by Kim Law
Anyone interested had gotten the opportunity to walk through the finished houses earlier in the day, and now everyone was headed back to hear the announcement of the winner.
An empty parking lot had been reserved for the floats and vehicles that had been a part of the parade, and after everyone disembarked, they formed a path to the houses. The crowd parted as the teams made their way down the street, and Jill’s heart skipped a beat when she realized that Cal had hung back to finish the route hand in hand with her.
She grinned up at him as his fingers closed around hers, and she had her answer. This was real. It had to be.
And she was certain he felt it, too.
Cal leaned down and brushed a kiss across her cheek. “Good luck.”
“You, too.”
They stopped, still holding hands, in front of the houses, and she laughed out loud when she caught Len making goo-goo eyes at her from behind his camera. Cal might miss Mrs. Wainwright after today, but Jill would miss Len.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Patrick announced to the crowd. He had a microphone in his hand, and speakers had been lined along the length of the street. “Let me be the one to formally introduce to you the much-loved hosts of Texas Dream Home, Bob and Debra Raines.”
The crowd roared.
Jill stood at Cal’s side, leaning into him, and listened as the couple greeted the onlookers and shared their excitement for the project that had been going on there. They would be walking through the houses next, but would be back out soon to announce the winners and hand over the deeds.
The couple continued talking, while at the same time Bonnie’s dog suddenly began to bark. Jill and Cal turned to catch Winston with fangs bared and in his four-pounds-of-dog attack crouch, pulling at his leash. He was doing his best to get over to the Cadillac House.
Cal winked at Jill. “Mrs. W must be watching.”
“I’d be disappointed if she wasn’t.”
The Raineses entered the Bono House first, with cameras following, and the construction teams hung back as they’d been told to do. Jill’s nerves twisted inside her. Then Winston’s decibel level rose sharply, and Jill looked over to see a lone man step from the crowd. Whispers reached Jill as the feeble gentleman in the fedora hat slowly made his way into the middle of the street.
“Oh, wow. That’s him!”
“He hasn’t been home in years.”
“I didn’t know he was still alive.”
Jill glanced at Cal. “Who is it?”
“I have no idea.”
“Jerome Jefferson,” said Aunt Blu. She’d come out of the Bono House as the TV crew had gone in, and now she stopped at Jill and Cal’s side. “He’s known as JJ. Blues player from here that made it big back in the ’70s. He moved to New Orleans nearly fifty years ago, and as far as I know, hadn’t come back home since.”
Jill sucked in a breath. He was number two on the list of who’d made it big.
She looked at Cal again. Jerome was a black man, had to be at least in his nineties, and seemed intent on getting to the Cadillac House. In contrast, Marie Wainwright had been a white pastor’s wife in Texas in the ’60s, who’d played piano and led fund-raisers for her all-white church.
Chills raced down Jill’s spine. “Do you think?” she asked Cal.
“Let’s go find out.”
They hurried toward the house before anyone could stop them, and caught up with the older gentleman as he made his way to the front sidewalk. He was frail. Leaning on a cane with each step, and his arms wiry thin. When they greeted him, he neither glanced their way, nor wavered in his intent. “Ain’t gonna stop me from getting in there.”
“No, sir,” Cal said. “I’m here to offer assistance if you find yourself in need of any.”
Jerome Jefferson kept his eyes on the prize. “And who are you?”
“I’m the man who renovated this house, Mr. Jefferson.” Cal stayed close to the other man. “And who’s spent the last six weeks getting to know the previous owner.”
JJ stopped then. And he looked up. His hands shook. “She’s really in there?”
“She really is.” Cal caught Jill’s eyes over the other man’s head. “My name is Cal, sir, and that lovely lady on your other side is Jill. She renovated the house next door, but she spent a bit of time here with me, as well.”
JJ turned to her.
“Hello, Mr. Jefferson. Could I take your arm and help you up the stairs?”
The older man nodded, his look saying he wasn’t 100 percent sure he could trust them, but he knew he could use the assistance. Cal got a grip on his right arm as Jill slipped hers through his left, and together the three of them conquered the stairs. Behind them, someone yelled out that they weren’t supposed to be in there. Only the hosts. But the hosts hadn’t made it over to the house yet, and there was no way Jill and Cal weren’t going to help this man get inside.
Winston continued to bark, and Jill noticed that the crowd had grown quieter. She wondered if others suspected the same thing they did.
“I built those for her.” JJ pointed out the built-ins in the front room as they entered. Four feet wide by five feet tall. The details of the workmanship were exquisite. “His car missed them that night.”
Jill caught her breath. “So you really are . . .” She couldn’t finish her question.
JJ pulled his arms from theirs when they reached the middle of the room, and rested both hands on his cane. His eyes went to the staircase, and then he tilted his head back until he stared straight up. Jill might be mistaken, but a hardness seemed to settle over his features as he stood there. The lines of his face seemed more etched in stone than the previously loose folds of a man who’d lived almost ten decades, and the warmth she’d expected to find in his gaze was cold.
His eyelids closed, and she saw him swallow as the soft sound of jazz began from above.
Cal had removed the radio that morning.
“She loved her some jazz.” JJ finally spoke. He bobbed his head with the music. “And her record collection, it was her prized possession.” He opened his eyes and nodded to the built-ins. “That’s what she kept on the shelves.”
He used his cane to point toward the cutout just beyond the shelving, weaving slightly when he lost his support. “Her record player sat back in there.”
“How did you meet?” Cal asked.
“Our churches did a collaboration one time. Some fine music, we made.” He shook his head, and finally, Jill saw the tenderness she’d been expecting before. “Most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, my Marie.”
JJ retook Cal’s arm then, and turned to reach for Jill’s. “Would you two mind helping me up those stairs?”
As they slowly made their way up, JJ told them the story of falling in love with Marie. He took jobs on the side to support himself while he worked on his music career. He played the piano, he told them. Along with saxophone and bass—in a pinch. He’d been recommended to the Wainwrights for a couple of handyman jobs, and though he’d known on first sight that he had no business being around the beautiful Marie, he hadn’t been able to say no.
It seemed she’d had the same inabilities, and in no time, JJ had been trying to convince her to run off with him.
“I’ve never loved anyone like her,” JJ told them.
They reached the landing, and he had to pause to catch his breath.
“I’ve also never hated another person as much.”
Jill looked over to find Cal looking back at her. Her heart broke for the other woman.
Then it split wide open when the music changed to the sad piano melody.
“I wrote that one for her,” JJ told them. He remained solemn as he spoke, and he seemed in no hurry to step inside the room. “Never played it for her, though. Wrote it after I moved away.” He studied Jill. “You ever been in love, Miss Jill?”
She nodded. “I have.”
She didn’t let herself look at Cal.
“Then you know what it can do to you.” JJ’s gaze
shifted back to the empty room, and his jaw went hard. “She turned me down, the stubborn woman. Even though she didn’t love him anymore. Refused to go with me.” He closed his eyes again, and Jill could feel the pain wafting off him. “She loved me,” he growled out before snapping his eyes back open. “She was supposed to be with me.”
JJ shook his cane in the air, and Jill held her breath.
Cal slipped his hand over hers.
“But she worried what people would think.” JJ’s voice became a mix of soft and hard, and he looked between the two of them. His attention snagged on their clasped hands, but he kept talking. “I should have forgiven her,” he told them. “Especially when she found me after his death.”
Jill pressed her fingers to her mouth.
“But I didn’t. Because I’m a damned fool. And though she swore to me that day, I never for a minute expected she’d actually stay here waiting for me,” JJ choked out. “Or I would have died and gone home to her a long time ago.”
Tears spilled out of Jill’s eyes.
Anger and mistakes or not, this was the kind of love she wanted. The kind of love she wished her mother could have found.
Forgiveness for her mother was suddenly all she could think about, and she fought the urge to cry out at the pain her mom must have felt on a regular basis. She’d just wanted to be loved. Jill understood that the need had likely been rooted in something deeper. Depression. Possibly an undiagnosed mental issue. But feeling as if you had nothing to live for couldn’t have been easy. And to base your entire being around your need to be loved . . .
She shook her head at the thought of it. How sad.
But how thankful Jill was to know that she was more than that. Aunt Blu had done that for her, as well as her friends. She looked at Cal again. He’d done it for her, too. She’d been lucky in where she’d landed.
Jill squeezed Cal’s hand, and as they stood there silently waiting, JJ seemed to shrug off the cloak of pain he’d arrived with. He turned to them and announced he was ready to go in.
“We’ll wait out here.” Cal nodded toward the room. “You take your time.”
Cal wrapped his arms around her as JJ slipped beyond the door, and Jill leaned back against his chest. He was solid and strong behind her, and she found herself thankful he’d come back into her life.
She closed her eyes and listened the way he’d taught her. She could hear his breathing above her, the sound of footsteps as the production team moved into the room below them, and low murmurs from Jerome Jefferson just beyond the door. Jerome didn’t speak for more than a couple of minutes, and then he was back, and Jill couldn’t seem to pull in a full breath.
Cal felt it, too. She knew, because as she stood against him, she felt him struggle to fill his lungs, as well.
The room wasn’t sad anymore.
“She’s gone,” she whispered. And then she realized that Bonnie’s dog had stopped barking.
“I’ll see her again soon,” JJ assured them. “I’m going home now.”
Jill barely managed to hold herself together as they got the man back outside, and once they did, he walked away as slowly as he’d come. But he didn’t look back. The man had gotten what he’d come for, and he was going to be with his love now.
“I want that,” she said softly.
Cal peered down at her, his expression unreadable, but before either of them could voice additional thoughts, the Raineses were back, and cameras surrounded them. All members of both teams moved in, and a hush once again fell over the crowd.
“We’ve done our review,” Debra began, speaking into the microphone, “and we can say that these two homes have come out better than either of us expected. Simply beautiful.” Debra and Bob shook hands with Cal and Jill. “It’s an honor to have had you as part of our show. But we know everyone here is anxious to hear the results, so we don’t want to keep any of you waiting.”
Jill took Cal’s hand.
“The winner of this year’s Texas Dream Home competition . . . with only the slightest of margins, is . . .”
Jill locked eyes on Trenton and Heather, and the three of them shared a nervous smile.
“We Nail It Contractors!”
The bottom fell out of Jill’s chest. She’d seriously thought they would win.
Cal’s hand was still gripped in hers, so she released it, her mind numb, then she reached out to shake it. “Congratulations,” she mumbled.
She turned and hugged Heather and Trenton as they closed in on her, each of them murmuring to the other two about how it was fine that they’d lost. Everyone who’d walked through the place that day had seen what Bluebonnet was capable of. They’d been watching them for six weeks. The company would be fine. They’d still grow.
But “fine” or not, Jill had wanted this. Terribly.
She waited until Bob and Debra finished congratulating every contributor to the winning team, then she moved back in to thank them once again for the opportunity. Only, Patrick put a hand to her arm before she could reach the hosts, and motioned toward the backyard. “Could we speak to you for a moment?”
“About what?” Jill just wanted to go home. She looked around for Heather and Trenton.
“Just you,” Patrick murmured. He motioned to the executive producer, who’d flown in for the revealing, and who was now speaking with Cal. “And Cal,” Patrick added.
Jill remained confused. “What’s going on?”
“In the backyard?” Patrick asked again.
“Fine.”
Jill followed the others until the group of them were all out of sight, discovering that two cameramen waited in the back, and then a broad smile spread across the executive producer’s face.
“What a competition.” The man shook Jill’s hand, pumping it hard with exuberance. “And Ms. Sadler, may I say, what a charming addition you turned out to be. So much more than we expected.”
She smiled tightly. Surely they weren’t seriously standing there trying to piss her off? “So, you really were just looking for me to lose my cool on camera?”
“Well . . .” The EP looked slightly embarrassed. “I will admit that we wouldn’t have been surprised if that happened. And from what I’ve seen, it did happen a couple of times. That’s why we wire the cameras into the house and like to keep the mic packs hot. But your anger wasn’t the real thing we were looking for.” He nodded at Patrick.
“And we got exactly what we were hoping for,” Patrick told them.
Cal put a hand to Jill’s back. “And what, exactly, were you hoping for?”
The excitement on the producer’s face was palpable. “We were looking for hosts for a new show that’ll go into production this fall.”
The air left Jill’s lungs.
“What are you talking about?” Cal asked.
“Chemistry,” Patrick said. “We’re in a fight to up our network’s numbers, and Texas Dream Home can’t do it alone. We want to produce a new renovation show. Still set in Texas, but we’ll add a different slant to it. We’ve found these types of shows work best when the hosts are either a couple or close family members, so one of the things we were hoping for when we sat down to cast the teams was a couple of shining stars we could work with in the future. For instance”—Patrick looked at Jill—“three foster sisters. Or an uncle and a nephew who’ve grown the business together. Whom the camera loves, by the way. Rodney could have a show of his own, if that’s what we were looking for. But then we learned of the connection between you two, and we’d hoped . . .”
Jill stared at the man. She knew she had to appear dumbfounded, but she was terrified to think she might be hearing what she thought she was hearing. “You hoped what?”
“For you.” Patrick held his arms out to them. “You two are explosive on screen. Not to mention talented at the business in general. Both in your own ways, of course. You complement each other well, and I’ve got to tell you, you make a dynamic couple on camera.”
Jill stared at Cal.
�
��We had our fingers crossed that the anger between you two was as much passion as anything else,” Patrick explained. “And we hope we can talk you into accepting our offer of being the hosts of our new show.”
Jill’s head spun. She might get to do this some more?
On TV?
She couldn’t contain her grin, and when Cal looked her way, she knew he had to see everything that she was feeling.
“But there is a catch,” the executive producer warned, jumping back into the conversation. He looked from Jill to Cal. “I’m aware it’s unconventional to suggest, but we don’t want two companies for the show. We want two hosts. One company.”
“Which company?” Jill asked.
“And which hosts?”
Jill shot Cal a look. Had he not been listening?
“To make it crystal clear,” the executive producer continued. “We want you two, but you’d need to combine We Nail It and Bluebonnet.”
Neither of them said anything.
Jill’s mind tripped over itself as it tried to sort everything out.
Combine businesses? Her and Cal?
Would he want to? Would she?
She wanted to be with him, she had no doubt about that. But she’d worked so hard to get to where she was. To make the company successful. Not to mention, Bluebonnet was an all-woman business. How would that even work?
But that could be adjusted. They could still hire girls who ended up staying with Aunt Blu. They wouldn’t have to give that up. And maybe they could even incorporate the she-sheds into some episodes. Especially with Texas Dream Home giving them some attention. They’d just hire men, too. With the notoriety of being on TV, the business would continue to grow, so they’d have to bring in more subcontractors. And Cal already had plenty of trades on his roster.
Yes. She nodded with the thought, as her mind continued to whirl. This could work. She and Cal could do this together. She could keep working in construction, but she could also do TV. The best of both worlds. And she’d get to do it with Cal.
