At Wild Rose Cottage

“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 (#ulink_b31f9a9f-34fb-5b67-8f97-49994387f431)

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 lips twitched, and he was surprised to discover his sense of humor wasn’t entirely absent, despite his self-imposed tenure on Meadowlark Lane.

“I won’t mention it to him,” he answered. “Emily says we’re eating on the patio.”

“Great. That’s one of the places I didn’t think about seeing the other day.”

He led her through the dining room and kitchen into the long mud porch that served also as a utility room along the side of the house. Curiously, the original design had the door to the backyard on the opposite end of the porch, so getting there was basically a zigzag.

“This is interesting,” Alaina murmured as they traversed the length of the porch away from the patio. “Isn’t there a door that opens directly into the backyard?”

“Not right now, but one of Emily’s renovations is to put a hallway along the dining room to a casual sitting room, with French doors onto the patio. She also wants us to cut another door on the mud porch and close off the existing one. That way food can be easily brought outside—she’s got a thing about creating outdoor living space.”

Reluctant as Trent was to admit it, Emily’s plans for the house weren’t bad. Montana wasn’t Los Angeles, so there were fewer months where outdoor living was feasible, but everyone in Schuyler flocked outside when the weather was mild enough. And her plan for a well-equipped outdoor kitchen would be the envy of cooks all over town.

“Oooh,” Alaina breathed as they followed the path around the side of the house. “This is lovely.”

The rough brick patio was scented by a trellis covered by honeysuckle. The large yard was overgrown, but multicolored wildflowers provided a kaleidoscope background of hues.

“Hi,” Emily greeted Alaina. “I should have warned you the seating is makeshift in this restaurant.”

“The atmosphere makes up for it. I just wish I remembered living here,” Alaina said, wistfully.

“You used to live here?” Eduardo asked.

“Before our folks were gone.”

“Sure, sure, I remember now. It was before you moved out with the McGregors. So this is where Gavin and Fiona lived.” Eduardo looked around. “I was real sorry about what happened to them. I remember Gavin saying he had the best kids and wanted to have a dozen before he and Fiona were through.”

“Really?” Alaina asked, her face alight. “I never knew that.”

“Your dad and me went to school together and I used to see him around town. We weren’t exactly friends. He just made everyone feel like his best buddy. What a great guy.”