Mary kept silent but she knew exactly what room he spoke of and what it had been used for at one time. "What about the yard?"
"I don't think the previous owner could in any way be identified as a green thumb kind of person but most of what's there is alive and not all of it is weeds." He pictured the backyard in his mind. "There's a small tool shed in the backyard as well as another smaller building. It looks like it may have been a playhouse or something once upon a time before it started falling down in every direction."
Mary sighed. She'd known before she sat down, before she walked out of the house for that matter on her way to meet him that she was going to want that house. She also wanted the playhouse and all it represented, falling down or otherwise. She looked at Pete, knew he was waiting patiently. She suspected he knew it as well but was waiting for her to voice it. She sighed. There was simply no sense in postponing the inevitable. "What do you think I can get it for?"
Pete slid another paper across the table to her.
Mary looked down at the contract, all filled out and waiting for her signature. She couldn't help the small laugh, didn't even bother to look up at his knowing expression. The amount, surprising enough, seemed low. For that she did look up at him and he understood from her expression alone what she asked before she spoke.
"I did a little digging. The couple who own the house are anxious to move out so they can move closer to where their kids and grandkids are. They may come back with a counter offer but then again they may jump at this." He shrugged slightly. "It doesn't hurt to try."
Mary took the pen he offered without a word and signed the document. "I appreciate it especially since it works against you." She smiled at him. "And if it helps there won't be any wait on a mortgage. I'll be paying outright for it."
"Believe me, that will help." He took back the paper. "And I figure if I save you money you'll have more to spend on the next one so I come out ahead either way." Even as she laughed he asked her to wait a moment while he texted the realtor who'd listed the house with the offer they were making on it. While they waited, he wondered what she would think about the other information he'd dug up. "I found something else out while I was digging around. Actually," he added, "I went by the library to confirm it." It had been a long shot but after Casey had told him about all they'd learned about the other two houses his curiosity had gotten the best of him. "The builder of this house was Tekla Wallengren."
"Great-Grandma," breathed Mary. Shaken by the news but not completely surprised.
"You didn't know."
"I had no idea."
"Looks like she had an interest in collecting houses too," he commented. "It'll certainly perk up Casey's interest."
Mary pushed off the shock from the information he'd just imparted and zeroed in on the last part of his statement. "Speaking of Casey," she began, held back the smile at his sudden interest in the food in front of him. "I like you, Pete. I really do, so try not to gag on your food."
"Aren't you going to eat?" he tried.
"In a minute." She decided backing into this conversation would be useless. Pete was a grown man, not her twenty-something year old son. "Are you interested in my cousin, Pete?"
He looked straight at her now, apparently remembering he was a grown man and not a teenager. "I am." He took a huge bite out of the sandwich and struggled not to choke on it. "Yes." He repeated himself. "I am."
"Good." Mary took a bite of her own sandwich at that point, swallowing down her laughter along with the food. "I'm going to do you a really big favor."
"Okay." Pete took another bite out of the sandwich he could now barely taste, wondered desperately where this was going.
"Do you have a problem with the age difference between the two of you?"
"We're only talking about a couple of years, Mary. What's the big deal?" This was the last thing he’d expected. But she had his attention.
"You're right." And she was more than pleased that he hadn't even considered the fact that the age difference involved Casey being the older of the two. "You are absolutely right." Mary decided to be honest with him. "Unfortunately Casey does has a problem with it." She paused. "More specifically, I think it worries her that it might bother you."
Pete was astounded into silence. He hadn't had a clue and couldn't believe he hadn't had an inkling of what Casey was thinking. "It's what, three or four years. She's never said a word to me."
"Pete," Mary couldn't have been happier at the idiocy of a man. "It's not a big deal, but the issue with Casey isn't necessarily the number of years but more specifically the direction they go in." Seeing he was still clueless she went with the more direct route again. "She has a problem with being the older of the two of you." She watched as once again Pete was stunned into silence, opening his mouth a few times but unable to get anything out. She waited quietly, eating her sandwich while he worked it out in his mind.
"That's just plain stupid," he finally said. "It's not just stupid, it's idiotic."
"If you're smart, you'll make sure that she understands that’s how you feel about it and using exactly those terms might work best." She finished off her sandwich and watched intently as he pulled out his phone and looked at the message he’d just received.
"You have another house." He announced with a tepid smile. His mind now very much elsewhere.
"Good." She picked up the paper the waitress had left behind. "My treat." She stood. "Let me know when we can close on it. And Pete," she waited for his attention to focus back on her, pleased that he was concerned enough about the situation with Casey to practically forget she was even there. "Talk about it. Don't let it fester. Don't let her allow it to become an issue."
"Is she at the house?"
"She's at the Marshall Street house. I think she'll be there most the afternoon."
"Thanks."
Casey took the corner, slowed only a bit as she headed down the street with the Cedar Street house already in view. She had spent the day, or at least the first part of it working on plans for hers and Mary's new business. Much of the remainder of the day she'd spent with a man who was every bit as hard headed as her brothers, maybe as much as all of them put together. She'd figured out not too long into the conversation that he'd been prepped by the woman who had always been more of a sister to her than the cousin she was. Initially she'd been angry or at least on the verge of it. Now, after she and Pete had come to a meeting of the minds, she wasn't sure who she was angry with...Mary or herself. It had been pitifully easy for the man to wear her down, to make her feel slightly stupid about her concerns about being the older of the two of them. She was forced to question herself whether it was easy for him to wear her down because her concerns were stupid or because she'd wanted to be worn down.
He was right about one thing though, she admitted wryly. If it had it been the reverse the age difference wouldn't have bothered her any, wouldn't have ever been an issue. And he had been adamant that had he been the older of them it wouldn't bother him in the least as well, so why should it bother her being the oldest if it didn't bother him. The man not only had a way with words he was quick with them to boot. Casey still wasn't certain where in the conversation he made sense and she didn't, but in the end that was exactly where he had led her.
She walked up to the front porch not in the least surprised to see Mary on the swing. Ever since it had been installed she spent any free time she had, which was little, out here on it. Sitting down beside her she announced the news that still excited her every bit as much as it unsettled her. "I have a date tonight."
"That's nice." Mary bit the inside of her lip to keep from smiling. She knew Casey well enough to know she would deal better with casual acceptable considering her announcement had come out sounding more like a snarl than anything else.
"You sent him over the to the Marshall Street house to talk to me."
"No, that I didn't do," Mary countered with complete honesty. "Seeing you was all his idea. I onl
y told him where you were when he asked."
"So, you admit talking with him about me."
"Actually, I met with him to talk about something else entirely." Mary enjoyed the back and forth with this woman who was so close to her she could almost anticipate her words before she spoke them. "You came up in the conversation somewhere in the midst of that." She thought about it for a moment. "Actually you came up at the end of the conversation."
"You told him I was jumpy about being older than him."
"I don't think I used the word 'jumpy' but that topic did come up at my instigation," Mary admitted. She looked past her cousin down the street where another sign was being placed above the one already sticking out of the ground. A strong sense of satisfaction filled her, a sense she hadn't felt this keenly since early on in her writing career.
"I bet you're feeling pretty smug about this, aren't you?" Casey couldn't find the heat in her to be angry, but strongly felt the need to stay true to form.
"Actually, I am feeling pretty smug at this moment but not about that." She smiled gently at her cousin. "I'm feeling pretty good about you and Pete, but not smug."
Casey thought about that, only now recognized the look in Mary's face. She had seen it before. Excitement was close but not close enough. Not enough period. Then something else filtered into her mind that had slipped by because she'd been too focused on herself. "Why did you need to talk with Pete today in the first place?" Bingo, she thought, when the self satisfied expression on Mary's face went into full bloom like a rose. "Okay, spill it." She had a sudden thought, couldn't believe it but could only think of one thing Mary would be talking to Pete about outside of her. "Did you buy another house?" She was half teasing, half sarcastic.
"Actually, yes," Mary said, laughing as she did. The expression on Casey's face was too priceless to describe accurately but she would have loved to be able to.
"Oh my Gosh!" Casey wracked her mind, wondering what now, and only by chance did she catch the slight glance Mary sent down the street and knew immediately the answer to her own unspoken question. "You're joking right?" She turned and saw the sign outside the house she referred to. She also saw the smaller sign that was now positioned above it. "You bought Aunt Charlie's old house?" she practically screeched, only just barely able to lower her voice before she did.
Mary nodded, enjoying herself immensely.
"Are you collecting houses or what?" Casey simply couldn't get her mind around it.
Mary laughed. "Pete asked me something along the same lines."
"I bet." That was one thing she found so attractive about the man, Casey thought. They were often, very often, on the same lines about a lot of things.
"He told me something else." Mary waited for Casey to turn back to her. "Great-Grandma built it," she said simply and waited for it to sink in.
Casey leaned back against the swing. She hadn't found anything at the Marshall Street house but she had a strong feeling she couldn't explain that there was something there to find. Really strong feelings she instinctively knew she couldn't ignore or pretend away.
"It may not mean anything," Mary began. "But when I heard that it just clinched it. So...I guess I'm collecting houses," she said it simply with a sheepish smile.
"I can think of a lot worse things you could be collecting." Mary sent her a grateful look that made her think of something else. "What did Daniel say?" Casey knew without even asking that the first thing Mary would have done would be to call her husband. Not to ask but to tell him what she'd done. Theirs was a strong relationship, a unique one that had worked and survived through a lot and not just years.
Mary sighed. "He just laughed."
"Not at you." Casey knew for a fact the man adored his wife. He might laugh about what she was doing but never at her for doing it.
"No." She smiled. "And he just pretty much said the same as you."
"That you're collecting houses."
Mary just nodded. But there was a look in her expression Casey wouldn't have noticed if she wasn't looking. She knew that look, had seen it in the mirror. Self-doubt rearing its ugly detrimental head. And she knew it could be a person's most damaging enemy. "Does it make you happy?" she asked quietly, seriously, even though the answer was obvious.
Mary looked at her, gave another small little nod.
"Then that's all that really matters." She thought about her own life, how much it had changed. How much more it could. "At least," she added, believing it herself. "It should."
Mary wished it was the easy. She now owned three properties in a community she adored but knew really little about as an adult. She had plans for the one they currently occupied. She was feeling utterly clueless about the others. Never before had she felt so good about what she was doing without having any idea about where she was going with it.
"Whatever you're thinking about," Casey interrupted her thoughts. "Don't."
Mary laughed. It felt comfortable to be known so well. Things had a way of working out the way they were supposed to. She sincerely believed that, lived most of her life on that very premise. Even Daniel had voiced that very thought...once he'd finished laughing. Becoming a multi-property owner didn't seem to be upsetting his apple cart in the least. "Okay," she agreed. "So how is your work with the high school class coming along?" She knew despite hearing little about it that Casey was enjoying it immensely.
Casey chewed unconsciously on her lip, a habit she had sworn over and over again to give up. "It's funny you should bring that up." And it was. She'd had another idea floating around in her mind for a while. Over the last couple of days it hovered even closer increasing her desire to make it a reality. But she hadn't planned on discussing it with her cousin this soon and wasn't certain how to approach it. Taking a deep breath, she decided some things weren't meant to be planned out to the last inconceivable impossibility. And that was another habit she hoped to eliminate in her struggle to become more flexible and infinitely more accepting of the person she wanted to become. "I've been thinking about this a bit. I was actually putting some ideas and numbers on paper when Pete showed up this afternoon." She eyed her cousin, still not completely thrilled with her role in the afternoon's unannounced visit. "Anyway," she brushed that aside for another time. "I know you've been wondering what to do with the Marshall Street house," she paused as Mary looked at her oddly. "What?"
"Nothing. Go on." Mary quietly wondered about things working out as they should.
"Well, I had some thoughts on it, that's not to say I have any idea what to do with the Woodhaven place but..." she drifted, uncertainty again raising its determined head.
"Go on," Mary urged again wanting to hear what her cousin had in mind.
"I don't really have it all clear in my head yet, that's why I was trying to get it down on paper."
Mary nodded, understanding the need to work things through when not everything was coming together exactly as you wanted or when you wanted.
"First, I need to admit it's somewhat ... actually very self-serving for me. It's actually how I came up with the idea." She looked almost guiltily at her cousin. "I was trying to figure out how to make my own plans work."
Mary again pushed, "Every idea takes root from our secret wishes and deepest desires, or they should. What do you think led me here, to this town, this house, sitting on this front porch with you?" She couldn't help the hint of frustration in her voice.
"All right, all right. I just didn't want you to think I was trying to take advantage of you." At Mary's derisive snort she continued on. "I've been thinking about the possibility of forming my own video company, a very small video company," she corrected. "I've really enjoyed that aspect of it. It's hard not to when you've got all these really motivated, idealistic teenagers surrounding you. I was even thinking that I'd use as many of them as I could who were part of the video production program as part time employees when I need them. If I can get to that point."
Mary's easy silence and receptive expression encour
aged her forward. "I was thinking of specializing...focusing on small towns, small town living, their history, their people, where they've been and where they're going." She thought about the outlines she'd worked on that morning. "With some luck if anyone watches it could even bring some tourism to those small communities that need it most." She paused, putting some of it together in her mind even as she spoke. "Plus," she added as another afterthought came to her. "When I'm there, wherever I'm at, I could be on the lookout for the old and unique things that I want us to be able to feature in our online store."
"Your store." Mary corrected almost automatically. "And I think you would be wonderful at both." And she did, both would make the most of all of Casey's vast talents and experience. "And you're right, you would be in the perfect position to continually be searching out new inventory. I may very well go with you on some of those little jaunts."
"I hope so," and she really did which surprised her some. She'd spent so much of her life enjoying her self-imposed solitude. "That's what got me to thinking that maybe I could turn one of the rooms in the Marshall Street house into a studio or office." She watched Mary's expression intently. This was important to her but not nearly as important as her relationship with her cousin. "The place is huge and once I got to thinking about that, I got to thinking about how you could set yourself up a studio or whatever there too." She caught Mary's surprised expression. "Oh, I know you've been thinking about something other than writing," she added. "But I remember when we were little, you were always talking about having an artist garret or loft, now you can."
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