The Liar

She admired the set of Adirondack chairs painted deep forest green, the rough wood table—a stump he must’ve planed down and sealed—between them. Even as she raised a hand to knock, he opened the door.

“Heard you drive up.”

“I’m already in love with the place. It must’ve taken you a lot of sweaty days to reclaim the land around the house, all that old scrub and the briars.”

“Sort of hated to kill the briars. They added a little ‘Sleeping Beauty’ to the place. You look great.”

He looked pretty great himself, freshly shaven, from the looks of it, with a shirt of softly faded blue rolled up to his elbows.

He took her hand to draw her in.

“I’m glad to see you’re not averse to plants, so you should be able to find a spot for these.”

“Thanks. I’ll just—”

“Oh my God.”

The shock in her tone had him looking frantically for something like one of the monstrously huge wolf spiders he’d spent weeks banishing from the house.

But when she pulled free, turned a circle, her smile simply glowed. “This is wonderful. Griffin, this is wonderful!”

He’d opened up walls so what had been a dark, narrow hallway was a wide foyer that spilled naturally into a front room with a fireplace he’d refaced in native stone. The early evening light flowed through the uncurtained windows onto a gleaming deep-toned oak floor.

“I don’t use this space much yet, so I just tossed an old couch and a couple chairs into it. Haven’t figured out what color to paint it, so . . . I haven’t.”

“It’s about the space,” she said, and wandered it. “I peeked in the old windows so many times, even broke in once on a dare and walked all through. Are these the original floors?”

“Yeah.” Every square foot of them pleased him. “They took some work, but original’s best if you can keep it. I used original trim where I could, copied it where I couldn’t.”

“And the ceiling medallion. I had dreams about that for weeks after I came in. The little faces around the circle.”

“Nice and spooky. I haven’t found the right light to go there.” Like Shelby, he looked up at the plaster medallion. “It has to hit me.”

“It should look old. There shouldn’t be anything in here that looks shiny and new. Well, the kitchen and bathrooms, that’s one thing, but the rest . . . And I’m telling you your business when you obviously know just what to do. I want to see it all.”

“I haven’t gotten to all of it yet. Some spaces I’d start, realize I wasn’t in the right mood. Keep going and you end up doing something wrong, or at least half-assed.”

He should paint this room a warm, rich gold—not bright and not too dark, but like warm, rich old gold. And leave the windows undraped to show off the gorgeous trim, and . . .

And she had to stop decorating it for him in her head.

“You’re not doing all this yourself, are you?”

“No.” He took her hand again, started to lead her toward the back of the house. “Matt’s been a slave—will work for beer—when he has the time. Forrest, too. Clay’s pitched in a couple times. My father’s been down, given me a week or two when he can manage it. And my brother. My mom helped clearing the brush, and said I owe her more for that than fourteen hours of labor.

“Half bath here,” he added when she laughed.

She poked inside. “Look at that sink. It’s just like an old washbasin on a stand. Like it could’ve been here all along. And that antique bronze finish on the fixtures and the lights goes so well. You’ve got a nice sense, Griff, of color, too. Keeping it warm and natural. The house doesn’t want bold and flashy.

“What’s this over here?”

“Tools and materials, mostly.” He thought, What the hell? and opened the old pocket door.

“Such wonderful high ceilings,” she said, obviously not put off by stacks of tools and lumber, big tubs of drywall mud, and plenty of dust. “And another ceiling medallion. I guess you know they say the original Mr. Tripplehorn was six-feet-six, and built the place to accommodate his size. Does the fireplace work?”

“Not now. It needs work, and probably a gas insert in here, something that doesn’t look like a gas insert. Refacing the brick, or maybe redoing it in slate or granite. It’s crap and crumbling.”

“What’s it going to be?”

“Maybe a library. It feels like a house like this should have one.”

Because he saw it in his head, he gestured. “Built-ins flanking the fireplace, a library ladder, that kind of thing. Big leather couch, maybe a stained glass ceiling fixture, if I find the right one. One of these days,” he said with a shrug. “A couple of other rooms down here I’m still thinking about. I didn’t want to open everything up. Open concept’s one thing, losing all the original quirks and charm’s another.”