At Wild Rose Cottage. Callie Endicott

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      Emily walked down to the Emporium where she spoke to her manager, who reported everything was going well.

      After going through the sales receipts to see if new stock needed to be ordered and chatting with a few customers, she strolled back to Meadowlark Lane. Inside the house she stared in amazement. The wall between the living and dining rooms had been knocked down to floor level, with only the weight-bearing four-by-four posts left standing. Caveman, Vince, Mike and Eduardo were on the roof, so Trent must have abandoned the dining room carpet to take the thing apart.

      “Wow,” she said.

      He must have worked like a man possessed to have gotten the wall demolished; most of the debris was even cleared away.

      “We’ll put in the low divider wall you want,” he explained. “But the way it was built, it’s cleaner to pull everything down and rebuild. The support beams will need to be faced, and we’ll frame them at the top to echo the molding in both rooms. You’ve come up with a good plan. The change will create a more contemporary, open feeling without erasing the vintage appeal.”

      The long statement seemed uncharacteristic, especially since his face remained hard and stony, and his admission about it being a “good plan” held a grudging tone. But there was nothing actually wrong in what he’d said, so she nodded and collected a broom to sweep up the remaining bits of plaster and dust.

      * * *

      “I’VE GOT THE list you emailed,” Alaina said into the phone on Thursday. “I’ll take A through H, okay?”

      “That’s terrific,” Janet Goodwell told her. “Most people hate recruiting bachelors and bachelorettes for the auction and I have to do most of it myself. Of course, my arm-twisting skills will probably deteriorate because of your willingness.”

      “If you prefer, I could just make cookies for Saturday’s bake sale,” Alaina suggested. It wasn’t what she preferred, but she didn’t want anyone to guess that she’d deliberately volunteered in order to be the one to recruit Mike.

      “Don’t you dare,” Janet nearly screamed. “I’ve got cookies running out of my ears. I need recruiters.”

      Alaina put down the phone with a satisfied smile. Joining the Volunteer Firefighters Auxiliary was the least she could do, considering the work they accomplished all over town. And when they’d announced it was time to prep for the annual barbecue and auction, she’d broken a speed record volunteering for the planning committee.

      The others had laughed and assumed she’d done it to avoid being tagged as a potential bachelorette—members were barred from participating that way. But she’d had something far more devious in mind, including taking the first part of the alphabetical list of potential auction volunteers...the section with Mike Carlisle’s name.

      Alaina glanced at the clock and picked up the receiver again to dial Emily.

      “Hello, Alaina,” Emily greeted her cheerily. “How are you today?”

      “I’m good. I just wondered if you wanted to get lunch. The Roundup Café makes a mean fire-grilled burger.”

      “That would be great, except I ordered sandwiches for the guys. They’re going to be delivered by 11:30.”

      “Oh.”

      “Why don’t you come over and join the party? We’ll have plenty of food.”

      Alaina’s heart started rat-a-tat-tatting. She genuinely wanted to get acquainted with Emily, but she also wanted to run into Mike. Now she could end up eating lunch twice in one week with him. It wasn’t a date, but more contact than she usually managed.

      “It sounds like fun,” she agreed. “But I want to bring something. What do you need?”

      “How about chips? We have doughnuts left and I got a humongous container of fresh-made potato salad from the grocery deli.”

      “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

      Hanging up the phone, Alaina jumped to her feet. When she’d decided to come back to Montana, she had been sure she’d see Mike often. After all, he was friends with her brothers and several cousins, and as Trent’s office manager it had seemed a certainty Mike would cross her path frequently, at least during the summer. But he’d proven remarkably adept at treading a solitary path. She didn’t think he was avoiding her in particular; it was more a serious case of lone wolf syndrome.

      Well, it was time to change all of that.

CHAPTER FIVE

      SOME OF THE tension eased from Trent as the crew broke for lunch. Emily’s absence had left him free to take down one of the problem walls and dispose of the debris, and he’d done it in record time. His pockets were stuffed with the bits and pieces he’d recovered, while the rest had been thrown into the far end of the Dumpster.

      “Alaina is joining us for lunch,” Emily’s voice said in the next room, where she’d gone to answer her cell.

      His gaze raced around the area to double-check, but there was nothing that might prove suspicious. Imagine if Alaina saw one of his painfully written notes proclaiming exactly what he thought of Gavin Hawkins? And hidden in one of the still-standing walls was the paper he’d tried to make sound very legal, stating that Trent Hawkins no longer had a father because Gavin Hawkins was a son of a bitch. The language on some of the other messages was even worse, learned courtesy of Gavin’s foul mouth.

      The doorbell squawked and his stomach tightened. Emily hadn’t asked them to replace it, but surely she didn’t want to keep the atrocious-sounding bell. To never hear it again, he’d throw in a deluxe model and install it personally.

      Emily stuck her head around one of the plastic curtains they’d hung to control dust from traveling as far. “Hey, the sandwiches are here. Are you hungry?”

      Her smile was engaging and Trent was struck by surprise that she’d abandoned her previous life to move to Schuyler. Didn’t she have a boyfriend or family who’d objected? The McGregors had hated it when Alaina had been working in New York.

      “Sure,” he answered truthfully. He’d skipped breakfast, something he couldn’t admit since he encouraged his crews to show up at work with good meals in their stomachs.

      “I moved the card table and chairs to the patio since it’s so dusty in here,” she explained. “Come and get it.”

      Come and get it.

      A faint nostalgia went through him at hearing the expression his aunt Sarah...his mother often used. Mother or aunt... Even now he still mentally qualified his relationship with her, as he did with the whole family. Not that she’d ever insisted he call her Mom. Alaina said “Mom,” but she couldn’t remember any parents except Parker and Sarah McGregor.

      Trent waited until Emily had disappeared then did another visual search of the space. As he walked toward the back of the house, Alaina popped through the front door.

      “Hey, big brother. Don’t tell my boss, but I’m taking a long lunch today.”

      His СКАЧАТЬ