Mo went back to the hotel, showered and changed clothes, then climbed back on the bike to continue his tour of the historic district. But he couldn’t manage to get Hattie Kavanaugh off his mind.
Truthfully, he’d noticed her as soon as he sat down at the café table next to hers earlier that morning. In her early thirties, he guessed, and she had that fresh-faced girl-next-door thing going on, her hair in a careless ponytail. Slender, but curvy in the right places.
Her personality at the house was confrontational, obnoxious even. He liked that she wasn’t intimidated by having a strange man suddenly fall on top of her. Liked that she didn’t back down easily. Even in mud-caked work boots, grimy coveralls, with her head wrapped in a bandana, this woman had presence. And with her hazel eyes, and full lips, the upper one of which bore a slight scar, he could already tell the camera would love her. The hair would need to be blonder, that was a given.
By four that afternoon, Mo was sweat-soaked and exhausted. The skies were darkening, and the air so heavy with humidity you could almost wring it out.
But for reasons he couldn’t explain, he found himself pedaling past the Tattnall Street house again. The only vehicle present was the Kavanaugh & Son pickup, which was still parked at the curb. He spied the girl he’d met earlier, sitting on the porch steps, holding her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking.
A for-sale-by-owner sign had been planted in the grassless yard. This was new.
He approached slowly. A few yards from the porch, he gave a discreet cough.
The girl raised her head. Her face was red and tear-streaked. She’d stripped off the coveralls and was dressed in the same pair of faded jeans and light blue tank top she’d worn earlier that morning at the café.
“What?”
“Hey,” Mo said. “So? You’re selling the house now? Before you finish it?”
“What do you care?” She used the back of her hand to swipe at a snot bubble.
He’d never been good with women who cried. He should go, but something, her sudden vulnerability maybe, drew him closer.
Mo sat down on the step beside her, leaving a couple of feet of sunbaked brick between them. “I’m sorry,” he offered.
She snuffled and looked away. “Tug’s right. It’s a money pit. I bit off more than I could chew. He’s got a couple of investors who are interested, but we thought we’d go ahead and put it on the market. Maybe some other sucker like me will bite.”
Hattie rested her chin on her knees.
“You’ll be losing money?” he guessed.
“Yeah. Money we don’t have. That I don’t have. Like an idiot, I sunk all my savings into this venture.”
“What’ll you do after you sell this place?”
She shrugged. “We’ve got a kitchen addition on Wilmington Island, a rooftop deck at a town house over on Jones Street. What Tug calls our bread and butter.”
“No more house flipping?”
“Not unless I hit the lottery,” she said. “No bank will touch us after this fiasco.”
“That’s too bad,” Mo said. “This show I was telling you about…”
“No!” She shook her head vehemently. “I told you before. Not interested. Go find some other dumb blonde. Savannah’s full of ’em. Everyone wants to be a celebrity. Everyone but me.”
“I don’t want someone who wants to be a celebrity. I want someone who has a passion for what they do. Somebody with a vision. Who’s fearless.”
“You don’t know me,” Hattie said. “Deep down inside, I’m a total chickenshit. I’m afraid of heights. And of dying broke and alone. Which is looking more and more likely these days.”
“Alone?” Mo raised an eyebrow. “You said this Tug guy is your father-in-law. Where’s your husband?”
“Dead.”
Mo winced. “Oh. God, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Hattie said. She exhaled slowly. “Nobody expects someone my age to be a widow. People don’t know what to do with that kind of information.”
“Can I ask…”
“No,” she said, standing abruptly. “This pity party is officially over. I’m gonna go home, hit the shower, and drown my sorrows in a bottle of beer. I’m not usually this rude, Mauricio…”
“It’s Mo. Nobody calls me Mauricio.”
“Okay, Mo. I’m fixing to lock up here, so gonna have to ask you to leave.”
“You never even told me your name,” he protested. “I was thinking maybe you’d give me a do-over on the introductions?” He stuck out his hand. “Hi. I’m Mo Lopez. Intrepid intruder. Admirer of old homes, in search of a hit show.”
Her upper lip twitched a little. He wanted to reach out and touch that scar, ask what had happened, but he didn’t dare. She looked down at her own hands. They were grimy, the short nails caked with mud, but she wiped the palms on the seat of her jeans and shook. “I’m Hattie Kavanaugh. Dog lover, licensed, failing contractor. Not looking for a career in show business.”
“Nice to meet you,” Mo said. “Tell me about your friend.”
“Cass? We’ve been best friends since parochial school, and we both work for Tug. I guess you’d call her construction foreman. Er, forewoman. We’re not really big on titles at Kavanaugh and Son.”
“So your husband was the son in Kavanaugh and Son?”
“Actually, my husband, Thomas Henry, was the third generation to work in the business. Tug’s dad started the company, so he was the original son in Kavanaugh and Son.” Her expression softened. “That’s how Hank and I met. I got a job cleaning up construction sites for his dad while I was still in high school, and eventually I talked Tug into letting me learn the trades. I started out as an apprentice carpenter.”
“Kind of an unusual job for a young woman,” Mo said. “You didn’t go to college?”
“I took some classes at Georgia Southern—you can actually major in construction management there—but after a while, I didn’t see the point in paying to sit in a classroom and get lectured about stuff I already knew how to do,” Hattie said.
Mo hesitated, but decided to take one more stab at winning her over.
“See, you’d be perfect for this show I’m creating. It’s an entirely new concept. If the network bites, and I don’t see why they wouldn’t, we’d film on location, right here in Savannah.”
“Thanks, but the answer is still no. I screwed up this house in a major way. No more house flipping. From now on, I keep my head down and stay in my lane.” Hattie went to the front door, pulled a ring of keys from her pocket, and locked the door. She ran her hand longingly over the intricately carved molding of the door, as though she were bidding goodbye to an old friend.
“See you around, Mo,” she said.
After she was gone, he walked over to the for-sale sign, took out his phone, and snapped a photo of the number posted at the bottom. He heard a rumble of thunder, glanced up, and saw a silvery crack of lightning piercing the black clouds boiling overhead. He ran for the bike. He was half a block from the Victorian on Tattnall Street when the skies opened up, huge, warm bullets of rain pelting him as he pedaled furiously back toward the hotel.