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I wriggled out of the tight cupboard space and stood, flipping the flow on full.
Beside me, Jackson squinted at the repair job. “Reckon you’ve done it.”
I huffed a breath, content, but still wired as hell from lack of sleep and a burning need to keep going.
Tomorrow was Mia’s day off, according to Daisy. I wanted the place as ready for her as possible so she and Tobi could envisage moving in and be excited about it.
Behind the scenes, there was a small army hustling to find furniture and home goods. I’d made calls and set people into action, Daisy doing the same.
With the help of my crew and others from the estate, we’d fitted a kitchen and finished up the half-installed bathroom. The double-glazed windows were in, the electrics done, and the heating checked. The place needed a good clean down, but the trade work was mostly complete. I’d even walked the place to carry out a risk assessment, looking out for anything that could injure an active four-year-old.
“Damn, this place is incredible,” Daisy said from the door.
I spun around, panicked that Mia was with her. I wasn’t ready. But it was just her and my brother, both of them checking out the progress from the bright-white spotlights overhead in the kitchen, to the neatly sealed countertops. Originally, this had been Daisy’s project, but I’d taken over almost entirely.
“What’s left to do?” Ben asked.
“Not much for anyone else.” I twisted to Jackson and Raphael, plus the couple of others who’d helped out this afternoon. “Ye did great. Go on home for the evening.”
“Thank you, everyone,” Daisy added. “I’m sure Mia is going to love it. We’ll give her the tour tomorrow.”
There were smiles and backslapping, but I couldn’t share their sense of completion. Urgency still filled me. Despite what I’d said to Ben, too many priorities competed for me to think about next.
The cottage quietened with most others leaving. In the bathroom, I screwed on the showerhead, trying not to imagine the curvy, gorgeous woman who’d be using it. When I came back out, Ben regarded me from across the living room.
“Aren’t ye quitting for the day?”
I shook my head. “Naw yet.”
Daisy joined him. “You’ve been up since three this morning. Mia told me all that happened with the drive to get Tobi and all the drama that went with it. You should rest.”
Spreading my arms, I gestured to the open space. “What’s the first thing Mia is going to see when she comes here?”
My brother furrowed his brow. “The transformation from her previous visit? It couldn’t be more different.”
I switched my gaze to Daisy.
She tangled her fingers together. “If it was me, I’d notice the layers of dust. That’s what you’re getting at, isn’t it?”
I snapped out my hand, my action bigger than I intended, but adrenaline was still riding me. “Exactly. She cleans for a living. She can’t come here and not see the mess, no matter how good the rest of it. Believe me, I know her expectations are low. People have taught her that she isn’t deserving of more. But fuck that. We’re going to welcome her here, not burden her with more work.” I marched back into the kitchen and returned with a broom. “I’m going to spend the rest of the evening cleaning, then in the morning, hopefully we’ll have sourced some furniture. When Mia and Tobi set foot in the door, this is going to feel like a home.”
For a long moment, my brother’s girlfriend just stared at me. I didn’t know what she saw. As far as I was concerned, I was doing what anyone else would do who’d taken the lead on a project. Fixing up a place to live for people who needed it. Nothing more, nothing less. If I was stressed, it was probably tiredness.
I’d rest when it was over.
Daisy clucked her tongue then switched her gaze to Ben. “Can you drive home and fetch my cleaning kit? Valentine’s right, and we’re going to work alongside him.”
My brother took up his keys and kissed Daisy’s cheek, muttering something to her with an interesting look coming my way.
I didn’t understand their scrutiny, but the help was welcome. Mia deserved it.
For the next several hours, we swept, scrubbed, cleared out all the remaining rubbish, mostly packaging from fittings, and polished the fuck out of that cottage until it was sparkling.
By the time I dropped onto the mattress on the floor of Raphael’s room at Castle Braithar, barely awake enough to hold a conversation or joke about how neither of us was willing to sleep in the spare bedroom of the apartment Ariel shared with Jackson, I was finally ready to accept sleep.
Damn if I didn’t dream of Mia’s expression at the first glance of her new home.
The next morning, the people of the McRae estate came up gold.
