“You’re sure I can’t help?” I ask once he’s unlocked the door and holds it open for me.
“Don’t think so. If I need you for anything, I’ll give you a holler.”
We separate and he goes to work.
I take care of feeding Whiskers the stray first, and then head up the back set of stairs off the kitchen. There’s something lyrical to my ears about the creak in the old steps, like the house itself wants to wake up and tell me old stories.
I’m still dumbstruck that I never knew the true history of this place.
Then again, I was only ever in the kitchen and living room growing up. Like Weston said, I was dead set on humiliating West and Marty at croquet during the visits in our younger days, leaving little mental energy for anything else.
They’d always let me tag along because they were driving—usually Grandpa’s old red Chevy pickup on loan. I wonder if Marty still has that truck; I didn’t see it in Grandpa’s storage.
And I’ll never admit to their faces, but I have to agree they were good enough guys to let my bratty butt follow them around like a third shadow.
Even with her frequent sales, Aunt Faye’s place is second only to the B&B with its antiques. Gorgeous solid wooden furniture, ornate rugs, and hundred-year-old china smile back at me around every corner.
I find Faye’s bedroom last and the shoes in her crowded jungle of a closet before stopping to admire an old globe in the corner. It looks like it dates back to the turn of the twentieth century, right around the time this place would’ve been a small-town hospital of sorts.
For the hundredth time, I can’t help but think what an amazing museum this old house would make, teeming with treasures from days gone by.
Smiling, I take a deep breath and hold it, basking in the scent of old memories and unlikely possibilities.
If it were a historical site...school kids could even visit, and they’d learn so much more about the history of their hometown. In another life, maybe I would’ve found my calling here at home, forever in love with this place that’ll always feel more like home than the bustling cities I’ve visited.
“Still alive in here?” a booming voice asks.
I jump, not realizing Weston fills in the doorway behind me until I whirl around.
Oh. My. Stars.
The sight of him makes my heart skip. He leans casually against the doorframe like a heroic statue, bulging arms crossed over his massive chest, wearing this lazy smirk below sandy-blond hair that must be messier from the working on the house.
It isn’t fair.
He shouldn’t get to be so fatally handsome and so standoffish simultaneously.
“I thought you’d gotten lost here. I wasn’t kidding when I said Aunt Faye’s closet could cause missing persons reports,” he says.
I wave a hand around the room. It’s a bedroom, and easy enough to navigate when you’ve got an eye for women’s attire and old things, no matter how much she’s accumulated.
“Nope, I’m still here to be a pain in your butt. Just enjoying my self-guided tour of what ought to be the Dallas History Museum.”
He lifts a brow.
“I’m not joking. This place would knock people’s socks off,” I say, clearing my throat as my cheeks heat. “What’s that look for?”
His smirk widens into a smile.
Yowza.
I feel like I’m about to go plummeting through the floor, and it’s got nothing to do with Faye’s overflowing cave of a closet.
“I believe you, Shelly. That shine in your eyes makes me see it, too.” He pauses, melting me alive with his soft blue gaze. “I’ll have to tell her before she sells this place. Hell, maybe North Earhart could pull a little money from the town’s support fund to spruce it up for the public and make a few good hires. Though I’ve gotta say, history geeks with fancy degrees are rare around these parts.”
My heart flips again.
All because he leaves zero doubt who should be a theoretical employee at a museum that doesn’t exist.