Chapter Three

It took a good fifteen minutes for Rachel to drag her luggage from the gates up the significant driveway to the imposing porch making her grateful that she hadn’t brought everything from California, merely the essentials – everything else could be bought as needed. Pulling the huge bunch of keys from her bag, she gave the entrance a quick look over. Aside from the two practically lifeless conifers that were withering miserably in their pots, the actual stonework looked to be in good enough shape. So far so good.

The master key for the enormous heavy wooden front door slid home easily enough and she breathed a sigh of relief as she gained access. The first thing to hit her was the smell – a musty and stale odour hung in the air of the grand hallway, an instant giveaway to the property’s lack of residency in recent times. Wrinkling her nose in disgust she retrieved the key from its lock and wandered further inside the door. Two huge staircases flanked either side of the tiled hall, curving in a graceful upwards arc to meet in a railed landing in the centre of the upper floor. Her eyes travelled up to the ceiling to gaze in awe at a magnificent iron chandelier hanging elegantly from the deceptively high ceiling.

Bare of furnishings, her low kitten heels echoed noisily on the marble effect tile stones as she crossed the hall to enter what must have been a family room. An ornate fireplace took centre stage against one of the wooden panelled walls giving the room an almost log cabin feel. She could already envision what the room would look like furnished, a warm fire crackling in the grate, luxurious rugs on the floor and family portraits hanging on the walls. Magnificent.

It took almost forty minutes to complete her detailed tour of the house and its palatial rooms by which time she had ascertained that there was completely no furniture left anywhere. She had somewhat expected to find the house as such but the sheer enormity of it floored her. There was a LOT of staging to do to get the property back to a level that would interest buyers but on the positives, structurally she hadn’t noted any major issues. A few rooms required a fresh coat of paint and there was some obvious water damage to a room sitting below one of the ensuites but nothing that the bank’s finances couldn’t cover.

A lesser woman might have been overwhelmed by the challenging job that lay ahead but Rachel couldn’t wait to get started. Retrieving her cases from outside the front door, she relocated the envelope and pulled out the information sheet. A company car had been ordered for her and was to be delivered the day she arrived. Noting no time had been given; she pulled out her cell and dialled the auto company’s number. With nowhere for her to actually sleep tonight she needed to find a home store fast if she didn’t want to end up bunking down on a floor somewhere.

A quick call confirmed the car was on its way and would be arriving shortly so in the interim Rachel busied herself by taking note of everything she needed immediately, a bed, sheets, pillows, towels, office desk and chair. Frowning as she added items to the rapidly lengthening list she wondered maybe she should have gotten her stuff shipped from California after all. Her credit card was going to get a hammering this afternoon but then again this was all part of starting over – out with the old and in with the new.

In due time she would be organising a staging company to come in and furnish the main rooms in the house for viewing purposes which meant realistically she had to live there invisibly. For this reason she had chosen a smaller room upstairs in which to set up ‘home’. It was smaller by the house’s standards but by hers it was huge. With an ensuite and walk in wardrobe it was complimented by a view from a large window to the river. The latter had made up her mind - she had no problem whatsoever waking up to that view every morning.

Still waiting for the car to be delivered and with nothing else that she could really get on with until the shopping was done she put the time to good use and laboriously hauled her cases up the stairs to her new room. She was going to have biceps the size of a gorilla’s by the time she was done lugging these damn cases around. Just as she got the last one stowed away by a wall in the corner, her cell buzzed with an incoming call. It was the auto company to say that they had arrived with the car at the property but were seemingly unable to gain entry. Oh crap! The gates! She had completely forgotten about the darn things and she hurriedly made her way downstairs to take receipt of the new vehicle. Sidling out through the gap in the cursed gates, she smiled sheepishly at the delivery guy who was waiting for her signature. Slightly bemused looking, he made no comment on having to leave the car outside practically on the road and once the paperwork was complete wished her a good day and jumped into his waiting colleague’s car.

Left alone again, she looked over her new vehicle with delight. She had ordered it specifically so that it would suit her needs and the bank hadn’t failed to deliver. A brand new black Chevy Tahoe gleamed at her, the sunlight reflecting sublimely off the polished chrome. Grinning as she opened the door noiselessly, she slid onto the buffed leather upholstery and sighed in satisfaction as she ran her hands over the steering wheel. There was nothing like the new car feeling and it had been so long since she’d had one that there was no chance of the novelty wearing off anytime soon.

Hunger pangs reminded her it had been hours since she’d eaten anything, her last proper meal had been at the airport in San Francisco last night. Rejuvenated with now having transport she quickly locked up the house and jumped behind the wheel to head into town. Following the sat nav instructions she pulled out of the driveway and headed back up the road. Immediately to her right, she could just glimpse through the trees an impressive looking home, bigger again than the one she was occupying. It seemed to stand on a huge amount of acreage and she wondered briefly if it was the home of her mysterious new neighbour. Time would tell she supposed surprising herself at even thinking of him again. There was just something about him; something that had stirred feelings within her that she hadn’t even realised still existed.

The blast of a car horn startled her back into reality as she suddenly became aware that she was practically stationary in the middle of the road as she had been gazing through the trees. Waving a hang apologetically to the fiercely gesticulating driver behind her, she gunned the Chevy forward, shaking any further thoughts of the man from her head. It was time to go to work.