Page 22 of Restored By You

He has opinions and he defends them, but when I push back on the kitchen island—too big, it’ll crowd the window, the light’s the whole point of that room—he goes quiet, stares at it, and then pulls out a pencil and redraws it smaller right there on the paper.

“Better?” he asks.

I nod, and we move on, and my whole chest is doing something complicated about it.

I’ve spent my entire life pitching. To my father, to buyers, to clientele, to people who simply nodded while waiting for me to finish. I have never once been listened to this efficiently.

“That reminds me.” I dig into my folder and pull out the contract I printed at the resort’s business center this afternoon, along with a blank check. “If we’re really doing this, I want it official. The first contractor mishap taught me that lesson.” I laugh awkwardly.

Rhett’s brow lifts. “You printed a contract.”

“I print everything. It’s a real paper-problem.” I slide his estimate back across the table, where I’ve signed and dated the bottom line. “There. And…” I click my pen, scribble out the deposit amount we discussed, and hand it over. “Half now, half on completion, like you said. Don’t spend it all on fried pickles.”

He takes the check, and I watch his eyes drop to it, holding a beat too long. “Winton,” he says. “Shea Winton.”

“That’s me.” I cap my pen. “Shea Winton, officially your most high-maintenance client.”

He sets the check down on the table between us. “Any relation to the resort up the mountain?”

Oh…

Right. Of course. Small town with exactly one resort, and it has my last name plastered across the entrance sign. “Yeah, actually.” I reach for my mojito, suddenly needing something to do with my hands. “My father owns it. He owns a bunch of them, all over. It’s kind of his whole thing.” I wave a hand, aiming for breezy and landing somewhere south of it. “We’re staying up there, actually. The suite. He, um, he set it up for Tyler and me while he’s off honeymooning with my new stepmom.” I fight not to cringe on the last word.

Rhett doesn’t say anything right away. His gaze moves from the check to me, unreadable, and I brace for… I don’t even know what. The shift? The recalibration people do when they find out whose daughter I am. When the dollar signs go up behind their eyes, I stop being a person and start being an opportunity.

But it doesn’t come.

“Huh,” is all he says. He folds the check once and tucks it into his back pocket. He picks his beer back up like nothing happened. “Small world.”

And that’s it. He lets it go. I don’t know why that undoes me more than any reaction would have. I breathe a silent sigh of relief and return my attention to the hand drawn restoration slash minor renovation project we’re now locked in on.

“Do you like to draw?” I ask, following the lines of the back patio with my finger.

When he doesn’t answer right away, I chance a glance in his direction. He’s staring at me, brow furrowed at an odd angle. I smile. “I’m not judging. I only ask because I do, too. Clothes, mainly.” My gaze returns to the house drawn between us.

“Why clothes?” he asks, and I have to laugh.

“I’m a fashion designer and stylist. I work for some big names and big mouths.”

His grin widens. “Ah, that makes so much sense.”

“Why do you say that?”

He gestures to me. “You’re too beautiful for a place like this.”

My heart nearly stops dead in my chest, my face heating. Before I can respond, however, the food arrives and the man with a guitar in the corner starts up something slow. Tyler eats an entire basket of fries, and Rhett slides the basket of fried pickles—which are surprisingly delicious—across the table toward him.

By nine o’clock the plans are rolled up and the folder is closed, but neither of us has mentioned leaving.

Tyler’s found the pool table. He is standing in front of it with the grim concentration of someone who’s been trying to land some ball and stick trick he saw online for the last ten minutes.

“He’s okay,” Rhett says. Not a question, exactly.

“He’s fifteen and his mother dropped him in Montana with a stepsister he met a week ago.” I turn my glass in a slow circle on the table. “So. Define okay.”

“Seems like he’s got somebody paying attention to him.”

I snort at that. “He hates me.”