High Maintenance

High Maintenance

by Patricia Holden

Published by Susan Sampson at SmashWords

Copyright © 2017 Susan Sampson

Cover Photo by Good Free Photos

Other Titles from Patricia Holden on Smashwords:

Turn My Head

Break Through

Third Time’s the Charm

Conflict of Interest

Romeo Night

Last Man Standing

Talk Dirty To Me

Secrets of the Bayou

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Chapter 1

Tara McKenzie rolled over in the double bed in the back room of her tiny house, and sighed. Where was she, she asked herself, just like she did any time she moved to a new city. The one thing that she actually did know was that she was in her tiny house. That was a no brainer. What she didn’t know at the moment of waking this particular morning was just exactly WHERE her tiny house was. She had just had it moved to the city where she was now working. Where was that again? She asked herself. She wasn’t in Memphis, where many of the women of that particular town were just as the women everywhere tended to be, especially in the monied south: fashionably put together on the outside with saccharine smiles, and a metaphorical dagger ready to be plunged into any inconvenient back. Not all of the well to do ladies of the south were like that, Tara had to admit to herself. After all, she didn’t consider herself to be one of that sort. But the last Southern Belle she worked for in Memphis sure as heck was.

That was what prompted the, what, sixth job search in five years that landed her in her new location. Where ever this was. Tara sighed in feigned frustration. Where was she? she asked herself again. She turned her head to look out the large picture window next to her bed and found herself staring at the back of a brick house. Well, it was a McMansion, really. One that a friend of her father’s owned…. Now it was coming back to her. St. Louis, her new home, did not have tiny house accommodations in either St. Louis City or County, so her father called up a friend from college who he knew had a substantial amount of land in the area and VOILA! Tara at least had a place to park her tiny house. That way, she thought, she at least was waking up in a familiar room, if not a familiar city.

Over the course of six moves in the last five years, she had figured out that it was much cheaper and far less of a hassle to just buy a tiny house and have it moved from one location to another rather than hunting for an apartment that might suit, getting credit approval to be able to rent it, and packing up to move all of her stuff time after time. Yes, the tiny house was cramped - there really wasn’t enough living space for more than one person - but at least there was some sort of familiarity everywhere she went given the diversity of the American landscape. Plus, this particular tiny house had a picture window in the bedroom, sliding glass doors in the common room, and a screened in porch on the far side of French doors that marked the end of her kitchen. All of that glass filled the small rooms with light, and made them feel so much bigger. Most days that made all difference to a girl who grew up with bedrooms that were more spacious than this entire tiny house put together.

She got out of bed, and faced the other side of her bedroom where the amazingly long and skinny en suite accommodations were. The water closet was to the left, the large tile bathtub and shower to the right, and in between was a vanity with a stack of drawers, two sinks, actually, and a mirror gracing the length of the wall. The whole place was lined with knotty pine shiplap which she desperately wanted to paint, and hardwood floors that would never really go out of style. Her bedspread was an old quilt her grandmother made her years ago, and was the piece of home that Tara needed with her on a daily basis just to keep the loneliness of not having a built in support system close by at bay.

Tara looked at herself in the mirror over the vanity. At just about five feet tall, and being the southern lady she was supposed to be, she winced at the vision facing her of uncoiffed hair, and a bare face. Yes, she had just gotten up, but Georgia peaches were supposed to be unblemished at all times. Even in bed.

Yeah, whatever, she thought to herself dismissing that notion even as it formed.

Her born and bred in Savannah, Georgia, mother and grandmothers might believe that, but Tara knew without a doubt there was no way to not get sleep tussled in bed.

She walked toward the commode, and did her business before heading out to the main room of her tiny house, and what amounted to her kitchen.

Along the wall opposite the sliding door, was a granite counter top with a stainless steel sink, a stainless stove complete with a full sized oven and range, a microwave, upper cabinets, and a full sized refrigerator. She went to it, and pulled out the container with the lemon wedges she cut carefully the night before. Tara then went to one of the kitchen cabinets, and pulled out a tall glass in which to squeeze one lemon wedge, and fill it with warmish water. She’d drink that while she caught up on the news on her laptop that was open on the small table against her bedroom wall in the kitchen. After taking her first swallow of the tart thirst quencher, Tara filled the glass carafe of her water boiling device, and put two tea bags of Irish Breakfast in her tea pot. It and the cute dark red Chinese girl coat tea cozy were about the only splash of color in the otherwise rather silvery wooded interior of her tiny house.

She had had to put some personal touches and color in the place. Otherwise, the tiny house looked to her like it was just driven off the show room lot.

Tara sat down to pull up her schedule for the day. Since she was the new girl at Dolan & Duggan Flipping and Construction, D & D for short, she figured that she was going to have to make a good impression this morning. She was meeting with the majority owner of the company, Michael Dolan, and his brother Patrick and Patrick’s wife Mary to see and discuss a house that Patrick had inherited from their grandfather. This morning, they were going to walk through the residence, and at least talk about ideas of changes needed to renovate it for Michael’s brother and his family.

In the process, Tara figured, she could get a feel for not just the client, as she chose to think of her new boss’s brother and sister-in-law, but the boss himself. She had been hired by his partner, Tyler Duggan, actually, as a flip interior designer, and she got the distinct impression that Mr. Michael Dolan was not happy about that. Something about his body language when she was around him told her that she was going to have to go the extra mile to make herself invaluable to him just in order to be able to keep this job.

The truth was, though, she was tired of moving all the time, no matter how many times Americans generally moved in a lifetime, and wanted to be able to find a way to settle somewhere. From what she had seen of the city of St. Louis, this could well be the place for her.

Or not. It just depended on how things went with Dolan and Duggan. It might not work out at all.

Tara finished off her lemon water, and rose to pour hot water into the tea pot to steep before rinsing the lemon from her teeth. Lemon water might be good for the body, but it was hell on teeth enamel.

She picked up the tea pot, cozy and all, and walked over to the table to at least look through the news sites. Well, the headlines anyway. Half the time, what was highlighted wasn’t really news, but human interest stories dressed up to get people to at least hang around the news sites, and click on the ads. It must actually work, she thought to herself and not for the first time. Every news site had headlines with nothing beyond them once the story page actually opened.

After an hour of nothing but political palace intrigue and gossip from the faces in the news, and having drunk her tea, Tara rose and rinsed her dishes before heading back to her bedroom to get ready for a day of Dolans. She hopped into the shower, and turned it up as hot as she could stand it. Once she was done soaking, and felt clean enough to get on with her day, she stepped out for the dressing and coiffing that her southern belle mother and grandmothers drummed into her as a child. A southern gal must always be a lady they told her over and over, her hair should be smooth and done just so, her make-up applied in natural earth tones during the day, wearing just enough jewelry to count, with clothes that were crisply pressed, and accessories that matched in color and style.

For the day ahead of her, Tara chose a simple pink sundress with a relatively fitted bodice and a flared A-line skirt to match her silver jewelry: tiny filigreed earrings, one slim bangle bracelet on each wrist, and one decorative ring on her right hand. Due to the weather conditions which had turned amazingly hot and humid the week before, Tara pulled her golden blonde tresses off of her neck and into a twist, using some hair product to be sure her few bangs stayed in place off of her forehead. She made up her face in simple shades that matched her skin color, and slipped her feet into heeled sandals that would need to come off by the end of the day, she was sure.

Tara then went into the kitchen, and while she ate her morning plain yogurt with blueberries, she put together her lunch of a salad, and leftover steak from the night before with some cheese and sliced apples.

That should get her through the day, she thought to herself.

She then packed up her tote which was loaded with a change of shoes, her laptop computer, a notebook, and an academic style calendar for her day out and about. She left her tiny house, and walked toward her small SUV to drive to the job site. Thank Heaven for GPS, she thought, or she’d never find the place she was supposed to meet the boss and his family.

When her tiny house landed in what she now knew to be what the locals called west county, the collection of municipalities in St. Louis County that were the epitome of suburban, Tara had no idea how complex the street system would be. She really could read a map, and did study the main roads of the place before venturing too far out, but off the main drags, there really wasn’t any rhyme or reason to any of the developments. It was all a big mish mosh. Just like the rest of suburbs in America. At least the cities had street grids. That feature alone made them more hospitable to guests.

Tara followed the directions spouted by her car’s GPS system to a part of the county called Ladue. When she did her due diligence on the place, she discovered that Ladue had been there for a long time, but had not been incorporated nearly as long as some of the other suburbs were. It also was large land-mass wise, but was much smaller in population. She hadn’t been in town long enough to confirm her assumption, but that usually meant that the properties were larger. When she dug into Ladue’s socio-economic make-up, she discovered the place was full of a lot of well to do residents, and huge houses and estates.

The one she was headed to today was a prime example.

When she reached the correct address, Tara pulled up to a curb right behind an official D & D Flipping and Construction pick-up, and contemplated the house set back behind a circular drive. It was a classically normal almost colonial brick home with a huge arched doorway in the middle. The windows on either side of the front door were long and wide, paned just as vintage windows were meant to be. The second story was of the same classic American silhouette, with a rose stained glass window in the middle, and enough window casings on either side of it to indicate quite a number of bedrooms.

It was enough to make the interior designer in her swoon. A vintage house with a lot of space. This project might actually be a lot of fun, she thought, even if she really didn’t believe it.

Tara gathered her tote, and exited the SUV to walk up the circular drive past a number of vehicles. A gaggle of people were standing on what amounted to the house’s front porch. The elevation of the front door was almost even with the front yard with not much of a concrete pad in front of it. When she approached, Tara saw that her boss, Michael Dolan, known as Mickey, was, as usual, dressed for the field, in steel toed boots, boot socks, khaki shorts, and an emerald green D & D polo. His inky black curls were hanging down the back of his neck, covering his ears, and even his forehead. The rest of his features were black Irish if Tara had ever seen it, with a body that was built by demolition and construction, his muscular torso straining the seams of his shirt. The complete look was enough to make any woman swoon, and in that regard, Tara was no different than all the other females of the earth. The man was, in a word, hot.

She’d have to watch herself when it came to interacting with Michael, she thought, and not for the first time. No southern belle should ever get caught mooning over a man, especially not a boss.

She turned her attention to the rest of the group. The man in his mid-30s standing next to Michael looked much the same as he, only with slightly less muscles. The gentleman was about four inches taller, though, and his black curls were cut close to his head. With them were a woman in black capris and a yellow t-shirt with her blondish hair in a bob and a baby sitting up in a backpack on her shoulders, another woman with silver fox written all over her silver bob and simple light blue sheath dress, and a gentleman who could be no one other than Michael’s father. With the exception of the silver hair, long khaki pants, and polo of a different color, there was no mistaking family resemblance. Michael looked very much like him.

Tara approached the group slowly.

Ahh, Michael’s father smiled. This must be her. The older gentleman nodded toward Tara, and the group turned to face her. Time to turn on the southern charm, she thought. She didn’t look at the elder Mr. Dolan, or the women, or the man she assumed must be Michael’s brother Pat. She looked at Michael himself, and felt the impact of his mysterious dark eyes all the way to her soul. She still could not determine if they were black or brown, but they touched her in a way no man’s eyes ever had. Michael didn’t send a smile her way, but seemed to brace himself.

Tara, he nodded, his deep voice making her name sound like a caress. I’d like you to meet my parents, Marcia and Tom, he nodded to them while Tara pasted on her best southern belle smile, and shook his mother’s hand.

So nice to meet you, Mrs. Dolan, Tara drawled in the signature soft tones of Tidewater Savannah.

Marcia, please, Michael’s mother invited with a warm smile of her own.

Senator, Tara extended her hand to Michael’s father.

He took her hand in one of his, and covered it with the other, Tom, please. I won’t be a State Senator much longer. Tara felt her smile broaden at his honest expression.

This, Michael picked up the introductions again, is my brother Pat, and his wife Mary. The baby is Aidan. They left the other six at home.

We did not leave the other six at home, Mary admonished him with a wave. The four older ones are at day camp, and your sister Margot has the other two. She turned to Tara on a huff, and smiled herself. That simple change in expression made Mary Dolan downright beautiful. Thank you so much for taking us on. Redoing this place is going to be a challenge.

Mary, her husband Pat’s eyes narrowed. You talk as if the house has never been renovated. I bet anything when we pull up the carpets, and get that awful vinyl off the kitchen floor we’ll find all the original decor.

Not all of it, Tom told him in paternal tones. My mother had the original floor in the kitchen pulled up when she put in the pink and blue you remember from when you were little. It was hardwood when I was a little kid. And the original kitchen cabinets are the ones that are in the basement where the laundry room is.

And the bathrooms might be dated, but they aren’t the original, either, Mary told her husband.

Well, Michael said to the group, now that Tara’s here, maybe we should walk through the house and see what needs to happen before you all can move in. He looked at her. Dad’s here to give us a historical perspective on the place since my grandparents bought it in about 1950.

Marcia piped up, And I’m here to tell my youngest son he needs a haircut. Tara looked at her just as she shot Michael a look that said, I’m your mother, and don’t you dare not listen to me.

Yeah, yeah, Michael opened the wooden screen door for the group to enter the front hall. If I was still in grade school, I’d have a card full of demerits. Tara risked a look at Michael’s mother. She was not amused at that statement…whatever it meant.

Tara entered the