High Plains Hearts (59 page)

What was she going to do? That question had to be answered, and soon. She’d checked her bank balance online and was horrified to see how much it had shrunk.

She’d been hasty in packing up and moving to North Dakota. There was no doubt about that. But she could not believe it had been the wrong thing to do. Never.

Sunshine was in her soul. As the summer had moved into autumn, it had become even more enmeshed in her being.

God clearly meant for her to be there. Didn’t He? If it was His intent, was He at some time going to make clear to her what she should do? Something that would be profitable?

It was too much to ask of Him. She knew that. She’d gone into this with her eyes wide open—maybe with a bit of a shadow from her fashionable sunglasses that Leonard had gnawed into a twisted, unusable piece of plastic, but open nonetheless.

She wouldn’t trade back an hour of all the work she’d done for even a second of time back in her very comfortable office with the padded leather chair and the checks that made life tolerable. No, she was glad to be here, in the last shreds of warmth before winter set in.

But there was just so much to be done at Sunshine.

She’d spent so much time focusing on cleaning and repairing the buildings that she’d let her original vision for it fall aside. Now, as she was about to enter her first winter here in North Dakota, she’d have the time to work on developing it.

She had only the vaguest idea of what she wanted to do with the property. A fishing resort was the only thing she’d come up with, but that was so nebulous, it was worthless.

Initially Sunshine had appealed to her because of how different it was from the hustle of the city. Then she had met Hayden and Gramps, and the mission became different—it was no longer saving her sanity, but saving Sunshine.

And saving her soul.

Suddenly a volley of sharp barks erupted from Leonard, who, from his vantage point on the porch, had been happily watching Hayden paint the front door. The dog tore down the driveway, and continued to bark at whatever unseen menace was headed their way.

Livvy pulled off her work gloves and stepped out of the lean-to. A cloud of dust announced visitors.

It was Trevor’s old truck. This was the vehicle that had brought her to Sunshine in the first place, and she started for it, a smile on her face, when the passenger side door opened, and a familiar figure stepped out.

It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be.

She moved toward the truck, but Hayden was faster, reaching it before she did. Leonard growled at the stranger and protectively placed himself firmly between the man and Hayden.

“Good dog, Leonard, good dog.” Hayden patted the dog’s head with one hand while keeping a firm grip on his collar with the other. “Settle down now. Good dog, good dog. By the way,” he said to the visitor, “I’m Hayden Greenwood.”

“Pleased to meet you,” the man answered, his dark eyes sweeping across the property. “I’m—”

In a split second, as she saw the familiar scan—the rapid tally, the quick appraisal of market value—a protective temper rose in her. Sunshine was hers.

She knew from working with the man that he did nothing without a firm objective in mind. What did he want from her? It couldn’t be good.

Livvy stepped forward. “This is Michael Evans, my former boss.”

Hayden turned to her, clearly startled by her blunt tone. “Livvy—” he began, but she waved his interruption away, and Mr. Evans laughed a bit nervously as Leonard growled again.

“Mr. Evans is here to see me, or, no, better than that, I’m wondering if he’s here to see Sunshine,” she said, hating that her voice was shaking. “What is it? Is there oil under the land? Gold tucked in a cave? Gemstones in the buttes?”

She tried to interject some lightness into her words, but she knew she failed. She knew him too well. He wasn’t here because he was on vacation in the Badlands. Not Michael Evans. Their relationship in Boston had been very formal, very careful, very precise. Their parting hadn’t been exactly cordial either.

There was some reason he was here, and it had to do with Sunshine. Or her.

He had some kind of agenda, and the most effective way to deal with it was to face it head-on, directly.

Mr. Evans looked at her, and she saw herself in his eyes. Cut-off jeans, a faded and stained T-shirt that she’d found in one of the cabins a month ago, no makeup, and hair that hadn’t seen a stylist since she left Boston. To complete the package, she probably smelled like dirt and sweat and was coated in both.

“Actually,” he said, his voice as smooth as Martha Washington’s fur, “I’m out here because I need your signature on some papers.”

“Really?” she asked, making no effort to disguise the disbelief in her voice. “And what papers would those be?”

“The Millner transfer. You didn’t sign the agent’s agreement.”

Livvy shook her head in self-reproach. She knew exactly what he was talking about. She’d done all of the behind-the-scenes work on the account. It had been a massive amount of work because the Millners owned rental property not only in Massachusetts but also in Virginia, Florida, and Arizona. Each state’s laws were a bit different, and adding to the difficulty was that the Millner family, which was spread all around the world, owned varying percentages of each property. It was the largest account she’d ever worked with. She’d left before everything was completed—the finalization had still been months away.

And yet of all the papers for her to miss, the agreement was probably the most important.

“You don’t get your bonus until it’s signed,” Mr. Evans said, knowing, she was sure, that those very words would make her get out her pen immediately.

She’d forgotten about the bonus. It was a substantial one. With it, she’d be able to get through the winter—if nothing broke.

She took a moment and breathed a prayer:
Give me patience, strength, and understanding
.

“I apologize if I sounded rude,” she said, motioning him to the door. “Come inside, and let’s put ink on paper.”

Gramps was at the screen door. “All that commotion woke me up from my nap,” he said. His eyes were confused. “Is Ellie in the garden?”

She took his arm. “Hayden is right out here. And we have a guest, Gramps. This is Michael Evans. I worked for him in Boston. He owns one of the largest real estate management firms in the United States.”

Mr. Evans reached his hand out and shook Gramps’s. “Sir, it’s good to meet you. This is my first time in North Dakota, and I must say it’s quite a spectacular place. Sunshine has a beautiful setting.”

Gramps nodded. “Sunshine is a treasure.” He shook his arm free of his touch. “You can’t have it.”

She bit back a smile at her former boss’s expression. He managed to look horrified and amused at the same time. He had clearly underestimated Gramps’s mental facility, which didn’t surprise her too much. He’d always sent her to negotiate with family members.

What he didn’t know—had never known—was the reason she was so successful with estate work. She didn’t push the family members but instead guided them to a consensus, one that they could all be happy with.

“I don’t want Sunshine,” Mr. Evans said in the voice he usually kept in reserve for those he considered slow.

“Then you’re dumber than I thought.” Gramps pulled the screen door shut and hooked the latch.

She heard Hayden gasp behind her, and in a series of great loping steps, he joined them. “Gramps, now, Mr. Evans is here to visit with Livvy. He has something she needs to sign.”

The old man shook his head vigorously. “He’s here to sell something. Vacuum cleaners maybe. Or toilet brushes.”

A nervous giggle rose in her throat, but she choked it down. Gramps’s fingers tapped nervously along the handle of the door.

“I can assure you, sir,” Mr. Evans said, “that I am not here to sell anything, especially not vacuum cleaners or toilet brushes.” He said the products as if the very words tasted bad.

Livvy glanced quickly at Hayden. His forehead was lined with worry. He reached toward the door but Gramps shook his head, and Hayden shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and looked upward, his face a study in frustration.

A loud rumble accompanied by blares and screeches rose behind them, and Livvy spun around to see the cause.

It was Trevor. Apparently bored by the entire scene, he’d started his car again—those were the sounds that shook the floorboards of the porch—and turned on the radio. It might have been music that he was listening to, but Livvy wouldn’t stake any bets on it.

“Is that Martha Washington?” Gramps asked, and from somewhere deep inside Livvy, a bubble of laughter burst and erupted out of her. Hayden looked at her, and he joined in, too.

Mr. Evans gaped at them as if they’d both lost their minds, and as the laughter continued to pour out into the October afternoon, unchecked, she thought that perhaps he was right. She could no more stop laughing than she could sprout wings and fly around the yard.

She reached for Hayden and put her hand on his shoulder to balance herself as the laughter rolled on. It felt so good to laugh. It cleaned her. It refreshed her. And it gave her new vigor.

At last Mr. Evans coughed, a sound that shot through the growl of Trevor’s truck engine and the shrill blast of guitars and drums and wailing voices from his radio, and the last vestiges of mirth died in her throat.

“Can you explain this to me?” he asked rather stiffly. “I am somewhat at a disadvantage here.”

“Martha Washington is a cat,” she answered, wiping her eyes from the laughing jag. “A big fat lazy cat that chases the chicken and that’s about all. She purrs but not quite that loudly.”

Gramps wiggled the screen door. “It’s locked,” he announced.

Hayden cleared his throat and approached the door. “Gramps, you locked it.”

“I know.”

“Now you need to unlock it.”

The older man fiddled with the latch and at last it sprang free.

Hayden opened the door and motioned Livvy and Mr. Evans inside.

She took her former boss into the kitchen as Hayden led his grandfather to the couch and began to talk to him in a low voice.

Mr. Evans looked over his shoulder. “He’s all right?”

Livvy nodded. “He fades in and out. Usually he’s fine. He’s the fellow I bought Sunshine from.”

“I see.”

As they neared the table, he opened the large manila folder he carried and took out the papers, looking through them, not losing a step in his stride. “I would have done this by phone, but I couldn’t get through.”

“No service right here. At least not for that carrier.”

“And then you weren’t answering your e-mail,” he continued.

“No Internet out here.”

Mr. Evans stopped midstep. “You’re serious? No cell phone service. No e-mail. No Google.”

“I’m serious. The only thing I miss is talking to my parents, since they live in Sweden, and we use the computer for that, so I go into town and use the library’s connection.”

He stared at her. “Amazing.” He laid the papers on the scarred surface of the kitchen table and ran his hands over the faux marble top. “This would get a fairly decent price at auction, wouldn’t it? Now let’s see, Release, Assignment of Rights, Temporary Transfer of Title, Deed in Kind, Agent’s Agreement, there we are. You have a pen? Sign by the yellow sticky note.”

He seemed anxious to move the conversation on, to get out of the kitchen of this place where crazies lived, and she didn’t totally blame him. She read through the document, making sure that she remembered what she had written before she signed it. It was a good agreement, fair to all those involved, but it had involved months of work, of close negotiation, of listening, listening, and more listening.

She was justifiably proud of what she’d accomplished, and she signed it with a tinge of sadness, knowing that she would probably never do this kind of work again. There weren’t enough property sales or leases to make her career possible out here.

“Here you go,” she said, blowing on the inked signature before handing it back to him. Mr. Evans always used a fountain pen that she knew cost several hundreds of dollars. “Signed, sort of sealed, and delivered.”

“Thank you.” He placed the document back in the folder and snapped the rubber band around it. “This means a lot to the agency, and, of course, to you. You deserved this bonus. I’m not one to give out compliments, you know that, but the clients have told me repeatedly how much they appreciated what you did for them. Thanks to you, the family has reunited, despite the friction of the past, and they asked me to relay their appreciation to you for your work, not just as an agent but as a human being.”

She could only stare at him. This was amazing.

“Do you have a card?” he asked.

“What kind of a card?” She looked at him blankly.

“A business card,” he answered, “of course.”

“Business card? For what?”

“Well, for one thing, to make sure the check arrives here, unless you want it automatically deposited in the bank. Do you still have the same account?”

“I do.” For once her laziness was in her favor. She’d left the account in Boston open. “Can you go ahead and deposit it for me?”

“Sure. But you should have a business card.”

“Why?”

He put the packet flat onto the table. “Well, Livvy, for this.” He motioned around him with a sweep of his arm. “Sunshine. You can’t do this without advertising. It’s the stuff of business success, after all. You’ll need to start the accounts for food service, unless you want to do it all yourself, and there’ll be a cleaning crew, I imagine, and a linen supply contract, just to begin.”

“But for what?” She understood the words but there wasn’t meaning behind them. What on earth was he talking about?

A fly roused itself on the windowsill and batted itself halfheartedly against the screen, warmed by the Indian summer afternoon. Outside the cacophony of Trevor’s truck radio and engine shook the usual calm.

“For this.” He leaned on the table, his black suit still spotless even after riding in the teenager’s truck. She’d been in the truck just five months ago, and she doubted that he had cleaned it since. How Mr. Evans accomplished maintaining his immaculate appearance was nothing short of a miracle.