Wild Man Creek (Virgin River #14)(10)

She smiled right back at him. “I know what a general contractor does. So, what does a place like this usually go for?”

“Who knows?” he said. “Put it in Fortuna, maybe seven hundred and fifty thousand. Restored, maybe a million. Lot of rooms in that house but only a couple of baths—I added one small one with a shower to make it three. Put it in a place like Menlo Park or San Jose—three million. Problem with real estate right now—it’s worth whatever you can get.”

“I hear that,” she said. “Listen, I’m going to take off.” She looked at the handkerchief. “I’ll, um, launder this for you.”

“Not to worry. I have a few.”

“I’m going to clean up and come back tomorrow, look through the house, if you’re sure it’s okay.”

“It’s okay. Half the town’s been through the house. They’re real nice about not leaving marks or tracks and that’s appreciated.”

“Gotcha,” she said with a laugh.

“Maybe I’ll swing by, in case you have questions,” he said. “About what time you want to do that?”

She lifted her eyebrows in question. “Nine?”

“Works for me,” he said. “I thought I’d stop by Jack’s Bar and get some eggs out of Preacher first.”

“Oh yeah, I remember him. He’s the cook! Maybe I’ll join you for breakfast.”

“You’d be more than welcome.”

The next morning Jillian got up and put on some of her city clothes, as opposed to the new jeans and sweats she’d been wearing for her days on the river. Even she had to admit the difference, sans mud and tears, was pretty remarkable. She chose pleated slacks, silk tee and linen jacket along with some low heels. From what she knew of this little town, it wasn’t necessary to dress up, but she primped anyway.

And a part of her, a large part, couldn’t wait to get back to work where looking good was as much a part of the job as performing well. She smiled at her reflection and thought, Not bad. Not bad at all.

Over breakfast Paul explained to her that there were still a few things to finish in Hope’s old house, but it had come a long way in the past six months. “We found it stacked to the ceiling with junk and collectibles, but it was in amazingly sound condition for its age. It didn’t take too much restoration—mostly cosmetic work. That’s one big house. Wish I’d had stock in the paint company.”

“What’s your interest in that old house?” Jack asked as he refilled their coffee cups. “Wanna open a bed-and-breakfast?”

“God, no!” she said with a laugh. “Clean up after people? Cook for them? Nah, never! I’m just kind of curious. I grew up in an old house with a big garden out back—though the house was much smaller. But it had porches, a big yard, big kitchen…. When my great-grandmother died my sister and I sold it. It wasn’t near where either of us lived and worked. It made absolutely no sense to keep it, but I always regretted that it was gone. My great-grand-mother had lived in that house since she was a teenager who was brought from France to marry a man she’d never met! She was half-French, half-Russian, and that was the way things were done then. Then she and her husband—who died long before I was born—lived there. It was her one-and-only home in this country and she nurtured it.”

They chatted for a few more minutes and then when it was time to leave, Jack decided he wanted to tag along; he hadn’t checked on the house in a good week.

Even though the house was immense from the outside, it didn’t quite prepare Jillian for the inside, which was huge and beautiful. This was the second time she’d actually been in the house; for the first time it was void of furniture and people.

Right inside the front door was what they used to refer to as a front room. Past it was the dining room; to the left a staircase and farther left on the other side of the staircase, a sitting room. The walls were textured and painted pale yellow, trimmed in white. Upstairs were three bedrooms, a large bathroom with claw-foot tub and pedestal sink, and a sunroom that stretched the length of the house over the back porch. On the third floor, two bedrooms, one medium-sized bath and what would now be referred to as a loft—a big open space between the bedrooms at the top of the stairs.

“This area was the attic and the two bedrooms were partially finished—walls up, but that’s it. It didn’t take much to finish them,” Paul said. The bedrooms on the third floor had window seats in the turrets and there was a metal spiral staircase that led to the roof and a widow’s walk. The widow’s walk was accessed through a door that pushed open easily and stood ajar. The walk was large, probably twelve feet long, but only six feet wide.

“A widow’s walk in a forest?” Jillian asked.

“I don’t know where old Percival came from—he was Hope’s husband—but I bet there was an ocean nearby. This is a sea captain’s house, complete with widow’s walk. And the view is amazing.”

Indeed, Jillian could see over the tops of the trees, down into the valley where there were vineyards. Way out west she could see what had to be sea fog; on the other side of the house she could see a couple of farms, some roads and a piece of the Virgin River. “How much of this land was hers?” Jillian asked.

“Most of the town property belonged to Percival but after he died Hope sold it off. She only kept ten acres,” Jack said. “She said when she was younger she had a couple of vegetable patches that were so big she was a legitimate farmer. When I moved to town and Hope was already in her eighties, she was still gardening in that big plot behind the house.”