Page 16 of Finding Forever

“How much,” she asked. “And how long will it take?”

Dave pulled another piece of plaster off the wall. “I don’t know yet. Give me an hour with it.”

Beth bit her bottom lip. For one awful moment, she couldn’t think past everything that might go wrong. “We have a spring deadline and a council that’s already looking for a reason to stop funding the project.” Her voice climbed higher than she meant it to. “This is the kind of thing they warned Natalie about. If it costs as much as the other wall to fix, we’ll have no money left to finish the project.”

“Beth,” Dave said, cutting in before she could go further. “I’ll give you a good estimate as quickly as I can. Until then, don’t worry.”

It was all very well for Dave. Telling her not to worry meant nothing to a woman who had been waiting for something like this to happen.

“I should call Natalie before this gets any bigger.”

Dave set down the pry bar and looked straight at her. “This is part of the job. Old buildings hide things. Natalie knew that going into the project.”

Beth wanted to argue with him. She got as far as taking a breath, but nothing useful came out.

“Come over here for a second.” Dave stepped sideways to give her room beside him. “Look at what’s left of the wood. It’s old growth and stronger than most of what we can buy now. Whatever we replace it with needs to be just as good.”

Beth frowned at the exposed timber. “Does it have to be new wood?”

Dave looked at her. “Only if we can’t find anything else. What are you thinking?”

“Ben Thompson might be able to help. There’s an old hay barn on his Christmas tree farm. Last month, the roof caved in after a storm.” Beth was talking faster now, the panic converting into something more useful. “His wife, Kylie, told me they’ll have to demolish it. If the timber’s still sound, Ben might let you salvage what you need instead of hauling it away.”

Dave was quiet for a moment. Then something close to respect lit his face. “That could work. For a job like this, good reclaimed timber could be better than new.” He glanced at Hank. “Get Ben Thompson’s number. If he says yes, you and I can pull what we need out of the barn in a day.”

“I’ll call his wife, Kylie, first,” Beth said. “If anyone can get him to say yes, it’s her.”

Hank straightened and looked from Beth to Dave and back again. A grin worked its way across his face. “Well, that solves that.”

“It solves the lumber issue,” Dave said. “The structural engineer still has to sign it off. We’ll lose three or four days.”

“That’s better than two weeks,” Beth said.

Dave nodded. “It’s a lot better.”

Beth breathed a sigh of relief. When she’d first looked at the wall, she’d seen another problem threatening to derail the project. But with a little creative thinking, they might have saved a lot of time and money.

With the possibility of a budget-friendly solution ahead of them, Beth studied the wall in a different way. Nothing about it had changed, but the way she looked at it had.

Maybe that was worth remembering the next time a problem came along.

Chapter 11

The following day, Dave parked his truck beside Beth’s at the end of a long gravel driveway. He cut the engine and looked at the Christmas trees growing all around them.

Back in December, the rows had been full of the sound of chainsaws and kids arguing over which tree was the right one. Now, it was quiet in a way that seemed completely out of place.

He climbed out of his truck and joined Beth beside hers. “Ben said to go around the back of the Christmas shop. He’ll meet us there.”

Beth pulled a woolly hat over her head. “Sounds great.”

They walked past the front of the big red barn that had been turned into the Christmas shop. Even though it was closed for the next couple of months, a wreath still hung on each of the doors. Dave felt a small twist of satisfaction when he saw them. He’d helped frame the partition walls inside the store and painted them red and green to match the Christmas theme Kylie had designed.

Ben and Kylie were waiting by the fence when they found them, two four-wheelers parked nose to nose behind them.

“Morning.” Ben held out his hand to Dave and Beth. “Kylie told me you’d like some of the timber out of the old barn.”

“Only if it works with the framing already in the arts center,” Dave said. “We appreciate being able to take a look.”