Over the moon with you, p.12
Over the Moon With You, page 12
Paige stopped under a cherry tree laden with blossoms and then looked back at the barn. “I’ll take it.”
“You haven’t seen the house yet.”
“It’s the location I want and it’s nicer than I was ready to hope for. I also have a sweet spot for black cats. Can we write up an offer tonight?”
“As your realtor, I’m going to insist you look inside the house. You have to know what you’re getting yourself into—all of it. You can’t sleep in the barn.”
“You clearly don’t know me that well.”
Leslie tilted her head. “Okay, let me rephrase. If you ever intend to have any company stay with you—and I think you might already have someone in mind—you’re going to want a bed, right?”
Paige felt the blush hit her cheeks. She apparently wasn’t hiding her attraction to Seren. “Um…”
“Exactly. So, we’re going inside and checking out the house. Besides, I promised Mr. Landry we’d stay for a bit to chat.” Leslie headed for the single-level brick rancher without looking over her shoulder to see if Paige was coming too.
Leslie knocked on the front door right as Paige caught up. “Did you talk to the family about ballpark numbers? I know what the bank qualified me for but I’m nervous about going much above that.”
“Like I said, they haven’t decided on a price. They wanted to meet you first.”
It was a long moment before the door opened and Paige had time to go from nervous to excited and back to nervous. An elderly woman stood in the entryway, half leaned over a walker. She scowled as she looked from Leslie to Paige. “We don’t want a newspaper subscription.”
“Hello, Mrs. Landry. It’s me, Leslie. Is Seren in there with you?”
“Seren?” Mrs. Landry shook her head. The annoyed look turned to confusion. “Who’s Seren?”
Leslie pursed her lips and leaned to one side, clearly trying to see if she could spot Seren. The interior of the house was dark, with every window covered in heavy drapes.
Leslie pushed on. “Mrs. Landry, I’m here with the veterinarian I was telling you about.” She gestured to Paige. “Remember we talked about her coming over to see the place?”
“Hi.” Paige raised her hand. “You have a beautiful property here. I’m in love with your barn.”
“You’re in love with what?”
“The barn.” By the angry expression forming on Mrs. Landry’s face, Paige realized it wasn’t a question of not being able to hear. She had no idea why Paige was there or what she was talking about.
Mrs. Landry turned to Leslie. “Why would he be in love with a barn?”
“She’s a veterinarian, Mrs. Landry.” Leslie shot an apologetic look at Paige before continuing, “I guess veterinarians really like barns.”
“My husband isn’t home. You’ll have to come back another time.” Mrs. Landry promptly closed the door.
Leslie made an O-shape with her mouth. “I promise I did tell her we were coming this evening. I set it all up yesterday with Mr. Landry and even dropped off a note and some flowers this morning hoping that would help.”
“I think I confused things saying I was in love with the barn. Where do you think Seren is?”
“Good question.”
The door opened again, and an elderly bald man stood in front of them with a platter of cookies. Someone was playing the piano and notes of a song Paige recognized but couldn’t name filtered out.
“Leslie. There you are!” Considering the man’s short stature, his booming voice was a surprise. “I had a little mishap with an oven mitt and Seren insisted on bandaging me up.” He motioned with the bandaged hand. “But there’s nothing wrong with the cookies.”
The piano music stopped for a moment and Paige heard Seren’s voice followed by Mrs. Landry’s. She couldn’t see much past the circle of light in the front hall and wondered where the piano might be.
“You didn’t have to make cookies,” Leslie said. “I didn’t want you to go to any work today.”
“Oh, cookies are no work. Besides, Carol likes them.” Mr. Landry turned to Paige. “Judging from your outfit, I gather you’re the veterinarian.”
“I am.” Paige brushed a fluff of Saint Bernard hair from the front of her scrubs. “And I promise I cleaned up after my farm calls this morning but—”
“Don’t worry,” Mr. Landry said. “You take care of animals, you get hair on you. Not to mention other things. That’s life around here too. I won’t sniff to see if you stink.”
Paige laughed. “Thanks. You’ve got a beautiful place, sir.”
“We sure like it.” He glanced behind him when the piano music started again. “It’s nice hearing that old thing play again.” He lowered his voice and added, “Some days my wife’s mind’s a little clearer than others. Today’s not been so good.”
An old dachshund hobbled up behind Mr. Landry. Paige couldn’t help noticing the dog favoring the right hind leg. “Who’s this?” She dropped down on one knee at the friendly wag and was rewarded with a hand lick. “You’re not much of a guard dog, are you?”
“That’s our Bella. Sweetest dog you’ll ever meet. We had her mother too. You should have seen that one.” Mr. Landry chuckled. “Would’ve taken off two of your fingers by now.”
Bella sidled up closer to Paige, tail wagging faster when Paige patted her head. “That’s dachshunds for you. Either the sweetest or…”
“Or not,” Mr. Landry finished. He chuckled again. “We’ve had our share of both. Bella here, though, is special. She seems to know she has to take care of my wife. Always at Carol’s side. Never even goes outside except twice a day to do her business and then hurries back in.” He paused, brow furrowing as he studied the dog. “But she hasn’t been feeling like herself these past couple days.”
“Mind if I take a look at her foot? I think something’s hurting her.” In truth, she’d already ran her hand up and down the leg. At Mr. Landry’s nod, she lifted the dog’s paw. It wasn’t hard to find the problem. One of her toenails was so overgrown the tip was embedded in the paw pad. Two of the other nails on the opposite paw were close to the same fate. “Any chance you have a dog toenail trimmer handy?”
“Sure do. But my hands shake too much to trim anyone’s nails. You think that’s the problem?”
“One way to find out.”
Mr. Landry led the way to the kitchen, briefly passing through the living room where Seren was sitting next to Mrs. Landry at a piano bench. Seren was busy playing but looked up long enough to catch Paige looking at her. She smiled and Paige had to fight the impulse to stay in the living room. She knew she couldn’t focus on Seren, but it was hard thinking of anything else.
It didn’t take long to trim Bella’s nails, and Paige decided the dog was in fact the sweetest dachshund alive when she licked her hands after. As soon as she set her back on the ground, Bella excitedly circled her feet with only a hint of lingering pain.
“Well, you fixed her!” Mr. Landry beamed.
“Maybe. If she comes up lame again, bring her to my clinic and I’ll give her a better once-over. And maybe you could bring her once a month for a free nail trim?”
“If you’re offering, I’m buying.” Mr. Landry clapped Paige’s shoulder. “I like your prices, but you’ll go out of business that way.”
“I stay plenty busy with paying customers. I can throw in a free nail trim for a sweet dog.”
After a yip in agreement, Bella raced back to the living room. Paige wanted to do the same, but Mr. Landry announced he’d be happy to show her the rest of the house.
Fortunately, the bedrooms weren’t quite as dark as the entryway or the living room where Seren was still playing. Paige had to remind herself that it wasn’t a recording but Seren herself playing. No wonder she’d been recruited. Paige also had to remind herself that she wasn’t there to think about Seren.
After Mr. Landry’s tour, Leslie walked Paige back to the kitchen with the excuse of wanting to check measurements on something. She glanced around at the dark brown cabinets and darker brown linoleum—even the refrigerator was brown—folded her arms, and leveled her gaze on Paige. “What are you thinking?”
Seren’s playing reverberated in her mind. She loved hearing piano music, especially jazz piano, and Seren sounded like a professional. “Well…” She eyed the brown stove top and the brown microwave hanging above it. Both had to be from the eighties. She tried to imagine the kitchen as her own but couldn’t quite picture it. Laughter echoed down the hallway and her thoughts got distracted again by how much she wanted to be in the same room as Seren.
“It’d be a lot of work to update.”
“Yeah, it would.” The place did have character. Just not character that fit her.
“Maybe you could start remodeling one room and leave the others closed off? I don’t know why anyone ever liked shag carpet. And the colors in those bedrooms…” Leslie shook her head. She eyed the wide split in the linoleum below Paige’s feet. “Are you handy with tools?”
“If you mean a pair of forceps and a scalpel? Yes.”
“How about a screwdriver and a crowbar?”
“Much less so.” Paige lifted a shoulder. “But five acres, all fenced, with a four-stall barn?”
“You’re ready to write up an offer.”
Paige smiled. “Yep.”
Chapter Eighteen
Taking on a thirty-one-year-old gray mare with special dietary needs and two flighty barn cats with fleas sounded daunting. Add to that five acres of land that needed care and a three-bedroom ranch house in sore need of updating? Seren couldn’t imagine wanting that big of a project. Except she was imagining it.
In fact, she’d spent most of the evening imagining it. The mare’s name was Nellie and Mr. Landry promised she was as sweet as their dog, Bella. Bella could come to the new retirement community; the horse and the cats couldn’t. Already Seren was ready to give the mare a good brushing and get flea meds on the cats. But she knew next to nothing about horses save what she’d gathered as an eleven-year-old who’d gone to a summer horse camp. Plus, the barn cats had never been named. So of course she’d pitched names to Paige.
Paige was nearly bouncing in her seat as they’d left the ranch and Seren couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so happy for someone else. As Paige described all the animals she wanted to get and her plans for the barn, Seren was swept up in her enthusiasm. Still, she managed to tease Paige about it, which only earned her a wide smile and: “But have you seen a newborn calf? And baby chicks? Oh, and lambs?”
Paige didn’t seem at all perturbed by the amount of updating the house would need. Which maybe was the reason Seren was picturing how it might look with the carpet stripped out, a few walls knocked out, the kitchen gutted, and the walls painted. Adding up all the possible expenses in her head was impossible not to do as well.
After Leslie had dropped Paige at her clinic, she took Seren home. Leslie suggested drinks and dinner, but Seren begged out. It’d been a long day. And yet for the hour she’d been home, she hadn’t exactly relaxed. She’d made a salad, gone through the pile of bills waiting to be paid, and then fallen down a rabbit hole with an Internet search for ways to update old ranch houses.
The Landry property felt like a part of her childhood. Sitting next to Mrs. Landry on the piano bench had brought back a rush of memories. The conversation about playing keyboard and drums with the G Street Girls also had her thinking. All through junior high and high school, she’d been attached to an instrument. She was on the piano while her mom made dinner, on the drums when she ought to be working on homework, and playing on the keyboard with headphones when she was supposed to be asleep.
Even in college her instruments got more action than any girlfriend or boyfriend could have—she hadn’t even dated until her senior year. Late bloomer was what her mom called her. She remembered being embarrassed and mad about the title but there was no escaping it. Well, music had been her escape. After college, though, she’d slowly stopped playing. Not all at once, but inch by inch other things took up her time.
She sat down at the piano bench now and eyed the picture of her mom. “Is this old thing in tune?”
She played a scale and then shifted back on the bench. “Huh. Not half bad.” She glanced at her mom’s picture again. “What do you want to hear, Mom?”
As much as she’d hated her mom’s teasing about her being a late bloomer, she wouldn’t mind hearing it now. Even better, she’d love to hear her mom sing again. So many times she’d played on stage with her mom watching in the audience, but she’d loved the nights when her mom had sung along as she’d played in the living room.
Memories flooded her mind and tears burned her eyes, but she made two fists and then stretched her fingers. One of Mozart’s concertos, a piece her mom loved but could never remember the number of, came to mind and the old piano rumbled to life. Strange that she’d gone so many years without playing hardly a note yet her mind remembered it all. After Mozart, another song spilled out. Her fingers flew over the keys just as they’d done earlier that evening, songs coming one after the other, as if she were staring right at the sheet music. She had to take breaks to rub her fingers, but she couldn’t rest long before another tune nudged her on. Her old endurance was gone but the music wasn’t. Along with the songs, all her old hopes and dreams came back too.
One of those hopes, or maybe dreams, was finding someone like Paige. Someone who looked at her in a way that seemed to say, “I pick you.” Someone who smiled in a way that said, “You make me happy just the way you are.”
Paige had watched her playing piano with Mrs. Landry, and the look in her eyes made Seren feel like a spotlight was shining right on her. Which was both amazing and frightening. In that moment, Seren had wanted to earn that spotlight more than ever. She wanted to give Paige every reason to pick her.
But what about the pros and cons list that ruled out dating? And what about the perfect future where she focused on her baby?
She glanced at the rise of her belly and rubbed the spot above her navel. Some women could feel the baby kick by now. She’d read about it. A kick would be nice. Something beyond big boobs and a tummy that looked like she had gas would make the pregnancy more real. Maybe then she’d stop second-guessing her decision about dating Paige.
Her cell phone rang, and she headed to the couch where she’d left it, half planning on teasing Leslie for checking up on her only an hour after she’d dropped her off. Instead of Leslie, it was Paige calling.
“Hello?”
“Is this a bad time?”
“No, it’s a good time.”
“You sounded surprised.”
“Um…” Well, she was surprised. But in a good way. Before she could say as much, a ruckus of barking interrupted her. Seren smiled as she heard Paige say, “Inside voices, please.” More barking followed.
Paige sighed. “Maybe I should have waited to call you until I got home.”
“Where are you?”
“At work. I didn’t know if it would be too late to call by the time I got home.” Paige paused. “We didn’t really get to chat much earlier. I thought about texting, but honestly my hands are tired of typing. I’m almost through the stack of records from today, but then I’ve got emails to answer.”
Seren settled in on the sofa, a smile straining her cheeks. It was silly to be happy simply because Paige wanted to talk to her. But it was nice hearing Paige’s voice. “Do you sing?”
“Only when I’m alone. Why?”
“You’ve got a nice voice.” Seren felt herself edging toward flirting. She didn’t want to fight it and didn’t want to think about what it meant.
“I can’t really hold a tune, but thank you.”
A loud crash sounded on Paige’s end followed by a round of excited barking. “Shit, I’m sorry. Carl just knocked something over.” A sound of more crashing followed. Then a howl. “Peabody, get back here!”
“Are you okay? Who’s Carl? And Peabody?”
“Can you hold on a minute?”
Seren didn’t have time to answer before the line was filled with more barking. Then a distinct howl and more of Paige’s “inside voices, please” along with promises for treats if everyone behaved.
“Okay, I’m back now. Sorry about that. Carl—our hospital cat—knocked my water glass over. Peabody was lying on my feet and got wet. Peabody’s one of our boarders. He’s a grumpy basset hound with an amazing howl.”
“I heard.” Seren wouldn’t have described the howl as amazing, though it was impressively loud.
“Carl’s being a punk because I have another one of our other boarders—Malti, this cute little Yorkie—on my lap instead of him. Carl doesn’t really like dogs.”
“But he’s the hospital cat? I’m guessing he has to deal with a lot of dogs.”
“Oh, he does. He usually keeps them in their place but it’s hard to boss around a Yorkie.”
Seren pictured the scene: Paige still in her scrubs in a vet office with cats and dogs crowded all around her. Like so much about Paige, it was pretty much perfect. “Are you often at work this late?”
“No. Well, sometimes. The spur-of-the-moment house-hunting kind of threw off my schedule.”
“Oh, right. So, you really want to buy the place?”
“I do. Which is scary.” Paige blew out a breath. “That’s actually why I called you. I know Leslie said that the Landrys need to sell, but I don’t want to push anyone out of their house. Since they’re your old family friends, I thought you’d tell it to me straight. Do you think they need more time?”
“I don’t. I think they’re past ready, actually. Before you and Leslie came in, I was talking to Mr. Landry about it. He can’t keep up with taking care of his wife, and he’s got health issues himself. He’s ninety-four, she’s ninety-three. His kids are pressuring him to sell, and he wants a break from all the work. Honestly, I don’t think he ever expected a veterinarian would want to buy the property. That part alone has him ready to move. He was worried leaving the animals to anyone who wouldn’t take care of them. I think you won him over with Bella.”
