Page 10 of Finding Hayes
“Yes. I’m an interior designer. I’ve flipped a few homes on the side for myself. But my day job is designing for clients. Or at least, it was. I was working for a big firm in the city. But I lost my job a few weeks ago. So, yeah,” she said, her voice starting to quake again. “My life is a mess. I’m jobless, and I just agreed to let my apartment go at the end of the month because I’m broke.”
“Well, you’ve got a home here now and an inheritance worth plenty of money to cover your expenses in the city,” I said, reaching into the center console for some napkins and handing them to her.
“Yeah, sure. I’ve got it for thirty days, and then they’ll take it all away.” She shrugged.
“Remember the words you painted on your bedroom wall in high school? One day at a time. Isn’t that your mantra?”
She ignored me, staring out the window.
“Come on, Sav. It’s me. You can talk to me. Peas and carrots, remember?”
“Some days are harder than others. And yes, it’s permanently on my skin, so of course, I remember.” She tugged off her pink mitten and held up her wrist for me to see the tiniest tattoo of a carrot there.
I traced my thumb along the ink before she pulled away quickly, sliding her mitten back in place.
“Why’d you lose your job?”
“Because this client was inappropriate with me. He was much older than I was. The guy was married and very wealthy,” shesaid, as she glanced out the window, watching the falling snow. “I told my boss that I wasn’t comfortable working with him, and a week later, I was fired.”
“That’s fucked up. What did the guy do? And why didn’t you sue the asshole for firing you?”
She looked back at me. “I’m tired, Hayes. I don’t want to talk about everything that has gone wrong in my life with a man I barely know anymore. Thank you for the ride.”
Shots fired.
I wasn’t going to remind her that she’d been the one to walk away from me. I’d tried to reach out to her many times after she’d left—an embarrassing number of times. She’d clearly wanted nothing to do with me.
But now wasn’t the time or the place to bring that up. She was grieving the loss of a man she loved.
I pushed out of the truck and grabbed her suitcase from the back seat, just as she was coming around to get her luggage.
“Here, I can take that.”
“I’ve got it,” I said.
“I don’t need your help, Woody!” she shouted. “I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”
“Stop being a stubborn ass. Your car broke down. You have no job. You just inherited millions of dollars and found out that you need to find a husband in the next few weeks. A man you loved is being buried tomorrow.” White snow covered the top of her head, and I leaned forward. “You. Need. Help. Let me carry your goddamn bag inside and make sure the heat is working, and then I’ll leave.”
She whipped around and huffed toward the front door.
“The driveway hasn’t been shoveled, so it’s probably pure ice,” I grumped, just as she lost her footing and started skidding toward the front porch.
But in typical Savannah fashion, she righted herself, did some sort of spin, and then threw her hands in the air like she was saluting the judges after a skating routine. “Remember that time I wanted to be a professional ice skater?”
I chuckled as she made her way up the steps and paused when she got to the door, searching for the right key. It was dark and difficult to see, so I pulled my phone out and turned on the flashlight.
“Thank you,” she said, as she put the key in the door and pushed it open.
She flipped on the lights, and I was surprised that it was warm inside, but the place was a mess. Her eyes widened as she took it in. The old wallpaper throughout the entry was faded and peeling, and several wood floorboards had been pulled up. I followed her deeper into the house, and when she turned the lights on in the kitchen, she groaned. There were dirty dishes piled in the sink, the oven was old and rusted, and the whole place appeared to be in a time warp. Renovating would be a huge undertaking.
“Well, at least it’s sort of a blank canvas. Everything needs to be redone.”
“Are you sure you’re okay staying out here alone?”
“In this mansion?” She quirked a brow and chuckled. “Yeah. It’s warm, and the electricity works, which is more than I can say about my apartment in the city at the moment. I’ll be fine. Thank you for the ride.”
I nodded, feeling uncomfortable about her staying out here alone. It might be grand, but it was a fucking mess.
