He chuckled. “They know I’m a softy inside,” he said, trying to pet all three of them, as they wiggled in his hands.
“Says you,” she said. “Graynor’s inside on the couch.”
“You still got him?”
“Not for much longer,” she said sadly. “He’s fifteen and well past his time.”
He nodded in empathy. “And there’s nothing quite like losing our canine friends, is there?”
“Well, losing family’s worse, yet he’s furry family,” she said. She walked in and called out, “Graynor, somebody to see you.” She could hear the thump of his tail on the couch. She walked around. She had blankets laid out for him, and here her great big old German wirehaired pointer was stretched out on the cushions with his eyes open, not moving, except for his tail wiggling. She bent down, gave him a quick cuddle and a kiss, and then stepped back so he saw Caleb. Immediately he struggled to get to his feet.
Caleb stepped forward. “Hey, old man, stay where you are. It’s okay.” And he dropped to his knees to cuddle the huge dog that he had known since Graynor was a pup.
The two connected like long-lost friends, and it brought tears to Laysha’s eyes because she knew she would lose Graynor at some point, and she wasn’t ready for it. She would never be ready for that. He had been there for her through the thick and the thin, through fifteen years of her life. Half of it. Almost half of it. She would be thirty next month. And here that guy had been a birthday gift for her after she had rescued him, but then her parents had refused to let her keep him. She had cried for days and weeks after they took him away, and finally they decided that she could have him and brought him back to her for her birthday gift. She and Graynor had been inseparable ever since. But she knew that, even though he had had a good life with her, his time was coming to an end.
She walked into the kitchen, more to control the choking in the back of her throat, and she put on coffee, staring out the window to focus on something happier.
She had five acres of land here. The one thing that she had really prided herself on when she needed to buy a house was space. She had lived in apartments, small townhomes, and everything possible in a city that made her feel cramped and too close to her neighbors. When she finally bought her own place, she purchased a house just out of the city and managed to get five acres with it, although not a whole lot grew on it. It took the bulk of her money to get it fenced, and she did most of that herself.
She smiled at the memory. The house was by no means new, but it was hers.
The old farmhouse needed a lot of upgrades, but something was extremely comforting about the original residence that had lasted as long as it had. As she looked up, Caleb walked toward her.
“This farmhouse,” he said with a shake of his head, “it still looks the same.”
“Yeah,” she said with a nod. “Takes money and time to fix it up, and I just haven’t got to a whole lot of it.”
“No, but I did see new boards on the front veranda,” he said in a mild tone.
“And that’s a new faucet.” She laughed. “Yeah, some of the plumbing had to be redone,” she said. “After the fence, it was plumbing and electrical. The rest of it’s cosmetic,” she said with a wave of her hand, “and I can live with most of it.” She looked at the wallpaper, laughed, and said, “Although this wallpaper has to go.”
He groaned. “It’s still the same, isn’t it?” He reached out a hand to touch it; it was half raised velveteen in an orange and brown brocade pattern. “God, who would have put something like this in the kitchen?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Coffee’s on. Let’s take a cup to the back veranda.” And she pushed open the big slider door and stepped out.
He smiled as he joined her and said, “Honestly the best thing about this old farmhouse,” he said, “is the wraparound veranda. You never find porches anywhere like this anymore.”
“And I love it,” she said. “There was a lot to fall in love with here. But it’s taking more time than I thought to get it to the point where I thought it would be by now.”
“It’s just you doing the rehab,” he said, “and a single paycheck to fund these projects. Not to mention the hours at the day job where you get said paycheck. At least you managed to hang on to this gem when you were married.”
“I rented it during that time,” she said. “Paul didn’t like the farmhouse at all. That should have been a huge red flag for me.”
“But that’s not why you married,” he said. “You married for the companionship and to make sure you weren’t an old maid, right?”
Startled, she stared at him. “Well, I’d hate to even think of it in those terms,” she said, “but a certain amount of truth is in those words, yes. I certainly married because I didn’t want to be alone anymore,” she said, “so that’s part of it.”
“And it’s hard,” he said. “We want so much for ourselves. And then we turn around, and it’s all changed, and it’s different, and all those plans that you made? They go out the window.” He stopped and stared, as he looked back at the clapboard siding and the big old windows. “Instead of replacing the windows, you could probably get a secondary layer of glass added.”
She nodded. “And I actually have a quote for it too somewhere,” she said. “I’ll start at one side of one floor and then move along,” she said, “but the fence took way more than I thought, then the plumbing became an issue.”
“How’s the plumbing now?”
“It’s fine,” she said. “I’ve completely redone the upstairs en suite bathroom and the downstairs guest bathroom,” she said, “because it’s just a little powder room. The upstairs guest bathroom still needs work, but it’s got a new bathtub and a new toilet. I haven’t got the vanity installed yet.”
“Are you still doing all the work yourself?”
“No, not all of it,” she said. “I contracted some of it out. I’m not that great with plumbing, and I really suck at electrical.”
He grinned. He looped an arm around her shoulders, tucked her up close, and said, “You’re the only person I know with as many skills as you have, and yet you still think you suck.”
“I’m a fair hand with wood,” she said. “I can fix anything, and I could probably install the glass myself, but I still have to order the glass to fit, and generally they don’t just let you have the glass to install it yourself.”
“It depends whether you have to pull out these existing glass windows and reinstall them only because you don’t have enough room to work with,” he said, dropping his arm from her shoulders and walking to the window. He tested the bottom panel and nodded. “You know what? I think you could probably install them yourself.”
“I was thinking about it,” she said. “I just haven’t got that far yet. It would cut the price in half.”
He looked at her and said, “I don’t know if you can afford the cost of the glass now, but, while I’m here, I’m happy to help do something. I’m not sure what your priority is. Just let me know.”