FREEZIN’ UP

  REAL ESTATE RESCUE COZY MYSTERIES, BOOK 8

  PATTI BENNING

  SUMMER PRESCOTT BOOKS PUBLISHING

  Copyright 2023 Summer Prescott Books

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication nor any of the information herein may be quoted from, nor reproduced, in any form, including but not limited to: printing, scanning, photocopying, or any other printed, digital, or audio formats, without prior express written consent of the copyright holder.

  **This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to persons, living or dead, places of business, or situations past or present, is completely unintentional.

  SIGN UP FOR THE SPBP NEWSLETTER

  Do you love Cozy Mysteries, Freebies, Contests and always being in the know?

  You'll love the Summer Prescott Books Newsletter!

  Click below for the best and most up to date info. Join the fun!

  Sign Up

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  Also by Patti Benning

  Author’s Note

  Contact Summer Prescott Books Publishing

  CHAPTER ONE

  The days passed by in a blur. Flora Abner was busier than she ever expected now that she was part owner of Brant’s Hardware. It was unexpected, and took up a lot of her time, especially in the beginning, but it felt good to know she had something else to rely on for income if she wasn’t able to sell the house for as much as she needed to when the time came to flip it.

  It also felt good every time she saw how excited Grady Barnes, her boyfriend and new business partner, was every time they stepped foot into the store. He had worked there for nearly a decade before the elderly owner passed away, and he had all sorts of plans for the place that she never would have come up with on her own. She was glad that he was able to handle most of it on his own, because as Thanksgiving approached, she had to start pulling back from the hardware store and put more of her focus on her house again.

  The old, white farmhouse had been a run-down wreck when she bought it. It was by no means perfect now, but it was starting to show its potential. The new marble chips in the driveway still shone a bright white, and the grass had been neatly trimmed at the end of summer. The flowerbeds, though not flowering anymore, were weeded and well maintained with red mulch, and all signs of water damage from the leaking roof had been patched over inside. A lot of the interior was still dated, but she had finally gotten her guest bedroom finished, and in the last week she had taken on the project of moving her own bed and belongings to the second bedroom upstairs so she could start working on the small office room she had been sleeping in on the first floor.

  It had built in bookshelves along one wall, and she wanted to turn it into a cozy little library. She had decided her first step was to remove the peeling, grungy white paint on the shelves, which was why she was currently at the hardware store picking up more sandpaper at her new, part-owner discount.

  It was still just her and Grady working there for now. He had taught her how to use the cash register, and she had been spending a few hours there every day, running things up front so he could focus on the sizable project of reorganizing and updating the rest of the store. It still felt odd to go behind the counter and check herself out, and sometimes she felt a pang when she walked in and remembered she would never see old Mr. Brant standing behind the counter again.

  Now, she was too focused on everything she had to get done before tomorrow to dwell on it. Tomorrow was the day her Aunt Olivia was flying in to spend a week with her. It would be the first time she had seen her since she moved, and since the older woman lent her the money she needed to get a new start on her life and follow her dreams. As the day grew closer, she had gotten increasingly nervous about it. What if her aunt wasn’t impressed by how far the house Flora was planning on flipping had come? What if she thought Flora getting so involved in the hardware store was a bad idea?

  And, though not quite as nerve-wracking, what if she wasn’t able to prepare the first ever Thanksgiving dinner she was hosting to her aunt’s standards? Her mother was the one who usually hosted holidays, and while Flora could cook a simple meal for herself here and there, she was by no means a great chef. She already had a big turkey in her freezer, which she would have to start defrosting soon, and had a whole menu planned out. It was the thought of making all of it herself that was intimidating.

  “I’ve never seen someone look so worried about buying sandpaper before,” Grady said.

  She looked up as he stepped out of one of the cluttered aisles. He had been working even harder than she was to get the store up to par, but it didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest. He spent almost every free hour he had here, and seemed to love it.

  “I wish all I had to worry about was whether I was buying the right grain of sandpaper,” she said with a sigh as she ran her card to pay for her discounted purchase. “Do you think my aunt would care if I ordered a pie from the bakery instead of making it myself?”

  “From The Yeast of All Things?” he asked. “I don’t think she’d ever even notice it wasn’t homemade if you ordered it from there, and if she did, she wouldn’t mind when she tasted it. My mom hated cooking. Before she died, she always got pies and fresh bread from there. Unless something has changed over the years, they taste as good as anything someone could make at home.”

  “Well, I’ve never made a pie that wasn’t frozen before, so I’m guessing it would probably taste better than anything I could make,” she said. “Maybe I’ll give that a try instead of making everything from scratch.”

  “Whatever you make will be fine,” he said, coming around the counter to hug her. “You don’t need to worry so much. I’m sure your aunt will just be happy to see you, and she’s going to love how much progress you’ve made on the house. Don’t worry about it.”

  She hugged him back, squeezing tightly. “Thanks, Grady. I’ll try to stop being so nervous about it. I’d better get going home, though. I want to get at least half the shelves sanded down before tomorrow, so when she gets there it looks like I’m in the middle of a big project.”

  He snorted, though he was kind enough not to tease her about how carefully she was planning out every last aspect of her aunt’s visit.

  “All right. I’ll see you soon. Let me know if you need me to pick anything else up before I leave here.”

  She gave him a quick kiss goodbye and smiled to herself as she left the hardware store. Between working together at the store and how often Grady came over to help her around the house, their relationship, though still only a couple of months old, felt surprisingly domestic sometimes. She would be dishonest if she told herself she was still planning on moving away from Warbler after selling her house. Her new plan and hope for the future was that she could buy another house somewhere nearby and repeat the process there, while staying close to all of the friends she had made here and keeping her stake at the hardware store. Maybe it wouldn’t be forever, but she hadn’t expected to fall so in love with the town and the people in it when she first moved here. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye yet.

  It only took her a few minutes to drive back to her house. She spotted Amaretto, her fluffy white Persian cat, sitting in the living room window, peering out at her as she pulled her truck into the driveway. She waved at the cat when she got out, before ducking back into the truck to grab her bag of sandpaper. Amaretto was waiting for her at the door when she unlocked it, and she had to do a complicated dance to keep the cat back while she got inside before shutting the door firmly behind her.

  “Let me make some progress on the shelves, then we’ll go on a walk,” she told the cat.

  Now that Amaretto had grown used to the harness Flora had bought for her, walks had become a part of their daily routine. The cat was obsessed with going outdoors, and Flora wasn’t about to let her outside without supervision. The walks were a good compromise. If she wasn’t planning on selling the house in a year, she would have looked into building a safe outdoor enclosure for the cat to enjoy. Maybe she could do it one day, if she ever got to the point where she could afford to own her own house to live in permanently while buying and flipping others on the side.

  “It’s kind of chilly in here,” Flora commented as she took off her jacket and hung it on the coat tree by the door. “Did I turn the heat down this morning?”

  She didn’t think she had. She kicked off her boots, lined them up neatly on the rug next to the door, and set her bags down on an end table before going over to the thermostat. The number on it made her frown. It was sixty-one degrees in the house. The temperature outside was hovering around forty, which wasn’t as bad as it sometimes was in Chicago at this time of year, but was still chilly. She definitely hadn’t set her thermostat that low, and when she checked what the target temperature was set at, it was still at her normal seventy-two degrees.

  Which meant, for some reason, her furnace wasn’t working.

  With a sigh and a growing knot of anxiety in her stomach, she went into the dark, dreary basement and peered at the furnace with her flashlight. It wasn’t making any noise, but other than that, staring at the thing didn’t tell her anything.

  “All right, well, the furnace runs on prop
ane. Maybe I ran out?”

  She had gotten the tank refilled when the weather started getting colder and she didn’t think she should be out yet, but she honestly had no idea how fast she could expect to go through the propane. She lived in an apartment in Chicago before this, and had never needed to think about how much gas it took to heat her living space.

  Sighing, she went back upstairs, shoved her feet into her easy to put on mud boots, and went outside, hiking around to the back of her house where the propane tank was located near the shed. She opened the hatch on top and looked down at the little dial that told her how much was left. It was hovering right around thirty, which meant it had dropped nearly seventy percent in the last two months. Was that normal? She wasn’t sure. It hadn’t been that cold until recently, but her furnace was older. It probably wasn’t very efficient to run.

  Either way, there was still more than enough propane left to keep the furnace running for the time being, so something else was going on.

  Which meant her furnace had stopped working the day before Aunt Olivia was supposed to arrive.

  She went back into her house with a sick feeling in her stomach, and grabbed her phone to call the furnace repair man. With any luck, they would be able to come out later today and it would be an easy fix, and she wouldn’t have to worry about a thing by tomorrow morning.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Sorry, we’ve had a lot of calls today. It’s just getting cold enough to where people are using their furnaces more. It might be a couple of days before we can get to you. If you have a pen handy, I can direct you to a website that gives you safety information about using secondary heat sources.”

  “I don’t need help not burning my house down with a space heater. I need help getting my furnace working. Is there anyone else in the area who might be able to help? Could I buy the parts at the hardware store and do it myself?

  “I don’t recommend anyone doing their own furnace repair unless they have experience with it,” the man on the other end of the line said. “And I hate to tell you, but no hardware store is going to carry the parts you probably need. Look, we can get to you by the twenty-first or twenty-second, but I can’t promise anything before then.”

  Flora let out a slow breath. “Thanks,” she said. “I understand you can’t do anything about being busy. I guess I’d better go buy some space heaters and get ready to wait this out.”

  She ended the call with him, irritated even though it really wasn’t his fault, and stomped over to grab her purse from the table near the door. It was already chilly in here, and she didn’t currently have any space heaters. Overnight, it was going to get even worse.

  On her way into town, she used the hands-free function on her truck’s entertainment center to call the propane company. When she told him her address, the man on the other line said, “Wow, you went through that quickly. We’ll get more out to you tomorrow afternoon, but you might want to inspect your insulation. Some of those older buildings barely have any. You’ll be burning through a couple of tanks of propane each winter if you keep going on like this.”

  “Thank you,” she said, now with a new worry. “I’ll look into it.”

  When she got back to the hardware store and told Grady about her furnace troubles, he offered to come take a look at it. She told him he was welcome to come out later that evening, but the man she had talked to didn’t think the hardware store would have the parts he needed, and Grady admitted he didn’t know much about working on furnaces or other appliances. She held out a small hope that he would be able to perform a miracle that evening, but loaded three space heaters into her truck anyway. One for her bedroom, one for the guest room, and one for the living room.

  At least it wasn’t cold enough that she had to worry about the pipes freezing. Now that really would be a disaster.

  She woke up early the next morning and did some last-minute tidying, making sure everything was spic-and-span for when her aunt came over. The older woman’s flight had already left and would be landing in Louisville in about two hours. It would take her just over an hour to get there, and she left early, not wanting to risk being late.

  As she waited in the arrivals lane, keeping an eye on the doors for her aunt, she tried to push her nerves aside and focus on her excitement at seeing the older woman again. Even before she moved to Warbler, she only saw her aunt a couple of times a year at best, since she lived on the West Coast. It would be nice to spend some time with her, and she really was thankful for all Aunt Olivia had done for her. Flora had never been happier than she was now, despite her current furnace problems.

  It was easier to forget how nervous she was when she saw her aunt come out of the airport, a heavy suitcase dragging behind her. She got out of the truck and waved her around to the tailgate so she could help the older woman load the suitcase into the bed of the truck. Then, she greeted her with a tight hug. Her aunt was always dressed to the nines, and her graying hair was pulled back into a bun, but despite her severe appearance, she looked happy to be here.

  “I’ve missed you, Flora. The rest of our family does too. I spent a couple of days with them before flying out here. They are sorry they couldn’t make it, and are hoping they’ll be able to come for Christmas.”

  “It’s my own fault for waiting so long to invite them,” Flora said. “I’m glad you’re here, though. Are you ready to head to Warbler?”

  “After everything you told me about it, I can hardly wait to see the town.”

  They chatted, catching up during the drive back to town. She had already told her aunt about her investment in the hardware store, and the older woman took this opportunity to give her opinion on it.

  “You look tired, dear. Are you sure you’re not too busy? Running a business on top of getting that house fixed up can’t be easy.”

  “Yesterday was just a hectic day,” Flora replied. “And Grady does most of the work at the hardware store, I mostly just help out at the register and lend my eye when he needs a second opinion on the new layout.”

  “I hope I’ll get the chance to meet this Grady I’ve heard so much about,” her aunt said with a knowing glint in her eyes.

  “If you don’t mind, I thought I’d have him and another of my friends over for our Thanksgiving celebration. Neither of them have family in town. A third friend, Sydney, might stop by too, but he already has plans with his parents and siblings for most of the day.”

  “I’d be delighted to meet them,” her aunt said. “Tell me, do you have any plans for lunch today? I never eat right before flying, so I’m just about starved.”

  Flora winced. She hadn’t given any thought to lunch, or any meals besides the big one for the holiday.

  “I thought we could stop at my favorite little sandwich shop,” she said, rallying quickly. “We order from them a couple times a week now. They have great food, and everything is made fresh each day. You’ll love it.”

  “That sounds perfect,” her aunt said.

  Flora smiled to herself as she hit the blinker and guided the truck into Warbler. So far, so good. She didn’t want to give her aunt any reason to regret giving her the loan, or to worry that it wouldn’t be paid back. It wasn’t just money Flora owed her, it was so much more. That loan had let her change the entire course of her life.

  Her aunt was charmed by Warbler. “How quaint,” she said as they drove through town. “I’ve always been a city person, myself, but this little town is just adorable. I bet they have a lot of flowers planted along the streets in the summer, don’t they?”

  “They do,” Flora said as she turned toward the sandwich shop. “They have a gardening society that is in charge of it. And Violet tells me they put up Christmas decorations the weekend after Thanksgiving. Hopefully, you’ll get a chance to see them before you fly back on Sunday.”