“We can have it boxed in and roofed in two week’s time,” the builder promised. “Then it’s just a matter of finish work.”
Five weeks until opening. It might just be enough time. And if not, well, that would be fine. Daniel had been right about the cottages being first priority. As soon as these two built a staircase and got the addition buttoned up, she could finish the office and be ready for business, even if the upper floor wasn’t completely finished.
“Might have to give me one or two more guys off the cottage crew,” Frank said.
That could be a problem.
“I need a cottage to live in while the bungalow is roofless, so I’m not sure who Bob can spare.”
“We’ll work it out,” Frank promised.
Eva hoped they could. And she hoped Daniel would not get in the way. He’d already talked her into having copies made of the blueprints so that nobody else handled the originals. Even though she wanted to have them framed and put in her office, she was sure he wanted them for his museum.
She had to drive all the way to Port Huron to get the printing job done, and when she returned, it was after five. Bob gave her some good news.
“Three of the cottages are just about livable.”
“Just about?”
“The interior of Peach is complete.” Peach is where Eva planned to set up headquarters for her publicity campaign. They walked over, Eva soothed and satisfied at the busy construction scene. Men moving with purpose, hammers pounding out a righteous ring, lumber hoisted on responsible shoulders, all coordinated like a testosterone ballet. And Peach! Great bones. She needed to decorate. Set the stage for photos. For her, that was the fun part of doing publicity.
“The other two are coming along, but need a bit more work,” Bob said. Eva really didn’t care about the other two cottages. Progress was being made, things were moving on schedule, maybe even a little bit ahead of time.
“Is my wireless going to work out here?” She needed to nail marketing while construction went on around her.
“No problem.” She noted that a single bed she’d stored in the spare room had been moved into Peach.
Now she just had to carry the kittens over.
Bob followed Eva into the house. The builder and roofer had made a rough start in the office on the winding stairway. At least she hoped it was a rough start, because what they had nailed up as steps looked worse than the old ones down at the beach. Maybe it wasn’t the best of ideas to hire a roofer and an unknown person to erect an addition. But Frank had sworn he’d done plenty of construction besides roofing and that his builder buddy was as good as they came. As she checked out the sorry steps, and a slice of sky above, a girl in shorts and a crop top came in to the office without knocking.
“There’s no toilet paper in my cottage,” she told Bob, ignoring Eva. “And it smells like mildew.”
Bob blushed. He looked from the girl to Eva.
“I sort of rented out one of the cottages,” Bob shrugged, not looking Eva in the eye but casting his baby blues out to the lake as if watching for whales.
“Are you the owner?” The girl addressed Eva. “Because I need some toilet paper. And you,” she pointed to Bob, “have got to open my window. It’s painted shut.”
“I don’t have a business license yet,” Eva told Bob. “So, I can’t rent you a room,” she told the girl.
“I can’t pay for the room anyway,” the girl said, “so you’re not really renting it to me per se.” She held out her hand. “Lily Van Styke.”
Eva shook Lily’s perfectly manicured hand.
Bob went into the bathroom and came out holding out a roll of toilet paper to Lily.
“Lily’s going to help us paint,” Bob said.
Bob hiring another crew member was fine, but only if he paid her out of the budget she’d already provided him. Lily staying in one of the cottages wasn’t a good idea. She started to say as much when Lily interrupted her.
“Where are the sheets?” Lily walked through the kitchen and into the hallway to rummage through the linen closet. Eva didn’t even have a washing machine yet, let alone proper linens. She’d need them soon. Another trip to Port Huron was on the horizon. But not today. Today she’d get Peach ready to occupy and move in. Her website was just waiting for photos and a few final bits of code. She wanted it up and running tonight as well. But what to do about this girl?
“This is not going to work. I’m not set up for you,” Eva said, wondering how much credit she still had on her Sears card. She really should arrange delivery of a heavy duty washer and dryer.
“These will do, for now,” Lily said, coming out with Eva’s second set of queen-sized sheets.
“You don’t even have a bed,” Eva said.
Bob shrugged. “I gave her one from my house. We have so many bedrooms nobody uses, Daniel will never even notice.” He turned to Lily. “Those sheets should work fine.”
Lily sat down, plunking her roll of toilet paper on the chair next to her. “And you need mousetraps.”
They both ignored Eva’s remark about Lily not staying. It was as if she hadn’t spoken.
“Forget the mousetraps. I’ve got a cat with kittens,” Eva said. “They’re just a bit too small to start working for their keep yet.” The same could be said of Lily. “I’m sorry, Lily, but the cottages aren’t ready to be lived in.”
Lily shot off the chair. “Kittens! Where?”
Eva pointed to the living room. Bob followed Lily and Eva trailed after them, wondering what she could do to get rid of this girl who seemed oblivious to Eva’s strong hints that she had to go.
“God, this room is gorgeous.” In spite of herself, Eva warmed incrementally toward Lily. She’d loved decorating her living room even though she’d maxed out her Visa to do it.
A squeal indicated Lily had spied the kittens. “Awwww.”
Eva didn’t know how to contain this exuberant woman-child, so instead she scratched a purring Mama cat under the chin. Cats were easy. A baby would be easy compared to this teenager. Eva and Marcus were supposed to be starting their family now. She had wanted it, had pushed for it. Maybe too hard. He’d backed off, backed out of everything. Never mind. For now what she had were baby kittens and, apparently, a human teenager.
“They’re still too small to handle,” Lily said, when Bob reached out to touch a kitten. Eva wondered if Lily had been raised on a farm, or at least a place big enough for barn cats. She hadn’t seen any vehicle except Bob’s truck in the driveway. So either Lily had walked here or someone had dropped her off. Or, God forbid, she’d been hitch-hiking on the highway.
After the proper amount of admiration for the kittens, Lily walked back out to the kitchen. Bob and Eva followed. Lily picked up her toilet paper, stabbing Bob with a powerful gaze.
“The window. Right,” he said. “Be right there.”
He rummaged in a bag laying on the table, dumping the contents, a dozen mousetraps, onto the table. He snagged one and started after Lily.
“Bob,” Eva said, “Lily looks awfully young.”
“She is, but that’s okay,” Bob said. “Since I’m staying in the cabin next to her, she should be safe. And since you’re giving us room and board, I can fit her into the budget you’ve given me.”
“You’re moving in?” That meant he’d be onsite full time. Probably not a bad idea, but still, Eva was astounded. “You live with Daniel.”
“Yeah, I did. I had to move out. He was giving me grief.”
“Why?” Eva remembered back to her days as an eighteen year old. Grief covered a lot of territory. Like everything. Eva’s head pounded. She couldn’t turn these kids away. Not right now. Not unless she wanted Lily hitchhiking further downstate to her possible death by serial killer who preyed on young female hitch-hikers.
“Didn’t you say the bathrooms in those cabins are still non-functional?” Eva asked.
“They’re okay. I turned the water on and my toilet and sink work. We can just use your bathroom to shower and stuff.”
Eva hoped he didn’t mean her cottage bathroom. Those places were tiny. She had to draw the line somewhere, inexperienced as she was at doing so. “Listen, Bob, you and Lily can use the bungalow bathroom, but not my cottage. I will be working round the clock and cannot be disturbed.”
“That’s cool.”
“How old is Lily?”
“Eighteen,” Bob said. “I checked her I.D.”
If Lily had been on the road, she was probably hungry. And if Bob was actually living here, he’d be hungry by dinnertime, too. Didn’t young men eat their equivalent in body weight on a daily basis? Her cupboard was bare. Eva felt baffled at suddenly finding herself surrounded by kids and cats, not to mention the promise of enormous grocery bills. At least for a little while. Until Eva could discover Lily’s story and figure out how to get her home where she belonged.
“Lily would be a great maid, you know, once you get the cottages renting.” Bob, obviously sensing her reservations about the situation, had followed Eva out to the office.
She had been planning to hire a woman to assist her. It was hard enough keeping her own house clean without doing it six more times every week. The laundry. The vacuuming. With the lake, the towels alone would be a nightmare. And Lily could help her with so many little things, like washing the china and other stuff for the cottages. Eva had what felt like an endless list of stuff that needed doing, stuff that took time away from her working on the marketing campaign, which had to be, for the next several days, her top priority.
What she really needed now, this minute, was to talk to someone who could advise her on how to handle teenagers. She only knew one person in Blue Lake who fit that bill. And he probably wasn’t going to be happy that one of the teenagers she needed help with was his little brother.
Chapter Nine
Eva drove through town, riding up and down streets, looking for Daniel’s house. She wasn’t sure how he was going to take the news that Bob was moving in with her. Or that she had hired a pair of guys to do a job that they, by the look of the staircase they’d started, didn’t seem equipped to handle.
She parked in front of Daniel’s house. Okay, she could do this. She could ask for his advice without crossing any lines. They could be friends. They could work together. They didn’t have to go any further than that. Yes, she was attracted to him, but that was just left-over baby lust from Marcus. Or maybe seeing Mama with her kittens had brought that subliminal desire for a baby roaring back to life, and her cavewoman genes had chosen Daniel for the daddy. That was all this was. But she was smarter than biology. And stronger.
She stared at the huge house. It sat upon a good amount of space on the wide lot. Three-storied. Brick. Large porch with the thick stone piers. She was stalling. How to ask for his help? How to bring up the subject? “Oh by the way, your brother took some beds from your house and moved in with me and a teenage girl he picked up off the highway” seemed inappropriate on so many levels. She wouldn’t mention the roof situation, the attempt at a staircase, or that scary sliver of sky. For all she knew, they’d just roughed something in to get an idea of dimension. They’d probably be fine once they got into it. Okay, she needed to quit stalling and just go ring the doorbell already.
She climbed, trepidation and something else, possibly house envy, in every step. The details of this house were perfect. Mellow warm brick. Wood trim stained a gorgeous mahogany color. Gleaming glass inserts in double front doors. Thanks to Daniel, she now knew that this glass was original, knew how to spot the waviness that gave it away. And she was still stalling. What was he going to do, bite her? And why did that random thought make her heart pound harder?
She took a breath and rang the bell. She heard footsteps and then there was Daniel, at the door. Looking too beautiful to be a bad guy. If it ever happened, if they did have a child together, it would be a beauty. Male or female. Just with his DNA alone.
Stop it!
she warned herself.
“Hey you, come on in.” He seemed delighted to see her.
“I don’t want to disturb you, but something’s come up.”
“With Blue Heaven?”
She wanted to confide in him about her doubts regarding her building team, but resisted. “No, the project’s fine.”
“Oh. Good.”
Gee, she felt like an idiot. She suddenly blanked on why she was here.
“How’s it going? What do you need?” He took both her hands and pulled her from the porch into an entryway as big as her bedroom.
****
When Eva had shown up at Daniel’s door, it was as if he’d conjured her. He’d just been thinking about her, daydreaming about the way her stomach curved in and how those curves were places you could get lost in. They’d gotten close to something the other day at her place. Maybe today they would get back there, and then some.
“Want a quick tour?” He’d like to start the tour in the bedroom, but that would be too obvious. In some ways, Eva seemed as skittish as her cat.
“Well, okay.” Something was on her mind, but it couldn’t be too important or she’d have said what it was by now. Probably wanted to take him up on his loan offer and didn’t know how to ask.
He would put her at ease with his Bryman chat.
“This is the first house Bryman designed. And a member of his family has lived in it ever since.”
He led her through the dining room and into the kitchen. The three rooms were large, with wide openings. He pointed out features without really paying attention to his words. He couldn’t even hear himself, so focused was he on her standing next to him. He wanted to take her in his arms and do it on the dining room table. Even if she let him, and that was a big IF, it would probably be a mistake. Take it slow, that was the ticket.
“Scullery, laundry room, servant’s dining room, which I use as my office. I’ve kept everything authentic.”
In the other wing, he pointed out his billiard room, a library, and a room his mother had always called a morning room, maybe because it got full sun at that time of day.
“My grandmother liked to sew in here,” he said. She walked into every room, touching fabric, looking closely at wallpaper patterns, running her hands over the clean lines of the polished period furniture. She had run her hands over his skin, in just that same slow way.