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  Jenna was about to reply that she also had responsibilities which required her attention, but just as she readied to do so, a gray pickup truck rumbled up the gravel drive. Legacy Renovations was stenciled on the side in blue, along with a phone number bearing the local area code.

  Sarah sensed an opportunity. “That must be the contractor. I should go. Good luck.”

  Her sister was halfway down the steps before Jenna could respond. The pickup’s door squealed on its hinges, grating directly against Jenna’s nerves.

  “Thanks,” she muttered to her sister’s back. “I’m going to need it.”

  Jenna wrinkled her nose. Luck. Patti had said the same thing to her the day of the Terrace Pines pitch. Hopefully the old saying was true—lightning never strikes the same place twice.

  Chapter Ten

  Jenna watched from the sagging front porch of Aunt May’s Victorian as a man opened the driver’s side door and slid out of the pickup. He waved in greeting and she lifted her hand in reply, then sucked in a deep breath. Hopefully this was the guy Grace had mentioned and not some opportunist who’d happened to drive by and see two women standing in front of a crumbling house and looking completely out of their element.

  Then you’d be the curb appeal, she thought and snorted. She took another look at the guy walking up the drive and revised her opinion. Whoever he was, contractor or busybody Good Samaritan, he rocketed right past curb appeal and landed directly on curb candy.

  Jenna tried not to notice how the guy’s toolbelt hung low on his hips and swung when he walked, or how the thin cotton of his T-shirt bunched and rippled over his chest as he strode toward her—his dishwater blond hair that gleamed like gold in the sun. He certainly looked like a contractor with his clipboard and rolled-up blueprints tucked under one very-muscular arm, but had she ever seen a contractor who looked like this before? Definitely not. If she had, she’d have spent more time out in the field and less in front of her drafting table.

  The guy nodded at Jenna and his eyes swept from her to the house. “Absolutely beautiful, isn’t she?”

  “Are we looking at the same house?” Jenna asked. She squinted in the bright afternoon sun and lifted a hand to shield her gaze. “And how do you know it’s a she?”

  He climbed up the front steps and ran his fingers down a place where the trim had come detached from the frame and splintered. “Just look at her,” he instructed, a note of reverence in his voice. “This house is a beautiful old soul. She has given so much of herself she appears to have almost nothing left, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.”

  He turned the full weight of his gaze on Jenna, and she swallowed down her reaction to his stunning Hawaiian sky blue eyes and perfect stubble as he took a step closer. He inspected a crack in the window, tapping at it gently with his fingertip.

  “She may be a little broken, but she still stands strong. We have to remind her of what she’s capable of and who she is, the beauty and strength that still lies within. That she deserves better.”

  What? His last words breathed across her skin, and Jenna had to blink a few times before she found her voice. “Are you a contractor or a poet?” Her voice came out husky.

  The guy grinned, unabashed. He stuck out a hand. “Ben Fletcher, Legacy Renovations. You must be Jenna. Your aunt told me all about you.”

  Jenna accepted a quick squeeze but pulled back her hand before it got too comfortable. His grip felt like a warm bath—a warm bath with a pulse. “She did?”

  Ben nodded as if it was the most natural thing in the world for an old woman to be dishing on her niece to the stranger to whom she’d decided to entrust her home’s renovations after her death. “She spoke very highly of you. I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Did you know Aunt May well?”

  “I used to help out with small fixes. I always wanted to do more work on the house, but May wouldn’t let me. I didn’t understand why at the time.” He winked. “But it makes sense now.”

  Well what on earth did that mean? It doesn’t matter, Jenna decided. They had a job to do, and if Aunt May had decided this was the guy she wanted to trust, then that was good enough for her. “I’m glad it makes sense to someone. Aunt May left me the house and I have to fix it up.”

  Ben crooked an eyebrow. “You have to? You don’t want to?”

  This conversation seemed to be heading into deeper subjects than Jenna was in the mood to entertain. She sighed. “It’s in the will and I live in Los Angeles. I have a job and a boyfriend—” She stopped herself, readjusted. “Or at least I had a boyfriend. My point is, I don’t have time for this in my life right now.”

  Ben gave her a look as if he found her explanation more entertaining than convincing. “Maybe you’re not living the right life, then. Let’s head inside and see what we’re up against.”

  

  As depressing as the outside of the house was, the inside was worse. Time had wreaked havoc on the exterior, but for all the bluster of wind and elements that had made their mark on Aunt May’s once-grand home, a different sort of aging had befallen the inside. This one had been slow and thorough. It had dulled the wallpaper. Buckled the crown molding with water damage. Wrapped itself in dusty cobwebs across every surface and down every threshold. Even the air smelled of loneliness and neglect.

  A loose floorboard cracked under Jenna’s feet as she stepped across the threshold. She lost her footing as the hardwood gave out beneath her and braced herself for a rough landing. Before she could get her hands out in front of her, Jenna found herself swept up in Ben’s arms, staring into the little specks of gold around his pupils. Dimples hid beneath the layer of stubble on his jaw, and freckles decorated the space under his eyes and across the bridge of his nose. Sun-kissed.

  Sunny. Jenna hid her blush behind a look of defiance as she removed herself from Ben’s arms and righted herself on a sturdier area of flooring. She tried to force the appropriate words of gratitude through her lips, but they got stuck in her throat. This was a consult, not a date. Stick to business, Jenna.

  She pulled down the hem of her tank top. “Thank you.”

  Ben bit back a grin as he scratched a note on his clipboard. “Okay, the floor might be a good place to start. The hardwood is original. I can match the boards with engineered wood if there aren’t too many that need to be replaced. Refinish the rest.”

  “I’m sure we can salvage most of them. The original floors and fixtures are part of the house’s charm.” Charm might have been a strong word, but repurposing original materials was not only sustainable but trendy. Plus, using what you already had saved time and money. Jenna took another step farther into the house. Beneath her, another board creaked.

  She froze. Salvaging wouldn’t be possible if she broke every floorboard on the first walk-through.

  “Maybe I’ll go first.”

  Ben’s attempt at chivalry earned him a sharp glare from Jenna, but she gestured him forward. He took a step and another floorboard cracked. When Ben’s arm flung out, Jenna caught it, preventing him from earning a trip to first base with the wooden floor.

  “Great plan.”

  “You’re right. Maybe we should sit and scoot instead.”

  Jenna swallowed a laugh. It would be funny if it wasn’t so terribly, terribly true. So much for salvaging.

  Things weren’t any better when they arrived in the kitchen on tiptoe. Cabinet doors hung from their hinges and the linoleum tiling had begun to curl and peel away from the floor. Jenna tried the faucet over the kitchen sink and muddy brown sludge gurgled forth. She recoiled. The thick liquid not only looked gross but had an unpleasant odor too.

  Ben made another note on his clipboard. “New kitchen. Probably new plumbing.”

  “We need some new hardware, but the cabinet wood is still good, and a new washer should fix the faucet. Use what we have first. The linoleum goes, though. Let’s put down laminate.”

  Ben rolled his gaze up from his clipboard to give Jenna a considering l
ook.

  “What?”

  “Flooring I get, but I figured you’d want to rip all this out, replace it with new.” He motioned to the fixtures and dropping cabinet. “We can source vintage.”

  “Sourcing requires time and research. Not to mention a larger than necessary budget for something that looks real, but isn’t,” she replied. “Part of what makes this house special is its history. You’re the one who said she was a beautiful old soul and deserved to keep her beauty and strength intact. If we can’t keep it, we replace it with something better, not try to fake it.”

  “You’re right—I did say that, but we should give her a bit of a makeover along the way.” Ben tapped the tip of his pencil against his clipboard, then tucked it behind his ear. He pointed at the window that ran along the side of the kitchen’s breakfast nook, narrating as he swept his arm toward the adjacent dining room. “We can double the size of the eastern-facing window to allow more natural light inside—put in a whale window so we can bring in a view of the ocean, too. In the morning, the kitchen will light up like the dawn. Then we’ll knock down this wall”—he gestured at the short pony wall separating the rooms. “And put in a nice big island. It’ll be perfect. What do you think?”

  Jenna considered Ben’s vision. Old Victorians had notoriously closed floor plans, sectioning off the available square footage into small squares that interrupted the flow of the house. A more open floor plan would let the house breathe, and a whale window would provide a breathtaking view of the water—but taking down a wall and opening up a larger window space was a whole project unto itself. The designer in her approved. The organizer did not. “Let’s put a pin in the idea and reevaluate once we know where things stand.”

  Ben made a note on his clipboard, and they moved on, circumventing more dodgy floorboards as they inspected the rest of the rooms on the bottom floor of the house.

  Ben peeked his head in the lower guest bath. “New bathroom?”

  “What? Why?” She cast a look around the small washroom. Of the three in the house, this little alcove beneath the stairs had been her favorite when she’d stayed with her aunt as a girl. Of course, it didn’t look the same now as it had then, but the memories were still as fresh as ever. Aunt May had kept a small looking glass on the vanity. Jenna would study her reflection in the mirror and pretend she was a princess.

  A pang of loss thumped in her chest. The mirror was gone now, along with almost everything else she remembered about the space.

  “I see a wood-look tile—dark wood—and wainscot on the wall about three feet high. Maybe a rustic red paint above that, a walk-in shower, and dual sinks. A lot of potential here,” Ben continued.

  When Jenna shot a curious look his direction, he laughed. “I love bathrooms.”

  “That’s a really weird thing to say.” Weird, but endearing.

  He shrugged, unfazed. “I do some of my best thinking in the shower. Some of my most important work is done before I ever get dressed in the morning. People spend more time than you realize in their bathrooms.”

  “It just needs to be a place to, you know, take care of business,” Jenna argued, just for the sake of being disagreeable. “Let’s not spend too much time or money on it.”

  Ben wrote a second note on his clipboard.

  The two had their real first disagreement on the back porch.

  “We have to replace this porch,” Ben said.

  Jenna groaned. “I see a pattern here.” They’d been through the entire house, all two stories and thirteen rooms. During their inspection, Jenna’s wishful thinking of getting the house up to marketable condition in any reasonable timeframe had dissolved under the reality of a complete gutting. She had taken small comfort in the hope she could repurpose many of the house’s original features and save some money as well as preserve the home’s historic charm. Unfortunately, Ben had wasted no breath pointing out every flaw and fix he saw, along with sharing a list of his ideas. Time and dollar signs stacked up in Jenna’s mind, and her mixed priorities made her eyes cross. The architect in her wanted to focus on design and sustainability. The rest of her wanted to get out from under the house so she could get back to her life.

  Ben was still going on about the back porch. “We’ll build it with PVC—polyvinyl chloride. It has the look of wood, but it’s not affected by weather like wood. We can even build a grill into the deck for a few dollars more since we’re redoing from scratch. Extra function plus curb appeal.”

  Curb appeal. Jenna flinched. “I know what PVC is,” she snapped. “Let’s just tear the whole porch down and put some steps at the door.”

  “Steps?”

  “There will be more backyard space that way.”

  Ben scratched at his temple. His face screwed up in confusion as if she’d just told him she wanted to build a space station in the backyard. “There’s acres of land back here. You don’t need more backyard space. You need a place to sit down with the family and share food and embarrassing stories. Maybe a little swing where a couple can come and sit after dinner and watch the sun go down.”

  Romantic, but impractical. “That’s west,” Jenna said, pointing to the front of the house. “The sun rises in front of the house.”

  “So, maybe before breakfast, then. You could sit out here and watch the sunrise.”

  Jenna sighed. “Wasn’t that the point of widening the window in the kitchen?”

  Ben scowled. He tapped his pencil against his clipboard. “Well, yes. But people do eat more than one meal a day, you know. It’s not exactly a fast-paced life out here on the islands. Function is every bit as important as aesthetic. We’re rebuilding a home, not a commercial space.”

  Aesthetics? Jenna knew all about the price of aesthetics. Something bitter landed on her tongue. She chewed at the inside of her cheek. “No porch. Just steps.”

  Without waiting for Ben’s response, Jenna spun on her heel and headed back inside the house, arriving in the family room. She paused until his footsteps caught up behind her, then pointed an imperious finger at the fireplace. “Cover that up and box it in. Nobody needs a fireplace in Hawaii.”

  “Box it in?” Ben’s voice was incredulous, bordering on angry. “The fireplace is one of the most unique features in the entire house. You want to make it disappear? Look at the character in the brick.”

  Jenna saw something, but it wasn’t character. “You mean the cracks.”

  “I mean the character.”

  A floorboard groaned under Jenna, and heat flared in her cheeks. What was the point in trying to salvage a structure that so desperately wanted to fall apart around her? “Cover it and throw some laminate flooring down.” A few more heartbeats’ worth of hard stares passed, but Jenna wasn’t backing down.

  Neither was Ben. “This is a solid oak floor.” His words came out careful and slightly condescending, with little pauses of frustration between. “The boards in this room are in good shape. Maybe we’ll have to replace a few, but they’re easy to match with engineered wood. With a sander and a nice finish, it’ll pop like new. You can’t put laminate over a floor like this.”

  The heat from Jenna’s cheeks was coursing up her arms. She hadn’t asked to renovate Aunt May’s house, but this was the first design she’d had total control over, and she was going to take it. Then Barrington, Darren, and even Patti could see what she was capable of. Not only would she have this house polished up and ready for sale ahead of schedule, but she’d make sure to get it done under budget too. Take that ten percent.

  “Sure, we can,” she fired back. “Laminate looks like real wood but is more durable. And more cost effective.”

  Ben’s eyebrows knit together. He cracked his neck. Said nothing.

  “Go with a dark finish,” Jenna decided. “We’ll keep the walls light. Old world charm with a contemporary spin. Steel and brass finishes throughout.” She turned her back on Ben, reconsidering the rooms above her head. She’d hoped to leave the upstairs hardwood, too, but a lot of people preferred
a softer flooring where they slept. “And carpet for the bedrooms.”

  A sharp clang behind her let her know Ben had dropped his clipboard.

  “Carpet?”

  “I don’t want any walls knocked down other than what we already agreed upon,” Jenna continued as she made her way to the front door, not bothering to wait for Ben to catch up with her this time. “It’s too time consuming. If anything, we can put in more windows to let in more natural light, but get my approval before you do anything. Otherwise, that should do it.”

  She held out her hand to shake on the deal, but Ben kept his arms pinned to his side. “I’m sorry. I’m not the guy for this job.”

  Jenna took a deep breath. “What? What do you mean? It’s a job. It’s a job with a big budget.”

  “And it should be done right,” Ben replied. “But you’re not interested in doing it right. And I’m not interested in doing it wrong.”

  This wasn’t a moral debate. “It should be done my way—it’s my house. My budget.”

  Ben crooked an eyebrow, and even his dimples seemed to be frowning. “On paper, sure. But you have no intention of keeping this house, or do you?”

  “No.” The word was sour. Jenna crossed her arms.

  “So, it’s a flip and that’s fine, but it should still be done right. Someone is going to live here, maybe raise a family here.” He took a meaningful step backward, giving Jenna the full measure of his gaze. “I told you, your aunt told me all about you.”

  Jenna scoffed. What was that supposed to mean?

  “I know you’re an architect,” Ben explained, eyes flashing. “And I don’t doubt for a second you pour every ounce of energy and love you have into the projects you work on. So why not put the same effort and care into this house? Doesn’t your aunt deserve that—don’t you?”

  Ben’s eyes bored holes into Jenna’s, and it was she who broke the staring contest first, shifting her gaze out the window. “Look, I didn’t ask to be put in this situation. If it were up to me, I’d put the house on the market and let the new owners make renovation decisions on their own. My job is to design new buildings, not heal broken ones.”