Bloodlines (13 page)

“You’re turning a few heads in here, Miss Jameson,” Jake told me while smirking at Lucian.

“Oh well, shame I’m not interested then, isn’t it?” I told him.

I saw Lucian smile out of the corner of my eye. Every time he smiled I melted – he was gorgeous.

“I remember the last time we were in here,” Lucian said, looking at me. “You pinned us to the seats.”

“Yeah, and if you’re both not extremely nice to me and Lily tonight, I’ll do it again,” I laughed.

“OK, the drinks are on us all night,” Jake added.

Both Lily and I cheered. I wasn’t drinking alcohol as I was driving but I still got my cokes free.

We stayed in
Rusty’s
most of the night. We all got up and danced and had a really good night together. At just before midnight we sat down again to finish our drinks off. Then suddenly Lily’s face went from one of happiness to complete sadness.

“What’s up?” Jake asked, putting his arm around her.

“We’re…we’re leaving tomorrow,” she told him.

“What!” he looked mortified.

“I thought you said you couldn’t leave,” Lucian said.

“I know, but your fathers are OK and we know we’re just being messed with. Plus we only booked the motel for a week,” she told them both.

“Well, tell them you need it longer,” Lucian said.

Lily looked over at me with sad but hopeful eyes.

“Have you two driven here?” I asked.

“I did,” Jake answered.

“Good, I want you to come somewhere with me,” I told them, grabbing my coat and bag.

They grabbed their things and followed me outside.

“Where are we going?” Lily asked me.

“Wait and see. Just follow me,” I said, looking at Jake.

To my surprise Lily got in with me.

I drove back into the old part of town and straight to the Putnam house. I pulled up at the side of it and got out of the car, bag in hand; the others followed behind. I walked up the wooden steps and on to the porch, then I turned to face them.

“Keira, you could live here. We would all help you spruce the place up. My parents have the deeds and…” Lucian began.

“No they don’t,” I interrupted, pulling the envelope out of my bag. “I spoke to your mom and she doesn’t have the deeds or the keys to this place anymore.”

“Keira, I swear they…”

“They don’t have them because I do,” I told him, pulling the keys out of the envelope and waving them in front of me. “This place is mine.”

I can’t describe the looks on their faces; it was a cross between happiness and shock. Lily ran up to me and flung her arms around me.

“Oh yeah, sorry,” I said, looking at her. “I meant ours.”

She hugged me again, then ran back to Jake. He picked her up and spun her around.

“And I’m holding you to the helping us part,” I said, looking at Lucian.

He walked up to me and wrapped his arms around my waist. “I really thought you were going to leave us,” he told me.

“I wanted to surprise you all.”

He smiled then leaned forward and kissed my cheek, then hugged me tight. I wrapped my arms around the back of his neck and hugged him back.

“Are you going to let us in so we can have a look around?” Lucian asked me once he’d let go of me.

“No way! If you see the state of it you’ll change your mind about helping us…believe me on that. So I think you should just turn up here tomorrow ready to start. Then I can lock you all in,” I giggled.

“Can’t we just have a peek?” Jake asked.

“No,” I told him. “Come on, we all need to get some rest. We’ve really got our work cut out for us in there.”

Chapter 12

The Move

The next morning I went to see the receptionist and told her that we would need the room longer. Luckily she said we could pay day by day with the place being quiet. I paid for two nights – I knew we would definitely need those – then I went to update Lily before heading to the house to meet the guys.

***

When we pulled up we saw them sitting on the porch waiting for us. They were prepared, too – they had brushes, brooms and all sorts of supplies piled up next to them. As soon as I got out of the car Tyler and Danny dived on me. How I stayed on my feet I will never know.

“We’re so glad you decided to stay,” Danny told me as he squeezed the life out of me.

“So am I. Now will you let me breathe, please,” I said, struggling to take a breath.

“Sorry.”

“I hope you’re ready for hard work,” I addressed them all. “This place is filthy.”

“No problem,” Jake said.

“Now at some point this week I need to go back to West Chester and get all my things. The house is on a monthly lease so I can just pass the keys back to the landlord and get my deposit back.”

“You’re not going,” Lily said. “I’ll go. There’s no way you’re going back. You might try and convince yourself you need to stay there. I’m not having that. I’ll go and get everything and sort the landlord out.”

“I’ll come with you,” I wasn’t surprised to hear Jake tell her. “We can borrow my dad’s truck. Have you got furniture to bring back?” he asked me.

“Not really. Most of it was in there when I moved in. There are a few decorative things that were my dad’s and then all my personal stuff, like clothes, DVDs and CDs.”

“Don’t worry, Keira, I know what’s yours and what’s not – I won’t leave anything behind,” Lily assured me.

“OK, great. We’ll carry on with the house while you’re gone.”

“Will you be OK at the motel on your own?”

“I’m a big girl and I think I might just have a way of looking after myself,” I smirked.

“Oh shut up! I’m your friend and that gives me the right to worry about you.”

“Are you finally going to let us in here then,” Lucian asked, tapping the front door of the house.

“OK,” I said as I walked to the door. “If anyone tries to run away or get out of helping me they’ll be in trouble,” I turned the key and pushed the door open. “Welcome to the new Jameson and Tierney household,”

Against expectation, they all looked amazed at how well it had survived on its own for so long. Their eyes were darting everywhere.

“You weren’t kidding about the mess, were you?” Tyler laughed, running his fingers over the banister of the winding staircase. “Have you been up there yet?” he asked me.

“No, I’m not sure if it’s safe yet,” I told him.

“I’ll sort that out,” Danny said, his eyes turning black. “I’ll go and check the other floors out too.”

“You know, with the amount of power you have, you could fix this place up in less than a day,” Lily said to me.

“I know, but where is the fun in that? I’ll use it for some things but I like doing things like this.”

“My mom said you’re an interior designer,” Lucian said.

“I sure am,” I confirmed proudly. “And a damn good one at that, although I really don’t know what I’m going to use half the rooms in this place for. Four stories and God knows how many rooms…This is going to take some thinking about.”

Lily walked over to the bottom of the stairs. “Danny, will you count how many rooms there are on each floor, please,” she shouted up to him.

“Right, where do you want us to start?” Tyler asked.

“Maybe we should split into groups of two,” Lily suggested.

“Good idea,” Lucian said as he put his arm around me and looked down at me. “I’m with you.”

“Good,” I smiled up at him.

Obviously Jake and Lily worked together, so Tyler went to help Danny with the structure of the house.

“We’ll take the large front room on this side. I want it to be my main living room,” I told Jake and Lily.

“OK, well, we’ll just start cleaning through the others,” Jake said.

He took Lily’s hand and headed towards the back of the house. Lucian and I grabbed a brush and a black bag each and started on the front room. It was so dark in there, even though it was eleven in the morning and the sun was shining brightly.

“Let there be light,” Lucian said. He put his hand up to the window. The boards blocking them flew off and on to the grass in front of the porch. “That’s better.”

“I was just about to do that,” I told him.

“Beat you, ner,” he chuckled. But when he saw how dusty and dirty the room was, the smile soon left his face. “Wow, this might take a while.”

“We can cheat to an extent.” I winked as my eyes bronzed over for a moment.

Three of the brushes off the porch came into the room. Two of them started sweeping the cobwebs from the ceiling, and the other one started on the floor on the opposite side of the room from us. Lucian just smiled at me. I turned to look at the brushes on the ceiling and started wiggling my fingers at them.

“Now, once you’ve finished that you can join your friend over there and start on the floor and window ledges,” I said with a serious look but in a stereotypical witch’s voice. Lucian burst out laughing and I joined him.

After about twenty minutes we could see the floorboards clearly. The two brushes had finished the ceiling and were now helping us with the floor.

“OK,” Danny said as he and Tyler walked in the room “The structure of this place is now solid as a rock. You have… You cheaters,” he said as he noticed the brushes working.

“Shut up! You’ve had the easy job,” I told him.

“I’ll have you know sitting down and working your magic is very tiresome, and, besides, I’ve been on my hands and knees in some places.”

“Hang on,” Tyler interrupted him, “Who was on their knees?”

“Well, OK, you were, but still…”

I was laughing at both of them.

“Anyway,” Danny continued, “There are nine rooms on the first floor. One of them is twice the size of this one. On the second floor there are nine and three store cupboards, and there are eight fairly big rooms on the third floor.”

“Jesus, what am I going to do with all that space? I don’t even know how many are on this floor,” I said wide-eyed.

“There are seven down here,” Tyler said. “I counted just in case you hadn’t.”

“OK, so living room, dining room, kitchen, another living room, umm…maybe a study and a chill-out room with a massive TV and stereo, surround sound and really big comfortable sofas and chairs…” I said, pacing. “…Then the big room on the second floor I want as a games room. I’ve always wanted my own pool table. Now I can have one… Oh, and I want a bar in there too.”

“I think I might end up moving in here with you,” Tyler said.

“You can’t. I don’t have enough space,” I told him.

They all laughed. Sometimes I could have a very dry sense of humor. I would say something plainly or serious and it would make people laugh out loud. I was really quick with my comebacks, which annoyed a few people and I have been known to be very sarcastic if the occasion called for it.

“What do you want us to do now then?” Danny asked me.

“Same as the rest of us, grab a brush and let’s get this place clean.”

Both of them walked out.

“What the hell am I going to do with all these rooms?” I said, turning to Lucian.

“Why not just concentrate on the ground and first floor to begin with, and get your bedrooms sorted out?”

“I want my room on the top floor and I think Lily will too.”

“So do down here, then your bedrooms, and then do the games room. By which time you will probably have some more ideas in that head of yours.”

“You’re right,” I nodded.

After another fifteen minutes or so the room was spotless. We went to find Lily and Jake. They were nearly finished on their room now.

“This is ridiculous,” I said. “At this rate it’s going to take days just to get this place clean, and that’s if all the rooms are in a similar state. If they’re worse it’s going to take forever.”

“What can we do?”

We walked into the room that Tyler and Danny were in.

“OK, change of plan,” I said. “There is no way on earth I’m spending all this time cleaning. So, I would like everyone, if they don’t mind, to have a good look around the place and check for any papers. If you find anything of interest or useful to us it needs to go in a black bag out on the porch. Then leave the cleaning up to me.”

They all threw their brushes down, looks of relief appearing on their faces. Lily and Jake took the ground floor, Tyler and Danny took the first, and Lucian and I took the second. Whoever finished first would start on the third. I would go through anything they found when I got back to the motel after Jake and Lily left.

“Are we finished?” I eventually asked them all.

“Yes.” they all answered.

“Wow that was like having surround sound. Right, well let’s stick these bags in my car instead of on the porch.”

We all had black bags full of papers. We put as much as we could in my trunk and two bags on the seats before heading back into the house. We stood in the hallway just past the front door.

“You might want to either hold on to something or superglue your feet to the floor. Jake, you better hold on to Lily. Oh and protect your eyes,” I said as my eyes turned white “The weather is about to get rough.”

“Weather, but we’re inside, how…” Lily began, but didn’t finish.

Every window in the house flew open along with the front and back doors. Then a fierce cold wind came from nowhere and blasted through the house. Lily held on to Jake for dear life. It was like standing in the path of a hurricane. Dust, dirt and bits of paper started flying through the windows and doors out into the overgrown gardens. When I turned around, I saw all the guys’ eyes were now black and the wind wasn’t moving them at all. Jake had his arms wrapped around Lily, shielding her from the flying debris. I watched as the dust left the old fireplace in the room just to the right of the staircase. It was beautifully carved and made out of what, from where I stood, looked like marble. I would be keeping that. The whole place was starting to look brighter and brighter by the second.

It only took about five minutes for the air to start blowing clean and clear again. All the dust was now gone and I stopped the wind.

“Thank God for that,” Lily said, letting go of Jake. “My arms are killing me.”

“Your arms nearly killed me. You were holding on so tight I could hardly breathe,” Jake told her.