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He stared at her, and she swallowed her irritation. His eyes didn’t waver or show any doubt as he answered, “We’ll make it work.”
She nodded and sat back down.
Mr. Belvedere tapped a pen on the lectern. “We’ll have more challenges as we go along, and I look forward to seeing how you incorporate them into your designs. In the near future, you will also be assigned a family who will be gifted the home at the end of the contest, so keep that in mind as you design.”
He wished them good luck, reminded them of the three-month deadline and left the room.
John packed everything back into the box and placed the lid on top. He checked his watch before his gaze landed on her. “Do you have plans now? I thought we should go over some of the sketches and get a jump on where to start.”
“I’m all yours.” She frowned at how that sounded. “I mean, I’m free. Do you want to go to the house to do that? We need to start determining what stays and what goes before demolition tomorrow.”
He finished his coffee, then placed the empty cup on the table. “No, I want to get some real food. Do you know Lolly’s on Grand Boulevard? We could meet there and have lunch.”
“Great,” she replied, following him as he carried the tech box out of the building.
JOHN HELD THE door to the diner open for Cassie, and they took a booth near the back. He waved to a waitress, who brought over a full carafe of coffee and placed it on a ceramic stone in the center of the table. “Ah, Marie, you know me so well. Leave your no-good husband and marry me instead.”
She laughed as she poured the first mug and handed it to him. “You couldn’t afford me.”
He took a quick sip of the black brew. “You spoil me, so I’d have to find a way to treat you well. Even if it meant robbing a bank.”
She hit him on the shoulder with a plastic menu before placing it in front of him. He chuckled as Marie handed a menu to Cassie, who was staring at him, eyebrows raised. “I take it they know you here.”
“I’m a bachelor who lives around the corner and eats most of my meals at Lolly’s.” Relaxed, he put his arms across the back of the booth. “I couldn’t ask for a better kitchen.”
Cassie shook her head and opened the menu.
Once they ordered, John took his time stirring cream into his coffee, focusing on each turn of the spoon. The clink it made as it hit the side of the mug. The milk-scented steam rising. The dark brown swirling into an ecru. It was almost like a ritual before he brought the cup to his lips and sipped from it. He sighed in appreciation.
“You weren’t kidding when you said you like coffee.”
“Nope.” He took another sip and closed his eyes. “And I’ll need lots of it to do my best work.”
Cassie laid her hands on the table. “Before we get into the nuts and bolts of what we’re about to do, I have a question for you. Why did you enter the contest?”
“I needed a new challenge and a new career. This contest seemed to provide both.” He eyed her over the coffee mug. “What about you? Why did you enter the contest?”
“When we win, I’m going to use the money and the publicity to bring back Lowman Construction to what it once was.”
John gave a whistle. “When we win, huh? I like the sound of that. Which reminds me...” He brought out his sketchbook, flipped through a few pages and laid it open on the table. “This is a rough idea of the current floor plan. It will help me to stay focused on the space available.” He pointed to a page and slid the book closer to Cassie. “This is what I’m thinking for the kitchen.”
Cassie looked up from the book. “The kitchen? The living room’s not the priority?”
“Kitchens are where everyone spends most of their time, right?”
He turned to another page. “Without cabinets and a sink already in place, we can design the kitchen however we wish, from top to bottom. I saw this farmhouse sink at a salvage yard that would be perfect, and I thought that—”
She held up a hand. “Who said anything about a salvage yard?”
“Me. Just now.”
“I’m not putting junk in our house.”
“I didn’t say anything about junk.” He pointed to the sketch of the sink he’d drawn from memory. “This is a good-quality piece that just needs a good home. And it’ll cost a lot less than any we’d find at those pricey vendors on the list.”
“I’m not putting anything used in our house. We need new, quality materials that will put us over the top. Don’t you want to win?”
“Let’s face it. I didn’t enter the contest to lose, and neither did you. ” He glanced up as Marie placed their meals in front of them and he thanked her. “Cassie, I think that this could give us an edge over our competitors. Repurposing what we can and finding salvaged pieces where we can’t. Everyone else can be slightly different versions of each other, but we’ll be unique.”
Cassie shook her head. “No, we’ll look as if we bought our supplies at a garage sale. My dad would never have done that.”
“Do you always do what your dad would have wanted? You can’t honestly be that naive.” He grabbed up his soupspoon, but then paused. “Haven’t you done any research? Salvaging is a big trend, and it’s one I want to incorporate into my ideas.”
“Don’t forget that they may be your ideas, but it’s our house. I have a say in this, too.” She picked at her sandwich. “I’ve never worked with salvaged materials,” she mumbled.
“Is that why you’re afraid to try them?”
She raised her head to glare at him. “I’m not afraid.”
She might have said the words, but the quaver in her voice told him that she probably wrestled with the same fears that had kept him up the night before. “Aren’t you? You have a lot riding on this contest.”
“As do you.”
He nodded and leaned forward. “Exactly. This is why I want to step out of the cookie-cutter mold everyone else will use and do something different.”
She plucked a piece of bacon from the BLT and stuffed it in her mouth. He could almost see the gears in her brain working as she chewed. Finally she swallowed and turned to another page of his sketchbook. “I’m willing to consider it. Now what’s this?”
He ran a finger along the edge of the picture. He’d thought of this when he remembered his grandmother’s house and drawing pictures at the kitchen table when he was about six years old. “That’s the window in the breakfast nook. I’d like to turn it into a window seat, which will save space and provide storage beneath it.”
“Now, that I like.”
They flipped through more sketches, and she commented on several. Reaching the last of them, she gave a nod. “You do have some good ideas.”
“But you’re not sold on them yet.”
“No.” She fidgeted with her napkin. “John, this contest means I can turn my father’s company into my own. We need to be number one. Second place still makes us losers.”
He reached over and put his hand on top of hers, stilling it for a moment. “This is my second chance at finding my life’s work. It used to be cars, but getting laid off made me realize that I was ready for a change. Something that will bring back that love of design. I want this as much as you do.”
She removed her hand from his. “I understand. More than you know.”
AFTER LUNCH, BACK at the house, Cassie stared up at the next three months of her life, dilapidated as it was. In the light of day, the home looked worse than she had remembered it. Could she and John and the Buttuccis do as the Belvedere Foundation wanted and find the jewel underneath the rubble?
John walked up behind her. “I don’t remember it looking so abandoned and sad last night.”
“Dusk can hide a lot of flaws.” She held up the key to the front door. “Let’s take our time and do another walk-through.”
“Let me grab my sketchbook.” He left her and retrieved it from the front seat of his car along with a tin that held his charcoal pencils. “I want to do a quick sketch of the exterior before we go in.”
She pointed at the blank page and then at him. “You draw. I’m going in.”
But he was already absorbed in getting the lines of the house drawn on paper. She noticed the weeds growing from between the cement slabs. How much of their budget could they allocate to landscaping? Much of the neglect only needed some muscle to fix, which wouldn’t cost anything but several hours. She put a hand on the overgrown browning shrubs that flanked the front porch. Some pruning might bring them back to life.
She glanced behind her. John was frowning as he continued to sketch. Was he seeing the same neglect that she saw? Or did his artistic eye see possibilities that she couldn’t get to yet? Shaking off the thoughts, she unlocked the front door and stepped inside.
The hole where Biggie had fallen through the floor to the ground gaped at her as if it, too, was surprised to find itself there. She knelt and stared down at the crawl space revealed below. If the house had sat on a basement, he would have fallen through the rotting floor at least ten feet instead of only the few that he had. The damp wood along the jagged edges seemed to indicate it was more a cause of rotting wood rather than the foundation. Thankfully, it might mean the problem was limited to the living room and did not pervade the entire house.
The front door swung open and John breezed in with his sketchbook. He groaned at the hole. “I’d almost forgotten about that.”
Cassie put her hands on her knees and pushed herself to a standing position. “I wish I had. We’ll have to walk carefully in this room until we know for sure how much of the floorboards have rotted. I don’t know if it’s extended to the bedrooms or not.”
He nodded and took careful steps toward the hall that led to the bedrooms and bathroom. “The layout looks smaller than I remember.”
“It was probably made in the years immediately after World War II, when houses were built quickly and with only the basic needs in mind. My guess is that we have about fifteen hundred square feet. Eighteen hundred, if we’re lucky.” She knelt and touched the green shag carpet in the hallway. “It’s not damp here, so we might be okay with the floors through the rest of the house.”
John drew more lines and curves on the page before moving into one of the bedrooms. “I wonder if we could get a hold of the original blueprints for this place.”
“Maybe.” She opened the folding closet door. “We could probably check the attic.” She pointed to a covered access point. “I can grab my ladder from the truck if we want to go up now.”
“With all the spiders and creepy crawlies, not to mention dust and cobwebs?” He shuddered and gave a grimace. “I’ll wait until we’re dressed more appropriately.”
“Chicken.”
He waggled his eyebrows and walked across the hall to the bathroom, which sported avocado green and harvest gold tiles. Based on the colors, style and condition, she figured it had been renovated in the 1970s. John frowned. “You don’t see a green toilet very often.”
“Don’t forget the matching avocado bathtub.” She put a hand on the shower rod and gave it a tug. It didn’t budge, and she figured that meant the tiles and fixtures would be harder to remove. “We’ll need to replace all of this. I’m thinking a fiberglass shower enclosure and bathtub. Maybe a low-flush toilet. Pedestal sink.”
“Maybe.”
She raised her eyebrows at this. “You want to keep green and gold?”
He shuddered much as he had at the mention of spiders. “I like the green. Maybe combine it with a color like ecru to make it more earthy. More Zen. And a pedestal sink won’t give much storage in an already cramped space.”
“Yes, but it will open up the look of the room more than a cabinet with a sink would.”
“Maybe.”
She put her hands on her hips and stared at him. “Do you plan on disagreeing with everything I say?”
“I’m leaving us open to options right now.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
Back in the kitchen, they peered at the walls. She said, “The age of the house could be to our advantage because the structure was built to last. If we gut it to the studs, we can open things up and make it look bigger.”
“What about removing the wall between here and the living room? So that it’s more like one large room rather than two? Maybe like this.” He sketched a quick floor plan to demonstrate what he meant.
Cassie put her hand on the doorjamb and looked up at the ceiling. “That could be a load-bearing wall, so we’ll have to take that into consideration. But I can see what you mean. I like it.”
He grinned and walked toward the kitchen window, tucking the sketchpad under his arm. “So when do we start?”
“We’ll start demolition tomorrow, especially on the bathroom. Tear up the floor in the living room. Take the walls down to the studs to see what we’re working with underneath. And then what comes after that depends on you and your designs.”
The cell phone in her front pants pocket started to vibrate. She pulled it out and stared at the number on the display. It wasn’t one that she recognized. Tempted to let the call go to voice mail, she changed her mind suddenly and swiped to the right to answer it. “Lowman Construction.”
“Cass.”
Her father.
She held her breath, not knowing what to say. She hadn’t heard from him in almost a year, since the day before he disappeared. They’d been working on a job site, and he’d said good-night to her as he always did while she stayed behind to secure it before going home herself. There’d been no indication he was about to flee. No hint that he was even under investigation. She noticed John, so she stepped into the living room for privacy.
“Cass, you don’t really think a contest is going to help, do you? I wouldn’t have done it.”
“You didn’t give me much of a choice. It will help me get the company back.” She blinked quickly to keep the tears from falling. “Daddy, where are you?”
Silence. She held the phone away from her to see that he’d already hung up. She checked her call history and pressed her finger to the last number received. But it only rang until she gave up.
CHAPTER THREE (#u33adde75-63a0-5381-a3a5-d5eec39f393a)
CASSIE NOTED THE time on her truck’s dashboard and swallowed a curse. She’d promised her mother she’d be on time for dinner for once, but she was late by ten minutes already. She could blame the traffic for the delay, but the new house had eaten up her day.
After the phone call from her father, she’d allowed herself only five minutes to ruminate before switching her attention back to the project. If John noticed she was distracted even for a short while, he refrained from mentioning it.
She pulled into her mother’s driveway and stopped behind her sister’s sleek sports car. A quick glance in the rearview mirror revealed that her hair looked as if she’d brushed it that morning and had done nothing to it since then. It was her usual MO. She wasn’t one to waste minutes on her appearance beyond what was necessary. She took in her white shirt and frowned at the smear of something that she had brushed against while she and John discussed plans for their house.
Their house. It almost sounded as if they were a couple. Not that she’d mind if those golden brown eyes of his turned in her direction with something akin to admiration. Or that generous mouth of his did something besides make impossible suggestions or logically reject her ideas.
The front door opened, and her mother stood in the doorway peering at her. Best get inside and take her lumps. She got out of the truck, walked up to her mother and gave her a quick kiss on her cheek. “Sorry I’m late.”
“Your sister arrived ten minutes early.”
Of course, she had. Andie was never late for anything. “I was at the house with my partner, John.”
Her sister gave her a swift hug. “I saw his picture next to yours in the paper. Quite a dish. Think you’ll introduce me?”
Cassie gave her sister a once-over. Andie wore a cream lace top over moss green linen pants that refused to wrinkle. Her long dark hair was swept up in a ponytail with not a strand out of place. How did she make gorgeous look so easy? If John saw her, Cassie would never get a chance.
Not that she was looking for one. They had to work together. Anything else would just complicate matters.
She shrugged. “I’m sure you’ll meet eventually. You could drop by the house once we begin the demo.”
Andie wrinkled her nose. “And get sawdust all over my clothes?” She shuddered, then laughed. “But for a good-looking man, I might take that risk.”
Right. Her sister couldn’t get dirty, which is why she’d been the receptionist at her father’s office instead of being on-site. Cassie sniffed the air and grinned. “You made shepherd’s pie?” It was her favorite as well as her father’s.
“It’s been awhile since we’ve had it,” her mother said.
Since her father had disappeared last summer. Had her mom received a call from him, too?
