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An Honest Day’s Work
by Dale Ketcham

Drew Mannaker is a commercial real estate shark with questionable scruples. For years he’s been after land between two larger parcels he’d managed to acquire for his employer, Prime Realty. Old Miss Weinberg passed away, so he’s sure it wouldn’t be long before her distant Paris relative gets around to selling it to satisfy the mortgage. If he can lump all three lots together, he could sell them at a huge profit and he can branch out into

When Sarah Gunderson’s aunt willed her the little plot on Catbrier Court, it came with a note that read: “Remember the butterfly farm you wanted as a child? This is as close as I can come to giving it to you. I love you dearly, Aunt Mabel.” As a property lawyer, Sarah had followed her fiancé to work in Paris, but has recently had a blow-up with him over a matter of ethics. Upon hearing of her aunt’s death, she immediately takes a leave of absence and returns to her Long Island roots, leaving the world of corporate real estate behind her–or so she thinks!

As the story begins, Sarah posts a “Handyman Wanted” sign on the road and Drew shows up and applies for the job. He strikes her as an unfitting applicant. She isn’t buying his “I’m between jobs” story, but her curiosity is piqued, so she hires him, sure he won’t last a day.

Eight hours of sweating bullet, and Drew still hasn’t learned a darn thing–except that she makes the meanest mile-high turkey sandwich in town. But damn her perky little body, hard labor isn’t how he wants to spend his time-off. And he doesn’t much like taking orders, especially from a saucy woman with a faint French accent who’s pressing buttons he never knew he had. Surely it wouldn’t take more than a week to convince her to sell the land.

After days of resisting the temptation, over a cool glass of lemonade, Drew draws Sarah into a kiss that throws her for a loop. She credits herself with being calm, cool and collected, but the sight of Drew, bare-chested and muscles pumping, brings out her more primitive female urges.

But all that falls away when a neighbor reports the first day they met he showed up in a BMW and tucked it out of sight before venturing up her drive.

Sarah appears oblivious to the pending foreclosure (she knows foreclosures can take a long time), she’s spinning discordant tales of her own (just to drive him buggy!) saying she’s fixing it up to sell to “a happy couple,” then return to Paris.

Drew must learn what Sarah intends to do with the property–and STOP her! He’s banked on this sale to convince J. T. MacDougal to make him partners in a very successful condominium project.

Morning to night, his days are filled with frustration. First, because he wants to make love with Sarah–but only a louse would do that, while at the same time trying to connive her out of the property for his own personal gain. Second, because he’s got 102 aching muscles, and all for what? The entire property will be bulldozed once he sells it to MacDougal for the Seagull Bay Condos.

Spending her days beautifying the land clears Sarah’s head of her boyfriend/business dilemma. Life feels good to her again–so good that she’d be tempted to fall head-over-heels in love with Drew if she didn’t strongly suspect half of what he’s told her is lies. With his underlying interest in her plans for the property, her finances, and his open discouragement about fixing up the place, common sense tells her to be on her guard. He’s sold himself as a handyman, but the only thing he proves handy at is satisfying the increasing needs of her body–needs her fiancé didn’t come close to satisfying.

Drew can’t win her trust. Despite the searing heat their bodies create together, she insists all she wants from him is “an honest day’s work.” The closer he comes to loving her, the further he is from his purpose: talking her out of keeping the property she’s lovingly bringing back to life.

Three weeks pass. Drew had promised his boss a short turnaround time and huge profit. If Drew doesn’t close this deal fast, his boss intends to sell off the properties and abandon the project. There goes Drew’s partnership! Drew says he’ll buy them himself. That’s how much faith he has in convincing Sarah to sell. But his boss expects to make money, so his asking price is higher than what the company originally paid for the land. Drew no longer thinks kindly of his boss or becoming a partner, but he justifies he’ll still make a few bucks if he can patch Sarah’s middle lot in with the sale.

Realizing she no longer loves her fiancé or the thought of returning to Paris, she permanently breaks up with him and quits her job. After chasing down leaks in a thunderstorm, Sarah and Drew make love in the attic listening to the pinging music of rain dripping into various pots. Her world is bursting with love. She dreams of making Aunt Mabel’s house her home and settling down to raise a family with Drew.

The next day, on the pine-needle bed under a little grove of fir trees, they make love again. Drew’s life feels more fulfilled than ever before. Referring to her fiancé as simply her Paris boss, Sarah shares how, at his insistence, she took the blame for a shady business deal so a client would retract his lawsuit. She’s regretted her decision ever since. When Drew says she did the right thing (to comfort her since there was no redoing the past), she realizes she’s fallen in love with someone with borderline ethics, who could easily turn on her just like her fiancé had.

With the foreclosure date only a week away, he keeps telling himself “only the strong survive,” but as he comes closer to realizing his love for Sarah, he questions his own integrity and motives. He decides he should confess everything, but how and when?

Sorting through Aunt Mabel’s papers, Sarah finds “offer” letters from Prime Realty, going back two years, all signed by Andrew Mannaker. So that’s what he was about! He intended to buy the property once it went into foreclosure. She’ll be damned if she’d let it fall into Drew’s hands and tells him so! Sarah meets with the bank manager and arranges for funds to be transferred from her French bank to pay the back taxes on the property. She’s decided to stay on in the house.

On foreclosure day, the funds still haven’t arrived. When she asks for an extension, the bank manager says someone else –in the very next cubicle–has given him a check for the total amount. She jumps up and confronts Drew, who silently listens to her raging, knowing he owes her explanations and major apologies. To clarify things, the bank manager interrupts. “Mr Manneker paid the taxes in your name. You own the property free and clear.”

She’s dumbfounded. “I don’t understand. Why would you do that?”

“Because you love the property and I love you, and I want you to marry me.”

It takes a little more convincing to get her to believe him, but when he owns up to what a cad he was, she smiles and says “Yes.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mills and Boon requested synopses on all completed I’d completed or had in progress. This is one of them that they requested a partial on.

Mills and Boon prefers two-page, single-spaced synopses.

www.DaleKetcham.com

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