“I don’t know for sure.”
“So don’t go looking for trouble, as Aunt Sarah said. You might be surprised at how easy that house is to sell.”
“Maybe.” Jill rested her head against the cushion, her head swimming with details. “I still need to research agents this weekend and reach out to them. You know the weirdest part? I never wanted the house in the first place. I lost my temper and now I’m stuck with this thing.”
“Jilly, I think we’re missing the bigger picture here.” Ellie rose to retrieve two fresh beers from the refrigerator. She snapped the lid and passed a bottle to Jill. “You just shed two hundred pounds of useless, overblown, cheating man-weight; you’ve got to feel better about that. Let’s celebrate that first and worry about the beach house later.”
Jill held her bottle up and Ellie clinked it. “You’re right.”
“Of course I am.” Ellie flipped the lid of the pizza box closed because Lewis looked a little too interested in the pile of crusts, despite the pieces that Jill had already slipped him. Then she settled onto the couch, crossing her legs, a position she took when she meant business. “What about the Summit house? Did you say you have this weekend to get your stuff? Is Marc going to be there?”
“No. He gets it Monday morning and the new owners take possession a week after that.”
“You okay with that?”
“Yeah, I really am.” Jill pulled a blanket from the basket and draped it over her legs. “It’s a pretty house, elegant, but cold, you know? With so many people coming and going, it never felt like home.”
Home to Jill was watching Aunt Sarah pour pancake batter into a sizzling frying pan on a Saturday morning. It was holding the flashlight exactly right while Uncle Barney changed the spark plugs in his battered pick-up truck. Home was the first cold spray of water in the outdoor shower and the warm towel afterwards. It was waking up before dawn to go fishing with Uncle Barney, just to be with him. In Aunt Sarah’s kitchen there’d been a leaky green refrigerator and a temperamental gas stove that required a lit match and a steady hand just to cook dinner. Would Aunt Sarah and Uncle Barney have wanted a stainless-steel refrigerator with a smart screen or an eight-burner gas stove with a pot filler, like the one in Marc’s kitchen? Possibly, but it wouldn’t have made their home any better. They hadn’t cared about money. Their home had been perfect the way it was.
“And you’re okay with tomorrow on your own? Because I can cancel—”
“Absolutely not,” Jill replied. “Don’t cancel anything. I’ll be fine.”
“Okay then. I’ll be over on Sunday morning.” Ellie raised her bottle. “Here’s to moving forward.”
“To moving forward.” Jill raised her own bottle to meet Ellie’s.
The clink echoed in the cozy room.
Ten
The judge’s order allowed Jill the weekend to collect her personal things before leaving the Summit house for good. Forty-eight hours to pack up one life and begin another.
After unlocking the door and disabling the alarm, she made her way to Marc’s office. She’d taken the Dewberry Beach house from him in the heat of anger and she was becoming more and more convinced that it was a mistake. That house had been on the market for years and no one wanted it. That alone was concerning. Even though the bank had allowed Jill to assume the mortgage payments, the first payment was due in just two weeks and the amount she was responsible for was staggering. Worse, after adding up every bit of cash she had on hand, Jill had been horrified to realize that she had only enough for three mortgage payments. Just three.
So the clothes in Jill’s closet could wait.
Right now, the contents of Marc’s office were more important.
Jill’s plan was to sell the Dewberry Beach house as quickly as possible, and for that to happen, she needed to know everything about it. Marc had told the judge that the Dewberry property was supposed to be part of a neighborhood development, similar to the one he’d built in Summit, with the house itself being the model. He’d bought a large oceanfront lot at a bargain price and started construction. But Marc had said that buildable lots in Dewberry Beach were impossible to find so they’d expanded their search to include neighboring towns. The model home had remained where it was, with the rest of the development planned for a less expensive parcel of land further inland, though Marc had told the judge that managing the two properties was too costly so they’d abandoned the project entirely. The house in Dewberry Beach was all that remained.
Although Marc hadn’t confirmed it, Jill still suspected that he’d had little interest in selling the house because it was where he met up with Brittney. But as painful as that was to consider, it would actually be good news. The house might be easier to sell than she thought.
When Jill reached his office, she pushed open the door with a bit more force than necessary. This room had been Marc’s little kingdom, which Jill hadn’t been allowed to enter. Things were different now. Jill plopped herself into his chair and spun it around. And when it slowed, she leaned back and propped her feet on his desk.
“Where did you put the Dewberry stuff, you little weasel?” Jill’s gaze swept the contents of his office.
It was possible that she wouldn’t find anything here at all. If Marc had been trying to sell a prime piece of oceanfront in the hottest real-estate market in the state and couldn’t, he wouldn’t have kept a reminder of his failure. In that case, all information on the Dewberry house would be in his city office, or in the shredder.
She pushed back from the desk and began her search in a filing cabinet.
Because she didn’t know what she needed, Jill examined all of it. She opened up his cabinets and flipped through his
