Always and Forever

Chapter 3

As they entered the vestibule, Phil tried to hold back the wistful smiles that threatened as dozens of bittersweet memories sprouted to mind. When she was younger, she’d had an army of imaginary friends whom she would play hide-and-seek with throughout the massive house. She even let them win sometimes.

When she got older, she and Mya would have slumber parties. Using a special scale they had devised, they would rate the boys at school. Corey Anderson, who eventually became Mya’s boyfriend, and finally, after fifteen years apart, her husband, always scored the top rating.

Phil glanced over at Jamal. He would have given Corey a run for his money back in the day.

“This is what sold me on the house,” Jamal said, running his palm along the ornately carved banister that traveled up the staircase. “Look at this detailing. The Realtor said it was all done by hand.”

“It’s beautiful,” Phil remarked. When she was eight years old, she had broken her arm sliding down that very same banister after seeing it done in a movie. As much of a tomboy as she’d been back then, it was a wonder she’d made it through the rest of her childhood without any more broken bones.

“Why don’t we start upstairs?” Jamal said. “There’s less work needed up there. We can take a quick look around before discussing the really intense stuff.”

She followed him up the stairs, gawking unabashedly at the way the shorts fit over his butt. It was too damn firm. He was too damn fine.

Lethal. That’s the rating Jamal would have received on the scale she’d developed with Mya all those years ago. His smile, his naturally wavy hair, those sinewy muscles, his scent—clean, yet spicy. Everything about him was lethal, especially to a woman who had gone over a year without a man in her bed. Her battery-operated toys were fine for providing temporary relief, but she couldn’t snuggle up to a vibrator. She missed snuggling. She missed men.

But she sure as hell didn’t miss the heartache they caused.

That’s what she would remember when she caught a glimpse of Jamal’s gold-speckled eyes and charming smile. Kevin had nice eyes and a sexy smile, too.

“There are three bedrooms and another small room in the rear that the Realtor said was used as a sitting room, but I’m going to turn it into an additional bedroom. The biggest problem is there’s only one bathroom up here, which means if the B&B is at full capacity, I’ll have eight adults sharing one bathroom.”

“That can pose a problem,” Phil said. “I can only imagine what it would be like if you have a bunch of women staying here for a girls’ weekend.”

“World War Three.” Jamal chuckled.

Dammit, even his laugh was sexy. Accepting this job was such a bad idea.

“After growing up in a house with my mother and younger sister, I know what it’s like to fight over the bathroom,” he continued.

Phil twisted around to look at him. “You had to fight for bathroom time in the house you grew up in? I thought your family owned half of Phoenix?”

“My family doesn’t own half of Phoenix,” he said, then his smile took on a chastised quality. “Okay, so the fights for the bathroom happened at the beach house in Malibu.”

Malibu? Is he for real?

Phil managed to resist a well-deserved eye roll, but she couldn’t tamp down the bitter resentment that climbed up her throat. Jamal Johnson would never know how it felt to sweat over making next month’s mortgage payment.

He gestured with his head for her to follow him. “C’mon. We’ll discuss some of the ideas I have in mind for the house.”

As they made their way back down the stairs, Phil ran her fingers along the silk wall coverings.

Jamal glanced over his shoulder. “Beautiful, isn’t it? Everything in this house is great. I’m lucky it was still on the market.”

“Yeah,” Phil said, hoping the emotion that instantly filled her throat didn’t come through her voice. “I’m surprised Belle Maison stayed on the market for as long as it did.” And heartbroken that it hadn’t remained there just a little while longer.

“The house was in pretty good shape. I have a work crew coming in to give it a new paint job, both inside and out, and to take care of a couple of other details, but they can’t start for another four weeks. In the meantime, I’ve been working on a few things that needed to be addressed right away, like the cracks in the dining room wall.”

“The walls were cracked in the dining room?” Phil asked, unable to conceal the astonishment in her voice. When had that happened? She’d checked on this house at least once a month.

But then Phil remembered that her last few check-ins had consisted of a quick drive-by and cursory look from her truck’s driver’s side window. Too much work to do, and all that. The excuses had flowed like a waterfall, sounding good enough to her ears.

But as she took in the musty smell from the house being closed up for so long and noticed the dust that had accumulated on the walls and baseboards, the picture became clearer. And the shame it caused nearly suffocated her.

From the moment she’d moved her mom into Mossy Oaks, Phil had started to neglect this house, seeing it more as a burden than a part of her history. It took losing it to appreciate what she’d had.

Phil followed Jamal into the formal dining room. And stopped cold.

“Drywall?” she said. “You’re putting up drywall?”

“Only one section of the wall was cracked, but I figured I’d just redo the entire room.”

“With drywall?”

He measured her with a curious stare. “What do you have against drywall?”

“You mean besides the fact that it has no business in an 1870s Victorian? It also greatly reduces the resale value of the house.”

He waved off her concern. “I’m not concerned about resale value right now.”

This is no longer my house, she reminded herself. Jamal owned it; he could do whatever he wanted with it. Even if it meant putting up freaking drywall.

“Just...show me the rest,” she said.

“Here’s one of the things I’m putting into your capable hands,” he said, pointing to the pocket doors that recessed into the walls between the dining room and kitchen. “They’re pretty banged up, but if at all possible, I want to keep them.”

“Of course you want to keep them. They add too much character to this house to think of getting rid of them.”

Phil glided her hand along the smooth mud where the panels of Sheetrock met. She could not believe the man was replacing the classic plaster walls with drywall, but at least he’d done a good job.

“You did this work by yourself?” she asked.

Jamal nodded. “Have I impressed the guru?”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Why not? Everyone else does.”

“First, I’m not a guru,” Phil sad. “My dad deserved that title, not me. And secondly, I work mostly in wood and wrought iron, so I’m not the one to properly judge drywall installation.”

“That’s too bad,” he said. “I was hoping you’d be impressed.”

Phil looked over at him and was caught off guard by the sexy smile pulling at the edge of his lips. She knew flirting when she saw it, and she was definitely seeing it in action right now.

That would not be good. She could not handle a sweaty, sexy, flirting Jamal Johnson.

“So, besides the doors, what else is there?” she asked.