And this house — no matter what had happened in it before — was the perfect place not only for their furniture, but for them. She and Alex could do all the restoration work themselves, and by the time they were done, the house would provide the ideal backdrop for everything they had.
Her excitement grew as she mounted the stairs and went through the bathroom and the master bedroom.
Then, at last, she came to the door of the room whose window had caught her attention a few minutes ago. Opening the door, she stepped inside the little bedroom at the front of the house. Like the rest of the house, it was empty of furniture, but it didn’t matter.
In her mind’s eye she already saw how it would look with all of Gina’s things in it. And with some curtains on the windows—
She jumped as something brushed her leg, and she looked down.
A black cat was sitting on the floor, gazing up at her.
“Well, who are you?” Margie asked, bending down to scratch the cat’s ears. As the cat began to purr and rolled over to have its belly rubbed, she saw the single white blaze in the center of its chest. “What a pretty kitty — we’ll have to think of a wonderful name for you.” Margie gave the cat another scratch, then straightened up. “The question is,” she said, smiling down at the cat, who was now weaving back and forth around her legs, rubbing first one side, then the other, “how did you get in here? And how will you like having to share the house?”
The cat mewed softly.
Margie went through the house one more time, but knew she’d already made up her mind. Yet as she started back to the car, she paused to look back at the house once again.
Her eyes came to rest on the window of the small bedroom on the second floor. And for an instant — a moment so brief she wasn’t sure it had happened at all — she thought she saw two faces looking back at her.
A girl and a boy, in their mid-teens.
The images vanished so quickly that Margie assumed she’d imagined them. Squinting in the bright sunlight, she peered once more up at the window.
The cat was looking back at her.
Nothing else — just the cat.
And it was a cat that seemed to like her, and had mewed happily at the suggestion that it was going to have to share the house. So that was all she’d seen — not two barely visible faces, but just a cat that was not only completely visible, but very real, and wanted her there as much as she wanted to be there. Her fleeting doubt dispelled, Margie Flint pulled out her checkbook as soon as she was back in the car. “How much earnest money will you need?” she asked.
Joni Fletcher stared at her in disbelief. “You’re not seriously going to—” she began, but Margie Flint didn’t let her finish.
“I am very serious. The house is perfect, and I have no interest whatever in what might have happened here in the past. Just tell me how much the bank wants to hold it until we can get the deal settled.”
“I–I’m sure a thousand dollars will be fine,” she began. “But—”
But Marge Flint was already writing the check, and finally Joni Fletcher started her car and headed back to the office.
“This is so wonderful,” Margie said as they drove back into the heart of the little town a few minutes later. “It’s almost like I’m coming home again!”
Joni Fletcher glanced at her as she pulled into a spot in front of her office. “Are you from around here?”
Margie Flint shook her head. “Not me — I grew up in Colorado. But my father said his family used to live around here.”
“Really?” Joni asked. “What was their name?”
“Wynton,” Margie said. “That was my maiden name. Margaret Wynton.”
Joni Fletcher felt an icy chill close around her soul. The house at Black Creek Crossing, she knew, would never burn.
It would, in fact, be there forever…