Page 5 of The Homewreckers
Hattie swallowed hard. “What about the bank?”
He patted her shoulder. “I’ll talk to the bank. We’ve done business with those SOBs for nearly forty years. They’ve never lost money on me before. It’ll be okay.”
Hattie touched his hand. Tug’s skin was tough, wrinkled, crisscrossed with scabs and scars. “I’m sorry, Tug. You tried to tell me, but I wouldn’t listen.”
“Don’t be sorry, little girl,” he said, his voice gruff. “Be smart. Take what you’ve learned from this and walk away, knowing you did your best, but this time, it just wasn’t enough.”
3And the Bike You Rode in On
Mo went back to the hotel, showered and changed clothes, then climbed back on the bike to continue his tour of the historic district. But he couldn’t manage to get Hattie Kavanaugh off his mind.
Truthfully, he’d noticed her as soon as he sat down at the café table next to hers earlier that morning. In her early thirties, he guessed, and she had that fresh-faced girl-next-door thing going on, her hair in a careless ponytail. Slender, but curvy in the right places.
Her personality at the house was confrontational, obnoxious even. He liked that she wasn’t intimidated by having a strange man suddenly fall on top of her. Liked that she didn’t back down easily. Even in mud-caked work boots, grimy coveralls, with her head wrapped in a bandana, this woman had presence. And with her hazel eyes, and full lips, the upper one of which bore a slight scar, he could already tell the camera would love her. The hair would need to be blonder, that was a given.
By four that afternoon, Mo was sweat-soaked and exhausted. The skies were darkening, and the air so heavy with humidity you could almost wring it out.
But for reasons he couldn’t explain, he found himself pedaling past the Tattnall Street house again. The only vehicle present was the Kavanaugh & Son pickup, which was still parked at the curb. Hespied the girl he’d met earlier, sitting on the porch steps, holding her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking.
A for-sale-by-owner sign had been planted in the grassless yard. This was new.
He approached slowly. A few yards from the porch, he gave a discreet cough.
The girl raised her head. Her face was red and tear-streaked. She’d stripped off the coveralls and was dressed in the same pair of faded jeans and light blue tank top she’d worn earlier that morning at the café.
“What?”
“Hey,” Mo said. “So? You’re selling the house now? Before you finish it?”
“What do you care?” She used the back of her hand to swipe at a snot bubble.
He’d never been good with women who cried. He should go, but something, her sudden vulnerability maybe, drew him closer.
Mo sat down on the step beside her, leaving a couple of feet of sunbaked brick between them. “I’m sorry,” he offered.
She snuffled and looked away. “Tug’s right. It’s a money pit. I bit off more than I could chew. He’s got a couple of investors who are interested, but we thought we’d go ahead and put it on the market. Maybe some other sucker like me will bite.”
Hattie rested her chin on her knees.
“You’ll be losing money?” he guessed.
“Yeah. Money we don’t have. That I don’t have. Like an idiot, I sunk all my savings into this venture.”
“What’ll you do after you sell this place?”
She shrugged. “We’ve got a kitchen addition on Wilmington Island, a rooftop deck at a town house over on Jones Street. What Tug calls our bread and butter.”
“No more house flipping?”
“Not unless I hit the lottery,” she said. “No bank will touch us after this fiasco.”
“That’s too bad,” Mo said. “This show I was telling you about…”
“No!” She shook her head vehemently. “I told you before. Not interested. Go find some other dumb blonde. Savannah’s full of ’em. Everyone wants to be a celebrity. Everyone but me.”
“I don’t want someone who wants to be a celebrity. I want someone who has a passion for what they do. Somebody with a vision. Who’s fearless.”
“You don’t know me,” Hattie said. “Deep down inside, I’m a total chickenshit. I’m afraid of heights. And of dying broke and alone. Which is looking more and more likely these days.”
