Kressley tapped a finger to her chin. “Intrigued. Tell me more.”
“Let’s talk over drinks,” Maggie suggested. “Iced tea? Coffee?”
Kressley peered at the tiny gold watch on her wrist. “I really shouldn’t this late, but I don’t think I could turn down a coffee.”
“Now you’re talking my language,” Dean said, offering the woman his arm. “Right this way.”
Thirty minutes later, a caffeinated Kressley was saying her third goodbye.
“I have a good feeling about all of this,” she announced, pointing a finger at Maggie.
“I do, too,” Maggie agreed, shooing her toward the open front door. Kevin and the kittens had given up running in and out in the middle of the second goodbye and now lay snoozing in the den.
“Oh, silly me! I meant to bring up the opportunity for you to stay in town and renovate the Canyon Country Townhomes. Business has been absolutely dismal for the last few ski seasons since the ski resort renovated.”
“Oh, uh…，” Maggie looked around wildly for help.
“What a great idea, Deputy Mayor,” Silas said with a sly grin.
Maggie kept her smile firmly in place as she elbowed him in the gut.
“We’ll have to talk about it,” she said.
“Have your people call my people,” Kressley called cheerily over her shoulder as she finally crossed the threshold and stepped onto the porch.
33
May seemed hell-bent on exiting Idaho with a summer preview. They had a week straight of hot, sunny days. Business was booming for Bitterroot, and real progress was being made at the Campbell Place. The hardwood floors on the first floor had been sanded, restained, and sealed. The master bathroom was almost finished, and Silas couldn’t wait to take his first shower with the lady of the house in the huge, tiled steam shower. The kittens survived their wellness check with the vet. And the unpainted lower kitchen cabinets had been delivered the day before.
Despite all that, Silas had managed to talk Maggie into skipping out of work early and hitting the lake for paddleboarding. Since the discovery of the secret room—and the delivery of Maggie’s spectacular bed—he and his dog had spent most of his nights there. There was something about waking up with the “not a fan of cuddling” Maggie wrapped around him like a climbing vine as the sky turned to pink outside those big windows. It felt…right.
He wasn’t the only one gravitating to the house and its occupants.
They’d fixed up the front study for Wallace, who showed up every morning at nine as if he were punching a clock. He’d pick up where he left off with his cataloging and research into the third-floor finds. Silas wasn’t sure if he was getting used to the man or if Wallace was getting less irate with the world. Either way, the grump was joining them most nights for dinner.
Dean was busy filming both renovations and historical finds and muttering under his breath about the impossibility of telling a story when he didn’t know the ending.
They grilled meals and took turns helping Cody study for finals. And it was getting easier to convince Maggie to shut down the laptop and join them in the living room for TV or some quiet reading time. They divvied up the remaining books by Aaron Campbell and were sifting through them, looking for clues.
Silas stepped outside into the humid morning and took his mug of coffee along to check out the in-progress retaining wall and the wider panorama of the gorge below, now that the dead trees had been cut down and hauled away.
Things were taking shape inside and out.
He had a new present for Maggie. She’d loved the copper heron on the side of the house, naming it Henry. He’d taken some of the dried lumber from an old fallen tree and used it to make a series of floating shelves for the bare wall in the front parlor. She’d quickly filled the shelves with a mix of Campbell antiques and new finds.
He held up the comically huge pair of wooden googly eyes that he’d found at a nursery. Whimsical and unexpected. Just like the rest of the house. He put his mug down in the dew-damp grass and set about attaching the eyes to Maggie’s favorite tree, a quaking aspen that marked the entrance to the path leading to the under-construction firepit.
Yes. Things were progressing. But unlike the plan for the house, the forward momentum of their relationship went unspoken. For now, they both pretended not to notice that his clothes were finding their way into her closet. Or that he was doing her laundry at his house. Or that they texted about what was for dinner nearly every night like a married couple. They reveled in Cody’s slow blossoming from teenage rebel to responsible young adult.