I sigh. Just another dude bro with a toy truck, and not even a dog along for the ride.
Finally I stand up and call out to him. “May I help you?” The gate is a ways down the driveway, so I have to shout.
The guy leans up against the side of his truck, arms crossed over his big chest.
As I approach, I see he’s wearing Ray-Ban sunglasses and his golf shirt is the latest brand of bougie.
Living alone and running a business that requires a lot of contact with the public, it’s a good idea for me to have my .22 within reach, if not my rifle. But this dude’s center of mass is so big, I’m damn sure a .22 caliber bullet would not slow him down, even at close range. Not that he looks like he’s a threat. He doesn’t have mean eyes. If I’m being generous, he’s sorta nice looking, like a friend’s brother who would stop to help you with a flat tire. Well, if he tries anything sinister, I’ll probably have better luck siccing Terrence on his ankles.
“Howdy, ma’am.”
Oh shit, really? He must be a transplant. Nobody under the age of 75 says that unless they have at least 400 head of cattle. He is definitely not 75, and judging by those brand new construction boots, he ain’t running no cattle anywhere near here.
Still, the way he tips his hat is legit and not rehearsed. Kinda sexy. And his voice is a chocolatey baritone that would ordinarily get me going. Going for what, I don’t know exactly. I’m not…experienced in the bedroom. Like, at all.
His freckles remind me of someone. I play along. “Hey, Howdy Doody. What can I do you for?”
He smiles wide and reaches out across the gate for a handshake and introduces himself.
“I’m Daniel. Daniel Travis. Your new neighbor.”
“I’m Molly.”
His handshake is old-school: firm but not aggressive. The nervous butterflies are hard to distinguish from the instant-attraction butterflies, but overshadowing all of this is my anxiety over how he’s going to handle…well…me as a neighbor.
I smile back. “Really? Which house?”
He chuckles and points to the row of small houses that backs up to my north-side fence. “Well, for now, I’m staying at the Travis house — that one used to belong to my aunt — until I finish fixing it up, and then I’ll move on to the next one. One by one I’m fixing up that whole stretch of road.”
I nod. “I know your Aunt Emmy. That’s my mom’s best friend. They all up and moved to Corpus Christi together not too long ago with their cuckoo church.”
He nods. “That’s right! Small world.”
I shake my head. “Not really. It’s a small neighborhood and a small town. So you’re a house flipper?”
He shrugs. “In a way.”
He’s being cagey. I don’t like cagey. Especially when people seem like they’re buying up a bunch of properties at once.
“You gonna raise my property taxes, neighbor?”
Daniel looks taken aback. “Well…you could look at it as I’m raising your property value…. What exactly do you do here? I saw that cardboard sign out by the road but I couldn’t quite read it.”
I clear my throat. “Well, it’s actually a plywood sign advertising Molly’s Dog Ranch. I take care of dogs.”
“Take care of? You a vet? A dog sitter?”
“Not a vet. I’m a boarder, plus I provide daycare for folks who don’t like to leave their dogs alone all day while they work. Some people use me once a week to wear out their pups. Some people bring their fur babies every day. I also provide dogs a place to stay while their human friends are on vacation or dealing with goddamn deportation bullshit—that kind of thing. But I don’t have kennels or runs. It’s…a big dog ranch. Some people come with their dogs on their days off to play, like a dog park. Those are hard to find around here.”
“Sounds like a lot of noise to me,” Daniel says, frowning.
“Mostly in the daytime, but at nighttime, it’s minimal. Besides, having a dozen or more dogs as neighbors can make your place pretty secure,” I say with a grin.
Daniel winces. “A dozen or more, huh?”
Uh-oh. This could be a problem. “I have all the proper permits for the place, in case you’re wondering,” I say.
“When I bought the Travis house, my aunt said there was plans for a kennel in the neighborhood. She didn’t say the word ‘ranch.’”