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“It’s just Hank,” she said.“No S on the end.”
“Ah, I see,” Cass said.“Well, what can I do for you?”
“I was at lunch the other day with someone,” she said, and she spoke in the slow, Southern way Cass had heard a lot of here in Carolina.“And she showed me some of your work.I went online and looked some more, and I’m interested in you.”
“Okay,” Cass said.“Are we talking a kitchen redesign?A house?New build?”She needed more direction than “I’m interested in you.”She flipped the page in her calendar, looking at next week.She flew back to Texas on Saturday, and honestly, she couldn’t wait.
“This is for my country club, dear.”
“Your…country club.”Cass blinked and looked up from her calendar.Beryl stood at the back door, and she moved to slide it open for him.He’d bound down to the beach, barking and biting at the waves as they came ashore.But he always came back.
Off he went as AnnaMae said, “Yes, dear.I own the Highmarshall Country Club out near the Sea Pines.”
“Oh, yes,” Cass said, though she could barely navigate to the grocery store and back.“Lovely area over there.”She had been to the Sea Pines area of the island, because they had good shopping.And a lot of wealth in that part of town, including apparently, a country club.
“Yes,” AnnaMae said.“The club is in dire need of a refresh.Dining hall.Kitchen.Lobby.Guest rooms.Conference rooms.Locker rooms.All of it.”
Cass moved out onto her patio.“A refresh?Like new paint and carpet?Or a redesign?Like a new layout, with new paint and new carpet?”
“All of the above,” AnnaMae drawled, taking forever to deliver the line.
“I’d need to see the scope of the project,” she said.“I have a free consultation, but it has to be scheduled, and I have to be on-site where the design will take place.”She’d learned that long ago.She would not just “pop by” to go over the layout, take measurements, or get a potential client’s wishlist without an appointment.At least an hour.
And for AnnaMae Hank-with-no-S?Probably two hours.
“What’s your schedule like?”she asked.
Cass returned to the house and flipped the pages in her calendar.“I could get you in this week on…” She paused, as if she was so busy she couldn’t make it work.And she was.Her friend was here.Her kids.Harrison.Her other clients—potentially three by this afternoon.“Thursday morning,” she said.“Or next week before noon on Monday and Tuesday, and afternoon on Wednesday and Thursday.”
“Lisa?”AnnaMae asked.
“We could make Monday morning work, ma’am,” she said.“If Miss Haslam can meet at ten-thirty.”
“Ten-thirty next Monday is great,” Cass said, wondering how AnnaMae had gotten her assistant on the line too.“I’ll put you down then.I’ll see you at the country club.”
“I’ll make sure you have a code and a pass to get through the gate,” Lisa said, her voice polite and professional.One did not get as close to Southern royalty as she did without those qualities.
“Great,” Cass said.“Thanks.”The call ended, and she turned back to outdoors, as Beryl was still out there.She whistled for him, and the dog came sprinting through the loose sand.Then the harder packed stuff with grasses, and then up her steps in a single bound.
She laughed at him, scrubbed his head, and let him in the house before she slid the door closed and sealed the heat out.
Her phone chimed again, and Cass almost wanted to throw it into the ocean so she could ignore it easier.This was a message from Harrison, though, so she looked at it with different expectations than a business call.
Did you get the treat I left for you?he asked.
She hadn’t seen anything on the front porch.No, she said, heading in that direction.Where did you leave it?
Conrad had gone to work while she’d been at the airport, and she wouldn’t put it past him to have taken something from the porch.
On your kitchen counter.
She turned back around.He’d been in her house?She wasn’t sure why that surprised her, only that it did.She couldn’t smell his cologne, and if he’d stopped by earlier that morning, he’d have been wearing it.
She looked up from her phone, her eyes sweeping the island countertop.How she’d missed the two stacked blue pastry boxes, she’d never know.“Wow,” she said with a smile.Of course Harrison would take care of her and her friends and family.That was what Harrison did best.
She tapped to call him instead of using her slow thumbs to text.He answered with a chuckle and then, “I don’t tease you about your wife.Leave me be.”A pause, and then he said, “Hey, sweetheart.”
“You brought two boxes,” she said.She reached for the first one, wondering who on his construction crew was teasing him.She pulled in a breath at the rows of beautiful pastries.“Of peach-mango tarts.”
