The Homewreckers(32)

Finally, there was a light knock on the trailer door. “Hattie? You decent?”

“Come on in,” she called.

Trae Bartholomew filled the doorway. He was taller than she’d expected, probably six-four. Separately, his features weren’t extraordinary. He had toffee-colored hair, startling, deep-set blue eyes, a golden California tan, a long face, and a pronounced, square jaw that was bristling with just a stylish eighth-inch of stubble. But taken together, he was startlingly, head-turningly gorgeous.

He wore white jeans and a silk shirt stretched across a chest so taut and muscled that Hattie instinctively tucked in what little tummy she possessed.

“Hattie!” he exclaimed, stepping forward and taking her hand in both of his. “At last!”

“At last,” she murmured. “So nice to meet you.”

“I can’t wait to see this house of yours,” Trae said. “Mo’s been telling me all about the potential.”

“It’s got potential, all right,” Hattie agreed. “Along with lots and lots of problems.”

Trae rubbed the palms of his hands together. “Let’s go.”

He stood in front of the house, studying it. “Kind of a weird little place, isn’t it? I mean, is it even two thousand square feet? I find it odd that it takes up so little room on what’s obviously a very large, waterfront lot. The first thing I’m seeing is wings, jutting out from either side of this porch, maybe with some board and batten siding. Then, on the second floor, we’ll do some dormers.…”

“No.” Hattie shook her head. “Absolutely not.”

“But it’s so dinky and stunted. So … insignificant,” Trae protested. “It’s crying out for some kind of grand gesture.” He whipped a pen and a rolled-up sketchbook from the back pocket of his jeans and began drawing.

“Did Mo mention that we’re on an incredibly tight budget?” Hattie asked, an edge creeping into her voice.

“Yes, but…”

“Grand gestures cost grands. Hundreds of grands, and we don’t have that kind of money. Plus, we’re operating under strict historic preservation guidelines. We can’t expand the house’s footprint. At all.”

“We’ve only got six weeks to shoot,” Mo added.

“Guidelines,” Trae said dismissively. “They’re just that. A guide. I’ve never met a set of regulations that I couldn’t ease around.”

“Code enforcement officers are gonna be watching us like hawks,” Hattie said, bristling. “If they catch us ‘easing around’ their regs, they could shut us down.”

“If they catch us,” Trae said.

She led him through the house, trying not to take his criticisms personally.

“Well,” he said, standing in the living room, “at least the proportions in here are workable.”

He stuck his head in the doorway of the downstairs bedroom. “A king-size bed won’t fit in here. And what’s with that toy sink in the corner?”

“This is typical vernacular beach cottage architecture of the twenties, when the house was built. The sink’s there because there’s only one bathroom, so folks could brush their teeth and wash up before bed,” Hattie told him.

Trae looked stunned. “You’re telling me there’s no en suite bath for the master bedroom?”

“That’s right.” Hattie walked into the room and pulled open a narrow closet door. “This room backs up to a sort of mudroom on the back porch. But I was thinking, we could steal some square footage from that, and do away with this closet. The bathroom on the second floor is directly above here, so there’s that. We squeeze in a shower stall, commode, and sink, and voila, that gives us a master suite.”

“No closet?”

“It’s a beach house,” Hattie told him. “We’ll put a row of pegs on the wall. And if absolutely necessary, I bet we can find an antique armoire to fit between those two windows.”

“I guess that could work,” Trae said. “Let’s see the other bathroom.”

Mo and Hattie exchanged a meaningful glance that didn’t escape notice from the designer. “What?”

“It’s uh … pretty bad,” Hattie said. “Don’t say we didn’t warn you.”



* * *



Trae backed slowly away from the bathroom, squarely bumping into one of the kitchen counters. “Who puts a bathroom in a kitchen?” he sputtered. “And then decides, ‘hey, let’s put the washer and dryer in there too.’”

“Don’t worry, it’s all going away,” Hattie assured him. “We’ll move it to a new laundry room on the back porch and bump the kitchen into this space.”

Mo sensed Hattie’s growing impatience. “Any thoughts about the kitchen, Trae? We’ve got an advertiser that’s a cabinet manufacturer. They’ll supply all the cabinetry as a trade-off, and we’ll get the appliances from Build-All. They’re a big chain of building suppliers in the Southeast. So we’ve got a little room in the budget in here.”

“Offhand?” Trae flicked a bit of plaster from the yellow Formica countertop. “A stick of dynamite and a match is the only thing that can help.”