Frank Fowler was just driving away as Andie pulled in at the Thompson house. He’d taken away the tent and chairs, and all that remained in the spacious side yard was a row of folding tables Andie and Emily had put out for the auction.
Emily was standing in front of the steps, looking at Shane’s handiwork. She looked like she was about to cry.
“Good news!” Andie acted overly cheerful so as to perk Emily up.
Emily looked skeptical. “Really?”
“Yes. My friend Maxi Stevens is married to the president of Lobster Bay Bank, and she said they have great rates on historical preservation loans right now.”
Emily pursed her lips and glanced up at the dilapidated house. “That’s nice, and the house does need work, but I think you might be forgetting that my family won’t be owning this house much longer.”
Andie followed her gaze, mentally calculating what the renovation might cost. New paint job. New roof. Some of the shutters were missing. And that was just the exterior. “I was thinking we could use the loan money to pay off the bank and then put more elbow grease into the renovation so it wouldn’t cost as much.” A lot more elbow grease.
“That’s nice of you to mention it, but I doubt the bank would give me a loan given the impending foreclosure and the fact that I have no way to pay it back.”
Emily had a point, but Andie knew that James would work with them. “I think we can work something out with the bank. James has a soft spot toward longtime residents and old properties. He’ll want to save the house. I mean, it is one of the oldest ones in town.”
“Okay, but then how would we pay off the loan? It’s not like my income is going up, so we’d be in the same financial mess.” Emily planted her hands on her hips and looked around. “I suppose we might be able to get some money from selling stuff, but eventually that will all be gone, and then what?”
“I have an idea as to how you can make some money from the property and keep it in the family.”
Emily shook her head. “I know your family has an inn, but I don’t have any experience or even the desire to run one.”
Andie took a deep breath. Emily was going to have to make some sacrifices if she wanted to keep the house. “This house is bigger than you need. Even your mom had it divided up. But I wasn’t thinking about an inn exactly. I was thinking a boutique B&B tied to the history of the house.”
“That sounds like an inn with a fancy name.”
“More like an Airbnb. Your mother already has it sectioned off, so it wouldn’t be much more work to make a couple of separate units, and if you handled it through Airbnb and got electronic locks, then you wouldn’t be tied to checking in guests or cooking for them.”
Emily looked at the house again, her expression still skeptical.
“Let’s face it, you need the house to bring in money or you won’t be able to keep it no matter what.”
Emily took a deep breath. “Mom did say she wanted to keep it, and the thought of selling is gut-wrenching. I guess we could try to get the loan and see what happens.”
“There’s only one catch.”
Emily returned her gaze to Andie. “Now you tell me. What?”
“We need something historically significant to qualify.”
Emily frowned. “Like what?”
“Did anyone famous ever stay here? Or maybe a famous event?”
Emily shook her head. “Not that I know of. There are the rumors. And some of my ancestors were in the Civil War. Maybe they did something important?”
“Were there any family stories? Usually that stuff gets handed down,” Andie said. “My mom mentioned something about a secret passage once, and I wondered if that had to do with the rumors about the Underground Railroad.”
“When I was a kid, one of my friends said something about a secret passage, but my mom said that was silly. She scared the daylights out of me and forbade me from even looking for it.”
“I wonder if my mother was just misremembering. Half of what she says is fantasy, so maybe this was too.” Too bad because a secret passage would make a nice hook for a B&B.
“I guess our moms don’t always remember things exactly the way they were,” Emily said.
“That’s for sure.”
“Or sometimes they remember it too much. When I bring Mom here, she gets mad about the changes and accuses me of not keeping it up. It was her that got it so run-down. She wouldn’t let me do anything to the house.”
“So is this something you really want to try to do?” Andie asked.
Emily thought for a few seconds then slowly nodded. “Yeah I guess so. Why not?”
“Okay, great. I’m meeting Maxi in a few hours to get more specifics on the loan. In the meantime, let’s take another look in the attic. Maybe we’ll find something that we can use.”