Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 109368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 547(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 365(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 547(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 365(@300wpm)
Not my business, I reminded myself.
“Aha!” Tierney held the phone up to my face. “This is what we’re thinking for the dining room.” She scrolled through the mood board. I was pleasantly surprised to see a contemporary twist on traditional Victorian coastal design. I’d half expected her to turn the B and B into a too cold, too modern guesthouse along the lines of some of the hotels in the empire she’d given up.
And who gives up their rights to a multibillion-dollar hotel chain?
I tried to focus on the B and B since it was where I would be working for at least the next six months. “That looks out of place.” I tapped on the image of the antique Welsh dresser.
“Right.” She looked up at me and gave me a smile. Her smile was too sweet. I felt it in places I really shouldn’t.
Okay, aye, this was a problem.
“I included it because my grandmother had one like it and I’d love to incorporate the idea into the dining room but with a modern twist. So far, I’m having no such luck finding a piece of furniture that will work with the design.” She shrugged. “I’ll keep looking.” Turning back to her phone, she tapped the screen a few times. “Now this is one of the bunk-bed rooms, and I saw this design where they custom built three bunk beds, two beneath and then one on top going the opposite way, like this. Do you think you could build something like that? It would be a great way to increase capacity in what is a smaller room.”
I studied the photo she showed me, moving in closer to her. It was a clever design. “Aye, I can do that.”
She turned to stare up at me, her eyes widening ever so slightly upon realizing how close we were. A little splash of red on her cheeks and an almost imperceptible intake of breath told me she was affected by my nearness. Her pupils dilated.
So the pampered princess was attracted to me too.
Aye, this was a problem.
Too young. Too sweet. Too much my client.
Deciding the best path forward was to ignore the unspoken awareness of each other, I asked more gruffly than I intended, “What?”
Tierney swallowed and looked away. “Uh, can I see your workshop?”
“Want to know if I’m any good?” Now, why did that sound dirtier than intended?
“Something like that.”
A minute later we were walking across the clearing to my barn.
“Do you have solar panels somewhere?” my companion asked.
“Aye. Beyond the trees where they get constant light.”
“Do you have plumbing?”
Her curiosity was endearing and also annoying because I wondered what else she’d become curious about. “Aye. It was a bitch to put in and more expense than any normal person would spend to connect to Glenvulin’s sewage line.”
“Oh, I’d spend it in a heartbeat.” She gave me a smile filled with camaraderie. It really was the sweetest smile I’d ever seen. “I once stayed with some friends on an island in the Philippines. Beautiful. Stunning. But no plumbing. The owners of the rental were using composting toilets. Sounds fine, right? It’s not fine. They weren’t maintained properly and three of us got food poisoning. The smelly kind. These composting toilets were not equipped to deal with that shit. Literally.”
I grunted with amusement as I let her into my workshop. The earthy aroma of wood hit my nostrils in a comforting, familiar way as we entered.
“And I’m talking to you about fecal matter,” she murmured, her cheeks flushing ever so slightly. “I’m doing great. Got stuck on your island. Inconveniencing you. And now I’m talking about disgusting bodily functions.”
“Everyone shits.” I shrugged, brushing past her to switch on the lights. “Even the king.”
Tierney laughed, and the sound, for some reason, made me think of these wee silver bells my mum used to hang from an arched doorway that divided the living room from the entrance. She hung them there every Christmas. The sound of her laughter was fitting, considering Tierney’s surname. “I think that’s blasphemy.”
“Only if he heard me.” I turned to watch the bulbs taking a second to warm up and illuminate the space.
“Maybe he did. He is the king.” Her gaze darted around the workshop and landed on my current piece. A client on the Isle of Skye had commissioned me to make a rocking chair based on a photo of her grandmother’s old chair.
“This is gorgeous.” Tierney strode over to it, her hand hovering above the carvings along the side panels. “You’re not merely a carpenter. You’re an artist.”
Uncomfortable with her effusive compliment, I stared down at the chair I’d spent the past few weeks working on between other projects. “I’m just copying the photo my client gave me.”
“Well, it’s amazing. Also this place smells amazing.”
It did. At least it did to me. I worked with a lot of hardwoods, which had a smoky scent. There was something calming about it. I always felt myself unwind while I crafted items out of wood.