Free To Catch a Camden by Victoria Pade Page B

not. There isn’t a reason in the world we would. In fact, after hearing that their house is mortgaged, the other thing I wanted out of this lunch today was to get a better idea of what their financial situation really is. Are they deeply in debt? Are they behind in their mortgage payments? How much is the mortgage as a whole...?”
    Gia purposely took a bite of her sandwich so that her mouth was full and she couldn’t answer. She wanted to buy herself time to gauge what to do.
    She hadn’t been forthcoming with him on this subject before out of paranoia that the Bronsons might somehow be right in worrying that there was a self-serving motivation behind the Camdens’ help.
    But it just didn’t seem reasonable that they would want the Bronsons’ house for any reason. And since the Bronsons needed a lot more help than the jars of spare change like the one at her feet could provide, she decided to trust him. A little anyway. And just with some information.
    So when her mouth was empty she said, “The only debt they have is on their house. But they just can’t keep up the payments anymore. They’re in arrears and the bank has notified them that if they don’t come up with the back payments, foreclosure proceedings are going to start.”
    “So you decided to mow the lawn and paint the walls?” he said as if he didn’t understand her thinking.
    “I decided to try to raise money for them. My fantasy was to raise enough to pay the back payments, then maybe get the house refinanced so the payments could be more what they could afford—”
    “So shouldn’t every penny be going toward the back payments?”
    “I waited to see how close I was coming. But unfortunately it wasn’t close enough. With what I’ve raised so far all I can do is make a dent in the back payments—unless the yard sale brings in a lot, and I know that isn’t likely. So I’m going with the contingency plan—”
    “Which is to paint the walls and mow the lawn?” he said, still confused.
    “If I can’t pay the back payments completely, then the next best thing is to pay enough to stall the foreclosure so the house can be sold—”
    “Ah, I see—so you’re putting some of the money you’ve raised into getting the place in better shape in order to sell it.”
    “Right. And the better shape it’s in, the better the chance of getting a higher price, which—I’m hoping—means that the Bronsons would come out with a small amount of cash.”
    “Then what? If they can’t stay in their house, what happens to them?”
    She told him about her plan to move them into her basement apartment.
    “Really? You’d do that?”
    “A couple they knew was in the same situation a few years ago. Social Services ended up involved because they were elderly and didn’t have any family. But Social Services put the wife in one nursing home and the husband in a different one—both of them not very nice places—because it was just a matter of available beds. After being married for over fifty years, those people died without ever seeing each other again. And I won’t let that happen to Larry and Marion.”
    “So you’ll move them into your basement apartment and be responsible for them, and what? Charge them rent they can afford?”
    “I couldn’t take money from them. I’ll just move them in—”
    “And become responsible for them.”
    “I’ll take care of them whether they’re next door or in my basement. It’s just that they don’t want to lose their house. They want to stay in it, and I can understand that, so I’m giving it the best shot I can—and who knows, maybe the yard sale will put us over the top. But in the meantime I have to be realistic and get the place in selling condition, too. I’m not using much of the money—all the labor and most of the materials are donated—but it has to be done....”
    He nodded and seemed to be lost in thought as he finished his sandwich.
    Then he said, “Have you told me everything? Because it