“Exactly like that. How long do you think it would take me to build the shelves?”
“Would you be using your fixer-upper guy’s YouTube videos?”
“Ha ha. I’m being serious.”
“So am I. Hunter and I can do it for you in a day. You can do the painting though.”
“Thanks for your vote of confidence.” She walked to the window and held out the drapes. “I’ll have to change these and the bedding. I want to go white, romantic, and flowy.” She tapped a finger to her lips. “I’ll put a rose under a glass dome on the middle shelf above the bed. And I’d love to find a cute teacup and teapot. You know, like Mrs. Potts and Chip. They’d look amazing on the gold breakfast tray I saw at the antique store.”
“I might be able to help you out there. I bought two of my nieces Mrs. Potts teapots and Chip teacups for Christmas a couple years ago. The oldest might be willing to part with hers. I’ll give my sister a call.” He cocked his head. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“For a guy who doesn’t do relationships, you obviously have a wonderful relationship with your family. You sound like you’re a pretty great uncle too.”
“My brothers-in-law hate me.” He smiled, disconnecting when the call went to voice mail. “I’ll give her a minute.” Sure enough, his phone rang a second later. Only it was a FaceTime call. He hit Accept, and his thirteen-year-old niece’s face filled the screen. “Hey, princess. You’re just the girl I wanted to talk to.”
“Mama is not happy with you, Uncle.” She frowned. “Who’s that?”
He swore under his breath. Ellie had moved to check out the wall and into his niece’s line of sight. “Ah, my friend.”
“Mama, Uncle has a girlfriend!”
“No, Uncle does not have a girlfriend. He has a friend.” He bowed his head when Ellie moved in beside him and waved at his niece.
“You have no idea what you’ve just done,” he said out of the side of his mouth.
“Hi, I’m Annalise.” His niece waved, grinning from ear to ear. There was nothing that his nieces and sisters wanted more than to marry him off.
“What a beautiful name. I’m Elliana, but everyone calls me Ellie.”
“I’m named after my nana. She died when I was eight. She wanted to join my pop pop in heaven. She loved him very much, didn’t she, Uncle?”
“She did.” His parents had died six months apart. They’d been married for fifty-five years. His sister joined his niece on the screen. “Hey, Val. I was—” he began, about to get out the reason for the call so he could get off it ASAP.
“Hi, Ellie. I’m Val,” his sister said, totally ignoring him. “So how long have you known my baby brother?”
“Seven months. We met at my cousin’s wedding. Not that we really got to know each other that well. We just danced and talked. But now that he’s living here with Ryder, we’ve gotten to know each other better.”
Nate shot Ellie a stop talking look. He got that Val’s penetrating stare was unnerving, but the more Ellie said, the more his sister would make of it. “Listen, Val—”
“My baby brother’s living with you?”
His niece disappeared from the screen. In the background he heard her whispering to someone that he had a girlfriend and that she was beautiful and really, really nice and that they were talking to her now.
He glared at his sister, who was pretending to ignore him, but he caught her smirk.
“No. Well, I mean yes,” Ellie said, “but not in the way it sounds. I run my grandfather’s inn. The Mirror Lake Inn in Highland Falls.”
“Is that my brother’s room you’re in?”
“No. Nate’s and Ryder’s rooms are down the hall. I’m planning to redecorate this one in a Beauty and the Beast theme.” She filled his sister in on her plans and Sunday’s deadline, taking her on a tour of the room while telling her the changes she was thinking of making.
“I love your ideas, Ellie. What are you doing with the other rooms?”
“This is the first one Nate and I discussed. You know, for a guy who doesn’t do romance, your brother has been surprisingly helpful.” She walked past him and out the door, telling Val the themes for the other rooms.
Nate sat on the end of the bed and bowed his head as the two of them laughed and chatted like old friends.
“Oh, hi. Wow, there are a lot of you.” Ellie laughed as his sisters and nieces introduced themselves.
Nate shot off the bed and down the hall to grab the phone from Ellie’s hand. “Okay. Listen up. Ellie and I aren’t—”
“Uncle has a girlfriend. Uncle has a girlfriend,” his younger nieces sang.
“Give the phone back to Ellie,” his second-oldest sister said over his still-singing nieces. She was even bossier than Val.
“No. We’re helping Ellie. I called—”
“Nate, I want to hear your sisters’ and nieces’ ideas for the rooms. Val already gave me a good idea for Jamie and Claire’s.” Ellie took the phone from him. “Okay. Where were we?”
“You were about to tell my sisters how you met Nate,” he heard Val say as Ellie walked into the other room.
Chapter Fourteen
Anxious to get an early start on Beauty and the Beast’s room, Ellie opened the guest room door. Sunlight streamed through the window and danced on a beautiful white comforter. She stopped in the middle of stepping into the room, staring at the Mrs. Potts teapot and two Chip teacups sitting in the middle of the bed, a glass dome with a red rose suspended inside on the nightstand.
Pressing a hand to her mouth, she turned at the sound of heavy footfalls. Nate frowned, coming to stand behind her. “What’s wrong?”
She stared up at him. “I thought you left because you were mad at me.”
Ryder, Joe, and the judge had arrived while she was on the phone with Nate’s family. He’d barely spoken two words to her while they ate the lasagna from Zia Maria’s, and then he’d taken off on his motorcycle. He hadn’t returned by the time she’d finally given up and gone to bed. A part of her worried that his family’s insistence they were a couple had sent him running to Tiff. If only to prove to himself and to Ellie that he had no intention of being tied down.
“But you went to your sister’s and got everything I wanted for the room.” She hugged him. “Thank you. You have no idea how much this means to me, Nate.”
His chest expanded under her cheek, and he put an arm around her, smoothing his other hand down her hair. “I wasn’t mad at you, Ellie. My sisters drive me crazy, and I knew what I’d be walking into. They’re seriously nuts.”
Yet he’d still gone—for her. Maybe she was making more of it than she should, but his actions last night made her wonder if he’d had a change of heart and was now open to exploring their feelings for each other. Get a grip, she told herself. He was just being a friend.
She tipped her head back. “They’re seriously nuts about you. They absolutely adore you, Nate. For good reason, from what I heard.” If she hadn’t already had a crush on him, she would have developed one after talking to his sisters and nieces.