Getting Lucky (The Portland Pioneers Book 2) (10 page)

As the phone rang, Noah skirted around the edge of the fence and waded through quite a bit of brush to reach the door to the side yard. As the realtor’s voicemail message ended, Noah impatiently left a message, describing the location and condition of the house and leaving his name as an interested party.

Maybe he was a lot more masochistic than he realized, Noah thought as he hung up. He couldn’t possibly be interested in this house, not when everyone seemed to have written it off and then abandoned it completely. His heart gave a lonely pulse of understanding. Rolling his eyes at just how pathetic that was, he examined the door in the fence. There was what looked to be a mostly loose board, and wrapping his hands around it, he pulled. But instead of just the single board pulling free and giving him an opportunity to reach in and unlock the door, the entire door came apart, splintering in a rain of old, dead wood.

Noah decided he was either a whole lot stronger than he’d given himself credit for or the fence was in even worse condition.

Then he stepped through the hole he’d made, and suddenly he didn’t give a shit that he’d nearly ripped the whole fence down. The view from the back of this house was incomparable, looking right out over the cliffs to the ocean, where the white ruffles at the top of the waves were only a hint from this distance. The clean, salty breeze felt good on his skin and in his face, and he tipped his head back so he could feel it better. The possibility of a headache, which had been flirting in the back of his brain since he’d woken this morning, evaporated. On the far horizon, the sun broke through the clouds and tipped the water with pure liquid gold—Noah only barely registered lowering his body to the cracked concrete slab that doubled as a patio. He just sat and absorbed the view in front of him.

The sky, the ocean, the clouds, the waves. It all blended together into a perfectly harmonious whole that pumped new life and new ambition into his veins. And when his phone rang in his pocket, and he glanced at it to find that it was the realtor calling him back, he was absolutely decided on his next course of action.

“So what you’re really saying is that you think he’s crazy,” Maggie stated, glancing over at Cal, who was leaning against one of the stainless steel counters in the Café, watching as she rolled out sweet dough for a batch of orange marmalade rolls.

“I didn’t say he was crazy,” Cal said between tight lips. “I said buying that house was foolish. It needs an insane amount of work.”

Maggie didn’t even glance up from the marble slab she was working on, smearing softened butter onto the massive swath of rolled-out dough. “I’d say that’s the opposite of crazy. For you, anyway. He’s rich, and has the resources to fix it up. And if you play your cards right, he’ll hire you to do the work.”

The Café’s financial situation was just precarious enough that Maggie couldn’t quite wrap her mind around Cal’s complaint. If someone came to her and said, “Someone needs a huge dinner catered and they’ve got lots of money and can afford to do anything you say,” she would have done a happy dance right here in her kitchen. But instead, Cal had showed up at the crack of dawn this morning, looking for a cup of coffee and someone to whine to about the latest idiocy the “stupid baseball player” had concocted. She’d mostly listened to him rant about the problems the old Hutchenson place had while she’d continued her baking for the morning’s breakfast service, but Cal was being ridiculous enough that she felt it was time to intercede on Noah Fox’s behalf.

Maggie told herself it didn’t mean that she liked
him or anything like that. He just deserved to have someone defend him when he couldn’t defend himself.

“He’s going to be a huge pain in the ass,” Cal whined. “Rich people can be the worst.”

“At least he earned his money,” Maggie tried to point out. “Besides, he’s a baseball player. He’s not going to be around to create trouble. Doesn’t their season start in a few months?” Then like a bolt of lightning, she remembered what she’d read about Noah’s injury. He still hadn’t been cleared to play yet. Maybe he wouldn’t be leaving Sand Point quite as soon as she’d just told Cal he would. Maggie considered correcting her statement and telling Cal what she’d found, but she was still just annoyed with him enough to keep silent. Let him find out the
hard
way, Maggie thought with more than a little satisfaction.

“I still can’t believe he bought it without even seeing the inspector’s report. What a moron,” Cal said with a grimace. “The whole house might have to be torn down.”

“I got the impression he didn’t buy it for the house,” Maggie inserted. “Have you seen the view from that property? It puts even the Cliffs’ windows to shame.”

“So he overpaid for the land, then. That still doesn’t make him smart,” Cal said.

Maggie rolled her eyes as she sprinkled brown sugar liberally over the butter-coated dough, then added cinnamon and nutmeg. “He lives a different kind of life than one we can possibly imagine,” she finally said. “I don’t think we can necessarily judge him by what makes sense to us.”

Cal’s gaze narrowed as she slathered on homemade orange marmalade that she made by the gallon in the summer. “You’re awfully quick to jump to his defense, Mags.”

“It’s common sense, Calvin,” she said, not looking up as she set the empty jar aside and began to carefully roll the dough into a long cylinder. “Honestly, I barely know the guy.”

“That hasn’t stopped you from defending him.”

Sealing the log with a quick pinch of her fingers, Maggie whipped out a serrated knife and carefully began cutting her masterpiece into slices. Sticking them into buttered pie pans, she finally answered him. “He’s not as bad as you seem to think he is. He’s only been nice to me, and everyone in town has good things to say about him.”

“You seem to forget pretty quickly that he’s here for Tabitha. And that can’t mean anything good,” Cal pointed out and Maggie couldn’t help it, she really
disliked the insinuation in his tone. Yes, it wasn’t anything she hadn’t secretly worried over on her own, but she was sick of that overly-righteous tone he always took when he talked about Tabby. She might be a massive pain in the ass, with the conscience of an amoeba, but she was still Maggie’s
sister
.

“So what if he’s here for Tabitha?” Maggie challenged, looking up and pinning him to the counter with a single, white hot glare. “That doesn’t make him a person worthy of our derision.”

Cal kind of gaped at her. “I really can’t believe we’re even discussing this. You know what Tabitha’s like. Obviously Noah Fox is just like her.”

“I don’t think so,” Maggie said firmly. “And I’m not going to stand here and let you rag on him. He’s loaded, Cal. He can do whatever he wants, and it probably won’t even make a dent in his bank account. He could buy a thousand Hutchenson houses, and if I were you, I’d only be thrilled, because that’s all business that’s going straight
to your pockets.”

Cal shoved his hands deep in those same pockets and frowned. “He hasn’t asked me yet, and I haven’t decided if I’ll say yes.”

Maggie shot him a look. “Come on. Of course you’ll say yes. It’s a huge deal. It could mean a whole new phase for your business.”

“Maybe I like my business just the way it is,” Cal retorted somewhat belligerently, and the tone had Maggie looking up from her pans of marmalade rolls and giving him her full attention for the very first time this morning.

“Cal,” Maggie said slowly, straightening and wiping her hands on a clean towel, “what is going on with you?”

She could see him swallow hard, his Adam’s apple bouncing, and he looked away, as if he couldn’t quite meet her eyes. “It’s not hard to see why you defend him, Maggie,” he finally said. “You’ve got a crush on him.”

Her first, most immediate, reaction was to deny, deny,
deny.
“You’re being ridiculous,” she said lightly, all while her thoughts were back in the gift shop, listening to Ella babble on about her “chemistry” with Noah.

Maggie hadn’t really denied it; she’d only insisted that since Noah wasn’t here for long, he wasn’t for her.

But now he’d begun to set down roots. He’d bought the Hutchenson house. He might not reside in Sand Point all year round, but she couldn’t point to his impermanence as a reason why they couldn’t be involved. Of course, she still thought Ella was crazy; there was no way Noah Fox would be interested in her anyway. He was here for
Tabitha
.

She didn’t believe in lying to anyone, even little white lies, but the hurt in Cal’s eyes was hard to miss. Even if she wasn’t rejecting him in favor of Noah, Cal still believed that. “Cal,” she said softly, “Noah doesn’t have anything to do with you and me. Nothing to do with the suggestion you made the other day. I promise. I said I’d think about it, and I am. Really.”

“Can you really stand here and tell me you’re not panting after him like Hannah and every other woman in town?”

Maggie had to take a deep breath. She told herself that Cal was hurt and that was why he’d said what he had, and why he’d said it like that. “I’d hardly pant after
anyone
,” Maggie corrected sternly. “And if I did have a crush on him, then that would be my business. Give me a little credit. I’m not going to have my head turned by someone who says they’re in town to look for Tabitha.”

“So you’re not going to tell me,” Cal said, and she hated the wrench in his voice. She wished so much she could have gone to him, wrapped her arms around him and told him that Noah meant absolutely nothing to her, but she’d never lied to him, and she wasn’t about to start now. Noah meant
something
, that much was becoming abundantly clear, but she had no idea what that something was.

Maggie busied herself with the pans of rolls, draping them to proof with clean tea towels she’d heated in the microwave. She didn’t know what to say to him, other than what she’d already said.

“If you really think I’m going to do business with someone after he’s . . .he’s. . .” The words seemed to catch in Cal’s throat, and anger in them was unmistakable. “After he’s been such an idiot, then you’re not as smart as I thought you were.”

She looked up to try to respond, but he’d left, without even saying goodbye or thanking her for the coffee. His empty cup sat on the stainless steel counter, and Maggie gave a sigh of exasperation.

The problem was her inconvenient attraction to Noah had nothing to do with her brain and despite what Cal probably thought, it didn’t have anything to do with his good looks either. Maggie wasn’t entirely certain why she’d dwelled on him so much, but it was beginning to be more of a rule than an exception. She sighed, and cleared off her work surface, scrubbing the marble with all the frustration she hadn’t been able to take out on Cal.

In the light of the next day, Noah had been terrified that his purchase would look unbearably hasty and like the product of an unstable mind—and that was the very last impression he wanted to give. But even though his newly acquired house looked even worse under a sunny sky, when he stepped into his new backyard, with its cracked patio and loads of potential, he felt the exact same way he had yesterday.

It felt like home.

It had been so very long since he’d felt the comfort of a place to call his own. His condo in Portland had been ultra-modern and utilitarian and so cold, he’d been hard pressed to spend any time there at all. As it turned out, he’d been looking for a place to put down roots; he just hadn’t realized it until he’d let the cool ocean air wash over his face.

“This place is a wreck.” Calvin Keller said so matter-of-factly that Noah felt compelled to defend his new house’s honor. Yes, it was in bad shape, essentially ignored for years and likely full of damp and mold, but it wasn’t unsalvageable. Kind of like himself.

“I think it’s got real potential,” Noah argued. “That’s what you’re here to tell me, anyway.”

Noah hadn’t gotten a handle on Maggie’s oldest friend yet. Maggie was pretty easy to read once you took one bite of her food. She was all warmth and comfort and sunny, bright smiles, backed by steel determination. Cal was more serious and almost dour, overly concerned with the “right” thing. Later last night, during the feverish paperwork the realtor had been putting together, he’d gotten a call from Cal, and from their conversation, Noah had gotten the impression that Cal didn’t approve of the lightning fast process Noah had undertaken to purchase the house.