Wild Man Creek Read Online Free PDF Page B

her.
    “Um, sure. I was just, um, remembering my great-grandmother’s garden and I—well I guess I got a littlecarried away here.” She stood up and brushed at her knees, but it did no good.
    He smiled down at her. “Must have been quite the garden. Hope gardened like a wild woman every summer. She gave away almost all of her produce and complained about the wildlife giving her hell. But she must’a loved it, the way she went after it.” He tilted his head. “You miss your grandma or something?”
    “Huh?”
    “Well, if you’ll pardon me, seems like maybe you’re crying. Or something.”
    “Oh!” she said, wiping at her eyes again. “Yes, I was missing her!”
    “That isn’t going to help much, with your hands all dirty,” he said. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket. “Here. Come on out of the mud. Wipe off your face before you get that dirt in your eyes.”
    She sniffed and took the clean, white handkerchief. “This your house now?” she asked, wiping off her face, amazed by the amount of dirt that came off on the cloth.
    He laughed. “Nah. I worked on it, that’s all.” He stuck out his hand, then lifted his eyebrows—her hand was caked in mud. He reconsidered and withdrew his hand. “Paul Haggerty. General Contractor. I build and rebuild and restore around here.”
    “Jillian Matlock,” she said, looking down at what had happened to her perfectly manicured, executive businesswoman’s hands. Destroyed. She pulled her hand back and wiped it on her jeans. “Whose house is it then?” she asked.
    “The town’s. Hope left the house, land and her trust to the town.”
    “Ah, that’s right! I was here last fall. I came to the estatesale and someone told me about that. So what’s going to happen to it?”
    He stuck his hands in his pockets, rolled back on his heels and looked skyward. “Been a lot of talk about that. They could make it a museum, an inn, a town hall. Or just sit on it awhile. Or sell it—but with the economy down, it probably won’t pull a good sale price just now.”
    “So no one really owns it?” Jillian asked.
    “The town does. The guy in charge is Jack Sheridan. He has a bar in town.”
    “No new owner?” she asked.
    “Nope.”
    “Gee, I’d love to see what you did inside.”
    He grinned. “And gee, I’d love for you to, but you’re a mess!”
    She looked down at herself. “Yeah. I lost my head. Got a little caught up in clearing her garden and getting it ready. For what, God knows.”
    “It’s not locked,” Paul said. “But I’d consider it a personal favor if you’d wipe your feet before going in.”
    She was shocked; her eyes were round and amazed. “Not locked?”
    “Nope,” he said with a shrug.
    “So…no Realtor has the listing yet?” Jill asked.
    “Not as far as I know, but then I barely finished with the redo. Jack would be the one to talk to.”
    “Tell you what, this will make you happy. I’m going to go home…. Um, I’m staying in a cabin out by the river….”
    “Riordans’,” he said with a smile.
    Boy, this was a tight group, she thought. “Right. If it’s all right with you, I’ll come back out here tomorrow morning and give myself a little tour. I’ll be all clean and won’t track dirt in your house.”
    His grin was huge. “And I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I painted and waxed those floors.” Then he blushed a little. “Well, I got it done.”
    She smiled right back at him. “I know what a general contractor does. So, what does a place like this usually go for?”
    “Who knows?” he said. “Put it in Fortuna, maybe seven hundred and fifty thousand. Restored, maybe a million. Lot of rooms in that house but only a couple of baths—I added one small one with a shower to make it three. Put it in a place like Menlo Park or San Jose—three million. Problem with real estate right now—it’s worth whatever you can get.”
    “I hear that,” she said. “Listen, I’m going to take off.” She