’ll tackle the walls.”
“What about the floor?”
“I was going to go with tile, but then someone told me it’s really cold and hard on your feet, so instead I’m going with hardwood.”
Mel nodded in approval. “It’ll match the rest of the house.” She wandered towards the window and looked out back. The yard was massive, but obviously overgrown. “A bit of a jungle out there, isn’t it?”
“The previous owner, Edith Nelson, was an avid gardener in her day, but apparently the last few years she didn’t feel up to taking care of it anymore so it really got out of hand.” Ryne rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know much about gardens and I have no idea when I’ll find the time to do anything out there. For the time being, it will just have to stay a jungle, I guess.”
“If I lived around here, I’d love to try my hand at that. During one of her many careers, my mother had a little garden centre and I worked there while I was in high school. I don’t know that much about plants but it was still fun. I haven’t had a chance to do anything like that for quite a while. My garden in Chicago consists of some sickly weeds growing between the cracks in the cement. Your yard would be an interesting challenge.”
“And you like challenges, do you?”
“I think you asked me something like that before, and the answer is still yes.”
Ryne gave her a half smile before leading her out of the kitchen to the next room. A fireplace, an arm chair, and a sofa made up the sparse furnishings. “This is technically considered the dining room, but I’m using it as a living room right now, since the real one has drafty windows and broken floorboards at the moment.”
Mel looked around the room with a sense of familiarity. This was the room she’d woken up in during her initial attempt to meet him. “Will you turn it back into a dining room some day? It’s an awfully large space.”
“Well, I hope to have a large...er...family and lots of relatives visiting eventually.” Abruptly, Ryne moved towards the doorway and Mel had to hurry after him.
By time they stopped to discuss different features and his vision for the renovations, it took almost an hour to go through the whole house. If he ever got everything done, it would be an impressive home. She just wondered if he would finish it while still young enough to enjoy the fruits of his labours. Still, he had achieved an impressive amount in the five months that he’d lived here. From the sounds of it, only the wiring and plumbing had been hired out. He and his two friends were planning on doing everything else by themselves. Mel wondered if the other two men were around, since she hadn’t seen nor heard them yet.
By now they were back in the kitchen and Ryne had her sit at the table while he rummaged in the fridge. “Lunch isn’t fancy. Soup, sandwiches and a salad are the best I can do right now with the kitchen torn up like this.”
“That’s fine. You didn’t have to feed me, though. I could have eaten something at the diner in town.”