At Wild Rose Cottage

And, so far, zilch.

Damn it.

Of course, she could always return to New York. She was still doing freelance work for her company and they kept saying they wanted her back full-time. But she wasn’t going to give up on Mike. There had to be a way to crack his shell.

She looked through the estimate again on Emily’s house and dialed her cell number.

“Hi, Emily, it’s Alaina Hawkins at Big Sky Construction.”

“Don’t tell me, you aren’t coming on Monday after all.” Emily’s dismay was apparent, even over the phone.

“Not at all, you’re still scheduled,” Alaina said hastily. “How did you know a crew was coming?”

“I ran into Trent on my way out.”

“Oh. Well, I’m still figuring out who will be assigned to work on your house, but in the meantime I wanted you to know a chemical toilet will be delivered for the crew.”

“Ick. There’s a small half bath off the kitchen that they could use instead.”

“Okay, but I’ll tell them to clean it every day and provide their own soap and stuff. Personally, I wouldn’t touch a toilet used by construction workers—their aim is terrible. I make the guys working in the construction yard use one in a separate building.”

Emily laughed. “I’ll let you know if it gets too bad. Anything else?”

Alaina checked the notes she’d made when writing up the contract. “I’m also ordering a large Dumpster. Is there space in the yard where it can go?”

“There’s room in the front or on the driveway. It’s wide and I can always park somewhere else if necessary.”

They finished their call and Alaina went back to thinking about ways to catch Mike’s attention. You’d think in such a small town they’d run into each other more. Nevertheless, she was determined to come up with a workable plan, which shouldn’t be impossible for a woman who’d earned an MBA.

But she had an idea. Mike would be a great addition to the annual auction for a “dinner with a bachelor or bachelorette.”

She planned on making sure she was the committee member who approached him...and still needed to figure out the right way to ask. Everyone knew where he lived and it shouldn’t be difficult to come up with excuses to visit the Meadowlark Lane job site, either. He couldn’t duck her that easily at work, and any contact with him would be better than nothing. Besides, she wanted to visit the house and see if it jogged any memories.

Pleased with her new plan, Alaina grabbed her pencil again and returned to the scheduling chart.

Okay, she’d put Mike on the crew, along with Eduardo, Vince and Caveman...she erased Caveman and wrote Chuck. Chuck was a caveman, but her brother didn’t think it looked professional to have nicknames on the official schedule. With those guys and Trent, they’d be able to handle the range of work required. Emily needed everything from a new roof to all-new plumbing, along with a restoration specialist to help preserve the historic character of the classic Arts and Crafts–style architecture.

Oh.

Alaina blinked. Perhaps that was why Trent had decided to be the foreman...he was an expert at restoration. But it was still strange that he was moving so fast on the job. As for taking the lead? He’d made it sound as if he did nothing except push paper. Hardly. Maybe he didn’t wield tools all day, every day, but did go out and work alongside everyone else when needed.

With any other guy, Alaina might have thought he wanted to impress the client, but Emily wasn’t Trent’s type—he went for flashy women who were okay with short-term affairs, the same as her brother Josh. Her other brother, Jackson, had been the same...until he’d met an old flame from high school and got knocked on his ass. Kayla had been good for Jackson, but Alaina didn’t expect Josh or Trent to change—lightning didn’t strike that often.

Perhaps Trent was handing the job this way simply because it was their childhood home and he wanted to be there to fix it up. Well...it would be nice to think so, but that didn’t sound like him, either.

* * *

EMILY BOUGHT GROCERIES, then couldn’t resist stopping at the hardware store to look at paint samples. She had always loved the paint department at home improvement centers...the rows and rows of swatches ranging from light to dark. You could practically get drunk on all the color. And she could pick anything she wanted. One of the hard parts of selecting stock for her boutique was restricting her choices to the “fashionable” colors for that season.

“Shopping for paint again?” asked a pleasant voice.

Turning, Emily saw the woman who’d helped her on several prior occasions. The clerk had been knowledgeable and patient...the way someone was patient with an impulsive child. Emily was used to that. Most people thought she was quirky and “New Age-ish,” though she wasn’t sure that Schuyler was in tune to New Age culture. That was fine; she disliked labels.

“Is there something I can do for you?” the clerk prompted.

Emily jumped. Cripes, she’d let her mind wander into never-never land again.

“Sorry,” she apologized. “I’m really excited today.”

“Let me guess...you decided to paint the Emporium a different color than the one you finally selected.”

Emily made a face. Picking the right color for the interior of the gift shop had taken a while. She’d gotten the paint tinted, only to change her mind. So she’d bought more paint. But her final choice had turned out great, so it was worth it, and she’d donated her original purchase to a local church, so that had worked out equally as well.

“Nope,” she said, “but I’m starting all over again, this time for my new house.”

“Congratulations.”

Beaming, Emily turned back to the paint samples. “It’s like being at Disneyland,” she said. “All the colors and possibilities are spread out in front of me. The renovations haven’t even started, so it’s a long way from getting painted, but I thought I’d get sample strips.”

After picking out a huge selection of color samples, Emily headed home to start thumbtacking them to the walls.

“Don’t worry,” she assured the house, “better days are coming.”

* * *

ON MONDAY MORNING Emily couldn’t believe that she’d overslept when she woke up at 6:30 a.m. Of course, she’d been working at her computer until after 3:00 a.m., so that probably explained it. The Big Sky crew was arriving soon, so she bounced out of bed and dressed fast. The doorbell squawked and she ran barefoot to open the door.

Trent Hawkins stood on the porch.

“Uh, hi,” she said. “Is something wrong? Oh, don’t tell me your crew can’t start today. I mean, I know you have four extra weeks, but...well, if you can’t, you can’t. When—”

He held a hand up and Emily stopped talking. She knew she was babbling, but it had been a huge shock to see him.

“We’re still starting today and the rest of the crew will be here shortly,” Trent told her.

“The rest of the crew?” she repeated, foggy from her short night of sleep.

“I can’t do it all myself.”

“But I didn’t think you’d be working here.” Emily stopped, realizing how dismayed she’d sounded. “I mean, you own the company and must have other things to do.”

If Trent had recognized how she felt, nothing showed on his face. “This is the busy season for construction companies, so I’m taking the lead on this job. But don’t be concerned. I’m fully qualified.”

“It isn’t that.”

Emily didn’t doubt his qualifications—she just didn’t want him around. So far he’d acted rude and pushy. Of course, she shouldn’t assume rude and pushy was his true personality...he might be chauvinistic, bad-tempered and obstinate, as well. While Schuyler obviously respected Trent as a contractor, nobody seemed comfortable with him.

Still, the renovations might get done faster if he was the foreman, and his employees would be on their toes under the boss’s gaze, so it could work out for the best.

With that conclusion, she stood aside to let him come in.

“Which area do you want tackled first?” he asked.

“Um...the kitchen is hideous. I barely go in there because the floor is sagging so badly. But I don’t know if I’ll be doing much cooking anyway, not with dust and stuff flying around. So start wherever you think works best.”

He nodded briskly. “We’ll hang plastic sheeting to help contain dust, but it will still be a problem. You might want to find another place to live while the work is being completed—or at least during the initial stages while we’re tearing stuff out.”

Emily shook her head. “Not a chance. The room I’m using as a bedroom is at the back and has a bath connected, so if I keep the door closed, it shouldn’t be too bad in there. After everything else is finished, I’ll move, and leave that room and bath free for the work it needs.”

“If you say so.”

She had a strange feeling he was disappointed and she told herself not to take it personally; he was just thinking about making things easier for his crew. Anyway, it was her fish to fry if she wanted to stay.

The doorbell squawked again and soon four more men stood inside her living room.

“This is Eduardo, Vince, Mike and Cav... Chuck,” Trent told her.

“Great to meet you.”

She watched as Trent efficiently assigned tasks.

Eduardo was a silver-haired man with a jolly expression. Trent sent him to examine plumbing issues. Vince was tall and skinny, with long fingers that carefully began removing the older light fixtures she hoped to preserve. Mike looked vaguely familiar, so she might have already seen him around town. He walked with a limp, but seemed quite strong as he went through the kitchen’s swinging door to start removing the ancient painted plywood cabinets.

The last one, Chuck, had a round, solid build. Before he went to check the basement—a dismal space that had never been finished—he nodded to her and said, “Pleased to meet you, ma’am. Everybody calls me Caveman.”

Caveman?

Emily tried not to laugh. He looked like a caveman with his bushy hair and beard, but she suspected he’d earned the moniker for reasons that went beyond his appearance.

Trent consulted a diagram on his clipboard and began tapping on the downstairs wall that Emily wanted removed. “There’s no need for you to be here,” he told her over his shoulder. “Why don’t you go out to breakfast or head to your store?”

She hesitated. “Maybe later.”

Despite the early hour, she could always find something to keep her busy at the Emporium. Breakfast also sounded appealing and there was a café near her shop. The dust and noise would be unpleasant while the construction crew was working, so it really didn’t make sense to stay. But Trent’s presence made her uncomfortable. While she knew construction companies were busiest in summer, she didn’t think that was the sole explanation for him being at Wild Rose Cottage.

Trent Hawkins had another motive.

* * *

AS TRENT CHECKED the wall, his gaze flicked over the spots he had patched as a kid. The house had been a war zone when he’d lived there. His dad would walk in the front door, drunk, and before long he’d start punching—furniture, walls, his family, it hadn’t made much difference to Gavin Hawkins. He’d been known for his charm all over Schuyler, but he’d never brought it home with him.

His mother had been afraid that people would guess, and that the landlord would throw fits at the damage, so Trent had learned to repair whatever got broken.

It turned out that holes could disappear faster than bruises. His first patching jobs had been rough, but he’d quickly become skilled at covering up the evidence of his family’s rotten little secret.

Now it was years later and a number of walls were scheduled to come down, along with all the crap he’d stuffed inside of them. But he wasn’t going to start while Emily was watching, so he went into the kitchen to help remove cabinets. They couldn’t be salvaged, having being poorly made and abused for decades.

Normally Trent deplored not being able to recycle, yet there would be a curious satisfaction in ripping them down and sledgehammering them into pieces.

He just wished his memories could be disposed of so efficiently.

CHAPTER THREE

MIDMORNING 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.