Page 105 of Take My Heart
‘I got you this too.’ He hands me a small white box. ‘You were always looking at it when we walked by that store downtown so I wanted you to have it.’
Opening the box, I see the necklace that caught my eye the first time I walked by the antique store. It was in the window, displayed on a mannequin dressed in a red velvet dress. I instantly imagined who might’ve worn that necklace back in the day, like maybe the wife of a wealthy businessman or one of the town’s founders. Or maybe it was a family heirloom passeddown over generations. Every time I passed the antique store, I stopped and looked at it, wondering how it ended up there.
The necklace is a silver heart with a scalloped design around the edges and a ruby-colored stone in the center. My friends back in Chicago would say it’s tacky or ugly, but I think it’s beautiful.
‘I love it.’ I hug Brody and don’t let go.
‘You want to try it on?’ Brody asks, pulling away.
‘Not right now.’ I look down at my shirt. ‘I’m covered in paint. I’ll wear it tonight when we go out.’
‘I was going to clean it, but I didn’t know how.’
‘I don’t want it polished. I like it tarnished. It makes it .?.?.’ I smile. ‘Not so perfect.’ I reach up and kiss him. ‘Thank you. This is the best Valentine’s gift I’ve ever gotten.’
‘It’s something to help you remember Haydon Falls.’
‘I don’t need the necklace to remind me. I’ll never forget this place. Or you.’
Our eyes meet and Brody looks like he’s about to say something. I wait for what seems like forever before he finally speaks.
‘Kate, I—’ He’s interrupted by the doorbell ringing. ‘That’s probably Matt,’ Brody says, going to the door.
Matt’s the real estate agent who will be selling the house. Brody and I met with him last week to tell him about the renovations. Today he’s coming over to see for himself what we’ve done so he can do an appraisal.
Brody decided to put the house on the market in March. I tried to talk him into staying here, but he insists on selling the place. He said he bought it as an investment and never planned to keep it. But now, after all the work we did, I feel sad that he’sselling it. This house feels like part of us now, a part of us I don’t want to see go.
‘Wow.’ Matt walks in, his eyes getting big as he looks around. ‘It doesn’t even look like the same house.’
Brody laughs. ‘It’s not that different, but it’s definitely a change from how it was.’
‘I like this paint color,’ Matt says. ‘That color is really in right now.’
‘That was all Kate’s doing.’ Brody smiles at me. ‘Pretty much everything we did was her idea.’
‘That’s not true,’ I say, going over to him. ‘You picked out the tile in the bathroom.’
‘You gave me two choices and I picked one,’ he says. ‘Either one of them would’ve looked great.’
‘He should be giving you a cut of the profits,’ Matt kids. ‘This place looks amazing, way better than I was expecting. I’m thinking we could get another ten thousand over what I told you last week.’
‘Are you serious?’ Brody says.
‘I need to check out the rest of the house, but yeah, we’ll definitely price it higher than I’d planned.’
‘Hey, sorry I’m late,’ Jason says, walking into the house. Since he owns half of it, he wanted to be here to see what Matt thought of the changes. ‘Did I miss anything?’
‘Matt thinks we can get a lot more than we were planning on,’ Brody says to Jason.
‘I’m not surprised.’ Jason walks over to us. ‘The place looks great. You guys did an awesome job.’
‘Let me see the bedrooms,’ Matt says.
We show him Brody’s room first, then the two smaller rooms.
‘Yeah, we’ll definitely be increasing the asking price,’ Matt says as we walk to the kitchen. He checks out the cabinets. ‘Are these new?’
‘No, I just painted them and Brody added new hardware,’ I say.
