On The House (Caldwell Brothers Book 7) Read online

  ON THE HOUSE

  Caldwell Brothers Book 7

  By

  Colleen Charles

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Foreword

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Epilogue

  Foreword

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  Chapter One

  Chloe

  Eighteen Years Later…

  Screw you, pain. Phantom, my ass.

  I stand in the center of the living room with my hands on my hips, trying to extend my awareness – to actually feel the ten thousand square feet of the Las Vegas home stretching out around me in every direction.

  The longer I stand, the deeper the old familiar twinge of agony settles into the muscles of my right thigh, branching up into my hips and torso like the cruel and twisted roots of a gnarled tree. I take a deep breath and try to focus on the house, pushing the pain aside until there’s so little left that I can ignore it. It still feels like my leg is attached. When I first lost it and got fitted for a prosthetic, I foolishly assumed that the ache that went with it would simply disappear after a while, or that I’d at least get used to it.

  But no.

  As I moved from my teens through my twenties, the pain dug in more sharply, taking up residence like a bombproof cockroach. It’s fine, though. Because I’m alive. Yes, life put me through the ringer once. Tore a hole in my soul so deep that I didn’t think I’d survive…but I did. And I became stronger for the agony. Which is one reason I didn’t attempt to save enough money for the high-level nanotechnology surgery that would make me, mostly, like new.

  I need the pain.

  Deserve the pain.

  There’s no way I could be the successful career woman I am without having my heart ripped to shreds only so I could stitch it back together again. I just keep reminding myself that no matter how annoying the plaguing ache can be, I’m still lucky. It could have been so much worse than losing a leg. Not even a whole leg, really…just everything up to the knee.

  I could be six feet under.

  “She’s so fortunate.” I remember my mother saying those very words to the prosthetist as he fitted me for my first fake leg. “I mean, bone cancer. Honestly! We’re just so relieved they caught it in time. Aren’t we, Chloe?” And then she shot me a glance of cold encouragement, her perfectly-drawn eyebrow cocked as though daring me to challenge her psychotic version of events.

  I just put my head down and nodded, staying silent and never standing in the vulnerability of my own truth. Just like I’ve stayed silent about what really happened ever since. Even now. Even when I haven’t spoken to my mother in years. I wake up with the secret every morning and go to sleep with it every night. It still shames me, but I’ve learned to live with it.

  Just like I’ve learned to live with the twinges when they come, almost daily. The piteous looks that strangers give me. Don’t even get me started on the way men look through me as if I’m not even a flesh and blood woman.

  Anything with a dick looks right through me.

  With my more advanced bionic prosthetic – and the years of practice it took to make walking with it look effortless – I tend to think of myself as someone talented at crafting illusions. I excel at making people see the pretty, happy, normal things they want to see. Like David Copperfield making the Statue of Liberty disappear.

  It’s why I chose to become a professional home stager. The money’s good and the work fulfilling, but there’s so much more to it than that.

  Staging homes for sale involves far more than just cleaning and decorating. It’s more like being a magician on the Vegas strip. I create effects and set moods. I make small spaces seem large, and gloomy places seem warm and welcoming. Building anticipation and getting away with misdirection on a grand scale. In the year since I moved to Vegas and started my own staging business, I’ve enjoyed a lot of success.

  Even in the technological era I now live in, I still prefer humans to robots and drones. While I could have both to deal with the cleaning, moving, and painting, I have a small staff of cleaners, movers, and painters stand by, waiting for me to direct them. My personal assistant, Jamie St. Ives, hovers next to me, wringing her hands. She’s the helicopter parent I never wanted, and I love her to death.

  In the houses we stage, her eye for detail reigns supreme. When it comes to fashion…calling her bohemian would be generous. She wears a banana yellow pantsuit with wide, angular shoulder pads. It’s an outfit that looks like something from the early nineties, and it clashes severely with her hair, which she dyes the color of a shiny new penny. I’m tempted to flip her over to see if she’s heads or tails.

  How can someone so OCD be so bad at putting outfits together? It’s a question I ask myself many times a week, but the answer lies somewhere out there in the ethers, never to be found or understood.

  “Well?” Jamie finally blurts out, unable to control herself. “Will this place get us on MDL-LV, or what?”

  “It’s a step in the right direction,” I murmur, still trying to get a sense of the house and what needs to be done. A ghost of a smile dances across my lips.

  Ah, Million Dollar Listing – Las Vegas, the latest home improvement program on the Bravo network. The ultimate prize.

  A high school friend of mine named Stacey Casper went on to become a television producer after college. While I still lived in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Stacey reached out to let me know that Bravo would be launching this show soon to expand their Million Dollar Listing franchise.

  She knew about my staging business and figured this would be a perfect opportunity to get some exposure. Grasping at the brass ring, a rarity for a disabled person, compelled me to stretch outside my comfort zone and move to Vegas.

  A bud of hope blossoms inside my belly. The show hovers at the end of my fingertips, and all I have to do is lean forward and claim it.

  And nailing this house will give me the push I need to hurtle over the edge.

  Some rich guy named Lincoln Caldwell handles it, a high-end real estate agent, the baby in a well-known family, born and raised here in Vegas. Apparently, the Caldwells are rich as Croesus and as powerful as world leaders.

  I haven’t met him personally, and I haven’t been able to find out too much about him, but from what I can tell, he’s a big deal. He’s the low-profile Caldwell. Word on the street says he wants to be on MDL-LV as much as I do…and with all his money, resources, and connections, I can probably ride his coattails right onto the show.

  If I do this right.

  Lincoln Caldwell…I hope you’re not an asshole.

  “So how should we do this?” Jamie asks, as though she heard my thoughts.

  Her voice contains a plaintive whine like a dog waiting for a treat, and I can’t help but smirk. I know th
is is her least favorite part of the whole process – standing here, waiting for inspiration to strike me so I can tell her what should go where. Her toe taps, her fingers flitter. Once she’s got her orders, she’ll carry them out flawlessly, down to the smallest detail. Waiting to receive those orders makes her crazy, though. There’s a sadistic streak in me that wants to keep her waiting even longer, and I try to fight it.

  “Well, the wood on the cabinets and wall trim is looking a bit dry,” I begin slowly.

  She sighs, throwing her hands up. “So we’ll apply orange oil to renew their original luster, and we’ll place potpourri and scented soaps and fluffy towels with ribbons in the bathrooms. I know that. We always do that. Come on, stop stalling! What else, what else?”

  Now, I really do let myself smile. Why is it so much fun to get her riled up? Maybe my sadistic streak comes from my mother. “Don’t rush a magician, Jamie, or you won’t appreciate the illusion.”

  She sighs again, even more dramatically this time which puffs her bangs out, sunflower style. Then she starts babbling at me about how much the rest of the workers cost us, just by standing around. But her voice already fades out of my ears as I return my focus to the house itself.

  Before I start, I put on my virtual reality goggles already pre-loaded with the particular details of this house. I lower my eyelids until my eyes are almost closed, control my breathing, and open my mind, letting the house speak to me. If you know what you’re doing, the home will tell you how it wants to look, the image it wants to project. Not with words, but with the pictures it projects into that special part of your brain…the Don Quixote part that sees, not what is, but what could be.

  After a few seconds of laser focus, I open them and the outlines of people and furniture begin to form, filling the empty space with life and purpose.

  I see a family big enough to comfortably fill this five-bedroom home. First, a middle-aged husband and wife. A place like this wouldn’t be their first home. They’ve been married for at least twelve years, and this is what they’ve been working so hard to obtain – this is the place they privately fantasized about buying and decorating each night, once the kids fell asleep. This represents the lifestyle they feel they finally deserve to enjoy. A pool to splash around in on hot summer days, a yard for the kids to play with dogs and drones.

  Dogs, yes. They’ve got two of them – big, friendly, silly, happy ones, like Golden Retrievers or Labradors – but they’ve always felt guilty about not having enough room for their beloved pets to run around and exercise. Guilt will plague them no longer since this space equals the American dream. Sheer, abject perfection.

  I picture two beautiful children. A girl in high school, and a boy who’s still in middle school. They can each have their own room here, and their parents can use the other two rooms as an office or den and maybe a rec room. Well, at least until they have their third child, a big, fat oopsie baby conceived during a drunken sex romp on New Year’s Eve.

  They’ll have plenty of room now, especially since their little girl is almost grown up and ready to go off to college. And when she comes home for holidays – maybe with her roommate, maybe with a boyfriend or a girlfriend – there’ll be room enough for everyone to hang out in the kitchen, or grill out on the back porch while the father and son throw a football around.

  Okay. This is good. I can work my magic now. I snap the goggles off my head and look at Jamie.

  “We’re going to want to make it look like a family lives here,” I begin. “Some cookbooks on the kitchen counter, maybe some golfing knick-knacks and sports magazines.”

  Jamie holds up her hand. “Real cookbooks and magazines? With actual paper pages?”

  I sigh. She makes a good point. Although it’s the mid-2030s now, my heart still rests in the simpler times of my childhood. Yes, we had tablets and smartwatches and remote activation back then, but there is nothing like holding a book…a real book…in my hands.

  “Yes. Make sure the tablets and smart devices are set to sports and cooking channels but also make sure there are a few real items too. It will feel nostalgic, maybe make the families remember those simpler times when they were struggling to build their dreams.”

  Jamie nods, satisfied. “Got it.”

  I look around the space again and continue giving orders. “I want a sofa and chair set for the living room that looks neat, but well-used. I even want you to press some butt-prints into the cushions so we can imagine them getting together to watch TV each night. Let’s get a couple of dog toys on the floor and some doggie beds in the corner. Food and water dishes too. If we can get them with some cute dog names on them, that’s even better.”

  I glance over and see Jamie taking meticulous notes. Good. She never lets me down.

  I walk a few steps as she trails behind me, the tapping of her fingers the only sound. “For the bedrooms, I want the parents’ room to be very his-and-hers. You know…moisturizer and a sleep mask on her night table, and maybe a crime suspense book on his.”

  “Real—?”

  I nod. “Yes. Real books with real paper pages. Whichever book you choose, work the spine and dog-ear the pages so it looks like he’s read it a few times, like it’s an old favorite. You can even go old school, maybe Tom Clancy or John Grisham for the nostalgia value again. Oh, and pairs of slippers on each side of the bed. Pink and fluffy for her, and something Ward Cleaver for him. Are you with me so far?”

  Jamie’s eyebrow lifts. “Ward who?”

  I smile. “Research the old-old-old television show Leave it to Beaver.”

  “Got it,” Jamie answers, her brow furrowed in her zest for organization. “What about the other bedrooms?”

  “The boy’s room should have toys. Nothing too young…no building blocks or race car beds, no Batman pajamas or Ninja Turtle sheets. Give him action figures, though, and some kind of complex Lego set. Something from Star Wars, maybe. He’s a bit of a nerd, so throw in a few comic books, but give him some sports stuff too, so he doesn’t seem depressed or unpopular. This imaginary kid has to represent the image of perfection every parent wants. It shouldn’t be too messy, just mildly cluttered, like he cleaned his room two or three days ago. Maybe some of his drawings are on the walls, or better still, on the fridge. Maybe there’s a jigsaw puzzle he’s working on, and it’s half finished.”

  Jamie nods, jotting it down. She doesn’t bother to ask about this boy or the strange workings of my creative mind. By now, she knows how I operate.

  “The girl’s room is older. No unicorns, no cutesy snow globes or music boxes, no “Seventeen” cover boy posters.”

  “I, uh, don’t think “Seventeen” is still a thing,” Jamie chuckles.

  I stick my tongue out at her. Who didn’t read “Seventeen” as a young girl? My leg throbs, but I can’t sit down. For this part of it, I need to be up, gesturing, visualizing. Who knows why, maybe the surge of blood to my brain, but creativity happens during this portion of the planning, and when magic works, you learn not to mess with it. I’d rather be superstitious and successful than the alternative.

  Fired.

  “Nothing frilly for her.” I tap a finger to my lips. “Nothing silly or superficial. This is a serious girl who wants to get into a good college, and she’s willing to work for it. We’re talking AP textbooks, real ones. Maybe some applications from prestigious universities.”

  “Harvard and Yale?” Jamie asks.

  I shake my head impatiently. “Too obvious, too cliché. I’d go with NYU, Cornell, UCLA, maybe Notre Dame. There should be a high school sports uniform too. Soccer. No, wait…field hockey. Wait, wait…La Crosse. That’s the new ‘it’ sport. There’s more equipment. And again, make sure it looks used. Maybe even a grass stain or two.”

  “What about the other two bedrooms?”

  I frown, thinking this over. “The first one’s a rec room. Dartboard. Billiard table. A mini-fridge, definitely. The other one is for her.”

  “The wife?”

  I n
od, chewing on my lip. Yes, the wife. An interior she-shed. But what does she like to do? “She kicks it really old school. Arts and crafts. A loom. Knitting stuff. Maybe a workstation for building and painting dollhouse furniture.”

  “Wow,” Jamie says. “This is all pretty specific.”

  “It better be. If we’re going to have a hope in hell of getting on that show, Jamie, this home staging will need to be our masterpiece.” I lean down, rapping my knuckles on my prosthetic leg, and even though it is a marvel of technology, say, “Knock on wood.”

  Chapter Two

  Lincoln

  The woman seems to materialize from the purple shadows of the Vegas evening, with large brown doe eyes, full pouting lips, a pale and graceful neck, and a black and red dress that hugs every luscious curve. She wears gray pearl earrings with a matching necklace, and her short platinum blonde hair frames her heart-shaped face.

  Not my type at all.

  “Hey, handsome! Where are you headed, and why don’t you take me with you?” Her rich, throaty voice caresses my ears, but I’m immune. “Wherever it is, I promise to bring the party.”

  I force myself to smile, even though stress clamps every muscle in a vice. Despite her beauty, nothing about her touches that special place inside me – in Vegas, women like this one walk by every second. She’s like a hurricane after a dry spell. Way too much. “I appreciate the offer, but I’m not looking for a party.”

  “I’m not a common streetwalker,” she replies with a grin.

  “Have a lovely evening.” I start to walk away again, wishing this infernal limp didn’t keep me from escaping more quickly. Every time my disability slows me down, it pisses me off while simultaneously breaking my heart a little more.

  Unfortunately, she follows me, overtaking me in a few easy strides. “Where are you going, honey? Come on, take me with you. I’m not a hustler or anything, honest. I’m not gonna roll you or embarrass you. I’m just bored and horny, and you look like a decent guy. With that expensive suit and those shoes, I’m betting you know how to live the good life. In fact, I’ll bet you can get us into any restaurant or club in the city. Why be alone when you can be together?”