Bloom of Love (Long Valley #10) - Erin Wright Page 0,31
herself from squealing with delight.
They headed out, Keila in a rental car and everyone else in Carla’s Happy Petals van; Carla making sure to lock the door and turn the sign back off on the way out.
Once inside the van, Yesenia – who’d claimed the front passenger seat – confided, “I’ve never seen it in real life either, but I’ve heard horror stories. It can’t actually be as bad as they say, though, right?”
Carla sent Yesenia an encouraging smile. “I’m sure it can’t be that terrible. Someone was living there just last year!”
Autumn, in the backseat, let out a cough that sounded a lot like, “Yeah right!” but when Carla looked at her friend in the rearview mirror, she was gazing innocently out the window.
Carla let out a sigh, her hands tightening on the steering wheel as she remembered that they’d found Mrs. Roberts’ body weeks after she’d died, and with the oppressive summer heat last year…
Maybe the mansion wasn’t ready to be a summer home right now, but surely it couldn’t be too far off the mark.
“I’ve only ever seen it through the trees as I’ve driven past,” she admitted, taking a right at a stop sign and heading farther out into the country, following Keila’s car as she led the way. “I think I’ve seen the whole county at this point because of the flower deliveries, but of course, Mrs. Roberts wasn’t one to get flowers delivered on the regular.”
As soon as the words escaped her lips, she felt terrible that she’d said it. Emphasizing the fact that Mrs. Roberts was a recluse without any visitors or friends wasn’t a kind thing to do, and if nothing else, Carla was always kind.
They took a left and began heading down a dirt lane, huge maples arching over the driveway, enclosing them. It was beautiful in a wild sort of way but they were in desperate need of a trimming, and she worried that some of the lower-hanging branches would take a chunk out of the van’s paint job. She gripped the steering wheel harder, doing her best to avoid the worst of the ruts in the road but not sure if she was succeeding or not. She gritted her teeth, trying to keep from breaking a tooth when slamming through a particularly large hole.
Damn. If Keila was actually going to make a go of this, the driveway would have to be completely reworked. She hoped the Bostonian had cash. A lot of cash.
With one last curve of the road, the view opened up and the mansion was on full display.
“Holy…” Carla whispered under her breath.
“Shit,” Autumn finished from the backseat. Carla noticed in the rearview mirror that even Nieves had stopped texting and was staring out the window of the van, her mouth hanging open.
Stunning. That was the word that kept reverberating in Carla’s mind.
It was gorgeous but broken; stately but wildly overgrown. Idaho wasn’t littered with historic mansions like the states back east were, and to let this kind of a house fall to ruin was a travesty, in Carla’s not-so-humble opinion.
“Wowee, wowee,” Autumn breathed. “Yesenia, how many friends do you have? If this is just up to you, Nieves, and Keila, y’all are gonna be cleaning this up for the rest of your lives.”
“Not enough,” Yesenia said quietly, her large brown eyes, so like Christian’s, huge with surprise and what Carla thought might be a little bit of well-deserved terror. “This is…” She trailed off.
Carla rolled to a stop behind Keila’s rental car, putting her van in park.
“Well, ladies, let’s see what it looks like on the inside,” Carla said, trying to keep up a cheerful façade. It was rude to ask Keila what the status of her bank account was, of course, but this house was bigger and more rundown and needed more work than she’d even remembered, and her memory hadn’t exactly been positive.
Didn’t they make a movie about this back in the 1980s? The Money Pit with Dan Aykroyd? No, it was Tom Hanks. Well, whoever it was, I think it might’ve been a documentary of the remodel of this place.
Keeping her thoughts to herself, they all piled out of the van and followed Keila’s petite figure up to the front porch where she unlocked the door, and then turned back to them. “Be careful where you step,” she said, a comment that didn’t make a whole lot of sense until they’d made their way inside.
Because simply walking in was not possible. Other than