“Ex.”
“Right. If you could give me a day or so, though, I can give you the most accurate number. I need to check recent sales in this area.”
I stood. “Take your time. The longer, the better.” The sweatshirt fell to my knees. “Actually, can you give me the ballpark number now?”
He looked over his notes. “I’d say at least a million and a half. I’ll check sales on comparables and get back to you.” He tipped his head and jogged off to his truck.
A million and a half? I couldn’t afford groceries. How was I supposed to come up with half of that? I couldn’t breathe.
I was going to lose Gran’s house.
Chapter Twenty
Aiden
I pulled up to Pops’s house and turned off the engine. Damn it. I did not want to do this. I stepped out and mounted the stairs. When I knocked, Pops opened the door almost immediately. He looked confused and wary.
“Pops, I need to talk to you.”
He opened the door wider, still watching me suspiciously. Maybe I shouldn’t have yelled at him on the phone, but he’d knocked Katie around. The Katie bashing had to stop, me included.
I sat on the couch and waited for him to take his chair. “I need to tell you something, and I really don’t want to.”
His confusion deepened. “You can tell me anything. I thought you understood that.”
“It’s about Katie.”
He bristled. “I don’t want to talk about her.”
I sat forward, not knowing how to begin. “I know.” I took a deep breath. “The furniture? That was our fault. My fault, really.” He started to speak, but I cut him off. “Nellie had windows open in her house when we moved her out.”
“So what?”
I shook my head, thinking about it. “I used to drive up there once every shift. Just to check on the house. Make sure no one broke in.”
“Oh.” He looked like he was waiting for a shoe to drop. “That was good of you.”
I rubbed my hands down the thighs of my jeans. “But I never went in the house, Pops. After we moved Nellie to your place, I locked the doors and never went back in.”
“Okay.”
“See, it’s my fault. I thought I was keeping an eye on her house, but I didn’t check the windows before I locked up.” He opened his mouth, but I had to get it out quickly. “Animals got in. A lot of them. By the time Katie arrived, the house had been abandoned to forest creatures for months. There was mud and feathers, smears and droppings everywhere. The furniture had become infested.”
I heard Pops’s shocked intake of breath but couldn’t stop. “Katie’s been sleeping in her car. She’s been washing down walls and mopping floors. She carried most of the furniture out all by herself. She’s been terrified to go in, but it’s her Gran’s and she seems to feel it her moral obligation to fix it.”
Pops’s hands started to shake.
“She’s had it rough. Her husband lied and cheated. He never told her that Nellie was sick, that she was dying. She didn’t learn about that until after the funeral. Now that bastard is trying to take Nellie’s house away from her. He didn’t even let Katie eat. She’s skin and bones. And when she left, he apparently canceled her credit cards and did something with their bank account so that she doesn’t even have money to buy food. Her pantry and refrigerator are empty.” I stood, needing to move. “She got a job working in Chuck’s food truck, but I think that’s so she can feed her dog.”
“But she never said?—”
“I asked her not to. I knew you’d be upset if you knew Nellie’s house had been completely trashed.” I ran my fingers through my hair. “Even with you yelling at her and pushing her around, she kept her promise and didn’t tell you why.”
Pops stood, too. “I won’t be coddled and protected by you. You should’ve told me.”
“Yeah.” I dropped back onto the couch and scrubbed my hands over my face. “As we speak, she’s sitting there, shivering in the wind, starving, while an appraiser does the preliminary work to take her house away from her. A house she’s been killing herself to clean. And even though I said I’d pay for it, she spent the money her mom sent her to live on to pay for the exterminator.”
I took the hands from my face and looked Pops in the eye. “She wouldn’t accept any help from me. She was sitting there, shivering in the cold, holding on to that dog, who seems to be the only one looking out for her, and refused to break. So, I’m sorry I kept it from you, Pops, but you have got to lay off her, okay?”
