Temptation Ridge (Virgin River #6)(9)

It didn’t have a good smell, either. Everything was left as it was the day Mr. Chapman passed—the bed was even mussed as though he’d just gotten out of it. Dirty clothes littered the floor, there was rotten and petrified food in the kitchen, all the furniture was still in place. Nasty, musty, stained furniture that was on its very last legs. The appliances also seemed to be about a million years old and the refrigerator had never been cleaned out before the electricity was shut off. It was completely destroyed by odors that would have to be blasted out.

Right inside the front door was a decent-size living room with a good-looking stone hearth. To the immediate left was a large, empty dining room separated from the kitchen by a breakfast bar that was sagging. The kitchen was big enough for a table and four chairs or, better still, a butcher-block island.

Straight ahead was a short hall—on one side a big bathroom with a clawfoot tub, on the other, a utility room. Straight ahead was a bedroom. No walk-in closet here—this was an old-fashioned house. The old man had left large, man-size bureaus and wardrobes. The bed was a big, wooden four-poster. Luke didn’t much like the furniture, but he thought since it was solid, heavy, durable ash, it was probably valuable.

He made a U-turn and went back to the living room. There he found a staircase to the second floor. He went up cautiously, not sure of the reliability of the steps. Plus, it was dark up there. If he remembered, there were two good-size bedrooms and no bath. More scurrying. He ran back down the steps. He could look up there after the exterminator had paid a visit.

Standing in the living room, he did a mental inventory. The good news was, it didn’t appear the place had to be gutted and completely remodeled to make it livable. The bad news was, what had to be done was going to be expensive and time consuming. Everything but the ash bedroom furniture needed to go away. Far away. It wasn’t even up to secondhand standards. The floors would have to be sanded, the cupboards torn out and replaced, new countertops would have to be installed, the old wallpaper stripped, windowsills, doors, frames, baseboards sanded and stained, or maybe just replaced.

But first, the amount of trash hauling and pest removal was going to be a giant pain in the butt. At least this was work he could do, with the help of an exterminator. He’d inspect the roof later.

He walked out of the house and pried open the door to the first cabin. More of the same. The furniture was rotting, the floor was covered with debris. The cabins were all one-room efficiencies that hadn’t been used in years, so the small stoves and bar-size refrigerators were outdated and probably didn’t work. He was good with wood and paint, but he didn’t trust himself with gas and electricity. He was looking at six empty cabins, all in need of new hot-water heaters, stoves, refrigerators and furniture. He’d have to get up on the roofs and see how they had held up through the years, but from where he stood, it looked as though the shingles were mostly missing or rotting. And the wood on the outside of the cabins, all in need of scraping, sanding and painting. Every window would have to be replaced.

He did a mental calculation. It was nearly September. From January to June, before the summer people came for camping and hiking, things were slow and wet around this part of the world. If he could get the house and cabins in shape by spring, he could put them on the market or open them up for rent to vacationers. If it turned out he was bored with the mountains by then, he’d lock the whole business up and make tracks to either San Diego, where his brother Aiden was stationed and there was plenty of beach and swimsuits, or to Phoenix, where his widowed mother lived and would be forever grateful for his presence. He could always chase a flying job if he wanted to.

He unhooked the camper from the truck, unloaded his Harley from the truck bed and parked it up on its stand in front of the house. He grabbed a pair of work gloves, broom and shovel from the bed of the truck, got his toolbox out of the trailer and began scooping out the house. He could at least fill the back of the trunk with trash and, on his way to Eureka to have the utilities turned on, hire an exterminator and rent a big Dumpster; he could also dispose of a big load at the dump.

By noon he had a huge pile of trash in front of the porch. He got to work on loading the trash into the back of the pickup. The bright afternoon sun had warmed up the air and he was sweating like a farmhand, so he took off his shirt. He was just hefting a big three-legged overstuffed chair into the back of the truck when he spotted her. Holding it over his head, he froze.

She was sitting in the clearing astride a big American paint. She smiled at him. Pure, innocent honey. Luke couldn’t move. The horse was beautiful, at least fifteen hands. She was wearing khaki shorts, rolled up high on her tanned thighs, a pair of what appeared to be laced hiking boots with white socks rolled over the tops, a white short-sleeved T-shirt and a khaki fishing vest. With that long, pale blond braid down her back and a Stetson on her head, she could be fifteen, tiny and built solid. The thought that she looked like a statutory offense came instantly to mind and he felt every day of his thirty-eight years.

The horse danced and pawed at the ground, snorted and reared his head, but this little girl in the saddle didn’t even notice. She handled him with ease and finesse.

“I just had to see this for myself,” she said. “You’re doing it. You’re at work on this mess. Wow,” she laughed. “Looks like you’re going to be busy.”

He tossed the chair in the back of the truck and took a rag out of his pocket to mop his sweating face. “Maybe you can’t see the potential here,” he said. “I’m going to impress you, in that case.”