Darkmoon by Christine Pope

Author:Christine Pope [Pope, Christine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BA
Publisher: Dark Valentine Press
Published: 2014-08-01T06:00:00+00:00

10

Habitat

“Holy crap, Lucas,” I said. “Is this for real?”

“Of course it is,” he said, pushing a button on the fob he carried. His bright red Porsche beeped once.

Connor stood in front of the FJ Cruiser we’d driven here, craning his neck to take in the property in its entirety. “And he’s only asking nine-fifty?”

“You should’ve seen him salivating when I told him you could pay cash. Apparently the soon-to-be ex has him over a barrel, and he needs to liquidate as soon as he can. Avoiding a lengthy escrow is worth taking a mild hit on the price. The market is sort of stagnant right now anyhow, which doesn’t help. No one else has come to look at it.” Lucas shoved his car key in his pocket. “Anyway, let’s go inside, and see what you think.”

Inside? Well, if it was half as impressive as the outside, I was sold. Like Damon’s former home, the house was built of a combination of stone and wood, with several chimneys rising above the steeply pitched roof. On the drive over, Connor had told me the property was just a hair over three acres. I had a hard time computing that; lots in Jerome, even for the larger houses, weren’t very big. What I could see was that the rolling curves of the property were bounded in sturdy stone walls, and ponderosa pines and other evergreens dotted the landscape, clustering around the house, making it feel like something tucked away in an enchanted forest. And, in what seemed an utter extravagance to me, the four-car garage was detached and sat some distance away from the house, with a covered wooden walkway joining the two buildings.

Gawking at the place, I’d fallen a little behind the other two, so I hurried to catch up, even as Lucas was entering the code into the lockbox on the door. I wondered if he had the same talent with locks as Connor and I, and whether he was using the code to be polite.

But then I followed the two of them inside, and I stopped wondering about the locks.

“Holy crap.”

“You said that already,” Connor pointed out with a grin. “So good, so far?”

I could only nod dumbly. Now, Damon’s house had been very impressive, and this place shared some of the same architectural features — huge windows that let in a view of the forest and impossibly blue skies, a stone fireplace that stretched all the way to the ceiling, shining wood floors. But when I’d been at Damon’s, I couldn’t allow myself to like it, because it had been his. Whereas this house….

This house could be mine, if I wanted it.

Granite kitchen counters. Thermidor appliances. A separate refrigerator for wine. A second fireplace in the family room, and yet another in the master bedroom. Spotting it, Connor sent me a significant glance, and I grinned back at him. Never mind that we were heading into the time of year where you really didn’t need a fireplace — it was still something that was important to us.

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