His expression never changed. “I’m Jack,” he said tersely, then eyed her for a long moment. “Is it just you moving in?”
“Yes.”
“You smoke?”
She blinked. “No.”
“Good. Sinbad,” he called. When the dog didn’t move his head from her middle, Jack whistled sharply. Sinbad whipped his head around to look at his owner. “Come on, time to come home now.” His tone was gruff, matching his expression.
Sinbad paused to look up at her, his mouth opening in a doggy grin, then turned and loped back to his house, trotting up the wooden steps to access the back porch. Jack waited for him, then turned away and started back inside without another word to her.
She smothered a snort. “Nice to meet you,” she called out, annoyed.
“Yeah,” he muttered, lifting a hand a moment before he disappeared inside with his dog.
Wow, okay then. She turned for the wooden staircase leading to her own back porch, squelching the sinking sensation in her stomach.
No. Stop. Just because her neighbor and most others she’d met so far didn’t seem to really want her here didn’t mean this whole thing was a mistake. Or that pulling up stakes and moving as far across the country as she could on a whim was a bad idea.
Unless this was yet another of her colossal mistakes and she wasn’t aware of it yet. She was an expert at making those.
As soon as she thought it, she shook it off. She’d cut all her ties back home. There was nothing for her there but the toxic waste she’d left behind. She had to pull up her big girl panties and make the most of this unexpected opportunity Harry had offered her.
Taking a deep breath, she entered her house off the second story porch. The amount of work yet to be done dampened her excitement a little, but she refused to let it take hold and ruin her fragile happiness. She had enough money to cover the main repairs needed, and she could handle the interior painting and other small jobs on her own. Besides, the best part wasn’t the house itself, but what lay beyond it.
Out on the covered back verandah, she set her hands on the freshly painted railing and sighed at the incredible view before her. Scary as this change was, she still wanted to pinch herself to make sure this was real.
That this could be her house, and no one could take it from her. That she could fall asleep and wake up to the sound of the waves washing onto the beach, and the cry of the gulls. That she got to sit out here in the morning with her coffee and breathe in the salty breeze, or enjoy a cup of decaf tea in her own slice of heaven before bedtime.
All because of the man who’d believed in her when no one else had. Even herself.
Especially herself.
She teared up at the thought of dear Uncle Harry, a spike of loneliness hitting her. He’d done so much for her, when he hadn’t owed her a thing. He’d given her this unbelievable gift, and her only consolation was that she’d brought him happiness in his last years.
He had wanted this for her. For her to be happy.
Staring out at the endless ocean, she blinked the tears away and pulled herself together. “Thank you, Harry. I’m going to be okay here.”
Maybe if she told herself that often enough, it would come true.
****
“The number you have dialed is no longer in service,” the recorded female voice said through the phone.
“Dammit, the bitch’s lawyer blocked me too!” Steven tossed his phone onto the kitchen counter in disgust. This was unbelievable. Every attempt to find Aspen this past week had failed, nobody seemed to know where the fuck she was, and now this.
“Are you surprised?” his wife asked without looking up from where she was prepping some kind of salad at the center island.
He shot her an annoyed look. “He thinks if they ignore us long enough, we’ll go away. But we won’t, and neither will this whole bullshit situation. I’m gonna make sure of it.”
Gina didn’t answer, busy chopping up a pile of pistachios in their now sterile, cold kitchen. She loved this house as much as he did. More, even. They’d spent more than a year looking for the perfect property, and poured everything into making their dream come true. Hearts, souls…and all their finances.
Four months ago, they’d been forced to start selling off all their art and antiques, anything of real value to try and pay back their creditors—some of them less than understanding and now posing real threats of bodily harm or worse. The house didn’t feel the same anymore. It was like living in a mausoleum, their once stunning home stripped bare down to its bones.
Steven dragged a hand through his hair. They were hanging onto this place by a thread already. If he didn’t fix this thing soon, he was going to explode. “I’m going over to see if she’s home, and talk to her right now.” She hadn’t been home when he’d stopped by twice before this, but he was too frustrated to sit and do nothing, and it was a logical starting point.
“She’s not gonna see you, whether she’s home or not.”
He’d fucking make her see him. Make her see reason. They were family, and what she’d done was wrong. She had to help him out.
He stalked to the door, grabbed his keys, then stopped. Bowing his head, he pushed out a long, slow breath. None of this was Gina’s fault. Snapping at her had been wrong. She’d never show it, but she was sensitive. He needed to apologize.
She was still at the island prepping her lunch when he stepped up behind her to wrap his arms around her waist and rest his chin on her shoulder. She froze, knife poised in her hand as she waited. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, squeezing her. “I was being a dick.”
She set the knife down. “Yeah, you were.”
He kissed the side of her neck, inhaling the intoxicating scent of her perfume. She was down to her last bottle of it, only a scant half-inch remaining in the bottle. “I love you.”
Gina turned to stare up at him, a slow smile spreading across her face, lighting her eyes. “I love you too.”
He kissed her, stroked her, enjoyed the hum of desire that traveled through his body, centering in the erection swelling against the front of his jeans. She laughed softly and reached between them to squeeze him, giving a little rub with her palm that made him flex into her hand. “Hold that thought for when you’re ready to do something with that other than tease me,” she whispered.
“As soon as I’m back,” he promised, and headed out to his car. In spite of his lighter mood, he’d worked himself back into boiling anger by the time he’d reached Aspen’s place twenty minutes later. A shabby little apartment complex in an area of Sacramento he wouldn’t be caught dead in.
He strode up the sidewalk to the front door, struggling to tamp down his anger and focus on the arguments he had laid out in his mind. The judge’s decision was bullshit, and everyone knew it. He had to make Aspen give him back what was his, by whatever means necessary. If she didn’t, he’d lose everything.
He focused his anger and frustration on Aspen. That conniving little bitch knew this was wrong on every level, that it was horrifically unfair. And yet she’d done nothing to rectify it, happy to snap up whatever she could from a senile old man like the manipulative gold-digger she was.
But when Steven scanned the tenant list posted on the stucco wall outside the building, she wasn’t on the board. He read the whole thing again just to make sure. But no. Definitely not listed anymore. Dammit. What, had she moved already?