Complete Me (Book Three of The Kirkland Family)

Complete Me: Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Cole opted to do his morning workout in the apartment — a couple sets of push-ups, sit-up, chair-sits, and so on. He was expecting some payments from a few clients soon, and after paying what he could on his mother's medical debts, he had enough money left over to survive the rest of the month...which was basically only a week. Therefore, yesterday, he called up the lady that Mrs. Kirkland recommended to help him clear out his uncle's house. Sheila Rae May. He attempted to be polite and merely call her Ms. May over the phone, but the woman nearly chewed a chunk of his hide when she heard.

"You call me Sheila Rae, everyone does," she said. "I don't need highfalutin formalities, and you won't get them from me. Just show me some respect, and we'll do fine."

"Yes, ma'am," he said, and that earned him a chuckle.

"You a stubborn one, ain'tcha? That's alright. I like stubborn. You just meet me at that grainy old man's place — God rest his soul — at nine o'clock. Not a second later, you hear me?"

Cole agreed, and this morning, as soon as he sweated through his workout, showered, fed the kittens and handed them off to Rose — procuring a sweet, good-morning kiss out of her — he made it to Mr. Shaw's house by eight-thirty.

Sheila Rae was waiting on him. "You're early," she said, sitting on the front porch. "I like that. Let's see what we're dealing with. Come on, boy."

Now, Cole had met his fair share of characters throughout his lifetime, but Sheila Rae belonged into a category all her own. She was a robust woman of mixed heritage and barely in her thirties. Her jet black curls and light brown skin could have denoted several possible ancestries, yet the tilt of her almond-shaped eyes and the aquiline nose threw him off. She was quite beautiful, actually, in an intriguing way. In the first few minutes, he learned that she'd raised five brothers and sisters with very little help from her parents and gave birth to four children of her own. "Working on number five," she said, patting her stomach. She wasn't officially married, but she'd been living with the same man for fifteen years, and she held down three jobs. Estate sales, being her most profitable.

Cole followed behind her as she entered the house, opened every door and cabinet, peeked into every room and closet and quickly scanned the contents of the attic and backyard shed. She said nothing about what she saw until they were back in the kitchen.

"Well," she began. "You've got two main problems here. One, Old Man Shaw —God rest his soul — has a lot of old paint and chemicals lying around that's gonna need special disposal. That's gonna cost, cuz I'll have to hire someone to take care of it. Surprised the place hasn't gone up like a roman candle yet."

"Okay," Cole said, frowning. "What is the other problem?"

Sheila Rae stuck her fists on her hips. "The seventy-five years or so of memories he's got stashed here. I didn't know the man all that well, other than the occasional bingo night, so I ain't gonna know what's a keeper and what's a seller. You're gonna have to take care of that. I've got my resources on knowing what things will go for in these parts, but I don't want to be responsible for selling off family heirlooms."

"Okay," Cole said again. "Other than that, what do you think?"

"I think you've got your work cut out for you," she said.

He smiled. "I meant about the value of the contents and how soon it can be done."

"I know what you meant," she said and smiled. "I think you're sitting on a goldmine, to be frank with you. Old Shaw — God rest his soul — has a lot of things people collect. I can have a contract ready for you as soon as you get your paperwork done, and it could take about three weeks to get it all ready."