Not that she was going to be vacationing or taking time off any time soon.
With a sigh, Susannah sat down on her sofa and looked out the front window. Now Colton was walking around out there and even though she couldn’t hear him, she could tell he was irritated and desperately trying to make his point.
As she continued to stare at him through the window, it reminded her of another time not so long ago when she did the same…
If it wasn’t one thing, it was another, she thought. At some point, Pops was going to have to deal with the fact that this old house needed more than some minor repairs. Another tree limb had fallen and cracked several of the deck steps. Jake was sending one of the guys from his construction crew over to check it out and she hoped she’d be able to get a few words in before her grandfather did. Maybe if she could gently tell this worker how her grandfather needed to be nudged into doing more than a patch job, she’d have a chance of making some headway.
The sound of a car door slamming had Susannah walking to her bedroom window and peering out.
And her heart actually felt like it skipped a beat.
It had been a long time since the mere sight of a man had her feeling quite like this – it felt foreign and then a little exciting.
Turning to glance at her reflection in the mirror, she frowned. She was a forty-five-year-old woman and when she looked in the mirror she saw…a forty-five-year-old woman.
Well that’s depressing.
Normally she wasn’t quite so critical of herself. On an average day, she felt fairly young and sassy. But now that she was going downstairs to talk to a man who had her feeling like a giddy teenager, she felt every one of her forty-plus years.
Smoothing a hand over her dirty blonde hair, she looked at her reflection again and sighed. Had she known she was going to feel like this, she would have put a little more effort into how she was dressed and maybe put on a little makeup, but it was too late for that now. With nothing left to do, Susannah left her room and went down the stairs and out onto the front porch.
There was no sign of her grandfather and for that she was relieved. When the man from Coleman Construction turned around, she raised her hand to wave, smiled, and…yeah, her heart fluttered again.
He was tall with dark hair that was grey at the temples and when he smiled back she could see he had dimples. Her feet felt like they were glued to the spot and she couldn’t move. Not that it mattered. He sauntered over and Susannah swore his eyes never left hers.
Even though he was wearing sunglasses.
“Hey,” he said softly, with a bit of a Southern drawl. He held out his hand to her. “I’m Colton Hale. I’m here to take a look at the back deck.”
Susannah reached out and shook his hand and had to stifle a moan of pleasure. His hand was large and warm, his skin rough.
And it felt better than it should have.
Swallowing hard, she hoped she didn’t look foolish. “Hi, Colton. I’m Susannah Westbrook – Ezekiel’s granddaughter. We’ve been expecting you.”
He took off his sunglasses as he stepped up onto the porch. She noticed he had sky blue eyes and she definitely had to force herself not to stare. Colton Hale was everything she found attractive in a man – tall, rugged, and exceedingly polite.
Something she found very endearing as they walked through the house discussing the problem with the deck. They had barely made it out the back door when her grandfather approached them.
“Ah, Colton!” Ezekiel said with a smile. “I was hoping you were the one Jake was going to send. Come on, let me show you the damage we’ve got!”
Colton looked at her with a lopsided grin. “It was nice meeting you, Susannah. I hope we get to see each other again.” And this time when he shook her hand, his touch lingered.
And just like that, she found herself hoping for the same thing.
And that was how it all began.
It started with him coming over for that one repair, but then it was only two weeks later that Hurricane Amelia hit and the work on the house began. For as much as she had wanted to renovate the big family home for years, it still saddened her how it ended up finally happening. She did her best to preserve the family history and stay true to the design of the house, but she also had fun with decorating it.
And Colton had been there for every step of it.
They were probably the only two people who had been here every single day and seen the entire transformation. She used to tease him how the house was as much his as it was hers simply because of the time and attention he put into it. And here he was still putting in time and attention even when she was certain it was the last place he wanted to be.
She wasn’t a fool. She had seen the wariness on his face when he climbed from the truck earlier. So many things were on the tip of her tongue to say to him – to apologize, to explain herself – but she pushed it all aside and opted to stick to business because it was safer. Her ex used to tell her how she always tried to make everything about herself and it was something she was very aware of. The last thing she wanted was for Colton to feel that way about her so maybe it was better to simply not talk about herself and her feelings.
But it was slowly killing her.
Unable to take her eyes off of him, she watched as he came back around to the front of the house. He paced the driveway as he continued to talk on the phone. She knew how knowledgeable he was about everything that had to do with construction and on this particular job and she had no doubt he was making his point for why everything that was done was done to code.
She almost felt bad for the person on the other end of the line.
Almost.
In the blink of an eye he was sliding his phone back into its clip on his belt and walking back toward the front porch.
Susannah jumped to her feet and met him in the foyer. “Well?” she asked nervously. “How did it go?” It killed her to see how uncomfortable he looked and she knew it was only partly because of whatever transpired on the phone.
“Well, we need to put a couple of reinforcements on the deck, which isn’t a big deal.”
“O-kay…”
“But I made him take a look at all the reports and permits on the driveway and the fact that this is a historical property and as such, there are certain codes that are grandfathered in.” He shrugged. “We came to an agreement that it’s fine and nothing needs to be done to it.”
“Really?” she cried excitedly.
He nodded. “Yup.”
“So...that’s it? It’s all taken care of already?”
Nodding, Colton replied, “Yup. We had all the permits done correctly and if we modify the deck with some extra bracing and do some strategic solar lights, you’ll be fine.”
“Wow, I...I don’t even know what to say. That seemed...I mean...I thought…”
“Yeah, it was a little anticlimactic,” he agreed with a low laugh. They stood in companionable silence for several minutes before he took a step back. “Uh, I’m going to head to the building supply place down in Wilmington and get what we need. I should be back after lunch and I’ll get it all done before the sun goes down.”
“Colt, I...thank you,” she said quietly.
“You don’t have to thank me, Susannah. We’ve said often enough that I’m just as invested in the inn as you are. There was no way I was going to let someone walk in here and hold up your grand opening on some minor technicality.”