Ladies' Night by Andrews, Kay (popular books of all time .TXT) 📕

could stop her, Grace opened the door to the front bedroom. Day-glo orange paint festooned the walls. The empty paint bucket lay on its side, a river of orange paint spilling onto the newly refinished hardwood floor. More empty beer cans were scattered over the floor, and the room reeked of urine and marijuana smoke.

“Who would do this?” she whispered.

She heard the front door opening then and the sound of boots on the floorboards, and then the skittering of a dog’s nails clicking across the floors. “Grace?” Wyatt’s voice sounded panicky.

Sweetie came speeding around the corner, and Grace grabbed her up in her arms before the dog could go tracking across the orange paint.

“I’m back here,” she called, her voice breaking. A moment later, he was there, by her side. Without another word, he wrapped his arms around both her and the dog, and held them close.

“I’m so sorry,” he murmured into her hair. “Are you all right?”

Finally, she sniffed and wiped at her eyes. “I’m okay,” she insisted, pulling free.

Arthur stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, brandishing a push broom.

“Wyatt, this is Arthur Cater. He owns the house. Arthur, this is my friend Wyatt, the one I told you about who had the ideas for the garden.”

The two men nodded at one another. “What happened here?” Wyatt asked. “I saw the burned places in the living room.”

“Somebody broke in and tried to burn it down.” Arthur gestured around the bedroom. “But before they got around to that, they did all this. More in the kitchen. The bathroom’s worse.”

“Who?” Wyatt asked. “Do you have any idea?”

“Kids is my guess,” Arthur said. “The neighbor said he noticed a car parked in the driveway last night, around ten. I’d told him about Grace working over here, and he just figured it was her, so he didn’t think any more of it. He’s the one that called me this morning.”

“They had themselves a big ol’ party,” Grace said bitterly. “You can smell the weed in here. And there are beer cans and a vodka bottle in the kitchen.”

“Damned kids,” Arthur growled.

“I guess it’s too much to hope the neighbor got a description of the car or a license number,” Wyatt asked.

“Coulda been blue, coulda been green. It was dark, and he only just glimpsed the car from his own front porch,” Arthur said. “Probably doesn’t matter. They’re long gone by now.”

“And nobody heard anything over here?” Grace asked.

“It’s been a rental house so long, and we’ve had so many tenants in and out, the neighbors just started tuning out what goes on over here,” Arthur said. “The lady across the street came over this morning when she saw the fire truck to tell me she’d called the police twice on my former tenants, but the cops just issued them a warning. Wish she’d have told me.”

“All your hard work,” Wyatt said, squeezing Grace’s hand. “You had the place looking so good.”

“It looked real nice,” Arthur agreed. “I’m glad I took those pictures to show my wife, before all of this happened.”

Grace dabbed at her eyes with the hem of her oversized T-shirt. “I’ll just have to start over, that’s all.” She picked up the paint can and looked at the label. “At least it’s latex. I’ll have to repaint the walls, but if I get some rags and get to work on these floors before the paint really hardens, it may be that I won’t have to strip the floors again. Thank God this happened after I’d gotten the poly down.”

“There’s nothing much happening at the park today,” Wyatt said. “I’ll call my Dad and tell him I’m going to hang around here today and give you a hand. Bo’s at his mom’s, so I’ve got the day and the evening free, if you need me.”

“Oh no,” Grace started to say. Then she shrugged. “Who am I kidding? If you really can spare the time, it would be a lifesaver.”

“Sorry, but I won’t be much help to you,” Arthur said. “I’ve got a doctor’s appointment in an hour, and after that, I’ve got to take my wife to her doctor. It takes forever to get on his schedule, so I can’t change it. Anyway, my bursitis has flared up again. It’s hell getting old.”

“We’ll manage,” Grace assured him.

“I’ll check back with you later in the day,” Arthur said. He looked around at the bedroom walls and shook his head again. “What gets into kids’ heads these days? What’s the fun of destroying property? Where are their parents? That’s what I’d like to know.”

He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his paint-smeared hands on it. “I took more pictures before you got here,” he told Grace. “And the police were here, right after the firemen left. I’ll file a claim with the insurance company in between the doctors’ visits.”

“Thanks, Arthur,” Grace said, following him onto the front porch.

He turned just before reaching the door. “You sure you want to bother with doing this all over again? Maybe I should just hire some young fella to come in and clean it up and paint it all and be done with it. Get it rented again and quit worrying.”

“No!” Grace said sharply. She smiled sheepishly. “I mean, I wish you wouldn’t. I’ve got so much invested here. I really want to see it through to completion. Besides, I’m still hoping you’ll decide to let me rent it when it’s done. So I really do have an ulterior motive.”

*   *   *

“I’ll tackle the kitchen if you want to concentrate on this bedroom,” Wyatt offered.

Grace planted a kiss on his chin. “You’re a good guy, Wyatt Keeler.” Then she went back to work.

It was nearly two o’clock when he poked his head in the bedroom again. She’d managed to mop most of the orange paint off the floors. She’d scraped the dried paint from the window panes and had even put a coat of primer on the walls. The orange paint was so vivid, she was