Chapter Six
As Dalton showed Hannah into the house, he watched her take in her surroundings. He knew what she saw. The contemporary house’s interior was just as kitschy as its exterior, wide-open and welcoming. The floorplan flowed from one living space to the next, and was filled with comfortably overstuffed furniture in shades of navy, sapphire, and royal blue, with pops of yellow thrown in to make things interesting. In the main living area, a fire crackled in the vintage Malm fireplace to ward off the autumn chill, while overhead a modern chandelier made up of vertically hanging lights arranged in a graceful spiral hung from the cathedral ceiling two stories above.
It was home.
“Your house is a work of art,” Hannah announced with what seemed to be genuine adoration. “I mean, you have Sego palm trees growing in planters at the entrance of the living room. That’s next-level swanky.”
“Enjoy those palms while they’re here. When I get animals and kids in here, those things will have to go. Way too poisonous.”
“But right now it’s just you rattling around in this house?” she asked, glancing back at him. “Not even a goldfish?”
“Not even a guppy.”
“It feels huge, though, like genuine family-home huge. Definitely not my idea of what a bachelor pad should be.”
“I bought the place mainly to save it,” he admitted, looking around the room in hopes of seeing it through her eyes. “Driving over here, you may have noticed all the houses in this development look alike, yeah?”
She wrinkled her nose in a distaste he both understood and approved of. “You mean all those Colonials and Federalist brick boxes that need to go back to the snooty D.C. neighborhood where they belong? Yeah, I saw them.”
“So you get it. Those pretentious, substandard cracker boxes are an embarrassment to the world of architecture.”
“What I get is that if you actually want to live in one of those cookie-cutter mini-mansions with no trees or front gardens or imagination, you’ve clearly had your soul sucked out of you.”
Oh, yeah. She totally got it. “I bought this house out from under the developer of the neighborhood that now exists around us. They had plans of bulldozing this place to make way for a couple more of those—as you so accurately put it—brick boxes. Since that would’ve been a fucking crime, I managed to convince the previous owner to sell to me instead.”
Her brows did a slow rise. “Old properties are bulldozed every day in Chicago. How did you even know this one needed saving?”
He grimaced. “Weird twist of fate, I guess.”
“What does that mean?”
“When my grandfather started losing his memory, he’d sometimes go walkabout. Scary shit, to be honest. I swear, he’d just fucking disappear if you took your eyes off him for more than a minute. Then we’d spend the next several hours looking for him—me on my bike, calling for him until I had no voice left, while my mom and grandma did the same thing hanging out of the car windows a few streets over.”
Sweet compassion darkened those vivid blue eyes of hers. “How scary. I can’t imagine a kid going through that kind of pressure.”
“Countless kids go through that and more without complaint every day of the week. Believe me, I’m not special when it comes to that.” He lifted a shoulder, trying to shrug the remembered panic and worry away. “At that time, my mom, grandparents and I lived a couple miles west of here—literally on the wrong side of the tracks where most of the servants who worked in this neighborhood lived. Somehow my gramps found his way to this very house, where I found him sharing a beer with the owner right on those concrete steps out front.”
He heard her quick intake of breath. “You’re kidding.”
He shook his head. “Nope. There my gramps was, sitting on the steps as cool and calm as could be, while the rest of us were turning ourselves inside out looking for him. According to the former owner, my grandpa thought he was at a ballgame waiting for the Cubbies to take the field. The owner was just a nice guy who went along with that delusion in hopes of getting more information so he could help my grandpa find his way back home.”
“What a nice man, to go to all that trouble,” she murmured, clearly touched. “I don’t suppose he was the same guy who sold you this property?”
“Like I said, it was a weird twist of fate. Fast-forward to a couple years ago, and I just happened to be driving by when I see that very same owner yelling his head off at some prick who seemed intent on harassing the old guy into a fucking heart attack. Naturally I stopped, got out of the car and let the harassing prick know he was about thirty seconds away from the biggest beat-down of his life if he didn’t leave the old guy alone.”
“Let me guess,” she said, her tone as dry as the Sahara. “The harassing prick was the real estate developer.”
He flashed a grin at her. “Bingo. And have I told you I’ve got a real thing for that sexy brain of yours?”
“No, but I’m glad to hear it,” she returned with a grin of her own. “Now tell me what happened to the harassing prick. Did you give him a beat-down?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
“Aw. I was looking forward to hearing how he got his butt handed to him to wear as a hat.”
God, she was cute. “Bullies only pick on people weaker than them, so the harassing prick peeled out of here like his ass was on fire once I showed up. I then reintroduced myself to the owner of the place. Luckily enough, he remembered me. By the time I left hours later, I had taken the first steps in becoming the proud new owner of this property, while the old owner happily made plans to move to Boca. The only reason he hadn’t sold out to the developer was that he also thought that guy was a prick.”
She laughed. “I love it. And I love that you landed in this house on an impulsive need to save the day. You didn’t just save the former owner from a predatory developer. You saved this whole house, and trust me, this world is a better place that this house still exists. Have you seen those open stairs? Totally Brady Bunch retro. Makes me happy just looking at it.”
“Good. You being happy is my ultimate goal—for this evening and anything I can get after that.” And he planned to get one helluva lot.
Her brows inched up. “And here I thought it was to show me you know how to make the perfect steak.”
“Doesn’t that thought make you happy?”
“Of course,” she said, then made a show of looking around. “But I’ll let you in on a little secret—what would make me even happier is an actual steak, rather than just the thought of one. Think you can do something about that?”
Smartass. “Pretty sure I can. Feel free to make yourself at home,” he added, sweeping a hand at the open living area while heading toward the gray and stainless steel-accented kitchen. “What’s your preference? Medium? Medium rare?”
“Medium rare, leaning toward rare.” Since her idea of making herself at home apparently involved being near him, Hannah slid onto a stool at the kitchen’s granite-topped island counter. “At this juncture, I’d like to thank you for not bringing any of that well-done nonsense into the conversation.”
“Doing that to a steak is borderline criminal behavior.”
“My thoughts exactly. Do you need any help?”
He shook his head as he took a pair of porterhouses out of the stainless-steel fridge. “I’ve got this part covered. How are you at making salad?’
“Pure genius. Or at least not completely awful. Will that do?”
“Absolutely.” He opened the plastic bags keeping the steaks marinating in a dark bath. In an instant, the aromas of garlic, balsamic vinegar and rosemary perfumed the air. “Check out what I’ve got in the crisper—Romaine lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers. Use whatever you like, and then let’s get some wine going.”
“Sounds like a plan.”