âRudy?â
He blinked, then looked down into Violetâs flushed face, framed by a zillion coppery coils that slid across her shoulders. In the sunshine, she wasâ¦incredible. He had to literally order his hand not to lift to her face.
âIâve been calling and calling you,â she said, a small voice in a big pink coat. She looked over her shoulder at a mud-and-salt-splattered sedan that had seen its share of New England winters. Her sonâs grinning face popped up in one of the back windows. She waved, then turned back. âYou get your girl all settled in?â
âSheâs twelve. Settlingâs not exactly her strong suit.â
âSheâll make friends,â Violet said. âSheâll be fine. Anyway, I was going to call you, but since youâre here, the answerâs yes. Cooking, fixing the place upâ¦whatever you need, Iâm your girl.â
Maybe you shouldnât put it like that, Rudy thought, eyeing a stray curl that was toying provocatively with her mouth.
Chapter One
Rudy Vaccaro took one look at her and fell in love.
Hopelessly, impossibly, insanely in love.
Even though she wasnât perfect. Hell, she wasnât even all that good-looking, not in the shape she was in. And high maintenance? Hoo-boy. Yeah, heâd gotten himself in deep with this one.
But then, maybe thatâs what he loved about her, Rudy thought, standing there grinning like a loon, that she needed him. Needed him badâ
âOhmigod, DadâI cannot believe you ruined my life for this!â said his twelve-year-old daughter, Stacey.
That was followed by his younger brother Kevinâs, âExactly how closely did you look at the place before you bought it?â
Refusing to let either his daughterâs horror or his brotherâs skepticism deflate him, Rudy lifted his grin to the (peeling) ceiling in the innâs front room/lobby/whatever and let out a whoop of sheer, unadulterated joy.
For twelve years heâd anticipated this moment, squirreling away as much of his copâs salary as he could, even before he fully understood what he was squirreling it away for. Twelve years of nudging a vague dissatisfaction into a dream, then a goal, and nowâthanks to a confluence of events he could have never foreseenâreality.
A hundred-fifty-year-old, six-bedroom reality with curling wallpaper, carpeting in assorted shades of barf and cobwebs thick enough to snag Cessnas.
Rudyâs breath frosted the unheated air as he clapped his hands together, eager to get on with the new year, his new life, both barely two days old.
Mine. All mine, he thought as he tromped across the threadbare carpeting, his size thirteen workboots making the joists squawk underneath. After six monthsâ vacancy, the ancient studs were rheumatic with New England winter damp. Silence met his tap on the thermostat by the dining room archway. Huh. Probably no oil in the furnace.
If he was lucky.
But oh, he was. The luckiest bastard on the face of the earth. Finally, a home, a life of his ownâ
âLike, eww,â his smart, scowling daughter said to a sagging, suspiciously stained wing chair that might have been yellow in another life. Or pale green. Horrified, gorgeous brown eyes lifted to his. Okay, so this part of things needed work. Already pissed at him for jerking her away from all her friends, not to mention an extended family with ties to half of Massachusetts, clearly the idea of spending her formative years in the Lemony Snicket house wasnât exactly racking up points. âPeople actually sat in that?â
âThousands, from the looks of it,â Kevin said.
Stacey backed away, shuddering.
Rudy yanked off his knitted cap, ruffling his short, prickly hair. âThereâs a reason I got it so cheap,â he said, proudly. Almost smug. He turned to his spiky-haired brother, six years his junior, not quite as tall, a good fifty pounds lighter. Not counting the five layers of denim, flannel, cotton jersey. Kev was still trying to get a handle on whatâand whoâhe wanted to be when he grew up. However, with all the restoration skills heâd picked up over the past few years, heâd decided for the next cuppla months he could figure that out here as well as anywhere. âYou got any idea what prices are like up here, normally?â
Arms crossed, Kev frowned at a dark streak meandering from ceiling to floor, through endless, drab green marshes populated with faded ducks. âThat looks like a leak. If youâre lucky, maybe only from a bad radiator or somethingââ