grab a fortifying breath. The sign says COME ON IN. WE’RE OPEN….So I do. A jingling bell announces my entry, but there’s no one behind the counter.
The front room is a lobby area with colorful vinyl chairs lining its edges. A watercooler waits with paper cups. Racks display endless brochures. A popcorn machine reminds me that I’ve missed lunch. Beautiful photographs of the island line the walls. The base of the counter across the room is decorated with children’s artwork and photos of happy families posing in front of their new beach homes. The display randomly mixes past and present. Some of the black-and-whites appear to be from all the way back in the fifties. I stand and I scan them, looking for my grandmother. There’s no sign of her.
“Hello?” I venture, since nobody seems to be materializing from the rooms down the hall. “Hello?”
Maybe they’ve stepped out for a minute? The place is dead quiet.
My stomach growls, crying out for popcorn.
I’m about to raid the machine when the back door opens. I slap the popcorn bag down and turn around.
“Hey! I didn’t know anyone was in here.” I recognize Trent Turner III from the photo online, but that picture was taken from a distance, a full-body shot in front of the building. He was wearing a ball cap and had a beard. It didn’t do him justice. Now he’s clean-shaven. Dressed in khakis, well-worn loafers with no socks, and a nicely fitted polo shirt, he looks like he belongs under an umbrella table somewhere…or in an ad for casual living. He’s sandy blond and blue-eyed, the hair just shaggy enough to backhandedly say, I live on beach time.
He moves up the hall, juggling a couple to-go bags and a drink. I catch myself ogling the haul. I think I smell shrimp and chips. My stomach offers another audible protest.
“Sorry, I…there was no one here.” I thumb over my shoulder toward the door.
“Ran out for some lunch.” Placing the food on the counter, he looks around for a napkin, then settles for swiping up stray cocktail sauce with a piece of printer paper. Our handshake is sticky but friendly. “Trent Turner,” he says with casual ease. “What can I do for you?” His smile makes me want to like him. It’s the kind of smile that assumes people do like him. He seems…honest, I guess.
“I called you a couple weeks ago.” No sense starting right off with names.
“Rental or buy-and-sell?”
“What?”
“A place. Were we talking about a rental or a property listing?” He’s searching his memory banks, clearly. But there’s also more than casual interest coming my way. I feel a spark of…something.
I catch myself smiling back.
Guilt niggles at me instantly. Should an engaged woman—even a lonely one—be reacting this way? Maybe it’s just because Elliot and I have barely talked in almost two weeks. He’s been in Milan. The time difference is difficult. He’s focused on the job. I’m focused on family issues.
“Neither one.” I guess there’s no sense postponing this any longer. The fact that this guy is good-looking and likeable doesn’t change reality. “I called you about something I found at my grandmother’s house.” My fledgling friendship with Trent Turner is, no doubt, doomed to be short-lived. “I’m Avery Stafford. You said you had an envelope addressed to my grandmother, Judy Stafford? I’m here to pick it up.”
His demeanor changes instantly. Muscular forearms cross over a ripped chest, and the counter quickly becomes a negotiation table. A hostile one.
He looks displeased. Very. “I’m sorry you wasted the trip. I told you, I can’t give those documents to anyone but the people they’re addressed to. Not even family members.”
“I have her power of attorney.” I’m already pulling it from my oversized purse. Being the lawyer in the family, and with my mother and father preoccupied by the health issue, I am the one designated on Grandma Judy’s documents. I unfold them and turn the pages toward him as he’s lifting his hand to protest. “She’s in no shape to handle her own affairs. I’m authorized to—”
He rejects the offering without even looking at the papers. “It’s not a legal matter.”
“It is if it’s her mail.”
“It’s not mail. It’s more like…cleaning up some loose ends from my grandfather’s files.” His eyes duck away, take in the swaying palms outside the window, evading my probing.
“It’s about the cottage here on Edisto then?” This is a real estate office, after all, but why maintain such secrecy over real estate documents?