At Wild Rose Cottage

Trent took the clipboard the truck driver offered and signed for the unit. Big Sky owned a number of roll-away containers for use at commercial building sites, but Schuyler required city-owned Dumpsters to be used in residential areas.

Billy was still courting Emily’s attention. “Say, are you new in town?” he asked.

“About four months,” Emily told him.

“Don’t know how I missed such a pretty newcomer.”

“That’s nice of you to say.”

Her tone was neutral and Trent couldn’t tell if she was buying Billy’s line.

“By the way, I’m Big Bill Halloran.” He winked at her in a way that suggested the “Big” referred to more than his height. “How about letting me buy you a drink tonight as a welcome to Schuyler?”

“Thanks, but I’m pretty busy right now.”

“Another evening?” he pressed.

“We’ll see.”

The driver cleared his throat noisily, so Billy tipped his cowboy hat, climbed into the cab and the truck drove away.

“In case you haven’t guessed it already,” Trent said, stepping closer to Emily, “Billy chases after everything and anything female.”

He regretted the warning as soon as the words left his mouth. At times, his protective instincts jumped forward, despite his intentions to keep them contained. But Billy had caused a lot of damage in Schuyler and it didn’t seem fair not to warn a newcomer.

“Forewarned is forearmed?” Emily asked, still in neutral tones.

“That always seems best.”

“Sure.” She turned and headed for the house. Idly he noted that she was wearing a comfortable T-shirt paired with a light full skirt, similar to what she’d worn the other times he’d seen her. It stood out in a town where both men and women tended to don jeans.

Trent glanced at the roof. At appropriate intervals he could send the whole crew up there to work, giving him privacy for what he needed to do inside the house. Granted, it wasn’t likely that anyone would even look at most of the things inside those walls—they’d just shovel them into the Dumpster. But what if they did, or what if Ms. George got curious?

And then there was his father’s old handgun... If someone found that, there’d be questions and possible revelations that could upset a whole bunch of lives. He should have turned the gun into the police when he was a boy, but he’d wanted to protect his family. If he’d had more time to think about it, he might have changed his mind. But Gavin Hawkins had died and nobody could send him to prison posthumously.

Maybe it wouldn’t be an issue, though. The estimate showed question marks on two walls—including the one where Trent had hidden the handgun—with the annotation that the client was undecided about which to remove, so there was a chance it would be okay.

On the other hand, if he could pull the wall down and retrieve the gun, he’d never have to think about it again.

* * *

BILLY CHASES AFTER everything and anything female.

Emily tried not to be offended by Trent Hawkins’s blunt statement.

After all, he’d tried to be helpful by warning her about a local good-time boy. But she also couldn’t miss the fact that he’d seen no particular reason why Billy would chase her—she was classed with anything and everything female. Nobody would say that kind of thing to her sister, Nicole, or question why a guy would want her.

She stopped and looked at herself in the dusty wall of gold-splotched mirror tiles someone had once decided were a good idea for the dining room wall. Medium brown hair, medium brown eyes, medium height, medium everything... She wasn’t ugly, but she also wasn’t a woman Billy would kick himself for missing. Average was the best description, which should be okay, except that she’d grown up in a world where anything except drop-dead gorgeous was inadequate.

At least she has brains, her mother had sighed to her friends, often when her eldest daughter was within earshot. Paula George embraced the school of thought that it was best to be honest with your children about their limitations, so they wouldn’t develop unrealistic expectations. Personally, Emily thought her mother was just secretly embarrassed to have one stunning daughter and one who wasn’t, and wanted to acknowledge the contrast before anyone else.

Nicole was dazzling. Not that it had given Emily an inferiority complex...or at least not much of one. She was smart and by no means bad looking, but she’d learned that most people preferred the glamorous beauty her sister possessed...including her former fiancé. On the other hand, there were plenty of guys who’d said they liked the person she was, so she should be grateful for small favors.

Emily impatiently pushed the thought away and considered what to do with her morning. Originally she’d expected to leave the Big Sky crew to work on the house while she went to her store, but now she was rethinking her plan. Having Trent Hawkins on the crew made her wonder if she ought to keep an eye on things. It wasn’t that she believed Trent or his men would pocket stuff, but after he’d tried so hard to buy the house, it was strange that he’d suddenly decided to be there every day.

Of course, she would have to leave part of the time. There was no way she could stay in the house for the weeks it would take to finish everything. She’d go stark-raving stir-crazy if she tried, but construction workers started early—she could do stuff for the Emporium in the late afternoon and evenings, and work there on the weekends.

“Emily?” Trent said from behind her. “Can we do a walk-through?”

“Sure.”

Accompanied by periodic crashing sounds from the kitchen, she followed him into each room and described her ideas of what she wanted done. Upstairs, she hesitated.

“I think there should be a master bedroom suite up here,” she explained, “only I haven’t decided which two rooms should be combined into one. Your guy who did the estimate said it wouldn’t affect the cost, so I could take time to decide.”

She showed him the two sets of rooms she’d considered converting into a master suite. The ones in the back had a view of rolling, tree-studded countryside, but she got a weird feeling in that part of the house and the sensation intensified as she noticed the hard-faced way Trent studied the space. It didn’t help when an especially loud crash came from downstairs, making her jump. He didn’t seem to notice, so presumably there was nothing to worry about, though it had sounded as if half the building had collapsed.

“Are you leaning one way or the other?” he asked in a tight voice.

“No... I’ve even considered doing both since it would still leave three bedrooms on the second floor. I know that would have to be another contract,” she added hastily, “or an addendum to the first.”

His nod was short. “Yes.”

The last part of the house was the attic. The latch always jammed and Emily was about to explain, when Trent pulled down and then to the left, and the knob turned easily. How odd. But he was probably used to old fixtures.

“I thought this would make a terrific craft or sitting room,” Emily explained. “Or a play area for kids.”

“You’re planning a family?” he asked, his eyebrow arching.

“Not at the moment. Right now I expect to use it as an office. Attics are usually too dark to be living space, but this one is huge and has lots of windows, so someone must have hoped to finish it someday.”

Trent glanced around. “I take it the former owner didn’t bother to clear anything out of here.”

“Nope, but I’ve always thought it would be fun to poke around an attic filled with years of forgotten stuff.”

“You won’t feel that way for long. I’m sure it’s all worthless junk.”

Emily made a face at the back of his head. Trent Hawkins was obviously a pessimist, while she preferred looking at the bright side of things.

The tour over, they descended to the bottom level.

“Thank you,” Trent told her formally. “Since I’m foreman for the crew doing the reconstruction, it helps to have an overview.”

He disappeared into the kitchen and she peeked in to take pictures, wanting to make a scrapbook showing the whole process. Mike was using a crowbar to pull cabinets off the walls while Trent sledgehammered them into pieces. If it had been the original shelves and cabinetry, Emily might have considered restoring them, but at some point they’d been replaced by cheap alternatives.

The stack of debris grew. Trent grabbed an armload and Emily backed out of his way as he carried it toward the front door. She saw him walk it into the Dumpster.

That gave her an idea...there was something she could do instead of standing around watching. Grabbing as much as she could hold, Emily headed for the Dumpster. On his way back inside, Trent reached for what she was carrying.