Dani’s pulse raced. A house. She now owned a house!
“What!” Ivy’s shrill scream sounded like a tea-kettle boiling over. “From who?”
“Someone called Geraldine Cook.” Dani crinkled her brow, searching her mind for any memory of that name.
“Where’s the house at?”
Dani skimmed the next paragraph. “It says that it’s in one of the older Normalton neighborhoods and fairly close to the university.”
“Which one? Mine?”
“Got me.” Dani twitched her shoulders. There was more than one college in Normalton, Illinois, and she was geographically challenged. North, south, east, and west didn’t mean a lot to her.
“Why did this Geraldine person leave it to you?” Ivy narrowed her bright-blue eyes.
“I have no idea.” Dani finished reading the attorney’s letter, then turned to the handwritten note attached to the last page. “Here’s a letter from Mrs. Cook.”
“What does it say?”
Dani started reading aloud. “‘Dear Danielle: Your grandmother, Kathryn Sloan, and I were both members of Alpha Sigma Alpha sorority. We pledged together and became best friends.’”
“That’s the grandma who died when you were really young, right?” Ivy asked.
“Uh-huh.” Dani drew her legs up and hugged her knees. “I barely remember her. My parents never talked about her much because of some sort of feud between her and my mom.”
“But your mom died nearly fifteen years ago.” Ivy wrinkled her forehead. “Didn’t your father talk about his mother then?”
“Nope. Dad’s a world champion grudge holder and still refuses to discuss Grandma to this day.” Dani’s lips thinned. “I don’t even have a picture of her.” Dani’s chest tightened. “Maybe I’ll find some among Mrs. Cook’s possessions.”
Ivy got up and started heading for the kitchen, calling over her shoulder, “Why would your grandmother’s friend leave you her house?” She came back a few seconds later with a can of Diet Coke in her hand.
Dani shrugged and continued reading from Geraldine Cook’s note. “‘Kathryn and I made a promise to look after each other’s families.’” Dani swallowed a lump in her throat. She wished Geraldine had contacted her while she was alive. It would have been nice to meet someone who knew her grandmother. “‘I was widowed several years ago and I didn’t have children. My closest relative is a third cousin who I haven’t heard from in the past ten years, so—’”
“She left you her fortune!” Ivy screamed.
“I wouldn’t go that far.” Dani smiled ruefully. “According to the attorney’s letter, the place is an old mansion that is currently undergoing an unfinished rehab.”
“Why was an elderly lady without any family remodeling a big, old house?” Ivy sank down on the couch. “Was she planning to sell it?”
“The attorney says she was turning it into a bed-and-breakfast. But she got sick before it was completed.” Dani picked up the lawyer’s letter, then ran her finger down the page stopping when she found the description of the property. “It’s a seventeen-room Italianate-style Victorian. Geraldine had completely renovated the top floor where she was living and was in the process of having the five bedrooms on the second level modernized for guests.”
“What are you going to do with the place?” Ivy asked.
“Since I only just found out about it, I don’t actually have a plan yet.” Dani chuckled, then continued thoughtfully, “There are enough hotels and inns around here already. And besides, I’m not too keen on having strangers constantly checking in and out of my home.” She blew out a long breath and added, “Plus, there’s the taxes and everything. With my savings and investments, I have a fairly decent cushion to tide me over until I find another job, but not enough to support a mansion. Especially one that might take a lot of money to make operational as a B and B. I’ll probably just sell it.”
“What’s left to do on the remodel?” Ivy finally popped open her can of soda and took a long swig.
“It looks as if three of the suites are completely finished. The kitchen has been totally gutted and remodeled and has passed inspection to prepare and serve food,” Dani admitted. “That leaves two guest rooms partially renovated and the carriage house, which hasn’t been touched.”
“So you could move into the house and run it while you fix up the rest of it.” Ivy pinned Dani with a hard stare.
“Probably.”
“But?”
“But it would be a waste of my education.” Dani chewed her lip, hearing her father’s voice lecturing her about her foolish ideas.
“Have you sent out any résumés?” Ivy pressed.
“Not exactly.” Dani didn’t meet her friend’s eyes. “I was going to do that this afternoon, but then I found this new recipe and…”
“And you got distracted,” Ivy finished for her, then said, “Maybe, now that you’re going to own a place with a fabulous kitchen, instead of looking for a new HR job, you could open your own catering business.”
“I need a salary, not a boatload of debt.” Dani doused the flicker of interest Ivy’s suggestion had stirred up. “Besides, I’m probably not good enough to be a professional chef.”
“You are too.”
“Even if I have the skills, I’m not sure I’m interested in doing that sort of work.”
“Seriously!” Ivy squealed. “You watch cooking shows like sports fans watch football.”
“I do not.” Dani’s cheeks burned.
“You so do.” Ivy poked Dani in the arm with her index finger. “You yell stuff like ‘That’s too much lemon juice, idiot’ and ‘Are you blind? Those scallops need two more minutes.’”
“I might have done that once.” Dani refused to meet Ivy’s stare.
“Once?” Ivy raised a brow, but when Dani remained silent, she shrugged and said, “I better bounce. My homework isn’t going to do itself.” Grabbing another cookie, Ivy paused with her hand on the doorknob, then chided, “Anyway, I’m just saying that you’re an awesome chef.”
With Ivy gone, Dani turned on the television. After flipping through a couple hundred channels without finding anything that caught her interest, she shut it off. Staring at the blank screen, she considered her existence.
She closed her eyes and visualized what her life had been like a few months ago. She’d
