A Little Like Fate (Robin and Tyler 1)

Chapter 1

One 1873 Winchester 30/30 rifle. One Purple Heart war metal. A framed photo of Grandpa and his wife whom I never got to meet. And a gold Rolex that hangs so loosely around my wrist, it falls to my elbow when I raise my arm. Two weeks after Grandpa’s death and this is all I have left of him.

Oh, and a check for seventy-five thousand dollars. One of the three equal amount checks that was split between my mother, my older sister and me. I expected the rifle; he had always said I was the only one who appreciated his antiques, but I didn’t expect the money. Grandpa lived in the one room garage apartment behind Mom’s house for the past twenty years. I guess I never pictured him living frugally while storing money away for a rainy day. Guess I never thought he had any money.

Stopping at a red light, I glance at the cashier’s check folded in my car’s cup holder. Seventy-five thousand dollars? It doesn’t seem real. I wonder if it will become real when I deposit it into my bank account on my lunch break. Something tells me that the five digit account balance on a computer screen won’t be proof enough that I’m richer than I’ve ever been. I used to think the commission from selling the Medical Center Townhomes of 2013 was the biggest chunk of cash I’d ever see. But this blows that out of the water. This is more than ten townhomes.

Maybe I should cash it into dollar bills, fill up a kiddie pool in my living room and swim in it. I can picture it now: Ms. World’s Most Sensitive Ears from downstairs would stomp up to my floor, bang on the front door and tell me to stop splashing around up there because she was trying to get some rest before the new episode of Criminal Minds came on. I’d offer her all the cash she could carry with two hands to leave me alone.

As I pull into the Carter Properties parking lot, my cashier’s check tips to the side and flutters down to the floorboard. I temporarily think about dropping the wheel to catch it, not caring that I’d crash my car in the process. Shit. The money isn’t even in my account yet and it’s already driven me insane. I let the check sit weakly on the floor mat, as if it was just any old check and not my inheritance. Not an amount of cold hard cash that could really change someone’s life.

I shut off the engine, grab my purse (and the check), walk past the sign in front of my parking spot that says PARKING RESERVED FOR ROBIN CARTER, and head into work for the first time since Grandpa died. I expect the place to look different, but it doesn’t. It still smells of freshly-brewed coffee and some kind of flowery-vanilla scent in the wax melter that is my sister Maggie’s obsession. Grandpa spent the last six months in Hospice care, so it’s not as if the office would suddenly feel empty without him here. To my disappointment, it doesn’t feel like his loving spiritual presence is hovering over my head, watching over me.

It feels, well, like a normal work day.

“The people with the house for sale on Mike Street called you three times already,” Maggie says, pushing past me with an armload of paperwork and a coffee in her other hand. She wears black leggings that show off her toned legs and a baggy rhinestone-decorated shirt I’m certain she bought off the racks at a Forever 21. Her eighteen-year-old daughter doesn’t even dress this juvenile. “Something about a teenager crashing into their fence and how they’re not going to spend money to fix it.”

“Of course they aren’t,” I say with a sigh as I pour a cup of coffee and lean against the counter in the break room. “Why the hell would they do something productive to sell their ugly, underwater house?”

My older sister eyes me disapprovingly as I pour not one, not two, but three scoops of real cane sugar into my coffee mug. “If you’d read the health book I gave you two months ago, you’d know how toxic that shit is for your body,” she says, eyeing my mug with such vehemence that I’m surprised it doesn’t shatter. As Maggie nears the age of forty-five, the crow’s feet in her stare is so close to Mom’s that if she gained thirty pounds I wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. This is the shitty thing about having a sister who’s nineteen years older than you and an estranged father. You essentially have two mothers. Neither one of these women are particularly good mothers themselves, so when combining their crappy maternal instincts on me, it’s amazing I grew up even somewhat normal.

Of course, Grandpa had a lot to do with making sure I turned out all right. He only made it until I was twenty-five, so I guess I’m on my own from here on out.

I take a long, slow sip of my coffee, closing my eyes and groaning as if it’s the most delicious and fulfilling thing I’ve ever tasted. Maggie sighs in such an exaggerated way I can feel her breath on my hair.

“That house has been on the market, what—ten months?” She clicks her tongue and I shrug, pretending that ten months isn’t a big deal. When it’s absolutely a big deal. You don’t get to be Houston’s Top Realtor two years in a row for keeping houses on the market ten months. I should have never agreed to take over Grandpa’s residential clients when he went into hospice care, since all my experience in real estate is with downtown condominiums and high-rise lofts.

“Something like that,” I say casually as I stir my coffee and then take a sip through the tiny stirring straw—another habit Maggie hates. She always bitches that stirring straws are meant to stir, not to suck from. “Residential properties are a beast in this economy.”

“I’ll be happy to take it over for you,” she says. “I do well with middle class homes.”

I take another sip of coffee to avoid the bitch look that is so close to flashing across my face. Of course she would be happy to take it over for me! Of course she would. In real estate, it’s not about being kind to your fellow partner; it’s about swooping in and taking their commission out from under them. She knows how important it is for me to transition into residential homes, to do my grandfather proud. She’d never say it, but I know it bothers her that I’m twice as successful and half her age.

Not to mention I was Grandpa’s favorite. So neiner, neiner Maggie.

“I’m fine, thanks. It’s the owners, not the house.” I grab a protein bar from what used to be the muffin basket on the counter before Maggie went all health-crazy, take a bite and try to figure out an excuse as to why the house hasn’t sold. I can’t come up with any decent ideas by the time I swallow. The crap in my mouth tastes like cardboard, if cardboard was kind of spongy and grainy. “They, um, are refusing to accept lower than listing price offers.”

“Really?” Maggie says, her voice rising in a way that makes me shudder. “Because when I spoke with the homeowner while you were running late this morning, she said she hasn’t had a single offer, not even a low ball. She was quite displeased. She even mentioned going to Remax.”

Shit. She’s got me. What the hell is she doing talking to my clients anyway? Realizing I’m twirling a strand of hair around my finger in that nervous way that makes a woman look like a child, (o