Baby Kisses

Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder

Miles followed the directions Tooty gave him and turned off the main highway onto a gravel road. Dense trees grew on either side of the narrow drive and they had to stop once so Tooty could remove dead limbs blocking their way. It took about ten minutes to reach the ranch house. Miles stifled a groan; the house was pathetic. The windows were partially boarded, the porch sagged on one end, and the roof was in need of repair. The old siding didn't have much paint left. He glanced sideways at Tooty expecting her to look crestfallen. She looked radiant. You would have thought she'd inherited a palace instead of this ramshackle house.

"It's all mine," she breathed.

Miles didn't have the heart to burst her bubble. There was no way she could live in this house without major repairs. He'd barely stopped the van before she was out the door and wrestling with her purse to find the key. While she ran to the porch, he lowered himself on the mechanical lift. The ground was rough and he had to use some muscle to skirt weeds and uneven terrain to roll to the back of his van.

Tooty unlocked the door and turned around. "Oh, goodness, I'm so sorry. I should be helping you."

"You're fine." He opened the back of the van. "I have a lightweight metal ramp that telescopes," he said as he slid the ramp out. "Do you think you could drag it to the porch while I maneuver around this rough ground?"

"Sure." She pulled the ramp the short distance.

"Is it too heavy?"

"Nope." She followed his instructions for sliding it open and positioning it where he could gain access. In a few minutes he was on the porch. At the doorstep she paused and looked down at him. "I feel like it's Christmas and I'm about to open the best present ever."

Miles still didn't have the heart to destroy her illusion. She pushed the door open. "I love it!" she exclaimed, and then turned to help him over the door jam and into the front room crowded with antique furniture. He figured maybe she could sell the stuff to earn money for repairs.

"My own home," she whispered.

Together, they pushed furniture out of the way so he could follow her throughout the dimly lit house and listen to her plans for improvement. He started mentally calculating dollar figures.

Off the living room there were two hallways opposite each other, with one leading to two bedrooms on one side of the house, and the other to the only bathroom and another bedroom on the other side. The living room opened into a small dining room with a door leading to the kitchen. Basically, the house was a rectangle. When he followed Tooty into the kitchen, he had to stifle another groan. It had to be original to the 1940s. The refrigerator even had rounded corners. He wondered if the place was a fire hazard.

Tooty exclaimed, "I can't wait to move in! Some elbow grease and this place will be spit-shined. I can come here in the afternoons after working for you and bring Harris with me. He's going to be so thrilled. I haven't told him anything because I didn't want him to get his hopes up just in case things took a dive. And believe me, I know about things taking a dive."

"Tooty, how can you work here and then go to work cleaning Boot Bustin' Barn at night. When will you sleep? Besides that, look how far you are from your family, not to mention work. Can you drive there every day?"

Tooty smiled and said, as if explaining to a child who couldn't quite understand, "It will work because I'll make it work. This is an answer to prayer. You just don't know how long I've been praying for my own place. It will work," she said again with finality, and then, with stars in her eyes, checked out every room a second time.

On the drive home, she talked so fast Miles couldn't get a word in. Finally, he interrupted. "Tooty listen to me for a minute. I have a proposal."

She stopped mid-sentence in her description of all the flowers she was going to plant and looked questioningly at him.

He cleared his throat. "Jacob and Julie will be returning in a month so I'll have to leave their cottage, but I still have a tremendous amount of writing to accomplish and I don't want to do it in New York. I'd rather stay in the area. My proposal is that you let me rent a room from you. However, instead of paying rent, I'll put money into making the house livable. How's that sound?"

She didn't say anything and he chanced a glance at her. She'd wrinkled her brow.

"What don't you like about the idea?"

"I think the money you would pay to fix the place up would be way more than what rent would be. That's not fair to you."

Miles breathed a sigh of relief. If that was her only objection, and not that a man would be living in the house with her, he could handle that. "That's probably true. But I was thinking that you could quit your job at Boot Bustin' Barn and work for me full time, and instead of me paying you full salary, we could call it even because of the extra amount I'm paying toward repairs." He finished with, "I really need someone to proofread and give me input. Like you did with the scene I just rewrote."

"Really? You want me to read what you've written?"

"I do." So he could seal the deal, he said quickly, "Let's plan on moving to the new place within a month. I'll get repairmen and carpenters lined up tomorrow."

"You'd do that for me! Somebody pinch me because I must be dreaming!"

Miles smiled, but inwardly felt a touch of sadness when he recognized in Tooty the impetuousness of youth he'd lost after his accident.