“Ohhh,” she said softly.
“Well damn,” Ezra said. “That must be Big Bob’s Santa suit.”
He saw her puzzled expression.
“The previous owner? According to what I’ve been told by the locals, Bob Rose was Santa Claus in these mountains.” Ezra returned to the closet, running his hands over the shelves. “Huh. Looks like it’s not here.”
“What? Rudolph? The sleigh?”
“Mrs. Santa’s costume. According to my broker, Betty Rae Rose had an outfit she’d wear that matched Bob’s outfit.” He shrugged. “Maybe one of the grandkids decided they wanted it.”
“Too bad they didn’t decide to take the rest of this junk,” Ivy said, pointing at the pile of clothing in the corner of the bedroom, where Punkin had already made himself a nest.
“I’ll have my guys haul off anything you don’t want,” Ezra promised, looking at his watch again. “Sorry, I’d better go.”
“Big date?” He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, and much to her own annoyance, she’d been wondering about his marital status.
“Seeing a client about a potential new listing,” he said. “Divorce. It’s the gift that keeps giving.” He paused at the front door. “Welcome home, by the way.”
Chapter 2
As darkness fell on Four Roses Farm, the little farmhouse took on a more noticeable chill. Ivy paused in her unpacking and bundled up, donning a bulky sweater, a knit scarf, and two pairs of socks, as she searched the house for a thermostat for the heater, but came up short.
She dashed out to the side porch and brought in an armload of logs and stacked it in the fireplace in the living room, adding a handful of dried-out pine cones she salvaged from a dusty arrangement on the mantel, and some crumpled up sheets of newspaper with a 1998 dateline she’d found lining the shelves of the pantry.
“Here goes nothing,” she told Punkin, who was watching her progress while lolling near the hearth. She did a little happy dance when the tiny flame caught, then flickered, then blazed. “Now for some supper.”
The setter’s ears pricked up and he followed her into the kitchen, where, for the first time, she noticed the large gift bag on the counter. She lifted out a very good bottle of red wine and a gaily decorated round tin full of cookies. The handwritten gift label taped to the lid said: MAMA W’S OATMEAL CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES. DEFINITELY NOT LOW-CAL. OR GLUTEN-FREE.
“It’s the thought that counts, right?” she asked Punkin, pushing the cookie tin aside. There was a small pamphlet—New Homeowner’s Checklist—Courtesy of Carolina Countryside Realty and Ezra Wheeler—clipped to the side of the gift bag.
Ivy read down the items, convinced she’d already taken care of all the red tape involved in moving. Her father had been an engineer, and Ivy had been raised to be detail oriented. She’d already filled out all the change-of-address forms, applied for a North Carolina registration and license tag for the Volvo, and even ordered a driver’s handbook in preparation for applying for a driver’s license in her new state.
Some of the actions on the list—like enrolling children in school—didn’t apply to Ivy. But there were a couple items she’d overlooked, at the end of the checklist. “Register to vote.” “Apply for homestead exemption.” “Register pets and obtain rabies tags.”
“Paperwork,” she muttered with a sigh. “Endless paperwork.”
Punkin just stared up at her, thumping his tail on the floor.
“Never mind that. Let’s check on our girls.” The chicks were snuggled into a corner of their cardboard carrier in a pile of straw. But the kitchen was cold, even colder than the rest of the house, so she carried their box into the living room and set it on a table near the hearth. Punkin pushed his muzzle up against the box and sniffed, wagging his tail.
“I know you’re supposed to be a bird dog,” Ivy chided. “But these girls are part of our family now, so you leave them alone.”
Dinner was high protein kibble for Punkin and for her, cheese and crackers, washed down with some of the excellent Cabernet she’d been gifted from Ezra Wheeler. She rinsed off her plate and the jelly jar she’d used as a wineglass and vowed to call him in the morning to thank him for the housewarming gift—and to inquire about the status of her new home’s heating system.
She spent the rest of the evening scrubbing the kitchen floor, counters, and cabinets before unpacking the boxes of kitchen equipment she’d loaded into her car.
When she looked up, it was after nine. “C’mon, Punkin,” she said. “It’s past our bedtime.”
The bedroom was even colder than the kitchen, and the cause, she quickly discovered, was a small missing pane of glass in the window across from the bed. As she ripped a piece of cardboard from one of her packing boxes and taped it over the window, she observed that all the windowpanes were loose and drafty. Probably every window in the house was in similar condition. She ruefully added new windows to the growing list of home repairs she’d been compiling ever since she’d pulled into the driveway at Four Roses Farm.
Punkin had already arranged himself across the foot of her bed, which was still draped with the red Santa suit. Surely, Ivy thought, Santa Bob’s family would want this sentimental family heirloom. After she shooed Punkin off the bed and onto his own fleece-lined dog bed, she placed the hat, boots, and trousers in the box where she’d found them. But as she was smoothing and folding the jacket, she felt something in one of the hidden pockets.
She unfolded a sheet of deeply creased blue-lined school notebook paper:
Dear Santa: I have been a very good girl this year. But I am sad becuz my mama is sad. If you could bring my daddy home from the war my mama would smile again and we would be happy and I would also like a puppy, but if you only bring me one thing, that’s okay. Please, Santa, bring my daddy home safe. His name is Everett and he has red hair, just like me. Your friend, Carlette.
Tears pricked at Ivy’s eyes as she ran a fingertip over the note’s childish scrawl. She added the Santa jacket to the box and set it on top of the dresser. It was too cold in the room for pajamas, so she spread her sleeping bag on top of the bedspread, topped it with a colorful patchwork quilt she’d found in the hall linen closet, and crawled, fully dressed, beneath the covers. She’d just turned off the lamp on the nightstand when Punkin leaped onto the bed.
“All right,” she said, stroking the silky fur of his ears. “Just this once. But tomorrow you sleep in your own bed. Understand?” The dog licked Ivy’s neck and burrowed in beside her.
Punkin was snoring softly within minutes, but as tired as she was, Ivy’s brain worriedly ticked away at her growing to-do list.
She’d been excited with what she thought of as the “sexy stuff” like installing a new kitchen, updating bathrooms, and planting her first real garden at the Four Roses farmhouse. But she hadn’t counted on the mundane, potentially budget-busting stuff that hadn’t turned up in the inspection report—but would still need immediate attention—the sagging porch, pothole-pocked driveway, and drafty windows.
In her mind, she ticked off the number of windows in the house. There were four double windows in this bedroom alone. Two or three in the guest bedroom? And all those living room windows that faced on to the front porch? If she kept dwelling on the mounting cost of renovations and her dwindling bank account, she’d never get to sleep.