Hidden Summit (Virgin River #17)(8)

Paul told Leslie that he hadn’t planned to get into the landlord business, but with real estate in a mess and interest rates low, he’d picked up a couple of small foreclosures in town. He planned to sell them when there was a sufficient economic recovery to make money. In the meantime, he rented one of the spruced-up ones to Leslie. It was probably all of a thousand square feet and adorable. And she believed he kept the rent suspiciously low.

“I’ll send someone over in the next couple of weeks to clean up the yard, put down some sod on a couple of bare patches and plant some flowers along the walk,” Paul told her. “When it dries out a little bit, I’m planning to pour a new drive and put up a decent covered carport with some storage. This March rain will give way to sunshine before you know it. And when you see spring here, you’ll have trouble catching your breath, it’s that beautiful.”

The small two bedroom did have an inviting feel on this quiet and welcoming little street. The houses that lined each side were all simple, unpretentious little structures, some in better repair than others, but it had the feel of a neighborhood in need of one more good neighbor, and that was all she asked.

“Let me plant the flowers,” she said. “It’ll help me settle in. I’ve always wanted to keep a little garden, but between work and then apartment living…”

“You do anything you want, Les,” he said. “Treat it like it’s yours.”

“I’ll take you up on the sod and driveway, if you feel like it. That would be nice—a place other than the street to park.”

“Consider it done,” he said.

If Leslie had worried that Paul’s wife would pity her, running away from her job in Grants Pass to escape her humiliating divorce, she would’ve been wasting her time. The reason for her being in Virgin River never even came up over dinner. Rather, Vanni really was grateful that Paul was finally getting some full-time help from someone who had worked for him before and knew the business. And the fact that she was an old friend of the Haggerty family as well, made it even better.

When Leslie settled into bed in her little rented house that night, she felt more relaxed than she had in what seemed like years. And she knew exactly why—it was the distance between her and her past. Tomorrow, when she was out and about town, or when she reported to her new job, when she shopped for groceries or treated herself to a glass of wine at Jack’s, she would not run into Greg or Allison or any of their former friends. She might as well be on another continent.

In the morning when she woke, she went out onto her front porch in her robe, a cup of coffee cradled in her hands. The tops of the trees were still lost in the early-morning mist that blanketed the little town, but she could hear voices—neighbors shouting hello, cars just starting up, children laughing and yelling, probably on their way to school or to the bus stop. It was still very early. By the time she was showered and dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt over a white collared blouse, the sun was struggling to break through.

Paul had told her not to dress up, that the trailer where he kept his office was pretty rugged. She’d usually worn business attire, either skirts or slacks, to the Haggerty Construction office. In the course of a typical day she’d run into salesmen, customers, decorators, investors and developers. Paul told her the only people she was likely to run into besides himself in that trailer were crew.

She took a cup of coffee along for the ride as she followed his directions. And there it was, the trailer, sitting on a large lot that held two houses in progress. It was actually a single-wide mobile home; she assumed the bedrooms would be offices and that there would be a kitchen and bathroom.

There was one truck parked at the trailer, and it wasn’t Paul’s. She glanced at her watch. Seven forty-five. In the construction world, that was late. Not for the office staff, of course, but the crew usually got started as soon as they had light. Here she’d been trying to impress him by being early, and there didn’t seem to be anyone here to impress.

Inside she found a man seated at what would pass for a kitchen table—a big slab of plywood balanced on sawhorses. He had a cup of coffee and appeared to be leafing through plans, but stood as she entered. “Hi,” he said. “I’m Dan Brady, one of Paul’s foremen. He went to meet a crew at another job and asked me to hang out until you got here. Make yourself at home. His office is down the hall,” he said, pointing. “He must be putting you in the room next to that because there’s a desk in there. It’s old and kind of dirty and you might have to clean it up and maybe put a shim under one leg of it, but it hasn’t been spoken for. Must be yours.” He put out his hand.

She felt herself smile. The whole place was a wreck, messy and mud-tracked. There was a thirty-cup coffeemaker on the kitchen counter, covered with fingerprints. That would explain the tracking of mud. “I’m Leslie Petruso. Let me guess, the guys grab a cup of coffee in here.” And then she took his hand in greeting.

“Especially when it’s cold. When it’s nice out, they’re more likely to take a break sitting on the back of their trucks or something. It looks a little worse than usual, what with the rain. I hope you’re not completely disgusted.”

She laughed. “I’ve been working for a construction company for ten years now, so every now and then I did have to visit a job site. Nice to meet you, Dan.”

He indicated her cup with a jut of his chin. “Can I warm that up for you?”