“Pretty sure I see all that. And how much it’s going to cost.”
“But you also see what she could be. And that’s what makes the work worthwhile.”
She followed him out onto the porch. “Do you make it a habit to fall in love with all your clients?” she asked.
“No, ma’am. I do not.”
She was looking at him like she was trying to figure out how long the crazy would last.
“I can’t do anything about you being dazzled by me or whatever the hell put those cartoon hearts in your eyes. But I can return the full-disclosure favor.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
“I’m going to turn this place into a damn dream home. I’m going to make it so beautiful that every person who drives into Kinship spots it on the bluff and hears about the Old Campbell Place. And once every detail is perfect, I’m going to sell it to a lucky buyer, and I’m going to move on. Because I always move on.”
“Just because you’ve always done something doesn’t make it a choice,” he said softly.
“I’m not the settle-down type, Sy. And you’re not the pick-up-and-go type. That potential you think you see doesn’t actually exist.”
“Maybe you just can’t see it yet.”
“And maybe you’re miscalculating again and missing a big, glaring, fundamental problem. I’m not a ‘spend your life with me’ girl. I’m a ‘let’s have a good time while we have the opportunity’ woman.”
“I can work with that,” he said, rubbing a hand over his chin.
Maggie feigned a wince. “Yeah, but now that I know you’re deeply, irrevocably in love with me, it would just be cruel to string you along. I’ll have to date Travis instead. It’s a shame, really. Could have been fun.”
He grinned at her. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Unless you scared me off.”
“I don’t think anything scares you off, Maggie Nichols. Which is why I bet you five whole dollars that when this house is done, you decide to stay.”
She laughed. A real, genuine, belly-deep laugh. He felt like he’d just taken the gold medal in something awesome.
“That’s adorable. Why don’t you just pay up now? I don’t stay,” she said when she’d recovered.
“Five dollars says you don’t leave because you fall in love.”
“With the house or my deranged landscaper? Because let me tell you, Mr. Wright, the odds are not in your favor.”
“I don’t know, Mags. I’m feeling pretty lucky.”
He was still smiling when she kicked the front door closed.
9
Maggie backed up the clip again and hit play, keeping an eye on the time stamp when the music hit. If Dean shifted the clip half a second later, the music crescendo would strike when her sledgehammer met ugly red countertop. She scrawled out the note on her pad and then pulled up her browser window.
The most recent episode of Building Dreams was getting an astronomical amount of attention. Live for only twenty-four hours, it had nearly sixty thousand views already. Viewers loved a new kitchen. Her subscriber count was inching higher, too.
She’d hit the million here in Kinship—Maggie was sure of it. Silas Wright’s face might even step up the timeline.
Stretching her arms overhead, she rolled out the crick in her neck.
Day Two had been just as satisfying as Day One. The rest of the roof was stripped. Electrical work had officially begun that morning. The kitchen had been gutted down to studs. Dean hadn’t blown a gasket over her kitchen appliance wish list. And Silas’s tree gal had shown up and accomplished a hell of a lot of work on the trees eating the driveway.
Maggie picked the library at the back of the first floor to use as her office. It was quieter here, which made marching her way through her to-do list easier. Grabbing the rough sketch she’d started the night before, she headed into the kitchen to pace out the measurements. She was debating whether she could get another foot of quartz for the island when something that sounded like a creepy cathedral organ exploded overhead.
“What in the scary fuck was that?” Dean demanded from the stairs. He’d claimed a bedroom on the second floor as his on-site office space. They knew from years of experience that working in the same room wasn’t the best idea.
Maggie poked her head into the hallway and saw a figure standing on the other side of the screen door on the porch.
“I guess we have a doorbell,” she said.
“Not it,” Dean said, shaking his head. “I haven’t had enough coffee to deal with a disgruntled local today.”