Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
JAMES
You could have knocked me over with a feather; I was that shocked when I received a call from Maggie, who introduced herself as Margaret Fontaine, stating that she’d been given my information by one of her girlfriends, and then had looked me up.
Color me further surprised when she asked if I’d come over the following day to discuss potentially working together.
And I thought I’d blown it. Guess not.
So here I was, nine o’clock in the morning, on Margaret’s front porch.
“Hey,” she greeted me as she opened the door. “Come on in.”
“Good morning,” I returned, crossing the threshold with my backpack in hand. “Okay if I set this here?” I gestured to my bag as I set it by the front door, taking out my tablet and stylus.
“Sure. We’ll start with a tour of the house, if that’s okay,” she explained.
“Of course.” I smiled, gesturing ahead of me. “Lead the way.”
“I feel like I need to apologize again,” I said as we came to a stop in the kitchen, the room she was hiring me to handle first. Hell, for all I knew, it could be the only room she’d let me handle.
She swiped her hand in the air. “Water under the bridge.” Her eyes came to meet mine and stuck. “Honestly.”
“Still, I’ll say it this one last time, I’m sorry.” Setting my tablet on the counter, I crossed my arms over my chest and smiled at her. “You sure know how to prove someone wrong, though.”
Her brows knitted together. “What do you mean?”
“That parlor,” I stated. “I have to admit, some of the work you did in there beats mine by miles. That detailing work was exceptional. I might have to get you to show me sometime.”
Her lips tugged upward in a smirk. “Only if you show me something.”
Sticking my hand out and presenting it, I said, “You’ve got yourself a deal, Margaret.”
“It’s Maggie.” She slid her hand in mine.
“Huh?”
“Please call me Maggie. Margaret was for my parents, or when I’m in my alter ego form.”
“Alter ego?”
“I’m an author.” As if that explained it enough.
Just as I was about to ask her to expand on that, her phone chose that moment to ring.
I hated the loss of her touch as she withdrew to fetch her phone from her back pocket.
“Speaking of which, I’ll remain as Margaret for another few minutes. That’s my editor calling.”
“You okay with me getting to work on some sketches in here?”
“Go ahead. I’ll be in the parlor if you need me for anything.” And just like that, I was left to my own devices while she strode off to the other end of the house.
MAGGIE
“Well, well, well, Mrs. Davidson, back from vacation, I surmise?” I smiled into my phone’s camera as I transferred the call to my MacBook.
“Hardly,” my editor said, and I felt my jaw drop.
“What do you mean?”
“Chris and I decided to extend our stay for another week,” Kara announced, the grin on her face running from ear to ear.
“We never had a real honeymoon, so Mom and Dad took the kids, and it’s just the two of us for this next week.
So that means you get an extra week to work around that house of yours. How’s it coming along?”
I spent the next five minutes regaling my editor on what’d been going on here at the house, and how I was thrilled that I’d finally found someone who had the qualifications, the experience, and the gumption for what I needed done with the house.
Before long, I bid Kara farewell and fired up my word processing software, creating a new document.
It was time I got some of my new book ideas out!
It wasn’t until I heard his throat clear that I realized I’d forgotten I wasn’t alone. Jamie had that guilty expression on his face as though he thought maybe he shouldn’t have bothered me.
Glancing at the clock, I gasped when I saw that a little more than three hours had passed, and we were nearing two o’clock in the afternoon.
“Sorry to bother you, but I have a few questions before I can finalize my drawings,” he said, nodding to the chair opposite my desk. “Mind if I sit?”
“Sure.” I gestured toward the seat in question. “And did I hear you correctly? You said drawings?”
The man grinned. “You know you’ve been in here for nearly four hours, right? It’s not like you asked me to draft an entire house floorplan.”
For the first time in a long time, I felt guilty for shutting out my surroundings.
“I’m sorry. I get like this when ideas for a project pour in,” I told him.
“As I mentioned earlier, I’m an author, and I’ve had this new book idea dancing about in my head for weeks now that I felt it was a good time to stay out of your hair and enjoy some time in my new office after that call with my editor. ”
His gaze grew worried. “Everything okay?”
The fact that a man I barely knew seemed to be concerned about me made warmth churn inside my belly.
Clearing my throat, I shook my head and offered him a kind smile. “No, but thank you. Now, what was it you wanted to ask me?”
That night, as I got ready for bed, I couldn’t help the smile that seemed to be permanently etched onto my face.
And it was all thanks to James Sullivan.
If I’d had reservations as to what to expect from him, I no longer did.
Now, more than ever, I knew I’d made the right decision in hiring him.
He’d taken the time to listen to what I wanted in my new kitchen.
Hell, I’d noticed his deep interest the entire time we’d walked my property as I showed him room to room.
He observed, he asked questions, and he repeated some of my answers to ensure he’d understood my vision.
By the time the man had left, a contract had been signed, an order for supplies had been placed for a next-day pickup tomorrow afternoon, and some demo was set to commence tomorrow, bright and early.
I couldn’t freaking wait!