“Woodburning?”
“Yes.”
“It could be done, but you’re talking a lot of money. You’d have to build a chimney and the firebox, the mantel. It wouldn’t come cheap.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.” Grace shrugged. “Oh well. It would have been nice, but onward.”
She motioned for him to follow her into the kitchen, where she’d left the sketch on the narrow counter.
“See, I thought if we could take down the wall here”—she pointed to the wall between the kitchen and the powder room—“then remove the closet at the end of the hall and combine it all into one, I could have a bigger kitchen.”
Linc studied her drawing, then nodded. “As long as none of these walls are load bearing, that shouldn’t be a problem. What else?”
“Over here . . .” Taking her carefully drawn plan with her, she gestured for him to follow her across the hall to the back room. “If we take out the wall between this room and the one next to it, I could have a big bedroom, a bathroom, and a walk-in closet.”
“You think you have enough room for all that? How big a bathroom did you want?”
She pointed out on the sketch approximately where she’d like the proposed bath and closet. He walked off the footage he thought she’d need for the bath she had in mind, then nodded. “You’ll have to have access to the closet through the bedroom because you’ll need this wall”—he tapped on it—“for the vanity, but everything else looks good.”
He looked around as if searching for something. “Basement door?”
“I don’t think there is a basement.”
“Which means the house should be on a concrete slab, so the slab carries the weight of the walls, which means we probably won’t have to worry about which walls can and cannot be moved. If in fact that’s the case, we should be able to do pretty much everything you’ve outlined without too much trouble and expense, but we’ll check it out to be sure. The real money is going to be in moving the plumbing and the wiring.”
Grace walked across the hall into the kitchen.
“Any idea when the house was built?” he asked as he followed.
She shook her head. “No. I never thought to ask Liddy. I thought maybe her husband—ex-husband—built it because he used it for his insurance business, but I don’t know if that’s true. The main house, where Liddy lives, is pretty old, so if this place was built around the same time—maybe sometime in the eighteen hundreds?—it’s older than it looks. I’ll see her tomorrow, and I’ll ask her if she knows. Does it make a difference?”
“If some of the wiring is really old, as in knob and tube—you know what that is?”
Grace nodded. “My grandmother’s house—the house my mom bought on Cottage Street—was built in the mid–eighteen hundreds. I remember seeing those white thingies when my sister and I used to play in the attic.”
“Those white thingies—the porcelain knobs—are connected by wires enclosed in rubber tubing. Over time, the rubber can dry out and become brittle, and split, which can become a fire hazard. Some insurance companies won’t insure a property that still has knob and tube.”
“Jim—Liddy’s ex—sold insurance, so I’m pretty sure he’d have known all that. Other than Jim using this building as an office, I don’t know the history of the place.”
“No big deal. We’ll know when we start taking walls down. How soon did you want to start?”
“As soon as possible. I can’t wait to move in.”
“So no pressure,” he deadpanned.
“None.” She smiled. “Oh, I almost forgot. The outside needs work.” She opened the back door and held it for Linc. Once outside, she pointed around the patio. “I would like this all cleaned up. The weeds pulled out from between the stones, the grass cut.”
“I can give you the name of a landscaper if you want,” he told her. “Our guys don’t cut grass.”
“Oh.” For the second time since Linc arrived, Grace felt herself go red. “Sorry. I was thinking out loud. Of course you don’t do that sort of work. Actually, looking at it now, there’s no reason I can’t do this myself.”
“How much ground comes with the house?” he asked, graciously ignoring her evident embarrassment.
“I don’t know. Liddy said it’s on a separate lot from the rest of her property. I do know the house has a pond.” She pointed straight ahead. “You can see the cattails from here, but they’re hiding the pond itself.”
“Nothing like a water view.”
“I guess you’d know, living on an island.”
“Yeah, there’s no getting away from it. Water views from every window.” He paused. “You might want to consider a screened-in porch if you’re thinking about spending any amount of time sitting out here. So close to the pond, mosquitoes will be a problem in the summer.”
Unconsciously, Grace scratched her arm. “Okay, add it to the list, maybe as a separate price.”
“Sure.” He was still looking at the back of the property. “You’re probably going to want to hire someone to come in with a tractor to mow down all that tall grass.”
“I couldn’t do it with a regular lawn mower?”
“It would be tough. The grass is high and thick. Plus you don’t know what’s living there. Besides snakes, that is.”
“What makes you think there are snakes?”
“For one thing, you’re bound to have rodents—field rats and mice—snakes’ favorite food group.”
Grace eyed the grassy field with trepidation. “I’m not much of a snake fan. You really think . . . ?”
He knelt and pulled something long and transparent from the grassy section behind her. “Shredded skin. I’m thinking black snake because I haven’t seen a garter snake this long in a long time. This has gotta be five feet.” He held it up. “Almost as tall as you.”
She felt the blood drain from her face. The thought of a snake of such size so close to her house—right by her kitchen door!—sent a shudder through her.
“They won’t bother you,” Linc assured her. “They’d be more scared of you than you are of them.”
“No way would that be possible.”
“They won’t harm you, I promise.” He glanced at his watch. “Was there anything else you wanted me to look at?”
“I’d like the exterior painted and a front porch added on. That’s it, I guess.”
“Let’s take a walk around front and you can show me what you have in mind.” He took a few steps toward the corner of the house, then stopped. He held up the snakeskin. “Did you want this?”
Was he serious? “Why would I want that?”
“It’s kind of cool.”
“Not in my world.” When she mock shuddered, Linc laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling. And dear God in heaven . . . the man had a dimple in his right cheek. She cleared her throat. “You’re welcome to it.”
“Thanks.”
“Please. No need to thank me. I’m happy I don’t have to dispose of it.”