Page 10 of A Dream for Daphne

“That’s my thought on it,” he said. “But women can be fussy creatures.”

He learned that the hard way.

“Tell me about it,” Reese said, laughing.

“I’ll get out of your way and we’ll try to get this path done by the end of business tomorrow, Wednesday at the latest. We’ll get it dug up and secured today.”

“Works for me,” Reese said, going back to his barn.

He returned to the trucks where his guys were waiting.

“Fire them up, boys,” he said to a lot of hooting and laughter.

Sometimes it felt as if his job was an everyday adventure in a sandbox.

Who the hell wouldn’t love something like this?

He got into the excavator to start digging, because being the owner and all, he got to play with the big toys the most.

The rest of the crew was using a forklift to move pallets of paving stones dropped off to where they needed to be for work. The vibratory plate was brought over, that would be used to level it all before the pavers went in. These paths were going to be wide enough for a golf cart to be driven around the property too.

Still made him shake his head.

He’d thought for sure he wouldn’t get the job because he wasn’t big enough to have it done in a week or two and said he’d do it in stages like this.

Poppy liked that idea better. Or maybe it was because she knew him and wanted to keep the work local.

No clue and he wasn’t going to question it.

At the end of the day, the path was dug and leveled out. They’d check it again in the morning to make sure nothing shifted and the guys would start laying the stones while he checked out a few more jobs.

It was a good day's work and if he went home alone to his house like he’d been doing for years, he was going to tell himself, it was all good.

Because that was how he got through most of his time anyway.

4

GET KNOCKED DOWN

“Sorry about the noise,” Poppy said when Daphne showed up two days later at seven in the morning. “They are trying to get an early start because of the rain coming in tomorrow. I don’t want holes and mud in the yard.”

“It’s fine,” she said. “They aren’t doing anything by my place yet.”

It felt funny calling it her place. It’s not like she owned it.

She wasn’t paying rent either.

But all her possessions were there. No decor, she didn’t need to bring in any. Not even furniture.

Poppy did it all and it was too beautiful for Daphne to make a change.

“No,” Poppy said. “They are going to be here starting at seven most mornings. They are going to finish the path from the house to the barn today and then mow the lawn and take care of their normal property stuff. They probably won’t be here Thursday or Friday with the weather looking bad.”

“It’s all good,” Daphne said. “It’s going to look beautiful.”

She’d walked along the side of the house where it led to the barn to just check out what was being done. They’d started closer to the house and had to finish by the barn. It was far enough away that it wasn’t bothering her in the least.

If anything, it was kind of exciting and she and Holly had a picnic outside watching the action. The little girl talked about wanting trucks to do the same work. She’d found shovels and pails and they got to it manually.

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