“And a wealthy one. I like this room.” Liv traced her finger along one of the windowpanes, leaving a streak in the thick dust. “Gets good light. Even with the dirty windows.”
“Yeah. This would be a fantastic family room. The house has six bedrooms, so people with lots of kids or aging parents living with them could have all the space they wanted.”
Not that Bethany would appreciate that since she was single with no children, like Kincaid. Instead of focusing on family friendly, Kincaid would instead need to play up this room as an entertaining space. Extra bedrooms could be pitched as potential dressing rooms, hobby rooms, guest rooms.
Liv snapped a photo of the fireplace, which was surrounded by stone and had a simple but beautiful natural oak mantel above it. “Could you imagine growing up in a place like this? I mean, when it was in its prime? I think my family’s entire place could fit in one third of this bottom floor.”
“It’s like something out of an old movie or TV show.” Kincaid imagined a bunch of kids thumping along the floorboards, tracking in mud from the outside field, maybe a dog in their wake. The images made her smile. They were of the fantasy family she used to imagine lived in those houses she’d pass on her walks home from school. The loving couple. The happy kids. Dinners shared together at the table. Books read aloud to children at night. She used to think one day. One day she’d be one of those people framed in the warm glow of those windows, have her own kids tracking mud across her floor, a loving husband waiting for her to get home.
But she’d lost the guy who’d starred in those fantasies a long time ago, and at thirty-two, with a countless number of failed relationships in her wake, she’d accepted that you only got one shot at a soul mate. No one had compared since. She’d had to move on from that dream. She’d come to peace with that, but now a different kind of temptation pulled at her.
A vision of cushy furniture and people sitting around drinking coffee filled her mind’s eye. Happy conversation echoing down the hallway. A woman reading a book near the fireplace. A couple planning their day in the Texas wine country. She could almost smell the cinnamon rolls she’d bake for those guests.
The dangerous image was rife with temptation, like that too-smooth guy at the bar who’d smile and say, Come on, just one more drink. What could it hurt? This was not what she was here to do. She needed to stop with the pretty fantasies. She wasn’t that daydreaming little girl anymore. The one who could weave a fairy tale out of scraps of anything.
But as usual, her mouth opened before her brain got the message to shut up. “It could make an adorable bed-and-breakfast.”
Liv lowered her camera and eyed Kincaid. “You think?”
“You can’t see it?” Kincaid couldn’t imagine not seeing it. The place looked made for it.
Liv glanced around again with a pensive expression, taking her time. “The photographer in me pictures a great set for Halloween portraits or maybe a location for one of those murder mystery weekends, but maybe you’re right. If it had a major overhaul, it could work. It definitely has the space for that kind of thing.” She looked back to Kincaid. “But it would take a crap ton of money to get it there, and would that really be a wise business move for someone? Long Acre isn’t exactly a destination city. Except for those true-crime rubberneckers, who, really, a room with a portal to hell would be just fine.”
Kincaid blanched at the thought. Nothing irritated her more than the people who drove by her old high school and took photos like it was the set from some thriller movie instead of the place where people had actually died. Her people. It was one of the reasons the real estate market was so tough here. Who wanted to send their kids to a school known for a mass shooting? “I don’t know. I think it could be marketed as a tucked-away, quiet retreat that is only a fifteen-minute drive to Lake Wilder and just an hour away from the bustle of Austin. There are wineries within easy driving distance. We’re far off the road, so it has a sense of ge
tting away from it all.”
“Or being in a place where no one could hear you scream,” Liv pointed out.
“Liv!”
Her friend lifted her hand with a grin. “Kidding. Mostly. But you’re right. It could have potential. Maybe? Do you have someone looking for a B and B site?”
“Not exactly,” Kincaid said more to herself than to Liv. She looked down at the asking price to remind herself why she couldn’t gallop down this road. Half a million dollars. For something that needed a ton of work. She needed the rational side of her brain, which really was only on a part-time schedule to begin with, to step up and do its job. “Just thinking out loud.”
Kincaid wandered past Liv toward the back of the house, gasping when she entered the next room. Liv hurried in behind her, camera swinging around her neck. “What? Werewolf? Evil clown?” She groaned when she stepped inside. “Oh. The pink. Wow. That’s…pink.”
But that wasn’t what Kincaid was speechless about. The kitchen space was a dream. Larger than she’d expected for a house this age and so charming she could barely stand it. The whole thing would have to be gutted, of course—the pink cabinets and formica countertops looked like Pepto-Bismol and bad wallpaper had gotten drunk together and made an ugly baby—but the bones of the room were beautiful. She could picture double ovens and a big island where she could prep for cooking.
“This room was clearly redone in the eighties,” Liv said, her opinion of the decor clear in her tone. “By someone with bad taste even by eighties standards.”
Kincaid walked over and peeked out the window above the kitchen sink to find an overgrown herb garden in the back. Rosemary, thyme, and some kind of mint that looked like it’d taken over half the garden by force. “I—”
A door creaked loudly from somewhere, and both she and Liv startled, instinctively moving toward each other. Liv gripped Kincaid’s arm and raised her camera with the other, poised to use it as a weapon. Kincaid’s mind galloped ahead to all the pictures Liv had painted—ghosts, serial killers, demons. And of course, the ever present, always right near the surface image of boys with guns.
However, the voice that drifted down the hallway wasn’t male and wasn’t demonic in the supernatural way, just in the completely and utterly annoying way. “Gorgeous period detailing. Truly historic. I mean, this gem isn’t going to stay on the market long. I was barely able to sneak in a preview today. But I have my secret ways. It’s just so quaint, don’t you think?”
Kincaid’s stomach turned, wondering what she’d done to piss off the universe today. “Oh, Lord, give me strength and a shot of tequila.”
“What’s wrong?” Liv whispered. “Who’s that?”
Kincaid hoped she was wrong, but she’d know that nasal, syrupy voice anywhere. “Valerie Van Arden, top seller over at Wilder Realty. I have no idea how she’s here. It’s Ferris’s listing, and it’s not even online yet.”
“I take it we don’t like Valerie Van Arden?”
Kincaid eyed the entrance, Valerie’s too-high voice echoing off the ceilings like an off-key song. “We do not. She thinks the sun comes up just to hear her crow. Also, she hates me because I once dated a guy she had her eye on, claims I stole him. As if that’s a thing. Like a person can be stolen.”
“Fun,” Liv said with a grim look as she and Kincaid headed out of the kitchen and back into the living room.