Page 94 of Ten Beach Road

“I can get my guy and his people to do the whole thing,” Chase said easily, and she wondered if he were a better actor than she was or simply didn’t feel all that zinged between them. “But it’ll be pricey. We can cut the overhead significantly if you all handle the staining, too.”

The grunt rose in her throat and Avery bit it back. Having to agree with Chase was almost painful, but he was right; she’d much rather keep that money in their pockets. “All right,” she said finally, meeting his gaze while being careful not to be drawn into it. “But you can do the demo and get everybody started. You can be the slave driver that everybody hates. I could end up banished from the clubhouse.”

He nodded but didn’t look away. His eyes dropped to her lips, and she knew exactly what he was thinking about.

“And about that kiss?” she said, pulling his gaze back up to meet hers. “I think we should pretend it didn’t happen. Because of course it shouldn’t have. And we don’t ever want it to happen again.” She realized she was blathering and stopped, not caring one bit for the glimmer of amusement that had stolen into his eyes.

“Are you listening?” she asked, off kilter now as he’d no doubt intended.

“Of course,” he said smoothly. “You want to pretend that we didn’t kiss the hell out of each other in the pool house.”

“Um, right.” He was standing too close again, making it difficult for Avery to catch her breath. If they hadn’t been outside she wouldn’t have had enough air to breathe. “So what do you have to say about that?”

He shrugged. “What is there to say other than ‘what kiss?’ ”

Madeline had thought glazing was tedious, but it had nothing on hand sanding. At first when Chase gave them each a piece of two-by-four wrapped in sandpaper and explained that they’d be using it to sand the edges up against the walls of the rooms, the thresholds, and then the balusters and front edges of both sets of stairs, she’d squinted at the small block of wood in her hand and assumed he was joking. He wasn’t.

Without even a hint of a smile he’d positioned them around the upper floor and put them to work. She and Kyra started in Avery’s back bedroom, away from the electric sander and the fine wood dust it kicked up. Kyra sat on her rear and attacked a small section at a time before scooting along to the next section. Her video camera sat on the floor nearby and her head bobbed to some tune playing on her earphones.

They were supposed to finish the upper floor and begin on the stairs before the end of the day. It had only been an hour and a half and her hand was starting to cramp and her shoulders ached; she’d barely made it through the L of one bedroom wall.

The loud whir of the sander in the master bedroom prohibited conversation, but it also camouflaged the muttering and the groans. Deirdre and Nicole each had a front bedroom while Avery worked her way down one side of the hallway.

When it was—thank you, God—at last time to break for lunch they hobbled downstairs and fell into kitchen chairs. Even Maddie was too tired to contemplate so much as spreading peanut butter over a slice of bread. Through one of the kitchen windows she watched Chase Hardin conferring with the steam heat guy Nicole had found them in New York. When her neck could no longer support her head, she folded her arms on the table, laid her forehead on them and thought longingly of her mattress in the pool house, which just went to show how relative the concept of comfort could be. As she closed her eyes and tried to regroup, she did her best not to think about what Steve was or wasn’t doing. She hadn’t been able to speak to him since his cryptic email and had the sense he was avoiding her, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to give up all hope.

If there was anything she’d learned from working on Bella Flora, it was to focus on one task at a time and refuse to be overwhelmed by the enormity of what still had to be done. She would not be Chicken Little or the Little Red Hen. She’d be that ant in the proverb who consumed the elephant one small bite at a time.

Kyra, who sat at the opposite end of the table, raised her camera to pan across their ravaged faces. Even Deirdre, who’d spent the longest in the pool house bathroom that morning, looked tired and disheveled.

“Really?” Nicole asked, apparently unable to mount a full protest. “Do you have to?”

Kyra shrugged. With her hair pulled up in a high ponytail, the big gray eyes and the smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, she might have been twelve except for the rounded belly and bulging breasts. Maddie knew that Kyra still clung to the hope that her hero, Daniel, was going to swoop in and carry her off into the sunset, but since the call from Tonja Kay, they’d established a certain détente; Kyra no longer voiced her expectation, and Maddie no longer tried to break her of it.

“We’re getting too many followers both on YouTube and Twitter to just disappear now,” Kyra said.

“Oh, joy,” Maddie thought, raising her head. She did not want to think of all of those strangers watching and commenting on their daily struggle.

The doorbell rang, and they all looked at each other, silently willing someone else to get up and answer it.

“I couldn’t get up right now if it was Ed McMahon with a check for a million dollars from the Publishers Clearing House,” Nicole said.

“Ed McMahon’s not delivering checks anymore. He’s dead,” Deirdre said. “Johnny, too.” She said this with regret.

“I don’t care,” Nicole said. “I wouldn’t even get up if he came back from the other side especially to deliver it.”

“Me, neither,” Avery chimed in. They turned to Maddie as if she were going to get up any minute and go to the door, but she couldn’t even make herself walk the five feet to the refrigerator.

Chase poked his head into the kitchen, saw them drooping around the table, and strode to the front door. Maddie couldn’t imagine moving that quickly ever again.

All of them perked up when he reappeared with two pizza boxes emitting the most heavenly smell. He’d barely set them on the table when the first was thrown open and they were reaching for slices.

“Bless you,” Deirdre said. “Remind me to tell your father what a good boy you are.” She took a large bite and sighed with the same degree of pleasure she’d previously reserved for caviar and the other delicacies she and Nicole occasionally bought for their sunsets.

“I agree.” Maddie dragged herself out of her seat and went to the fridge to retrieve the pitcher of iced tea. Kyra struggled up out of her chair and went to the cupboard for glasses. “If I weren’t so busy stuffing my face I’d call him right now and tell him.”

“Me, too,” Nicole said between bites. “I’m going to email him as soon as I’m done eating.” She licked her fingers and then beat Avery to the last piece in the first box. Kyra flipped open the second box and helped herself to a slice.

“It was very sweet of you to provide lunch today,” Maddie said. Her shoulders still hurt and her back ached, but she could feel her spirits rise with each bite. She only had to make it through the rest of today and tomorrow. Chase had shown them the mop-like applicators they’d be using for the staining and sealing. Surely that would be easier than all this hand sanding. Like the ant versus the elephant, the floors were just one more bite.

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