Читать книгу At Wild Rose Cottage - Callie Endicott - Страница 12
ОглавлениеMIDMORNING THE SQUEAL of brakes signaled a large truck had stopped outside the house. Trent went to look through the front windows and nodded with approval. Alaina had arranged for a large Dumpster to be delivered and it had arrived on schedule. He stepped out and gestured to the spot in front of the house where he wanted the container.
Emily had dashed outside as well and stood watching as the large metal box was put in place. She winced as a lilac bush was crushed.
“Sorry about that, ma’am,” the truck driver said when he came around to check the container’s placement.
She sighed. “I guess there wasn’t any other good place for it.”
“No, ma’am.”
“Let’s shift it out a little and the bush might come back,” urged the second employee, who gave Emily a broad, appraising smile. Trent had seen Billy come on to women often enough to recognize his typical moves.
Annoyed both by the delay and Billy’s propensity to waste time flirting, Trent waited while the two city employees shifted the container. It seemed unlikely the mangled bush would survive, but Emily appeared to appreciate the gesture. Then he opened the end of the Dumpster and lowered the wall, hinged at the base, to the ground. This way, much of the debris could be walked in and stacked.
Trent took the clipboard the truck driver offered and signed for the unit. Big Sky owned a number of roll-away containers for use at commercial building sites, but Schuyler required city-owned Dumpsters to be used in residential areas.
Billy was still courting Emily’s attention. “Say, are you new in town?” he asked.
“About four months,” Emily told him.
“Don’t know how I missed such a pretty newcomer.”
“That’s nice of you to say.”
Her tone was neutral and Trent couldn’t tell if she was buying Billy’s line.
“By the way, I’m Big Bill Halloran.” He winked at her in a way that suggested the “Big” referred to more than his height. “How about letting me buy you a drink tonight as a welcome to Schuyler?”
“Thanks, but I’m pretty busy right now.”
“Another evening?” he pressed.
“We’ll see.”
The driver cleared his throat noisily, so Billy tipped his cowboy hat, climbed into the cab and the truck drove away.
“In case you haven’t guessed it already,” Trent said, stepping closer to Emily, “Billy chases after everything and anything female.”
He regretted the warning as soon as the words left his mouth. At times, his protective instincts jumped forward, despite his intentions to keep them contained. But Billy had caused a lot of damage in Schuyler and it didn’t seem fair not to warn a newcomer.
“Forewarned is forearmed?” Emily asked, still in neutral tones.
“That always seems best.”
“Sure.” She turned and headed for the house. Idly he noted that she was wearing a comfortable T-shirt paired with a light full skirt, similar to what she’d worn the other times he’d seen her. It stood out in a town where both men and women tended to don jeans.
Trent glanced at the roof. At appropriate intervals he could send the whole crew up there to work, giving him privacy for what he needed to do inside the house. Granted, it wasn’t likely that anyone would even look at most of the things inside those walls—they’d just shovel them into the Dumpster. But what if they did, or what if Ms. George got curious?
And then there was his father’s old handgun... If someone found that, there’d be questions and possible revelations that could upset a whole bunch of lives. He should have turned the gun into the police when he was a boy, but he’d wanted to protect his family. If he’d had more time to think about it, he might have changed his mind. But Gavin Hawkins had died and nobody could send him to prison posthumously.
Maybe it wouldn’t be an issue, though. The estimate showed question marks on two walls—including the one where Trent had hidden the handgun—with the annotation that the client was undecided about which to remove, so there was a chance it would be okay.
On the other hand, if he could pull the wall down and retrieve the gun, he’d never have to think about it again.
* * *
BILLY CHASES AFTER everything and anything female.
Emily tried not to be offended by Trent Hawkins’s blunt statement.
After all, he’d tried to be helpful by warning her about a local good-time boy. But she also couldn’t miss the fact that he’d seen no particular reason why Billy would chase her—she was classed with anything and everything female. Nobody would say that kind of thing to her sister, Nicole, or question why a guy would want her.
She stopped and looked at herself in the dusty wall of gold-splotched mirror tiles someone had once decided were a good idea for the dining room wall. Medium brown hair, medium brown eyes, medium height, medium everything... She wasn’t ugly, but she also wasn’t a woman Billy would kick himself for missing. Average was the best description, which should be okay, except that she’d grown up in a world where anything except drop-dead gorgeous was inadequate.
At least she has brains, her mother had sighed to her friends, often when her eldest daughter was within earshot. Paula George embraced the school of thought that it was best to be honest with your children about their limitations, so they wouldn’t develop unrealistic expectations. Personally, Emily thought her mother was just secretly embarrassed to have one stunning daughter and one who wasn’t, and wanted to acknowledge the contrast before anyone else.
Nicole was dazzling. Not that it had given Emily an inferiority complex...or at least not much of one. She was smart and by no means bad looking, but she’d learned that most people preferred the glamorous beauty her sister possessed...including her former fiancé. On the other hand, there were plenty of guys who’d said they liked the person she was, so she should be grateful for small favors.
Emily impatiently pushed the thought away and considered what to do with her morning. Originally she’d expected to leave the Big Sky crew to work on the house while she went to her store, but now she was rethinking her plan. Having Trent Hawkins on the crew made her wonder if she ought to keep an eye on things. It wasn’t that she believed Trent or his men would pocket stuff, but after he’d tried so hard to buy the house, it was strange that he’d suddenly decided to be there every day.
Of course, she would have to leave part of the time. There was no way she could stay in the house for the weeks it would take to finish everything. She’d go stark-raving stir-crazy if she tried, but construction workers started early—she could do stuff for the Emporium in the late afternoon and evenings, and work there on the weekends.
“Emily?” Trent said from behind her. “Can we do a walk-through?”
“Sure.”
Accompanied by periodic crashing sounds from the kitchen, she followed him into each room and described her ideas of what she wanted done. Upstairs, she hesitated.
“I think there should be a master bedroom suite up here,” she explained, “only I haven’t decided which two rooms should be combined into one. Your guy who did the estimate said it wouldn’t affect the cost, so I could take time to decide.”
She showed him the two sets of rooms she’d considered converting into a master suite. The ones in the back had a view of rolling, tree-studded countryside, but she got a weird feeling in that part of the house and the sensation intensified as she noticed the hard-faced way Trent studied the space. It didn’t help when an especially loud crash came from downstairs, making her jump. He didn’t seem to notice, so presumably there was nothing to worry about, though it had sounded as if half the building had collapsed.
“Are you leaning one way or the other?” he asked in a tight voice.
“No... I’ve even considered doing both since it would still leave three bedrooms on the second floor. I know that would have to be another contract,” she added hastily, “or an addendum to the first.”
His nod was short. “Yes.”
The last part of the house was the attic. The latch always jammed and Emily was about to explain, when Trent pulled down and then to the left, and the knob turned easily. How odd. But he was probably used to old fixtures.
“I thought this would make a terrific craft or sitting room,” Emily explained. “Or a play area for kids.”
“You’re planning a family?” he asked, his eyebrow arching.
“Not at the moment. Right now I expect to use it as an office. Attics are usually too dark to be living space, but this one is huge and has lots of windows, so someone must have hoped to finish it someday.”
Trent glanced around. “I take it the former owner didn’t bother to clear anything out of here.”
“Nope, but I’ve always thought it would be fun to poke around an attic filled with years of forgotten stuff.”
“You won’t feel that way for long. I’m sure it’s all worthless junk.”
Emily made a face at the back of his head. Trent Hawkins was obviously a pessimist, while she preferred looking at the bright side of things.
The tour over, they descended to the bottom level.
“Thank you,” Trent told her formally. “Since I’m foreman for the crew doing the reconstruction, it helps to have an overview.”
He disappeared into the kitchen and she peeked in to take pictures, wanting to make a scrapbook showing the whole process. Mike was using a crowbar to pull cabinets off the walls while Trent sledgehammered them into pieces. If it had been the original shelves and cabinetry, Emily might have considered restoring them, but at some point they’d been replaced by cheap alternatives.
The stack of debris grew. Trent grabbed an armload and Emily backed out of his way as he carried it toward the front door. She saw him walk it into the Dumpster.
That gave her an idea...there was something she could do instead of standing around watching. Grabbing as much as she could hold, Emily headed for the Dumpster. On his way back inside, Trent reached for what she was carrying.
“We’ll take care of this,” he said, his tone bordering on curt.
She stepped past him. “Oh, I don’t mind.”
“It’s best if our rhythm isn’t disrupted.”
Why was the guy so grim? For Pete’s sake, he could give the Three Bears lessons in grumpiness. Perhaps he realized how he’d sounded, because he gave her one of his smiles that wasn’t really a smile.
“We’re prepared for this kind of work,” he told her in a milder tone, “with boots and clothes that won’t catch on anything, and even if it does, the damage won’t matter. By the way, until we’re done, you’ll probably want to wear shoes in the renovation areas.”
Yikes. Emily had forgotten her bare feet. It just felt so nice not to worry about dressing like the owner of a fashionable clothing boutique. At this moment her suits, hosiery and high heels were languishing in storage. Life in Schuyler was so much more casual and comfortable.
“Whatever you say,” she said with false sweetness, not appreciating the way he dismissed her. She dropped the cabinet doors she’d been carrying.
Swiveling, she marched back into the house, but made sure to nod cheerfully at Vince since there was no point in taking her ire out on anyone else. He was examining the fireplace.
“Can any of it be salvaged?” she asked.
The carved mantelpiece was beautiful, but parts were crumbling.
“I’m not sure,” Vince told her. “There’s significant dry rot, probably from a leak at some point.”
Emily laughed. “That always seems like a contradiction in terms, water causing dry rot. But I sure hope something can be done. I’ve had visions of lining the mantel with pine boughs at Christmas, stockings hanging down. A fireplace is the heart of a room.”
“I suppose so,” he agreed.
She went to her bedroom to find her sandals. Much as she hated admitting that Trent was right, shoes were a good idea.
And maybe she should wear pants or something more practical than a flowing skirt, which she found more comfortable than most clothes. For a while she needed to keep in mind she was living in a construction zone.
* * *
TRYING TO GET into a better position for leverage, Mike positioned his strong leg and yanked at a stubborn section of the kitchen shelving. Pain shot through his left knee, a reminder of everything he’d lost at what turned out to be his final game.
Though he’d told reporters he didn’t recall much of the accident, it wasn’t true. He remembered every excruciating minute. Most of all, he remembered that there hadn’t been any need to make a sensational leap into the stands to catch a foul ball. It was late in the game and they’d been winning by a wide margin, but he’d done it to impress the redhead sitting three rows back.
When had looking good become more important than playing the game the way it should be played?
“I’ll get the other side,” Trent said, inserting his crowbar at the opposite end of the shelf. With a shriek of nails twisting out of the wall, the unit came toppling down.
Mike ground his teeth. When he’d started to work for Big Sky the previous summer, he had mouthed off whenever someone offered a hand. He didn’t need anyone’s help or pity. Then Trent had overheard and gotten pissed, saying he expected his employees to back each other up and Mike had better just deal with it.
He’d nearly yelled back and quit. After all, he didn’t need to work. He had his teacher’s salary and a large chunk of the money from his pro-ball days was still in the bank, but he’d go bonkers without having something hard and physical to do over the summer months...something real that wasn’t just make-work. Teaching summer school was out; it was tough enough being around hopeful youngsters nine months of the year.
So he hadn’t quit Big Sky or gotten into a shouting match. Anyway, it wasn’t that easy talking back to Trent when he was wearing his customary steely expression; he’d not only perfected a persona that would unnerve an old-time umpire, they’d also been friends since they were kids. Well...at least as much as Trent Hawkins could be friends.
He’d never been the kind of buddy you’d catch a movie with, or hang out with at the Roundup Café, admiring girls. Mostly they’d gone riding on the McGregor ranch, though Trent had spent hours pitching baseballs so Mike could get more batting practice. That was when Alaina had hung around the most, dutifully chasing after the balls for Trent to throw again.
A noise caught Mike’s attention and he saw their client picking up more debris from the floor.
Trent’s mouth tightened. “As I’ve explained, Emily, it’s best to leave that to us.”
“And I’ve decided that since it’s my house, I can haul trash out of it if I want to,” she informed him.
Mike’s lips twitched. Emily George had done what few of Trent’s employees had ever dared to do—contradict him. Seizing a chunk of cabinetry, she headed toward the swinging door. Mike glanced at Trent.
“Don’t say it,” Trent warned.
“Okay. By the way, I thought you preferred staying away from jobs for women...something about your personality being too abrasive?”
Trent’s eyes were impassive. “We’re really busy now and have crews out everywhere.”
“Whatever.” Mike quickly focused on his crowbar. It was obvious that Trent wasn’t working the job because he liked Emily. Not that there was anything wrong with her. She seemed nice and pretty in a low-key way, nothing like the sexy redhead he’d been showboating for that day. Actually, Emily was the sort of woman a teacher should think about dating.
Maybe he’d ask her out to dinner when he got a chance. He particularly liked that she was a newcomer. This way she couldn’t remember him as the local hero who’d come back a beat-up nobody.
* * *
TRENT BARELY CONTAINED his frustration as he watched Emily return and grab another load to take out to the Dumpster. At least she’d changed into roomy Levi’s and was wearing sandals, though hard shoes covering her toes would be better.
Some customers planned ahead and it was included in the contract that they would do certain aspects of the work. But it made him suspicious when they tried to “pitch in” after the fact. It often led to protests that the bill should be cut because they’d done part of the labor, which was usually about fifteen dollars’ worth of effort.
But his real concern had nothing to do with possible disputes over the final invoice; he just wanted Emily to leave everything alone.
He forced himself to relax. It was also common for clients to be so anxious to see progress that they tried to help, with no ulterior motives when it came to the final bill. Usually it didn’t take long before they unwound and left things in more expert hands. Besides, he’d much rather have Emily puttering around in the kitchen than doing it somewhere else in the house.
He hadn’t enjoyed hearing the enthusiasm in her voice when she’d talked about going through the junk in the attic. Would she be that curious about everything?
In the meantime he marched out to his truck and hunted for the smallest pair of leather gloves he could find. “Here,” he said roughly, thrusting them at Emily after she’d dropped another load in the Dumpster.
“No, thanks, I’m okay.”
“Wear them,” he snapped and returned to work, assuring himself that he wasn’t trying to rescue her, he was just preventing a delay in case of injury. He stuck a crowbar in the side of another stubborn cabinet and together with Mike, they yanked it off the wall.
Even if he couldn’t bulldoze the house into the dirt, it felt good to rip some of it apart.
“Hey, you can leave part of the work for me,” Mike chided.
“Huh?”
Emily had stepped back into the kitchen and was curiously looking their way.
“You’re going after those things as if the devil was chasing you,” he said.
“It just feels good to get back into the physical part of the business. I’ve been pushing too many papers lately,” Trent told him, picking his words carefully.
“If you say so.” Mike sounded doubtful and Trent wondered how much his face had revealed earlier. He didn’t like anyone to know what he was thinking.
Eduardo came through the door. “I’ve checked the plumbing, boss. It’s pretty bad—mostly corroded zinc pipes. There’ve been a few repairs with PVC, but poorly done.” He looked at Emily. “I see you want copper piping. It’s a good choice, though more expensive.”
“Thanks,” she told him. “Wild Rose Cottage was nice once and it keeps telling me it can be nice again.”
Trent swallowed a snort. She actually seemed to believe that nonsense. But he knew better, because if houses could talk, this one would surely explain that its day was over. Though...considering the things he’d hidden in the walls as a kid, the old place did have a few secrets it could still expose.
“Will it be possible to keep the laundry and the bathroom in the downstairs bedroom running?” she asked. “That’s the one I’m using right now. Also, I told Alaina that you guys could use the half bath off the mud porch.”
Eduardo nodded. “There will be periodic water interruptions, but we’ll try to ensure you have it at night.”
“Great.”
The bell sounded and Emily headed for the front door. Several minutes later she reappeared, Caveman following close at her heels like a faithful hound dog. A stack of four giant pizza boxes was in her arms.
“I hope you guys don’t mind,” she said, “but I was hoping you’d help me celebrate the renovations getting started.”
Caveman sniffed appreciatively. “We never mind pizza.”
“Then I’ll put them on the card table in the living room and you can grab some whenever you want.”
“Now sounds good. Time for lunch, isn’t it, boss?” asked Eduardo.
Trent checked his watch and was surprised to see it was almost 11:30. Because construction crews generally started early in the day, they ate lunch earlier, too. Come to think of it, he vaguely recalled everyone going for a coffee break, but he’d been too distracted to pay attention.
“Sure,” he agreed. Having a client provide lunch on the first day of the job wasn’t unheard of, but usually they were in financial shock after shelling out the deposit required by the contract.
“Sorry there aren’t enough chairs,” Emily said as she went back through the hallway into the living room, the scent of pepperoni, onions and peppers wafting behind her.
Trent hurried out the front door to his truck, muttering that he had phone calls to make. It was true enough, but he mostly wanted privacy to regroup. If Mike was picking up on his mood, it meant something was getting exposed that he hadn’t intended.
Great. Trent’s grip tightened on his phone. He knew he had a reputation for being as hard and tough as a polecat. Most people avoided him and that was the way he wanted it. An ornery polecat knew how to survive, and so did he.
