Page 17 of Heating Up (Nugget)
Tomorrow would probably be his last night here. He’d use the weekend to unpack his stuff and get settled in at the new place before reporting to work. It would be interesting living with Dana. She was wound tighter than he usually rolled. He got the impression from earlier that she was the type to tack chore charts and bathroom schedules to the refrigerator. Hey, he’d been the one to suggest being roommates, and now he had to stick to it. At least her half of the rent would come in handy until he sold his condo and no longer had a mortgage to pay.
The problem was he’d never lived with a woman he wasn’t sleeping with, and Dana could become a temptation. In most cases, he wasn’t against doing what felt good as long as everyone knew the ground rules. But Dana didn’t strike him as the bootie-call roommate type. And he wasn’t ready for another relationship. He was too busy trying to figure out where the last one went wrong.
* * *
The next morning, Dana crammed herself into another pair of tight jeans compliments of the Millers. Ordinarily, she didn’t dress this casually to meet with clients, but today she was reshowing ranch property to a couple who’d recently sold their ten-acre spread in Sonoma County for a mint and were looking to relocate their sheep and alpaca farm to Plumas County.
She pulled on the new cowboy boots, thinking they would be perfect for walking through the thick brush during snake season. Last time she’d shown them the place, she’d worn high heels and felt like an idiot. Since then, she’d learned that looking professional meant dressing appropriately for the situation. You didn’t wear sweats to show a four-million-dollar mansion or Givenchy to sell a hog farm. For the final touch, she threw a lightweight blazer, a Macy’s purchase during her Reno foray, over a T-shirt. At least it was supposed to be cooler today.
Before leaving, she let her eyes roam around the lovely room. This would be her last night at the Lumber Baron. Tomorrow, she planned to move into the house. With Aidan. After last night’s dinner she was even more conflicted about the living situation. Not because she didn’t trust him—all concerns about him being a serial killer had vanished. But the man was too damned sure of himself. She could tell he thought he could get any woman he lay his eyes on. And the truth was he probably could. Although he wasn’t as classically handsome as Griffin, who reminded her of a young Matthew McConaughey, Aidan had the whole tall, dark, and rough thing going for him. The swarthy skin, slightly crooked nose, deep-set blue eyes, and angular face—very piratical. And he was strapping. More than two hundred pounds if Dana had to guess. All of it muscle.
When she got to the office, the Griswolds were already there. They’d driven up early that morning.
“You ready?” she asked, knowing they were raring to go.
Although the couple’s buyers—a neighboring grape grower who wanted to expand his vineyard—said they could rent back until the spring, they were anxious to be in a new place by fall to give their sheep and alpacas plenty of time to acclimate before the spring shearing. The Griswolds owned a wool and fleece business.
“We sure are,” Walt said, grinning. Dana liked them a lot.
They took her car to the property, which was seven miles outside of town.
“Did you do the research on the well?” Walt asked.
She motioned to the binder she had in the backseat. “It’s in there, along with the property survey. It looks like the seasonal creek is part of the parcel. And, Josephine, I talked to a local repairman about the Wedgewood stove. He’s pretty sure he can get it working again.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful.” Josephine handed the binder to her husband. “What about the roof?”
“The owner says he hasn’t done anything for twelve years but that nothing leaks. My advice is that we add that to our list to get him to come down on the price. Maybe even get him to put on a new roof.”
“The well looks good,” Walt said. “According to this, it pumps one hundred and fifty gallons of water a minute.”
“I think our biggest concern is whether we’ll like it here.” Josephine sighed. “We have all those fabulous restaurants in Healdsburg, and San Francisco is only ninety minutes away.”
“Josephine, we can’t afford to live there anymore,” Walt chimed in.
Dana laughed. “That’s the problem with an overinflated real estate market. Even when you make a fortune on what you sell, everything costs a fortune. This is the deal here: no gourmet restaurants, no fair-trade, wait-an-hour-for-your-drip coffee places, and no trendy shops. And the closest thing to culture is cowboy poetry at the grange. But it’s real, it’s beautiful, and it’s affordable. And I think it’s the up and coming place . . . but don’t take that to the bank just yet.”
“You’re a good egg, Dana,” Walt said.
“You guys should stay at the Lumber Baron tonight . . . my treat. Get the flavor of the town, eat at the Ponderosa, maybe check out the mill pond in Graeagle. I’ll admit Nugget doesn’t have the chichi factor Healdsburg does, but it has its own charm. And more important, it’s retained its agricultural roots.”
“That’s for damn sure,” Walt said. “Sonoma has turned into a playground for the rich and famous.”
Two hours later, the Griswolds sat in Dana’s conference room, writing up paperwork for an offer. Dana had gone to get them cold drinks from the refrigerator when her cell phone rang. Aidan.
“Hi,” she said, surprised to hear from him. “What’s up?”
“I got called out on a suspicious fire in Lassen County. Looks like I’m gonna be here a few days. My moving truck is coming and my sister and Brady are in San Francisco. Any chance you could unlock the door and let the movers in?”
“What time?”
“They gave me a window of between two and six. Maybe you could put a note on the door to call as soon as they get there; that way you don’t have to wait for four hours.”
“All right. But how will they know where to put everything?”
“I’ll have to deal with it when I get home. Could you just make sure to lock up after everything’s delivered?”
“Of course.”
