“He’s thirty-seven, Maggie,” Dean repeated with as much subtlety as Kevin the borderline-obese pit bull.
“I heard,” she said dryly. “Don’t you have some calls to make? Dreams to crush with your heartless budgets, Dean?”
“Sure do. And I’ll be doing all of that from the comfort of the inn because a ceiling tile just missed my head by inches when it crashed to the floor in the hellscape you call a kitchen.”
“After you finish the B-roll of the sunporch and library,” she reminded him.
“Yeah, yeah. Silas, it was nice to meet you. Give us a good deal.” With that last demand, Dean squared his shoulders and stomped back inside.
“He’s a mercenary at heart and definitely not a morning person,” she explained.
“I bet he doesn’t like pancakes for dinner either,” Silas predicted.
She laughed because it was the truth.
“Couple more questions,” he announced.
“Shoot.”
“You married?”
“Not anymore,” she said. “Do you have any problems using advertiser products for the job?”
“Not as long as it’s a product that does what it’s supposed to. I’ve never been married, by the way,” he said when she didn’t ask him. “Early bird or night owl?”
“Bird,” she said. “How big of a crew do you need to get this done by, say, mid-July?”
“Bigger than I’ve got currently, but I know where I can find a few new recruits who wouldn’t mind getting dirty. Are you seeing anyone?”
“I’m too busy to see anyone. Can you turn on the charm for the camera?”
“As long as there’s someone to hold my hand, I think I can manage,” he told her.
“I’ll see if Dean is available for the hand-holding,” she deadpanned. She tucked her hands into her pockets and studied him. “Can you do this job, Mr. Wright?”
“Call me Sy, Maggie,” he said, his tone serious, gray eyes locking on hers.
“Can you do this job, Sy?”
“I can make this your dream home.”
“I’m not in the market for a dream home. But what I am after is a dream payday and the satisfaction of bringing this place back to life.”
“What I hear you saying is that there’s a twenty percent chance that you’ll fall in love with this place and your handsome landscaper,” he said.
“Clearly your auditory processing leaves something to be desired,” she shot back. “And I don’t date contractors. So if a dented ego is a deal breaker for you, you might as well get in that pickup and head home.”
“My ego can handle the dents,” he promised. “Think you’d be annoyed if I checked in every once in a while to see if you changed your mind?”
“I won’t change my mind,” she said firmly.
“But it’ll be real fun trying.”
“Wow me with your deeply discounted estimate, and maybe I’ll let you ask me out once a week.”
He grinned. “Deal. What’s the name of your show?”
“Building Dreams with Maggie.”
He nodded in approval. “Nice. I like it. What social media thing is it on?”
Social media thing? “YouTube.”
“Like the letter U?”
“That’s adorable,” she said. “Y-O-U. If you have any six-or seven-year-olds in your life, they can help you find it.”
“I’ll borrow one.”
“Great. Well, Sy, I’ve got a lot of work to do. Do you have what you need to work up an estimate that won’t require mass quantities of alcohol to review?”
“Let me collect my mud-wallowing partner, and I’ll get out of your hair.”
On cue, the dog came bounding around the side of the house. This time he’d managed to roll in whatever muck he found. His beautiful brown brindle was completely obscured under a glossy coat of mud.
“He looks like a swamp monster,” she observed. A very-proud-of-himself swamp monster with a pink tongue lolling in pure doggy delight.
“Don’t you dare do it,” Sy said to the dog. He grabbed Maggie by the shoulders and, before she could decide if she liked it or not, swung her around, putting himself between her and the rampaging mud monster. Crushed up against his chest, Maggie felt the impact.
“Uh. You okay there?” she asked, tilting her head back to look at him. Those gray eyes were rolled skyward, as if praying for patience. She wondered if she was about to get a front-row seat to an explosion of temper.