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“You have a cat?” Evie asks. “Can I see it?”
“He doesn’t come out,” I tell her. “He lurks, and I think he’s feral. I put food out for him, and we stay out of each other’s spaces.”
“He’ll come out for me,” she says confidently.
Noah exchanges amused glances with me. “I don’t doubt it. But right now, we need to get to work, Evie. Ready?”
“Ready!” she says. “Come over soon, Mr. Henry, okay?”
And I do, finding the small living room full of cheerful chaos. Grace is overseeing Noah on the flooring, and there’s another couple there I don’t recognize. Grace introduces me to her best friend, Brooke, and her husband, Ian, who is Lily Greene’s grandson.
“I met her in the market the other day,” I told him. “She’s very nice.”
Ian looks amused. “Did she ask you a bunch of questions about yourself?”
“Yes.”
He smiles even wider. “No doubt it was stuff she already knew about you. Well, you truly belong in Creekville if you’ve had the full Gran experience. Welcome to the crew.”
“I’m just here to work,” I say awkwardly. I’m not marrying in.
He gives me a strange look. “That’s what I said.”
I nod my head, feeling even more foolish. “Right.”
We work all day, Lisa disappearing with Evie from time to time when Evie gets too bored. Noah asks Tabitha to snap lots of pictures for her during the process.
“She likes to see the change,” he says. “I don’t know if she’ll feel the same when it’s us doing the work, but I figured we better take them in case.”
It’s a small living room and a big crew, but even with a short lunch, I’m still not sure it’s all going to come together. An hour before she’s due home, the walls have been repainted and the carpeting torn out and new bamboo flooring installed, but the old furniture has been crowded into the extra back room, and her front room is now a big empty box.
Brooke and Noah have barely started removing the old front door to replace it with one that Lisa picked up at an estate sale. I can see why they’re doing it: at some point in the past, the previous owners had replaced the original door with a builder-grade stock door. It’s serviceable but has no character.
“Bill’s been working on this,” Lisa says, smiling as the old door comes off its hinges. “He’s really good at restoration.”
The new—old?—door has a glass window for the top half, etched with an art deco design that feels appropriate on a house from that era. He’s painted it a soft, mossy green color that hints at the direction Paige will eventually go with the exterior of the house.
A few minutes before 3:00, Brooke straightens from oiling a hinge and pronounces the door done.
“So now we wait,” Noah says. “Bill says he’s sending her home right at 3:00.”
I’ve been glad to help to compensate in a small way for driving up the price on her. I have a feeling that’s why Noah extended the invitation. But this next part, where all the people who love Paige present this as a gift feels like it would be wrong to intrude on.
While they all scurry with last-minute touches—sweeping up flooring dust, adding houseplants to the built-in shelves, straightening the Roman shades Ian spent most of the day installing—I slip out and return home, tired, sweaty, paint-stained, but pleased.
Every major world religion has a form of penance, and every major system of justice has a path for restitution for a reason; it definitely makes you feel better. Hopefully, today’s efforts have repaid some of the time and money I cost Paige.
Her lawn is still the worst, and I’m dreading when the Christmas lights come on tonight for the season, but . . .
I hope we made her happy today.
Chapter Twenty-One
Paige
Istandonmywalkway, delighted. “What in the world?”
Bill practically pushed me out the door at 3:00 exactly. “I don’t want to get in trouble with Lisa by keeping you, so don’t dawdle. Get home and go hang out with your brother. Maybe if you do, we can get some time with Grace tonight.”
