Read Flipped! (Spinning Hills Romance 1) Online

Authors: Inés Saint

Tags: #Romantic Comedy, #Contemporary, #Romance, #Fiction, #Forever Love, #Adult, #Bachelor, #Single Woman, #Spinning Hills, #Ohio, #Town History, #Small Town, #Amador Brothers, #Community, #Hammer & Nails, #Renovating Houses, #Perfumer, #Military Brat, #Ramshackle House, #Craftsman Style, #Young Daughter, #Single Mother, #Real Estate Flipper, #Outbid, #Auction, #Family Tradition, #Neighbors, #Optimism, #Fairy Tale Ending, #Dream House, #Quirky, #Line Streets, #Old-Fashion Town, #Settling Down, #Houseful Of Love, #Flipped!

Flipped! (Spinning Hills Romance 1) (19 page)

BOOK: Flipped! (Spinning Hills Romance 1)
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“Would you like to sit down a little while?” Holly offered, gesturing to the couch.
“I think your couch must have some sort of spell with my name on it. I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time on it,” he said, sitting down.
Holly sat down, too, and gently pulled his head onto her lap. The move was so unexpected, a lump formed in his chest as he lay there. Her hand began smoothing his hair, and he felt her touch tighten that lump.
Stanley hopped onto his chest, and Dan patted his coat. Holly ran her fingers through his hair, smoothed his eyebrows, and ran her thumb along the lines in his forehead. Little by little, the lump disappeared.
“Would you like to talk, or do you need silence?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
Her touch became fluttery, less steady. “Would you like me to call Sam or Johnny?”
“No.” Truth be told, he didn’t want to leave the comfort of Holly’s touch. Numbness melted into pain, the pain comforting in its own way. “What did you and Claire talk about over the phone? How did you know her husband was sick?”
He watched as Holly licked her lips. Her hand was still unsteady, her breath equally so. Dan grabbed hold of her hand, placed it over his chest, and covered it with both his hands.
“She said her husband had been in the hospital awhile and it had taken a toll on her. It’s why she didn’t get back to Debbie right away, but she needed the money. Toward the end of the conversation I learned her husband had had a bad bout with pneumonia and he was getting better, but he complained a lot.”
“Maybe she needs the money to leave him,” he scoffed. “Did she seem worried?” Holly’s hands went clammy and he squeezed them. “Tell me.”
“Um, well, it was odd because before then, the whole conversation had been about her. About everything she did for him, how hard it was, how everyone admired her.” Holly hesitated again. “I mean, I’m not saying—I don’t know what I’m saying.”
“You’re saying what you thought at the moment. And it fits with what I’ve been remembering . . .” Dan trailed off, not wanting her to feel guilty for trying to tell him what her initial impression of his mother had been. “It doesn’t matter.” He sighed and began to get up, but Holly grabbed his arm.
“No, don’t do that.” She looked pained. “Look, Dan, I know your life has been about more than this—you’ve made that clear. But, right here, right now . . . it’s okay to be sad. And it’s okay to be mad.”
He looked down at the floor. “I just don’t get it. I can’t even—I don’t even . . . I mean, who the hell
does
that? What kind of a person just up and leaves like that?”
Holly’s hand went limp in his own. He tore it away, turned, and punched the wall. His mom leaving had been the catalyst for all those fights, all the stress, all the tension. She’d known how Marianne treated him.
She’d known.
And it had all been because she couldn’t take care of a puppy?
He shot up. It was time to leave.
Holly stood up and grabbed his hand. “Please don’t go. Not like that.”
He looked down at her and met her eyes. She took his face in her hands, pulled him down, and kissed him, full on the lips. He wound his hands around her waist and invaded her mouth, giving and taking, until she pulled away, breathless. Glancing toward the small hallway leading to the bedrooms, she said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.”
“You’re right.” He ran a hand down his face and sighed. “I need to go.” He grabbed his coat from a chair and slipped it on. Holly walked him to the door and stepped outside, wrapping her arms around herself. He shut the door behind her and pulled her into his coat. She slipped her hands around his waist and cuddled up to him.
“I’m sorry I ever thought you were like her,” he said after a while.
 
What kind of a person just up and leaves like that?
he’d asked. Her entire being had gone cold at those words. “You thought I was like your mom?” she asked, her voice sounding small in her ears.
“Not consciously.” He sighed. “But I see it now. I learned early that some people stumble through life making one bad decision after another, affecting everyone around them, and I didn’t want anything to do with people like that. The moment someone seemed like they were like that, I stayed the hell away, any way I could.”
Silence engulfed them. After a while, Holly looked into his eyes. The gray had taken over the blue. “Dan . . .” she hesitated. “Remember when we were talking about our biggest regrets?”
He brushed a curl away from her mouth and nodded.
Her heart pounded harder by the moment. “I once took the easy way out, because I didn’t know how to navigate the difficult way.”
He shook his head. “Don’t. You don’t owe me anything. I know I was wrong. You’re nothing like her.”
“I know.” Holly’s mouth was so dry, she could barely get the words out. “I mean, I know I’m nothing like her, but I didn’t know all this about you, and now that I do, you need to know something about me—” She swallowed.
“You don’t have to tell me anything, Holly. Johnny’s right. I’m nobody’s judge and jury. Few people are like her. Thank God,” he ended on a bitter whisper.
Holly buried her head in his chest. It wasn’t the right moment to tell him.
He smelled of bergamot and grapefruit and it gave her a way to push past the heaviness in her heart. “Viktor and Rolf Spicebomb,” she mumbled without thinking.
Dan looked down at her and nodded. “You’re that good?” He half-smiled.
“It suits you somewhat, because it’s virile and decisive. But you’re not as polished as you’d have people believe, you’re too down-to-earth for that illusion. I’d dress you in something more woodsy and sensual”—she closed her eyes—“maybe heart notes of cedar and white musk, keeping it natural with black basil and clary sage, and I’d warm it with leather essence or port wine . . . I’ll have to experiment.” She opened her eyes to see a heavy-lidded Dan watching her, as if in a trance.
“That is the most seductive thing anyone has ever said to me.” He leaned down to kiss her, but she stepped out of his embrace.
“Ella might wake up.”
Dan stepped away, wearing the first real smile she’d seen on him all evening. “She wouldn’t see us. You’re a great mom, Holly. Kissing me doesn’t change that. You’re a beautiful woman, too, and hiding from that won’t help you live a little and get rid of regrets.”
Her spirits lifted a little. She’d made mistakes, yes . . . but she was trying her damndest to be a good mom. She’d never leave her daughter.
Never.
The thought was incomprehensible. “So I should kiss every guy who finds me attractive just because I’m out of her sight?”
“That’s not what I said.” He pinched her chin and turned to leave.
CHAPTER 11
T
he air was mild, the full moon cast a bright light, and slow-moving clouds obscured the stars. Dan much preferred the stars. Holly was right, the weather here was unpredictable.
He left his car next door and headed downtown to Johnny’s place. It was still early and people were taking strolls and jogging. Some he knew and greeted, others he didn’t know, but they greeted him. It was the Midwest, after all. Manners were important. People mattered. Sometimes.
The pain in his gut spread everywhere. He stopped, put his hands on his knees, and took several deep breaths. With every breath, he thought of someone in his life. His dad, Sam, and Johnny, and his nephew. His mother couldn’t have been made of anything he needed if she hadn’t cared about him the way he cared about his dad and brothers.
A few more breaths brought images of Holly and Ella, Heather, his friends, and his hometown, but the heaviness weighing him down refused to lift. The image of his mother standing on the steps, putting on a performance, acting like she cared, wouldn’t leave him alone.
He walked along Star Springs Park and ran into Mr. Linden, his old middle school principal, and Mr. Montgomery, the owner of a few office buildings in the downtown area. Both had given him, Sam, and Johnny more than a few lectures growing up.
They were stringing lights on the bridges, and Dan somehow got roped into putting Santa and elf hats on top of the lampposts. He hadn’t seen these people in years, but it was clear they considered him an old friend. He ended up helping out with the lights, too, when he saw Rosa, Ruby, and Sherry were in charge of those. Much as they’d like to deny it, they were moving slower than they used to and they couldn’t reach as high. Where were his brothers? Usually they’d be all over this.
He caught a glimpse of Marianne, and his body involuntarily tensed. Couldn’t the world leave him alone till tomorrow?
She walked up to him and Mr. Linden, saying, “It feels like old times, having him back, doesn’t it?”
“It sure does.” Mr. Linden shot Dan an appreciative glance.
“His brothers have been trying to get him to come back for years,” Marianne continued, looking on with an indulgent smile.
It was the second performance Dan had witnessed that day. Mr. Linden wasn’t even aware that Marianne hadn’t looked at Dan or directed one word to him. Her tone and smiles were meant to convey that she’d missed Dan, even though she hadn’t said anything to that effect. Sometimes Dan wondered if she was even conscious of it.
A long-suppressed need to find out pushed at him from the inside. “They probably know how hard it is for me to come back more often than I do,” he said, trying for the same relaxed tone, yet knowing he didn’t achieve it.
Their eyes met. Hers wore their familiar harassed look. For once, he could relate.
“Of course they do. You tell them all about it. I wonder where they are now,” she mused before moving on.
Dan turned back to the task at hand, drowning out all that was noise and focusing on the silky sound of water trickling along the rocks in the streams.
“What’s on your mind, son?” Mr. Linden asked after a while.
Dan shrugged. “Not much. Just trying to wind the lights around the pole the right way.”
“Looking forward to the festival?”
“I am, actually.”
Mr. Linden put a hand on his shoulder and looked up at the moon. “I think the man on the moon is frowning at us. He silenced the stars, but we managed to light our own.”
Dan looked around, surprised so much had been accomplished since he’d started helping. He’d once asked Holly if she thought the town was covered in stars. Tonight, it was. Thousands of twinkling lights winked at him.
“I don’t know why, but I’ve never been a fan of the moon,” Mr. Linden said.
Ruby and Rosa walked up to them then. “Don’t let the moon hear you, or you’ll find yourself subjected to its phases until it makes a believer out of you,” Ruby chided.
“More gypsy nonsense, Ruby?” Mr. Linden grinned down at her.
Rosa looked at the sky. “My mom used to say a full moon is a time of revelation.”
Mr. Linden looked as if his jaw was about to drop. “You, too, Rosa?”
Rosa smiled and shrugged. “Many religions believe it has some influence. My mother used to tell us to ask the full moon what we wanted to know.”
Something Dan wished to know crept into his mind before he had time to realize it, and he frowned at himself. He was getting caught up in the nonsense. It was time to go.
A light was on in Sam’s office across the street. Dan said his good-byes.
“Hey.” Sam looked up when Dan entered. Papers were strewn across his desk.
“Hey, what’re you up to?” he asked.
Sam waved him over. “Take a look.”
Real estate listings. Dan sorted through them, one by one. Thirty-three houses plus one mansion was more accurate. The seven-thousand-plus-square-foot English Tudor featuring ornate half timbering, diamond-paned casement windows, and thatched roof sat on the corner of Manor Row and West Main and would be Sam’s trickiest project. Sam watched Dan as he studied the listing and nodded, as if he could read Dan’s mind.
“Do you want to go over there now?” Sam asked.
Dan looked at his watch. It was only fifteen to eight. It had been a long day and he was tired, but he wasn’t tired enough. He wanted to be almost dead by the time he hit the pillow, so he followed Sam out the door.
According to the town’s yearly ghost tour, Manor Row was the third most haunted street in Ohio. Probably because no one who’d chosen to live in Spinning Hills over the last two decades could afford the rehabilitation and subsequent upkeep of any of the eleven mansions on the street. Renovating any of them would cost more than it could ever be sold for. What had Sam been thinking?
“It’s on the corner of Manor and West Main, so people will be less likely to mind the rest of the street, it faces the river, and it’s a five-minute walk to the schools and downtown Spinning Hills. I’m thinking of turning it into four apartments.” Sam turned to him. “Let’s get going.”
Sam’s plan made sense, but Dan would feel better about it if he could visualize it. “Sure. Let’s go.”
Johnny texted them a few minutes later, asking if they wanted to hang out. Sam told him where they were going and asked him to bring his laptop, which he’d forgotten back in the office.
A few minutes later, Dan was looking over the house while Sam explained his ideas. He then stood in the middle of what had once been a grand dining room and tried to picture it all. “You know, it might just work. The bike path that runs along the river would be a draw for young professionals working in downtown Dayton who are looking for more of a small-town atmosphere.”
“It’s a fifteen-minute bike ride to Riverscape.” Sam nodded, mentioning a downtown Dayton park that hosted festivals, concerts, ice-skating, and more.
“When would you start?” Dan asked. The feeling that this was something he’d like to take part in threaded through him. If it worked, the entire street might eventually be brought back to life. It would take years, but if the town continued on its current path, Manor Row would be the icing on the cake that was Spinning Hills. Or was that wishful thinking?
Johnny arrived with the laptop and looked as enthusiastic as Dan was about Sam’s plan when they filled him in on what they were doing there.
Sam showed them initial plans, and each brother laid out his particular ideas and vision. As different as they were, they usually had no problem agreeing on how to restore and modernize a place. They’d worked with their father throughout their teenage years, and he’d drilled the principles of preservation and aesthetics into them. Sam had earned his degree in preservation architecture, and they knew to defer to his judgment. Not that a few arguments didn’t break out, but it was all part of the fun.
“So, how’d it go in Toledo? Did you get the stained-glass window?” Sam asked when they were through.
“We came back empty-handed. The woman wasted our time,” Dan answered, not looking at his brothers. He’d tell them what happened when he was ready.
“She didn’t have it?” Sam looked up from the laptop he’d just closed.
“Or the memorabilia?” Johnny asked.
“She didn’t have anything either of us wanted.”
Sam and Johnny looked at each other, but didn’t say anything.
 
Dan fell asleep the moment he hit the bed, just as he’d intended. One moment he was arranging his sheets, the next he was dreaming he was in a room with multicolored sunlight streaming through an open window. A bright white curtain fluttered in the breeze. He looked down but couldn’t see his body. A sound caught his attention and he turned. There was a little girl curled up in a corner of the room. An older woman was ripping up a piece of paper on top of the huddling little girl, yelling hysterically, “You can never do anything right.”
The little girl looked up, scared and uncomprehending. Her eyes were summer sky blue, and her hair was dishwater blond. She looked to be about six years old.
It was his mother. He’d seen tons of pictures of her as a little girl. She’d hung them all over the run-down house they’d shared until he was seven.
The hysterical woman left and the little girl turned to the wall. The multicolored light streamed over to the little girl’s fingers, and she wiggled them. The light shimmered, and she smiled, but her smile and her mood were chilling. She used the light to draw a new little girl. She said, “You’re perfect. You do everything right. Everyone loves you,” to the new little girl, who was warped, and not perfect at all.
The light from the new little girl took over, blinding him one instant, and fading to black the next.
Dan shot up and looked around, half-expecting to still be in that room. But he was at Johnny’s, and only the light of the full moon was streaming through the open window. It had gotten chilly and the cold air was instigating nightmares. He got up, shut the window, and closed the blinds.
Holly and Ella got up early and went downtown to help hang wreaths and anchor Christmas decorations, but there wasn’t much left to do when they arrived.
Sherry and Rosa were serving coffee, hot cocoa, and sugar cookies to volunteers under the gazebo. Holly took some coffee and sat at a nearby table to watch Ella play on the swings.
“How’d it go yesterday?” Grandma Ruby came to sit beside her. “Did you find any interesting memorabilia?”
Sherry and Rosa looked over, interested, but Holly hadn’t thought about what she’d say if anyone asked. “No. It was noisy when the woman and I spoke and we must’ve misunderstood each other.”
“What about the stained-glass window?” Sherry asked.
“I’m sorry, it’s a long story and I’m not up to telling it yet. We wasted our time, and you know how I hate wasting time.”
“Well, I hope Dan is grateful. Because of you he found at least one of the windows and that wonderful tub. Johnny also said he used a few of your ideas and they look great,” Rosa said.
Sherry tapped her finger on her lips. “You know, now that I think about it, helping him with the house was a great strategy. If you negotiate a discount in exchange for your services, you might be able to swing it.”
“It wasn’t a strategy—” Holly began, but she was interrupted by Rosa.
“The problem is that some men get off on negotiating. It brings out their competitive nature and makes them fight for the upper hand.” Rosa lifted a fist. “It would be smarter for her to subtly open his eyes to how valuable her input was and then charm him into giving her a discount.”
“I have no intention of negotiating with him or charming him—” she tried again.
“You forget this is Dan Amador we’re talking about. The boy was always smart. He’ll be on to her if she tries to charm him into anything. I think she should be straightforward about what she wants.”
“I don’t know what I want.” She finally got a word in. “I mean, I know I don’t want the house at any price he could name, even with a discount. It would still be too much. Please listen to me,” she explained, trying not to sound exasperated. Why couldn’t they let the house thing go? “He’s put a lot of work into it. Whatever he tacks onto it, even with a discount, would cut into other, more important priorities. I’m okay with finding another house.”
“What about Ella? She had her heart set on living next door to Gracie and building a tree house in that maple in the backyard,” Sherry reminded her.
As if I needed the reminder . . .
“The branches on that old silver maple are perfect for a tree house,” Rosa mused.
Holly’s exasperation with them dissolved. “Look, I appreciate you all thinking of Ella, but disappointment is a part of life. We all know that! This has been good for her in a way. It was a dream that didn’t come true, and she learned to let it go.”
BOOK: Flipped! (Spinning Hills Romance 1)
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