AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The look on his face made her feel good in a way she hadn’t since her wedding day.
“Thank you,” she said. The lump of emotion in her throat made the words come out raspy. “I’m not sure what my life is going to look like from here, but I’m trying.”
He kissed her cheek as if he couldn’t stop touching her. “And lucky for you, one of Atlanta’s premier architects is going to spend the next few days designing you a kick-ass apartment over the new store.”
“I’m excited about that,” she confessed. “But the building’s so old, there’s no elevator. I’m not sure your knee can handle multiple trips up and down.”
“You let me worry about my leg,” he said. “I’m making a mental note to see what we can do about adding an elevator shaft.”
“You can do that?”
“A small one, yes.”
Behind her, the timer on the oven went off reminding her to tend to the soup. “Go do something,” she said. “And let me finish getting dinner together.”
“Yes, ma’am.” His grin was naughty, but he left the room, giving her some much-needed breathing space.
She had the simple meal on the table in another hour. When she called for Harry, and he joined her, the domesticity of the scene sent alarm bells ringing. What was she doing playing house with a man like Harry? She needed to get him back to Atlanta ASAP and then set about breaking the ties that bound them together.
No more shared living spaces. No more borrowing cars. No more stealing breathless kisses at odd moments.
Harry was dangerous. Cate knew that. And as much as she was tempted to take what he had to give, her intuition told her she might not survive the fallout.
Seventeen
After dinner was consumed and the meal cleaned up, Harry went out to his car and brought in a white plastic tube. “Let’s look at the preliminary drawings,” he said. He spread a stack of large blueprints on the dining room table.
“Drawings?” Cate was puzzled. “But you’ve never been inside the place.”
“An old classmate of mine works at the courthouse. He pulled the tax records and some appraisals for me. All I needed was the basic outlines. Here. Come look at this and see if it’s what you had in mind.”
Cate approached the table with trepidation. Not that she thought Harry’s work would be subpar, but because standing next to him, hip to hip, seemed risky. “What am I looking at?” she asked, trying not to get too close.
He put small weights on the four corners and pointed. “This is the ground floor. From what you’ve told me, not much needs to change there.”
“No. But I was thinking of adding a few built-in display shelves with some targeted lighting.”
“Great idea. Those could fit here or here or both.” He flipped the top sheet to one side. “This is the upstairs where you want to have an apartment. It looks like the plumbing will have to be replaced, which is not altogether a bad thing. You can do some upgrades. I’ve penciled in this wall. That gives you storage on one side and a decent-sized efficiency apartment here. If you think you can get by with less storage, I could always make the bedroom separate, and you could have a tiny kitchen and bath.”
“That’s a lot to think about.”
He straightened. “You’ve got time.”
“And the cost estimates?”
“Won’t be bad. My work will be free, of course. And I have a few sources here and there where we can get building materials. Sometimes on a huge project in Atlanta there are leftovers. If I round up what you’ll need, your costs will be minimal. Scrounging is fun. It’s what I did in the early days.”
His genuine enthusiasm made her believe this could really happen. “How did you find the time to do all this?” she asked, waving a hand at the neatly drawn pages.
Harry shrugged. “In the evenings. I enjoyed it.”
Cate analyzed his explanation. In the beginning—when he left Blossom Branch—he’d given her the impression he’d be in Atlanta a few days, not two weeks. If he was so darned busy, why did he futz around withherstuff?
Had he honestly been avoiding her?
“Thank you, Harry,” she said. “I really appreciate your help.”
“I haven’t done anything yet. Not really. Tomorrow will be the test. Once we do a walkthrough in the morning, I may have to alter a few things.”
