Eleven
London woke slowly, tangled in the duvet like she’d twisted herself inside out in her sleep.
Pale light seeped through the curtains, the muted kind that comes after a snowstorm.
She lay still for a moment, halfway between asleep and awake, aware of the faint smell of sawdust and oregano on her sweatshirt.
Her memory flickered—wine on the floor, a hand in her hair, heat when their lips met. London almost convinced herself she’d dreamed it. Then, the whirr-skriittt of the screw gun downstairs ripped through the quiet.
It all came flooding back in an instant. She hadn’t dreamed it.
The problem was she didn't want to have dreamed it.
That was new information.
It was funny how kissing someone you used to know could be exactly like kissing someone new. London tried to remember the last time she’d kissed Harper—really kissed Harper—before last night.
She couldn’t.
They were effectively strangers, thrown together by an emergency and a deadline.
The questions came faster than she could explain them away.
Should they talk about it? Was there still something there? Did Harper still love her?
Or was this just what happened when two people who used to be in love fell into a crisis together?
There were no answers. And the only thing that was truly certain was she needed coffee. Now. London rolled out of bed and grabbed a pair of socks from the dresser, hopping on one leg as she walked and put them on.
The screw gun got louder as she descended the stairs, and she heard Harper saying, “Right there. Don’t move. Jorge! Don’t move!”
Whirr-skriittt.
London rounded the corner into the sitting room. Harper was crouched in the corner, driving screws through a fresh sheet of drywall, Jorge at the other end holding it steady. The wall that had been open framing yesterday was already half covered.
It was only ten a.m.
London had just awoken, barely gotten a pair of socks on without falling, and was still wearing the sweats in which she’d fallen asleep. Harper had already hung drywall in half the sitting room.
Harper drove one more screw, the tool whining sharply before cutting off. Then she stood and looked across the room. Her eyes landed on London and lingered.
She lifted the screw gun in acknowledgement. “Morning,” she said, like nothing unusual happened the night before.
“Morning.”
London was suddenly aware she had rolled out of bed without even looking in a mirror.
“Hi—I’m London,” she said to the stranger holding the drywall. “Thanks for the help.”
“You got it.” Jorge tipped his Sleeping Lady Resort baseball cap toward her.
London opened her mouth to say something else. Anything. But Harper had already turned back to the wall.
Whirr-skriittt.
She swallowed her questions and headed for the coffee pot, praying there was coffee. Harper had stayed in the back room again, so the odds were good. But not guaranteed.
The pot was resting atop the newly installed cabinets, half full.
Hallelujah. As the first hit of caffeine sparked her brain into “on” mode, London spiraled.
Everything she knew to be true had unraveled.
Everything she’d worked so hard to accept, gone with a kiss.
They’d pulled on the loose thread in the sweater, and she was left holding a pile of yarn and no idea how to knit it back together.
Was Harper really that unimpacted that she went straight to work? Her boombox was playing upbeat pop—she swore she heard Harry Styles singing in the next room. The screw gun was almost melodic, if one had a thing for screeching.
London leaned against the new cabinet edge. Without countertops, it was sharp. She listened as efficient work happened in the next room. Minimal talking. Just “hold it there,” and the confirmation of measurements before snapping a new piece of drywall to size.
This didn't seem like a three-person job. She watched anyway. Fine dust filled the air, visible in the light coming through the front windows. Harper moved with the same confidence she had while laying flooring. Measure, cut, snap, screw. It was a symphony of movement. The rhythm of someone who’d done this work a thousand times.
Only this time, it was a house, not a movie set.
This time, she was building for permanence.
Certainly, Harper saw her watching, but she didn’t say anything. No you don’t have to hover comments. No ask for help, either.
She looked exactly as she did the day before—plaid button up, carpenter pants, backwards baseball cap keeping her hair in place.
Except. Something had changed.
London couldn’t place what was different. Maybe the softness in her steps. Maybe the way she joked with Jorge about his ability to hold still. Maybe her shoulders were a little lower, a little looser.
Harper drove another screw and then turned over her shoulder. “Good coffee?”
“Very.” London raised her mug ever so.
Whirr-skriittt.
# # #
By the time the late afternoon arrived, the sitting room was transformed. Open walls were now covered in drywall, which was partially covered in six-foot high beadboard wainscoting. London had deferred to Harper on the design. She’d asked once what would look best—and for a change—let it be.
If houses had a new car smell, this was it. Gypsum and joint compound. Sawdust and Liquid Nails.
Jorge laid down a caulking gun and rolled his shoulders. “Okay guys, that’s about all I got. Promised my wife I’d take her to dinner tonight.”
“Thanks for the help.” Harper grabbed the gun he’d laid down, her other hand holding a cut board, ready to be applied.
Jorge waved himself out of the room, and they were alone.
Finally.
Jorge’s helpfulness had been obvious in the speed of the transformation, but London had been waiting all day, impatient.
She’d busied herself with adjacent chores—organizing kitchen cabinets, sweeping dust, and kept reappearing behind them, wiping down surfaces that would be covered in dust again in minutes.
Pretending to be busy.
Pretending to be important to the outcome of this project.
The longer she waited, the more the anxiety swelled.
She listened as Harper and Jorge joked, the easy shorthand of people who’d worked together before. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t jealous. Their comfort had been obvious.
She was present but not necessary.
“Looks great,” London said, pushing herself off the wall she’d been leaning against. “I’m really impressed with what you can do in a day.”
“Thanks,” Harper said, spreading a line of adhesive on the board she was holding. “Comes with the territory. We never had much time to build sets, so it was be efficient or be unemployed. You know that.”
She pressed the board firmly into the line of wainscoting and ran a hand along the length of the board to check alignment.
Maybe now.
The inn was quiet again.
No screw gun. No music. No third voice in the room.
Just them.
London stepped forward. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you work. I only ever saw finished pieces once you started the furniture business.”
Harper squeezed another line of glue onto the next board. Listening, but distracted.
“Harper—I wanted—”
Before she could finish—or even start—the front door opened with a squeak.
“Hello?” A woman’s voice echoed.
She’d worked up her courage all day to say the hard thing. This better be good.
“Be right back.”
London hurried to the foyer.
“Oh, hi!” The owner of the voice said. Her long navy wool coat probably cost more than London’s entire winter wardrobe. “We’re here to check in.” She lightly swung a baby carrier with a tiny baby swaddled in pale pink. “We just had to come back again this year. My husband’s parking the car.”
London was certain Sebastian had cancelled all the reservations for another week.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. We’re not quite open. We had a lot of damage in the storm and we’re still rebuilding. Your reservation should have been cancelled. We issued full refunds.”
The woman bounced the carrier and shook her head. “I don’t think we got anything. Can you just check?”
“I’m afraid you did,” London insisted. “We had to cancel all the bookings. We’re under construction for another week or so.”
“We didn’t see anything come through,” the guest said.
London forced a polite smile. “It would have come through whichever site you used to book, or from us if you booked directly.”
More bouncing. More head shaking. Lots of looking around. “Well, it doesn’t look that bad.”
From the foyer, fresh drywall and drop cloths were just out of view.
Somewhere behind her, Harper shifted a board into place and a soft thud echoed through the house.
But the Christmas lights on the roof and snowflakes in the windows made the place look charming.
The guest wasn’t wrong—it didn’t look that bad.
But it wasn’t finished. The floors were covered in brown paper and blue painter’s tape.
The walls were half open. And the front desk was a folding table.
The woman shifted the baby carrier to her other arm, not missing a bounce in the process. “We’ve been coming here for ten years and we were so excited to come back to our favorite place in Leavenworth. Can’t you make an exception? We’ll stay out of the way.”
“I’m sorry, I really can’t. I’ll be in trouble with the city if I let you stay here while we’re under construction. They’re so particular about these things.”
“Oh!” the guest proclaimed, like an actual lightbulb clicked on above her head. “You probably don’t remember us! Markus and Katherine Kline?”
London had to give her credit. Katherine Kline was persistent. Maybe they had been guests for ten years. Decembers were always a blur of check ins, check outs, cleanings, and trying to minimize complaints.
Wait. Kline. The vintners? The Kline family owned half the vineyards on Red Mountain and ran one of the most popular tasting rooms in town.
“The winemakers?”
“Oh, yes, Markus’s family. I just married into it,” Katherine said as her husband opened the front door. “Oh, here’s Markus. Honey, she’s saying they cancelled our reservation because of construction.”