Love Shack (Tiny Houses, Big Hearts) (2 page)

“What did she tell the station?” Brandon couldn’t think of a single thing he had done to warrant a news story. People got turned down for loans all the time. They didn’t run crying to a reporter about it.

“That she was turned down by five banks and one of them was ours. They wanted our statement about the situation. I told them I needed to review the financials, but I assured them that the decision was based purely on a business matter, and no personal influence was brought into it.” He took another drag of the cigarette. “Then she asked me why I wouldn’t consider a project that would help the community as much as this one. She actually asked why I wouldn’t want to contribute to building a sustainable resource for underprivileged people in our town.”

“She wants to build hippie shacks and sell them as houses. They are on trailers, for fuck’s sake.” Brandon tried to gather himself. “They are campers, sir.”

“I don’t care if they are tour busses littered with dirty needles. You need to review that proposal and poke sufficient holes in it for me. Then I need to figure out how to spin it so we come off good on the news tomorrow.”

“News?”

“I’m getting fucking interviewed by the station. All the other banks refused to comment. This is one of those situations where we get portrayed as the evil corporation who ignores the people, or we work something out and write this shit off as a community outreach charity project.” He inhaled again and his breath caught. “I hate this shit, but it’s part of PR.”

Brandon hated it more. “I don’t have the proposal. I gave the plan back to her.”

“Why wouldn’t you just keep it and throw it in the trash?”

That was the funny thing. Brandon usually could give two shits about making a bit more paper waste for the cleaning crew to dispose of, but for some reason, he had been pretty sure that plan was her only copy. He couldn’t destroy something she’d worked so hard on and believed in so vehemently. Even if it was a pile of hippie crap.

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Do we have her contact information in the database from her credit application?” Another cigarette puff.

Brandon didn’t like where this was going. “Yes.”

“Call her.”

Brandon
hated
where this was going. “Why?”

“If we can contact her and perhaps learn something about the plan, we can see what in there is salvageable. Yes. That’s exactly what we can do. Do you think if we tweaked the business aspect, she could get off the ground with this?”

“This whole idea is dumb.”

“I get that. Is it feasible to make it less of a catastrophe?”

Brandon thought about it. The woman was smart. She had her numbers balanced perfectly, and her suppliers, plans, contractors, and even contact with the city for undeveloped land were all in order. It was just a dumb idea to build a bunch of hippie shanties.

“Her plans are well thought out. It’s the idea of people wanting to live in a house no bigger than a tool shed that’s flawed.”

“Don’t you watch the news? The tiny house thing is a trend. People like living in closets with toilets turning their shit to mulch. It’s a thing.” There was a click and a hiss as his boss lit another cigarette. “If that’s the only reason you turned it down, you’re an idiot. Call her first thing in the morning, and then meet me at eight at the branch.”

“You want me to call her before eight am?”

“You said yourself she’s a hippie, right? Don’t they get up early?”

Brandon hung up. Maybe he
would
take a vacation.

Chapter Three

Felicity was shaking. Her hands could barely hold onto her purse as she dug for the bus pass. Plan B had actually worked. Sure, this was about her tenth Plan B, but still.

The news coordinator had looked at her like she was crazy, until she mentioned tiny houses. Debbie Diggs’s eyes had lit up. Debbie’s brother and his wife were going on some kind of cross country trek in their own tiny house. The reporter wanted to cover their journey but had been turned down by the station because it wasn’t close enough to tie it to the local interest.

Felicity was her in. Adding in the fact that she could emphasize how banks were denying funding for tiny houses in general, it became a story on how the corporations were keeping people from becoming financially independent.

When Felicity had first walked in, the receptionist had frowned at her. Seemed everyone she shared her ideas with frowned at her, but at the mention of tiny houses, Deborah was called into the studio. Miss Diggs was still working upstairs and came down to listen as Felicity told her story again.

Deborah hosted a segment called “Debbie Digs” where she uncovered people being taken advantage of or different goodwill stories that needed some exposure. She was also an expert at pulling information and Felicity slipped up and mentioned her trust fund before she realized how careful she’d have to be. Luckily the reporter could also be distracted by tiny living.

Deborah had the same look in her eyes as all the bankers had…at first. But when she’d seen the pictures of Felicity’s own house, and the plans she had as starting points for people to design their tiny dream homes, something changed.

“Do people really live like this long term?” Deborah held onto the third design in her packet, called the wagon wheel. It was a natural wooden tone structure that had elements of the old west, including using some swinging doors to block off the loft for that saloon feel.

“I’ve been in my own tiny home for two years, and I can’t imagine living anywhere else. I have a lot less to clean, I don’t have to worry about so many things, and I don’t have a mortgage. The blog advertising I have doesn’t pay much, but aside from repairs and food, I don’t need much money. I would never have to work again if I didn’t want to.”

Deborah lifted her eyes up from the model home picture at that. “Most people wouldn’t want to go into debt to help people they don’t even know. You aren’t getting rich off this.” She handed Felicity the papers back and folded her arms. “Tell me why.”

A memory dinged inside Felicity’s skull. An image of Nan wiping her hands on her apron after finishing her weekly baking for the soup kitchen was still vibrant for her. Everyone loved Nan’s rolls.

Doing this project would make Nan proud. Doing this would keep Nan’s memory bright. It was the only thing from her past she wanted to keep.

Why was she doing this? That was easy. “I want to do something that matters, and give people homes.” Felicity thought about the little girl with her inexpensive sucker. “I want to give someone something that they didn’t think was possible.”

Deborah leaned forward. “Why?”

This was the dance she’d been doing for years. Felicity had become an expert at revealing who she was without letting on to who she used to be. She had to be honest without details.

“Because my parents never gave me one. We had a huge house, but the staff lived there more than we did. It wasn’t a home.” Felicity flipped the business plan closed and pointed to the blue and white tiny house on the front. “That’s home. I made it. I built it. I designed it. I live there. I want to build a community that’s about something more than materialism.”

“Why don’t you just use your trust to fund it?” It was the question everyone asked when they found out she had one.

“Ever hear the term
dirty money
?”

Deborah gave her a sideways glare. “Were your parents crooks?”

“Nothing that juicy. Sorry. I just want to make it on my own. I’m writing a few stories about tiny house living and publishing them myself. That along with my blog ad space isn’t much money, but I can buy food to supplement my gardening.” Felicity felt so tired. “I’m not a rich kid playing at charity. I simply walked away from parents I never felt like I had. I’ve been alone for a long time. I know what that feels like. I want to help others, but I’m not using money from people who didn’t care. I want this business to grow from love. There’s no love in that money. I never touch it.”

Deborah smiled. “Will you say all of that on camera?”

“Everything but the inheritance part. I am serious about doing this on my own.”

Deborah stood up and held out her hand. Felicity reached for it out of habit.

“Then we have a deal.” Deborah grabbed a pen and a yellow note pad. “Which banks turned you down? I want to start making calls tonight.”

That was exactly what she did. Over the course of the next five hours Deborah asked questions between each call and jotted important points on sticky notes to not stop the conversation. With Felicity sitting right next to her feeling like she would vomit, Deborah called all five banking branch managers and every secretary or board member she could get a phone number for. All that answered the phone had no comment. All except for the last one.

The last bank she’d gone to today had agreed to meet for an on camera interview tomorrow morning at nine.

That allowed for a few hours of sleep if she could get her brain to shut off. Felicity was going home to try and digest what had just happened. Luckily the busses were still running, and after just a two minute hike she was back at the bus stop where her whole brilliant television idea had been born. She needed a glass of wine to settle her nerves if she had any hope of sleeping tonight. She’d finally gripped her bus pass from the very bottom of her crossbody hobo bag, when she heard her name.

“Hey. Ms. Newhouse? That
is
you. Hold up.”

She still had her hand in her bag and gripped her pink can of pepper spray. Just because someone knew your name didn’t mean you shouldn’t be cautious.

She flipped off the safety when she saw the last banker from the day charging toward her. Surely a man in that nice of a suit wouldn’t want to get blood on it by beating her, but she had just gotten done tattling on him to a nationally affiliated news station.

“Hello, Mr. Halston. What can I do for you?” She loosened her grip on the canister just a bit when he stopped at an appropriate distance away.

“You can tell me why you went to the news station.”

She licked her lips. His eyes darted down for a brief moment, and she thought she saw him shake his head. That was weird. “I didn’t know what else to do. I had to get some community support behind this project, and I figured getting featured on ‘Debbie Digs’ was a good way to do that.”

He ran his hand through his hair. “She’s that pit-bull of a woman who always wears her hair in buns so tight they look like they are painted on her head. Shit. She’s already put a few companies out of business.”

“She seemed very nice to me. And her hair was down when I met her.”

“It won’t be when she paints a bullseye on my bank and labels us as the big evil corporation without a soul.” He put one hand in his pocket and rubbed the back of his neck with the other. His suit jacket stretched around well-defined arm muscles.

Felicity shut her mouth so she didn’t drool. This was the man who denied her her dream earlier today. She shouldn’t care that he probably had abs just as fantastic as his biceps under that button down white shirt.

“I need you to do me a favor, lady.”

“What kind of favor?” Felicity gripped the pepper spray tighter.

“I need to see that business plan again. My boss wanted me to call you and discuss details tomorrow before he meets with this reporter, but I think you and I would both appreciate it if I didn’t call you at seven in the morning.”

“I’m usually up by six anyway.” Why was he rolling his eyes at that? “And I can’t give you the plan. I left it with Debbie.”

“Oh, you’re on a nickname basis with the pit-bull?”

“I wouldn’t call her that to her face.” Felicity put the safety back on the pepper spray. This guy wasn’t a threat—he was just trying to cover his own ass.

“Can I ask you some questions then? I’ll buy you a drink…” When she was obviously about to say no, he pushed on. “Or a dessert, or an appetizer. Fuck, lady, I’ll buy you whatever you want. Just give me a few minutes. It is your fault we are about to get criminalized in the eyes of the public tomorrow.”

He put on some puppy dog eyes, and Felicity fell for it. “Wherever we go, it needs to be close to a bus stop. I left my truck at home.”

“Well, luckily you criminalized an evil corporate assistant manager who has a car with him. I’ll drive you. Come on.” He turned and held out his arm.

When he looked over his shoulder, the light above the darkening street gleamed off his slick short black hair. A golden hue caught his eye as he smiled at her. Felicity forgot to breathe.

Why did the evil banker have to be hot?

Chapter Four

Brandon found a café that offered breakfast all day. He was getting pancakes. It wasn’t technically his cheat meal day, but since the diner didn’t serve alcohol and he was driving, he was getting pancakes.

His hostage—because that was basically what she was—pursed her lips and looked at the menu. When the waitress came, Felicity ordered some kind of perverted version of a grilled chicken sandwich.

After their orders were placed and he had taken a drink of water, Brandon grabbed a notepad from his briefcase and opened it to a fresh page.