Bohemia Chills

by Lucy Lakestone

  “What the hell are you doing?” Landon asked. “Give me that!”

  “What?” I froze, the last spoonful of whipped cream suspended in midair.

  “That!” He nodded at the spoon.

  I shook my head and smiled. I stuck out my tongue and leisurely licked all the fluffy cream off the spoon, just to fuck with him. Just to see if I could. His mouth dropped open. Still looking into his eyes, I sucked hard on the straw, and the shake level went down precipitously.

  “Shit,” Landon muttered, his stare as glazed as a couple of doughnuts.

  “Ow. Brain freeze.” I closed my eyes and caressed my temples, then looked back up at him. He was ogling my mouth again. “Landon! Yo. What did you mean back there about being my secret weapon in the resurrection of Milkweed Mansion? Why would you even help?”

  He blinked and looked up, then took a studious sip of his shake while he regained his composure. “It’ll be fun.”

  “Not a good enough reason.”

  “Fun is always a good enough reason.”

  “Hmmm.” When had I ever really done anything for fun? It was always about the career. “What’s fun about all that work?”

  “I like the work. Plus you get to see the transformation. Plus it will be yours.”

  “Mine.” I liked the sound of that. Could this crazy idea actually amount to something? “But you — what do you get out of it? I can pay you something out of the theoretical fundraiser, if it makes any money, but —”

  “You don’t need to pay me. It’ll look great on my resume,” he said. “The restoration of Milkweed Mansion? That’s a marquee project. In fact, I’m pretty sure I can call in some favors in terms of work and materials if you’re open to having a plaque with sponsors’ names on it.”

  “I don’t see why not. The plaque might help hold up the walls.”

  He laughed. “If you’re ready to do this thing — ”

  “The renovation? I — yes. I think so. I don’t really have another choice, do I? Whether I want to keep it or sell it. In its current condition, it’s a tear-down. Somebody will put a high-rise condo there, and that will be that.”

  “A depressing thought. My next question is, what’s the fundraiser?”

  “That’s the question. What can we do for seed money? Preferably something that won’t require massive work starting out. We can’t afford to overhaul the whole house right away.”

  “Plus we might have to hire ghostbusters.”

  I giggled. Then I sat up straight. “That’s it.”

  “What?”

  I was really excited for the first time in a long time. “Halloween is almost here … ”

  We locked eyes and said it at the same time. “A haunted house!”

  “That’s ideal,” I added. “So we only need to make the mansion safe, not perfect.”

  “The worse it looks, the better,” Landon agreed.

  “But it’s still going to be a shit-ton of work. And I need to pay you something,” I insisted.

  Now it was his turn to hmmm. “What if — no strings attached — you agree to go out with me? A token payment.”

  “What?” First I was shocked, then pissed. I took an angry suck of the shake, and he blanched. “After what I told you about my last experience? I’m not going to be used like that ever again.”

  “Kayla.” He lowered his voice. “I’m not asking you to fuck me. I would never use you. And you’ll be the boss — it’s your house. Just go out with me. For fun. ”

  “Do you do everything for fun?” A date with Landon? He was planting ideas in my head that made me warm in spite of the milkshake.

  “I try. I’ll have fun helping you renovate an amazing historic building. You agree to have a fun night out with me. It’s all very innocent.”

  “Ha. Innocent.” I eyed him, my thoughts anything but innocent. To tell the truth, his gaze wasn’t so innocent either.

  “We’ll pick the day in advance. Of course, that’ll be the day you fall in love with me,” he said matter-of-factly, though I detected a twitch at the corner of his mouth.

  Laughter bubbled up from my belly and rang in the air so loudly, people turned to look.

  “You laugh now.” Landon sipped his shake, looking perfectly serious, but humor glimmered just under the surface as he pulled his phone out of his pocket and started tapping. “Let’s schedule it for a holiday so we won’t forget. Halloween is out, since we’ll be busy scaring people.”

  “You’re scaring me.”

  He ignored me. “Aw, Sweetest Day?”

  “You are kidding me, right?”

  “Fine. Not that one. Too sappy. National New Friends Day? Ooooh, no, that’s a guaranteed Friend Zone holiday.”

  I laughed again. “What?”

  “OK, I’ve got one. October twenty-first. International Day of the Nacho.”

  “I do like nachos,” I mused.

  “See? It’ll be perfect. And it’s even a Friday.”

  “Wait, if that’s the weekend before Halloween weekend, don’t we want to have our haunted house open that night?”

  “Hmm. You have a point, but I’m worried we won’t be done by then.”

  “We have to be. We can’t blow off that weekend.” I pulled out my phone and opened my calendar app. “We can do the haunted house Friday to Sunday, then the next week Thursday to Sunday. I figure all the kids will be trick-or-treating Halloween night, which is a Monday, so we probably don’t want to be open then, right?”

  “If people want to come, they’ll just have to come over the weekend,” Landon said. “I have an idea. Why not do a VIP party that first Friday night for donors? It’ll be another enticement to contribute to the project. Rich people love that kind of thing. You and I can do a date afterward.”

  “Actually, that’s a pretty great idea. How do you know so much about VIPs?”

  “I build houses for them.”

  I squinted at him, a strange thought occurring to me. “If you do such high-end work all the time and you manage projects for the family firm, why do you live in a crappy little apartment, and why did you advertise for a roommate?”

  For the first time, Landon looked uncomfortable. “I had to get out of my parents’ place. It’s huge, and they let me have the apartment above the garage, but I needed my own space. You know?”

  “Yeah, but I bet you can afford something a lot better than our cookie-cutter apartment.”

  “Maybe I could rent something a little better, but I’m saving up.”

  “For what?”

  “To start my own design and renovation firm.”

  “Ah.” I took another sip of my shake. “How does your dad feel about that?”

  “He doesn’t know yet. But I figure my firm can work with his company if he’ll let me. Besides, my two brothers are in the business, too. He doesn’t need me.”

  “I think he needs you a lot, which is why you’re anxious.”

  “I’m not anxious.” He sure looked anxious.

  I changed the subject. “So about this date … ”

  “Right! We’ll have a date after the VIP party.” He glanced at his phone again. “October twenty-first is also National Check Your Meds Day, in case you’re interested.”

  “And Back to the Future Day.”

  “I’d forgotten that!” he exclaimed. “Marty McFly! I love that movie!”

  “I’ve seen it a billion times. One point twenty-one gigawatts!”

  Landon grinned. “All we need is a lightning storm and we can travel back in time!”

  “That’s what we have an old house for.” A house that I couldn’t save without Landon. “OK. Let’s do it.”

  I’m completely insane.

  “Excellent!” Landon gave me the Fireworks, and the galaxies did an extra spin in their orbits. “You know, if you want to use me, I won’t mind,” he added. “No woman who goes on a date with me can resist me.”

  “Ha!” I rolled my eyes again. He might be hotter than a hot plate, but I would resi
st him. I had to, if I wanted to keep my pride. “You really are terrible.”

  “Am I?” he intoned suggestively, flashing that smile. Pow dazzle sparkle. Damn his Fireworks. They just made me want more.

  Chapter 8

  “Do you want the bad news or the bad news?” Landon said. It was two days after our initial tour of Milkweed Mansion. We were sitting on a couple of folding lawn chairs on the porch, which was the first project he’d tackled while I started cleaning. Now fresh boards created a solid stage here in front and where the porch popped out in the covered hexagon. He’d do the rest of the porch before the haunted house, because we figured there would be a lot of people hanging around outside for the event. That was item number one on a to-do list longer than a Super Bowl halftime show.

  “There’s bad news?” I asked, knowing the whole house was bad news. It was a hot day, and we were both drinking heavily from our personal water bottles, which Landon kept filling from the giant coolers he kept in his truck. The house still didn’t have water or power, so he’d parked a port-a-potty next to the driveaway. It really classed up the joint. On the other hand, it made the bathroom we shared at the apartment seem palatial in comparison.

  “Yes, there’s bad news.” He seemed content as he sat there looking over the grounds in his jeans and dusty T-shirt. In his element. “There’s evidence of dry-wood termites. If you don’t want the rest of the house to fall down around your ears, we’re probably going to have to get it tented.”

  “Tented?”

  “When they cover up the house and pump it full of poison gas.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “So we’re going to lose a few days when that happens, and we’ll have to clear the brush that’s growing really close to the house before the bug guys even come out.”

  “How fast can we get someone?”

  “Usually you have to schedule weeks in advance, but I’ll see what I can do. I know a guy.”

  I heard my voice get smaller. “And how much is that going to cost?”

  Landon took another sip of water from his metal bottle, then looked at me. “I know a guy.”

  “No, really. No one is going to do that for free. How much?”

  He mumbled something into his bottle.

  “What?”

  “Maybe eighteen thousand dollars.”

  I dropped my plastic bottle. Since the lid was off, water splashed everywhere. “You’re kidding.”

  He gave me a half smile. “I’m not kidding nearly as much as you think I am. It’s about two dollars per square foot. This place is about nine thousand square feet. Ergo … ”

  “This isn’t happening.” I set my bottle upright on the solid new floorboards and stood at the railing, which wiggled under my hands. Cha-ching.

  “Don’t get discouraged.” He got up and stood next to me, bumping my shoulder with his.

  A volcanic burst of warmth shot through my already hot body, but I shrugged him off, not in the mood for comfort. Or the kind of heat he’d been igniting in my blood since I brought him into this strange house.

  I wiggled the railing again. “Why not get discouraged? I can’t afford that.”

  “First, if the termites defeat you, you might as well walk away. This is going to be the first of many battles with the house. For the house. Do you want to do this?”

  I looked up at him. Landon was definitely not kidding, and he had an earnest, determined look in his eyes, like he was a knight about to go into battle.

  It was disturbingly sexy.

  I surveyed the gloomy oaks, the scrubby plants, the ramshackle gazebo and the sparkle of the river in the distance, then turned back to him. “I want to do this.”

  “Are you sure? Because you can, but you have to really want it.”

  There was something so confident and reassuring in his gaze, I couldn’t help nodding.

  “OK, then. I know a guy, and he might want to get on that list of sponsors I was talking about. We’ll probably have to pay something, but it won’t be terrible.”

  “It’s not we, Landon. I mean, I’m really grateful you’re going to help me, but I’m the one who needs to pay for this.” I mentally calculated what was in my bank account and the limits on my two credit cards. “I’ll figure it out.”

  “We’ll figure it out.” He smiled then, a lesser version of the Fireworks, this one more reassuring.

  “Maybe I’ll post an internet fundraising campaign. Just thinking out loud.”

  “That could help,” he said. “You’ll need lots of pictures.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” I mused. “Selective pictures. Let’s make it double as a promo for the haunted house. Teasers only. People are curious about this place. No one’s really been inside it for more than fifty years. The ghost stories are rampant.” I knew this after some intense web surfing. “I’ll do a video.”

  “Now you’re talking. But we need to apply for the permit for the haunted house before we start advertising it.”

  “Oh, great.”

  “Yeah. Bureaucracy. The construction manager’s best friend.” He nodded back toward the house. “They’ll want to inspect it to make sure it’s safe, but I think they’ll issue a permit contingent upon us getting the important stuff done. The city has a vested interest in getting this place fixed up. It’s been an eyesore for years, plus it’s historic. I asked around, and Max Kantera was approached several times about donating the property to the city or simply fixing it up himself.”

  “And he refused?”

  “Saving it for you, maybe?”

  “Ha. Not as a gift, that’s for sure.”

  “Maybe as an opportunity. You never know.”

  A noise from the driveway made us look up. The gate, which Landon had made minimally functional, was open, and a black SUV rumbled down the short lane toward the house. A couple climbed out — a fair-haired handsome guy in khakis and a casual button-up shirt, and a woman with long, chestnut hair in a cute, short floral dress.

  “Alex! Sloane!” I called out before trotting down the stairs to greet them with hugs. I’d felt proprietary about this Bohemia Beach couple since I filmed their wedding.

  “Kayla!” Sloane pulled me aside as Landon greeted Alex like an old friend. I was starting to think Landon knew everybody. “So this is the man-hunk who’s helping you with the house?”

  “Shhh. He’s not a man-hunk. He’s my roommate.”

  “And a man-hunk,” she said, looking Landon up and down. “How’s it going?”

  “Fabulous. Can’t you tell?” I made a sweeping Wheel of Fortune gesture.

  She laughed, her blue-green eyes sparkling. “This place is charming. Shabby chic.”

  “Oh, this is way beyond shabby chic. More like ‘collapsing in on itself like the house in Poltergeist’ chic. What are you guys doing here?”

  “Alex suggested it. He’s always loved this house.”

  “Does he want to buy it?” I blurted. Alex was loaded. If anyone was going to buy it, he could.

  Sloane chuckled again. “No. But I think he’d donate to the cause, if you need it.”

  “Yes, I would be happy to donate to the cause,” Alex said as he and Landon entered our conversation.

  “No — that’s not really what — I’ll take care of it.”

  Alex nodded. “However I can help, I’d like to. You might need an investor. Don’t say no just yet. And I understand you’re thinking about doing a haunted house fundraiser here?”

  “Yeah, we’d like to.” I shot Sloane a look. She’d obviously been sharing our girls’ message group gossip with her hubby.

  “I’m pretty sure I can help,” Alex said. “The permit will be easier to get if it’s connected to a nonprofit. I did an informal poll of the board, and the art museum’s foundation would be willing to attach itself to the permit. Then you can get a liquor permit, too, and have a bar for the launch party. Those kinds of fundraisers can make a lot of money.”

  “But — I mean, I l
ove the art museum,” I sputtered, “but — no offense — we really need all the proceeds to fix up this place.”

  “We get that,” Sloane said. “But you mentioned in your post yesterday that you’re thinking of turning this into an event space, right?”

  I nodded. “Right. Probably. That seems like the best use, maybe with an apartment for the caretaker.”

  “Which would be you?” Sloane asked.

  “Maybe.” I had to admit, since seeing the tower room, I’d had a fantasy or two about actually living here. “I can’t afford to make it a museum. But if it’s used for events, then everyone can have the chance to experience it once it’s fixed up.” If it’s ever fixed up. “What would the art museum get out of helping?”

  “The art museum is always looking for unique places to have its fundraisers,” Alex said. “In exchange for attaching ourselves to the project and the permit, we’d like to barter for use of the facility for one of those fundraisers down the road.”

  I laughed. “I love the idea, but you may not be so enthusiastic after you see the place.”

  He smiled, his gray eyes friendly and keen at the same time. “We’ll let you fix it up first.”

  This time Landon laughed. “You’ll have to, unless you want to fall through the floor. But you’re going to love the ballroom.”

  Alex and Sloane were full of questions, so we gave them the abbreviated tour of the first floor so we didn’t have to hazard the stairs. While Alex and Landon lingered in the ballroom, I showed Sloane to the library.

  The door creaked as we went in, and the whole house seemed to sigh. A high, faraway sound reminiscent of laughter followed.

  Sloane’s gaze snapped to mine. “What was that?”

  I fought back a chill and shrugged. “You tell me.”

  “Freaky.” She took a ginger step into the bookcase-lined room, now brighter since I hadn’t replaced the curtains. And then she sneezed.

  “Sorry. Old books. When we get the air-conditioning going, it’ll be better.” Cha-ching.