Chapter Ten
Andrew
As he stared at the blank screen on his laptop, Andrew’s head throbbed in concert with the pounding coming from somewhere
in the house.
The crew was working on the drywall in one of the upstairs bedrooms, if he wasn’t mistaken. Either that or they had decided
to play a John Philip Sousa march using nail guns and hammers.
He was finding it increasingly difficult to create in the middle of a construction zone but he didn’t have the liberty of
time now. This book should have been finished before they left California. That had been his goal, but between packing up
their apartment, end of school year requirements for the kids and tying up all the loose ends, time had gotten away from him.
He couldn’t imagine how much worse it might have been trying to pack up their lives if they hadn’t already lost most of what
they owned in the wildfire.
He hated writing under the gun. He usually tried to be done with his books well ahead of his deadlines so that he had time
to caress the prose to his satisfaction. He did not have that luxury this time, though how he was supposed to feel creative
in the middle of a construction zone, Andrew had no idea.
He sighed and rose from his desk to put in a few steps walking around his half-finished office.
Today was supposed to be a great writing day. His mom was collecting the kids from their day camp and taking them to a movie they had all wanted to see and then she was picking up takeout from their new favorite Chinese place.
He had been looking forward to finally having a long stretch of time to hopefully reach his creative flow state without the
distraction of the kids in the next room.
He had made progress on the book, writing at night after the kids were in bed and in the morning before they awoke, though
he was not a huge fan of working at the cramped kitchen table of the apartment.
Besides the ergonomic pain from sitting in a bad position, his creativity needed more room than that to thrive. That probably
would sound stupid to anybody who wasn’t a creator, but Andrew knew his imagination craved space to unfurl, to stretch its
wings and soar. The confines of the tiny apartment, with its constant reminders of daily life and responsibilities, felt like
invisible bars caging his thoughts. He longed for a dedicated space where his ideas could run wild, unencumbered by the mundane
realities that surrounded him at the kitchen table.
Today, he had decided to set up the room that would eventually be his office, in the highest turret of the house.
When it was finished, the space would be magnificent, with views in all directions from the windows that circled the room.
As he walked around the room, Andrew could see the mountains on one side, the ocean on the other, the town below.
Gulls flew past his windows and from here he could see a man and child on the beach below flying a kite shaped like a dolphin.
It dipped and soared in the wind like a sea creature riding the waves.
He saw yet another vehicle approaching the house, this one with the logo of Lucas Construction on the side, an oval with a stylized silhouette of a couple of pine trees surrounding the name of the company as well as their brand identity: Built on Family, Rooted in Oregon.
As he watched, the driver’s side door opened and a woman emerged, carrying what looked like a bundle of blueprints.
Sunlight glinted off auburn strands and he immediately recognized Rosie Lucas.
If he were smart, he would stay right here in what he was already starting to call his writing tower. His neighbor affected
him in ways he did not want to think about.
He had dreamed about her twice since the day he and the kids had encountered her and little Olive on the beach. Spicy dreams
filled with tangled mouths and twisted sheets.
He hadn’t had an erotic dream in a while. To have two of them about the same woman, a virtual stranger, annoyed and embarrassed
him.
He was busy trying to tell himself to stay planted with his butt in the writing chair when an alarm on his phone rang.
He glanced at it and winced. Apparently, he was supposed to be meeting with the project manager today, something he had completely
forgotten.
When he was on a deadline, he had trouble keeping track of anything but absolute necessities. In California, he’d had a personal
assistant to keep him on track and handle all the details of his life. Saima Rashid still worked as his extremely efficient
assistant but she handled things virtually for him now, mostly focused on handling his marketing and social media instead
of his daily schedule.
Since moving to Oregon, Andrew had fallen back on setting copious reminders on his phone to keep track of his to-do list.
This particular phone reminder was his fifteen-minute warning, which meant that if Rosie was here for the meeting, she was fifteen minutes early.
And why was she here instead of Bryce Kendall?
He really hoped her presence didn’t indicate another problem with the project, which had already been beset by delay after
delay.
With resignation, he saved his manuscript and closed out of the word processing app he used, picked up his laptop and headed
for the winding stairs that led down to the entry hall.
He was nearly down to the first level when she opened the door and walked in. At first, he felt peevish that she walked into
his house without knocking, until he reminded himself that she worked for the construction company and none of the other workers
ever knocked.
Maybe if he and the kids were living inside the main structure, things might be different but this was a construction zone.
As he moved closer, he saw her looking around with an expression on her face he could only describe as wistful. She was taking
in all the original woodwork that had been restored already in the project.
“Looking for me?” he asked.
She jumped, dropping some of her papers, and whirled around, eyes wide.
“Sorry. I thought you heard me coming down the stairs.” He hurried the rest of the way and helped her pick up the papers.
“No. I was thinking about something else.”
What might have put that expression on her face, a sort of sorrow mixed with a curious yearning.
“I was deep in my book and forgot I was supposed to be meeting with Bryce Kendall this afternoon. Did he come with you?”
He did not tell her he saw her arrive alone in the company truck. That sounded too much like he was spying on her, which he absolutely wasn’t. It was his house, after all.
“No. Bryce had a family emergency and had to run up to Lincoln City. I told him I would take care of the meeting and show
you the updated blueprints.”
“Thanks.”
“Is there somewhere we can spread them out to take a look?”
“There’s a sawhorse in the kitchen with a couple of planks over it. That’s what Bryce has been using when we need to go over
something on the plans.”
She studied the house with interest as he led her through to the kitchen. “Oh, you’re adding a bay window here in the kitchen.
That’s a great idea.”
“I thought a dining nook would work well for our needs. The kids can do homework there while I fix dinner.”
“Good idea. I wanted to do the same thing.”
He frowned in confusion. “You did?”
“A bay window and dining nook was actually part of the plan my husband and I made when we purchased the house.”
He stared at her, completely nonplussed by the information. “You once owned Stormhaven?”
“I’m surprised you didn’t know. I would have thought Bryce or one of the subs might have mentioned it to you.”
He shook his head. “Not a word.”
“This was once my dream house,” she admitted with a rueful smile. “From the time I moved to Wood Briar with my mom in high
school, I wanted to buy Stormhaven and fix it up. It’s been abandoned for years, waiting for the right owner. Gary and I worked
for years to finally afford it.”
He shifted, uncomfortable at the idea of snatching her dream home out from under her. “I had no idea. Your plans obviously fell through.”
She looked away then turned back with a wooden smile. “My husband died the week after we signed the papers for Stormhaven.”
“That must have been tough.”
“I was too battered after Gary’s sudden death to move forward on the renovation. At first I didn’t have the mental or emotional
strength for it. I was too busy with the bookstore and trying to keep the construction company alive. Plus, I was dealing
with . . . family problems. I held on to the house for a few years but ultimately decided to sell it when the company was
struggling and needed an infusion of capital.”
“Ah.”
Did she resent that he owned the house now? Was that one of the reasons for her negativity toward his books?
He did an internal eye roll at his own creative arrogance. His books simply weren’t her style. It likely had nothing to do
with his ownership of her dream home.
“Unfortunately,” she went on briskly, unaware of his internal monologue, “I didn’t do my due diligence when I sold the place.
The next owner spent the next three or four years trying to push through condominiums. They wanted to tear down the whole
house and build something else in its place.”
He was beginning to think that might not be such a bad idea, given the headache of renovating it. “It does have a lovely view.”
“Yes. And I’m sure it would have made a great spot for some condos. But this house is a beloved part of our community history
as the first truly grand home on this entire part of the coast, built by someone who made his fortune in mining.”
He had read some of the history of the house before his own purchase went through. He knew it had a tragic past, with the original owner dying in a hunting accident before he ever had the chance to live here and his widow dying of consumption a short time later.
“When the consortium that owned it decided to finally list it again,” Rosie went on, “I was trying to spearhead a fundraising
effort to purchase it and turn it into a museum or art gallery.”