Page 24 of Out of Bounds
“Shelby please. I really need you to be my aunt right now.” My voice breaks showing the suppressed emotions and I’m thankful when her face softens. I really don’t want to talk about Ethan and the past right now.
“All right honey. Come on, let’s eat then you tell me everything. I got some brochures you can look at later for your business.”
“You meanourbusiness, right?”
“No. This is your thing and I’m gonna work with you to make your dreams come true. That’s what I’m gonna do. Now let’s go.”
Half an hour later we’re seated in the restaurant with a bottle of wine and the best pizza this side of town.
I open up to her and pour out my heart telling her all that happened to me whilst swearing her to secrecy.
We spend the day together and I feel better by the time I get home. So much so I open the bag of brochures she got me and start looking through them.
A few hours into my search I open the Hot Property magazine and when my gaze lands on a home that looks like it could be the house from the Steel Magnolias my heart swells.
The more I look at it the more I feel like it’s the one.
It’s called Pine Valley Lodge and is an eight-bedroom house with four bathrooms and four acres of land in Pine Valley. The value is over a million dollars but it’s currently under offer because parts of the building need to be restored. The owner is accepting offers of anything upward of two hundred thousand. That’s a shit cheap bargain.
My credit has been good for the last couple of years and while the salon isn’t doing well by my standards it’s doing well enough to get me a mortgage. I checked the other day. If I offered the minimum and used the remaining money I have to fix the place up I could really do my day spa.
It could happen for me.
The house looks like it’s whispering to me to get it. I see my dreams unfold from the picture and for the first time in forever, I hope.
I hope and I pray to whoever is listening that I could get this house and put the spell of shit that followed me behind me.
Quickly I take a picture and send it to Shelby and Quinn then I email my interest to the realtors. I also give Shelby’s cellphone just in case I’m with a client and miss the call.
ChapterNine
Ethan
“Istill can’t get over what you did to Bree.” Bryce laughs as he walks into my office.
Only God knows why I told him. Maybe I needed someone to tell, and I knew Logan would kill me if he knew what I’d gotten up to.
Maybe me telling Bryce about my immature shit was another reason why karma decided to get my ass. I met with him about Liev’s case the day before I saw my grandfather.
I’m in no mood for jokes this morning not even about Bree’s fine ass, because I’m no where closer to figuring out how to get my grandfather to drop his crazy idea of marriage.
Admittedly it was interesting to see Bree yesterday. I haven’t ran into her for a while. The last two times when I could have, I just watched her from afar, completely unknown to her.
Yesterday was different for some reason. I didn’t just want to watch.
“I know it’s time to stop that shit, isn’t it?” I smirk.
“You wouldn’t be you if you did. Here’s all the paperwork.” He holds out an envelope to me. “We are officially done with everything to do with Liev and his circle of assholes.”
“Hallelujah.”
“I just need you to sign off those documents and fax them to my office.”
“I’ll have them over to you by lunch time.”
“Good stuff.”
He takes the seat in front on me and the smirk on his face transforms him into the Bryce I’ve always known. Not the bad ass lawyer who would wipe the floor with you in court.
