Always and Forever

“Because it sticks out like a sore thumb,” Jamal answered cautiously. “I want the house to be as authentic as possible, and the room takes away from the original design.”

“Authentic!” she screeched. “You’re putting strawboard walls in a Queen Anne Victorian, yet you’re claiming you want authenticity?” Her expression darkened, those smoky brown eyes turning almost black. “Of all people, I cannot believe this house fell into your hands.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You are going to destroy it!”

“The house was abandoned,” Jamal pointed out. “It was already on its way to being ruined.”

“It was not abandoned!” she shouted. “I’m sick and tired of everyone saying the house was frigging abandoned!” She slapped her hands on the table. “I can’t do this.”

The emotion he heard clogging her voice shot a lightning rod of alarm through him. “Phylicia, what’s going on here?” he asked.

“I’m sorry.” She pulled in a deep breath. “You’ll have to find someone else to help you.”

She glanced up at him for the briefest moment, but it was long enough for Jamal to notice the sheen in her eyes. He caught her by the elbow, but she jerked away from him and half walked, half ran to her truck.

“Phylicia!” Jamal called, but her truck was already backing out of the driveway. Jamal stood in complete shock, trying to figure out just what in the hell he’d done wrong this time.

Chapter 4

Phil pulled into her driveway and hopped out of her truck, making a beeline for her workshop. She needed a solid hour of mind-numbing work before she could even think about doing anything else. She wanted to hit something with her mallet. Hard. But she’d passed the pounding stage on all of the projects she currently had in the works.

The blowtorch would have to do.

Phil headed for the back of the shop. She lowered the safety shield over her face and ignited the blowtorch. Moments later, she was lost in the piece she had been working on for the past few months.

With painstaking precision she carved intricate loops and curlicues through the metal she’d found at a scrapyard, creating a lace effect. Immediately, the lace curtains that once hung in her mother’s painting room popped into her mind, and her hand slipped.

“Dammit,” Phil cursed. She released the trigger on the blowtorch and surveyed the damage her slip had caused to the metal. Nothing too noticeable, thank goodness.

“Phylicia?”

Phil nearly fell off the stool at the unexpected summons. She whipped around, the blowtorch still in her hand.

Jamal took two giant steps back, his hands raised in surrender. “Careful with that.”

Phil lifted the safety shield from her face but didn’t put down the blowtorch. “How did you get in here?”

“The door wasn’t locked.”

Of course it wasn’t. She lived in Gauthier. She never locked the door to her shop while she was working. She’d have to rethink that. This was the second time he had crept up on her.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I want to know what happened back at the house,” he said. “Why did you run off?”

Phil’s entire being sagged in defeat. It was no use withholding the truth from him. He would eventually find out. With the way gossip traveled in this small town, she was surprised no one had revealed Belle Maison’s previous owner to him already.

“It’s my house,” Phil said. His confused expression would have been comical if there was anything even remotely funny about any of this. “The Victorian that you have all these fancy plans for? It’s my family’s home. It’s where I grew up.”

“But the bank said they owned—”

“Yes, the bank owned it,” she cut him off. “It’s a very long story that I’m not about to get into, especially with you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Especially with me? When did I become the bad guy, Phylicia?”

“When you bought my family’s home and decided to make it into a bed-and-breakfast.” Phil raised her palm, stanching his protest. “This isn’t your fault, and I know you don’t deserve any of the disgust I feel toward you.”

He flinched at her harsh word choice, and Phil felt even worse.

“I’m sorry. That was uncalled for,” she said. Phil shook her head. “I just can’t do this, Jamal. What you’re doing? Opening this B&B? It’s a great thing for Gauthier. It’s going to be a huge draw for tourists, and I know the businesses on Main Street are going to benefit from it. But that’s my house,” she said, pointing east toward Belle Maison. “It’s hard to see it being destroyed.”

“I’m not going to destroy the house. How many times do I have to say that?”

“When it comes to this sort of thing, it seems we have different definitions of what it means to destroy. And you are planning to destroy a part of the house.”

“Just that one room,” he said.

“It’s the most important room in the house!” Phil yelled.

She covered her face with her hands and pulled in a deep breath. As the tears collected in her throat, Phil mentally cursed each and every one of them. But it was too hard to maintain a stoic facade. She was never one for wearing her heart on her sleeve, but when it came to her mother, she couldn’t hold back.

Phil bit her lower lip to help curb the wavering. She wiped at the tears that traveled down her cheeks.

“Twenty years ago, my father built that room for my mother. It’s where she painted. She needed a place with plenty of natural sunlight, and there wasn’t a room on the east side of the house that was suitable. She would spend hours in that room. Her painting meant everything to her.”

Phil sucked in a deep breath. “I’ve lost so much of her already. Hearing that you planned to tear down her room... It was just too much.”

She couldn’t interpret the expression on Jamal’s face. He just stood there, staring at her, and her discomfort grew with every nanosecond that passed.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I had no idea. About any of it. The bank never told me anything about the previous owner. Shit, Corey didn’t even say anything.”

“I was surprised neither Corey nor Mya told you it was my family home. But neither of them knows how Belle Maison ended up on the market. Mya believes I put it up for sale intentionally.” She looked up at him. “I never would have let the property go if I’d had a choice. I love that house. It’s been in my family for generations.”

His mouth dipped in a frown. “Phylicia, I’m really sorry that you had to sell your family’s home, but I’ve invested too much into this project not to see it through.”

“Oh, God, I’m not asking you not to go forth with the B&B. I’m a businesswoman, Jamal. I understand how these things work. You bought the house. It’s yours. I just can’t be a part of the restoration process. I thought I could, but to stand there and watch my mother’s room being torn to the ground?” Phil shook her head. “I just can’t do it.”

Several moments passed before Jamal asked in a gentle voice, “What if I don’t touch that room?”

Phil’s eyes shot to his. She didn’t want to believe the sincerity she saw there. “You would do that?”

He took a step toward her. “The room isn’t hurting anybody,” he said.

His deep brown eyes searched her face. When he reached toward her, Phil stiffened, but he only captured the safety shield and pulled it off her head.

“Besides,” he continued, “as you pointed out, I’m making a lot of other changes, so my authenticity argument doesn’t carry much weight. And the house holds sentimental value for you.”