Three Christmas Wishes Page 5

  Dear God, please let him be blind.

  Footsteps moved from the hall into the living room and Noel opened the door and stuck her head out, trying to hear.

  “Windows will have to be replaced,” said the voice.

  Yes, too expensive. You don’t want a house where you have to replace the windows.

  “What the hell?”

  He must’ve seen the rats. Hee, hee.

  “Oh, my!” cried Mrs. Bing. “We’ve never had rats in this house.”

  Noel crept down the hall and peered around the door frame into the living room. There was Mrs. Bing in all her glory, wearing a faux fur coat over a tentlike green dress that made her look like a Christmas tree. Atop that Christmas tree sat a face like a pumpkin with Chia Pet hair.

  Next to her stood a tall, dark-haired man with a body to match his manly voice. He wore jeans and a black sweater and an old, leather jacket and had black stubble on his chin. His eyes were brown. And his mouth...it was lifted in a half smile.

  “Those are domestic,” he said, and pointed to the cage.

  Darn. Why hadn’t she hidden the stupid cage? Oh, yeah. Terror.

  “That’s impossible,” Mrs. Bing said in shock. “Noel knows I have a no-pet policy.”

  Noel decided it was time to show herself. “I’m keeping them for a friend. She’s a teacher. She’s coming to get them tonight.”

  “Why are they out of the cage?” Mrs. Bing demanded.

  Jailbreak? Noel had a very creative mind; why couldn’t she think of something? “Um, the latch on their door must have jiggled loose.” Did that sound lame to anyone besides her?

  “Well, put them back,” Mrs. Bing ordered.

  “Now?” She’d have a heart attack right here.

  “Don’t worry,” said the interloper. “I’ll get ’em.”

  She watched as he chased down the first rat and bent to pick up the disgusting little squeaker. Nice butt. Oh, who cared?

  “You didn’t need to be home,” Mrs. Bing told Noel as the unwanted visitor scooped up Useless Rat Number Two and stuck him back in the cage with Useless Rat Number One.

  “I was done shopping,” Noel said. “I wanted to come home and...check for leaks.” Ha! Brilliant. No one would want to buy a house with leaks.

  Mrs. Bing’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “When did you notice a leak, Noel?”

  Noel’s guilty conscience started a fire on her cheeks. “I thought I saw water the day before yesterday. In the kitchen.”

  “Really.” Mrs. Bing was not fooled.

  The rats were safely in the cage now. “Let’s go look,” said the interloper.

  So they all trooped out to the kitchen to look.

  The kitchen was as cheerful and warm as ever with its yellow walls. Noel and Riley had painted those walls last summer. She’d even sprung for the paint herself. All the love she’d been pouring into this house and Mrs. Bing was going to sell it out from under her just like that. Mrs. Bing was an ingrate.

  “Where exactly was the leak?” asked Mrs. Bing.

  “Uh, over by the window. I think.”

  The interloper gave the window and surrounding wall a checkup. “No signs of water damage. But the counters need replacing.”

  “The counters are fine,” Noel informed him and he raised an eyebrow.

  “Come on. I’ll show you the rest of the house,” Mrs. Bing said. “Noel, you can wait down here.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll come with you,” Noel said. Her rent was paid up. She had every right to join the home tour.

  They walked from room to room, the interloper seeing ways he could change every one.

  “You know, this house is very nice just as it is,” Noel informed him.

  The interloper cocked his head. “Yeah? Then why don’t you buy it?”

  “I want to. Mrs. Bing knows that,” Noel said and looked accusingly at her landlady.

  Mrs. Bing’s cheeks turned rosy. “Noel, if you had the money I’d sell it to you.”

  “Noel, pretty name,” said the interloper. He thrust out a hand for her to shake. “Mine’s Ben, Ben Fordham.”

  Noel put her own hands behind her back. “What do you intend to do with this house, Ben Fordham?”

  “I intend to fix it up.”

  “And then what? It needs a family, people to live in it and love it.” Okay, she was lecturing now.

  No, no. She wasn’t lecturing. She was getting in touch with her inner Marvella Monster, chasing away a predator.

  He held up his left hand. “Not married.”

  “Well, then...” Suddenly it dawned. “You don’t want this house for yourself. You’re going to flip it.”

  “I’m going to fix it up and sell it to a family who will love it.”

  Fix it up? Ha! He was going to destroy its character. Noel turned to Mrs. Bing. “Mrs. Bing, please don’t sell the house to this...this...Scrooge. He only wants it so he can make a profit. Please let me rent to own or give me time to come up with a down payment. I love this place. I’ll take care of it.”

  “I saw how you’re taking care of it with the dirty dishes on the counter,” Mrs. Bing said, pursing her lips.

  “I never have dirty dishes on the counter, really. That was...” Noel was aware of Ben the Bad Man looking at her.

  “Camouflage?” he guessed. “Like the rats and the so-called leak.”

  She wasn’t too proud to beg. “I’m sure you can find other houses to buy.”

  “Of course I can,” he said, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Until he added, “But not at this price point.” He turned to Mrs. Bing. “Why don’t we go back to your house and talk?”

  Nodding, Mrs. Bing started down the hall.

  Ben the Bad Man turned to follow her and Noel caught him by the arm. “Please don’t buy this house.”

  He looked down at her pityingly. “This is nothing personal. It’s just business.” Then he gently disengaged his arm and trailed Mrs. Bing down the hall. “Nice meeting you, Noel.”

  “I wish I could say the same,” she called after him then leaned against the wall and wished all manner of Christmas disasters on him. She hoped he fell off a ladder while hanging Christmas lights and broke his leg. No, make that both legs. She hoped his dog bit him. And if he didn’t have a dog she hoped all the dogs in the neighborhood would poop on his lawn. She hoped Santa would drive right by his house or, better yet, drive over it and dump an entire load of coal down his chimney. She hoped...he’d have a change of heart. Maybe he’d have a dream and get visited by a bunch of ghosts showing him what a bad boy he was.

  Or maybe, just maybe, she could find a way to win him over.

  Chapter Four

  Riley called Noel shortly after the invaders had left. “How’d it go?”

  “He wasn’t fooled. And he wants to buy the house and flip it. He’s talking about taking down walls and ripping out counters and all kinds of things. He’ll ruin its character.”

  “Too bad the rats didn’t work.”

  “Please don’t say that word,” Noel begged, looking over at the useless rodents in their cage.

  “Sorry. I’ll come over and collect them for you.”

  “No need. The house thief already did that.”

  “He saw the cage?”

  “What can I say? I screwed up. It’s just that they had me so icked out I couldn’t concentrate.”

  “We’ll think of something,” Riley said. “And I’ll come and get them tomorrow, okay?”

  “In the morning?” If she had to look at them all day...

  “Yes, and don’t worry. I’m sure this will all work out.”

  Perhaps, but meanwhile, she had to be proactive. She said goodbye to Riley then pulled out her laptop and did an internet
search for Ben Fordham. She found him under Fordham Enterprises. We Turn Nightmares into Dream Homes, he promised on his website. And there was a picture of the dream-maker himself. He looked like an HGTV star in his jeans and T-shirt and tool belt, with his muscles and dark hair and trust-me smile. He was on the front porch of a pretty Victorian, sitting on the railing, one leg dangling casually. Underneath that was a before-and-after example of his work, two shots of the same house. In one it resembled something out of a Halloween movie, with peeling paint and a front lawn overrun by unruly shrubs; in the other, it had turned into a sweet, two-story charmer with a freshly mowed lawn and flowers blooming along its front walk. Very impressive.

  But her house wasn’t a nightmare. And she had her own plans for turning it into a dream home.

  She poked around the site, checking out more examples of what he did. Various pages offered visitors a chance to sell a property (You need out, we’ll step in) or buy property (We did the work, you reap the benefits), and his contact information gave not only his email address but the physical address and phone number of his business, as well. She knew that building. It was downtown, around the corner from the Wiltons’ hardware store. It had once been a little on the derelict side, but now housed both his business and a real estate office, plus an escrow company and an interior decorator. Very handy. No doubt he worked hand in glove with the Realtor, and she supposed the home-decorating woman helped him stage his stolen homes.

  Stolen was about what they were, she was sure. He probably never paid full market value, probably preyed on poor widows who were desperate for money. Like Mrs. Bing.

  Except Mrs. Bing drove a new car and lived in a rambler in a nice neighborhood. Noel didn’t believe she needed the money as badly as she claimed. Of course, in all fairness to Mrs. Bing, you never really knew about a person’s personal finances.

  Still, darn it all, she’d been providing the woman with a monthly income in the form of rent for two years now. Why couldn’t Mrs. Bing have given her a chance? Greed. It came down to that.

  Well, she wasn’t going to let her house go without a fight.

  That’s the spirit, whispered Marvella, who sometimes hung around even when Noel wasn’t working on a story.

  She returned to the Fordham Enterprises home page and studied her nemesis. What a phony, insincere smile! She studied that naked ring finger on his left hand. The man was single, which might make him susceptible to female persuasion. A hot outfit, a plate of cookies...

  Except, unlike Riley, she was a lousy baker. Okay, then, wine. Most people liked wine and that was more sophisticated, anyway. She knew nothing about it, but there was a new shop in town that sold wine. They could help her choose something classy.

  That took care of the bribe. The hot outfit was another matter. The clothes in her closet fell into the lukewarm category.

  But Jo the stylist had a whole closet full of clothes that didn’t happen to fit at the moment. And she and Noel were the same size. Noel collected her cell phone and made the fashion equivalent of a 911 call.

  “I need wardrobe assistance,” she said, hardly giving Jo time to answer.

  “The rats didn’t work?”

  “No. And he’s over at Mrs. Bing’s right now, making her an offer she probably can’t refuse.”

  “That sucks. Hey, if you need a place to stay while you’re looking for a new house, you can stay with me.”

  “That’s really nice of you,” Noel said, “but I intend to stay here. I’m going to talk him out of buying my house.”

  “Sounds like it’s too late for that.”

  Deep down, Noel had the awful suspicion that her friend was right. “I’ve got to try. Maybe I can convince him to take back his offer.”

  “Ah, so when you say wardrobe assistance, you’re thinking wardrobe malfunction.”

  “Nothing that extreme,” Noel said. A vision of sexy Ben Fordham tugging at her top and setting a boob free à la Janet Jackson set her face (and other body parts) on fire. Oh, no. We’re on a mission. We’re not going to think about costume malfunctions and sexy men with brown eyes and a black heart. And she certainly wasn’t going to think about those big, strong-looking hands. He probably had big...everything.

  Whew! Had Mrs. Bing turned up the thermostat? She walked over to check it. Nope, still set on sixty-eight. So the only thermostat getting turned up was hers. “I just want something sexy. I know you’ve got a lot of great stuff in your closet and we’re the same size.”

  “We were, once upon a time, before I morphed into a whale,” Jo said. “Yeah, come on over tomorrow morning. I can fix you up.”

  Fix you up, fixer-upper. Yes, she was the human equivalent of a fixer-upper. Her work wardrobe consisted of pajama bottoms and old sweaters, and even when she dressed up no one ever stopped her and asked where she got that cute...anything. No wonder Jo had suggested going to the mall.

  “You just need some polishing,” she told herself. Hopefully, Jo could get her good and polished. A hot look combined with a bribe...that might be enough to melt Ben Fordham’s cold, cold heart.

  Riley came over to pick up the rats the next morning, and when she learned about Noel’s scheduled makeover, invited herself along. “I don’t have anything else going on,” she said, and her lower lip wobbled.

  “It’s okay. You will,” Noel assured her. “We’re going to have a great Christmas and a fabulous New Year’s no matter what.” Even if they were manless and homeless. Don’t think about that!

  So, not thinking, Noel drove to Jo’s place, Riley and the rats following behind.

  Jo took in Noel’s ancient coat, sweatpants and Uggs when she and Riley walked through the door and frowned. “Does your mommy know you’re out looking like this?” she said, and hauled Noel inside and upstairs to her bedroom, where her bed was covered with all manner of sartorial delights—camisoles, Victoria’s Secret bras and panties, jeans, leggings, blouses, jewelry, tops, sweaters, dresses.

  “Better than Nordstrom, huh?” Riley cracked.

  “I only need one outfit,” Noel said.

  “No, you need a wardrobe. Take off those disgusting clothes.”

  Noel obliged, and Jo began grabbing sweaters and blouses and holding them up to her. “No, no, not that... No, not sexy enough... Hmm, might be too small. Oh, yes!” she finally said after holding up a black, bell-sleeved winter top with a sweetheart neckline accented with crocheting around the neck. The crocheting also served as straps. Noel put it on and saw that it left her shoulders exposed and also allowed a peek at her cleavage. “That should do for starters.” Jo handed Noel some tight jeans. “Now, try these on.”

  “Maybe we’re not the same size, after all,” Noel said, struggling into them.

  “We are. You’re just used to pajamas,” she said, eyeing Noel’s discarded sweatpants with revulsion. “Honestly, I didn’t know they even made those anymore.”

  They probably didn’t. Noel had found hers at a thrift store a couple of years ago. “I don’t wear them when we’re out doing things,” she protested.

  “You shouldn’t wear them at all. And the way you dress when we’re all out doing things is barely a step above.”

  She’d heard that from Jo on more than one occasion.

  “It’s okay,” Riley consoled her. “She says stuff like that to me, too.”

  “I only speak the truth,” Jo said, frowning at her sister’s jeans and tennis shoes.

  As the oldest, Jo had tried to guide them. Maybe they were unguidable.

  Noel zipped up the pants and Jo studied her carefully. “Oh, yes,” she said, nodding. “Now you’re starting to look like something this goon might want for Christmas.” She snatched up a pair of gold, chandelier earrings. “Put these on.”

  Noel hesitated. “Isn’t that a little, um...”

  “No, it’s not. Put th
em on,” Jo commanded. Noel obliged and she smiled approvingly. “Oh, yeah. Sizzle, sizzle.”

  “Sizzle, sizzle is right,” Riley agreed. Jo turned Noel around so she could check herself out in the full-length mirror.

  “Oh, my,” Noel said with a smile.

  “Just what every man wants on his tool belt,” Jo murmured. “Now, your feet.”

  “I can wear those black boots we bought.”

  Jo nodded. “That’ll do.” She pointed at the Uggs. “No, wait. Put those back on. They might work. Anyway, you don’t want to look like you’re trying too hard.”

  Noel obliged, and Jo nodded again. “Actually, that’s kind of buff and sexy. I think they’ll be fine, for the first encounter, anyway. You can wear the boots another time. Now,” she said, turning back to the pile of clothes on the bed, “what about the outfit for your second encounter?”

  Noel wasn’t sure there’d be a second encounter. She wasn’t even sure she could pull off a first encounter. Jo handed her a simple white shirt.

  “This,” she said. “And leggings.” She picked up a pair of patterned black leggings. “And the boots.”

  “How about this necklace?” Riley suggested, holding up a chunky stone number.

  “Definitely. Third encounter wear the heels and this dress.” She handed Noel a black dress with a scoop neck. “Redheads look great in black.”

  More jewelry, a Victoria’s Secret bra, a black cashmere sweater, a white blouse—a wardrobe basic according to Jo—a little faux fur-trimmed jacket and Noel was in business. “Thanks,” she said as they loaded her new wardrobe into the back of her car. “I really appreciate this.”

  “They’re just hanging in my closet all sad and lonely,” Jo said. “They may as well be out there doing some good. And I hope they do,” she added and hugged Noel. “Wear the coat when you go see him, but make sure you shed it the second you’re in his office. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “And don’t forget to wear makeup. And perfume.”

  Perfume. Oh, yeah. That. She had a bit of Viva La Juicy left.