Page 126 of Valley of Dreams

Chapter Thirty-one

“Canada is not exactlya temperate clime. I’m keenly aware of the difficulties of building in the harshness of winter.” Patrick looked over his gathered family, grateful for the acceptance he’d found among them. He needed a favor, and even a month earlier he’d not have dared ask for it. “But if the exterior of the inn can be up and complete before winter truly and fully arrives, I can work on the inside no matter the weather. And if I can do that, we’ll have an inn ready to open come spring.”

“Why’s this inn so important to you, then?” Tavish asked with his usual teasing glint.

His wife set her hand on his, effectively shushing him but not wiping the grin of amusement from his face.

“This is a big project, more daunting than Finbarr’s house. I can’t get the framing up entirely on my own. Getting the exterior walls boarded, sealed, and plastered would likely take me longer than I have.” He was keeping calm, but only just. Eliza’s heart was so set on this; he couldn’t bear the thought of letting her down. “If the inn can’t open in the spring, we’re sunk.”

“We?” Tavish, it seemed, couldn’t help himself.

“Continue on that way, Tavish,” Ma warned, “and I will beat you like a rug after a dust storm.” She turned to Patrick once more. “Tell us what you need,mo buachaill álainn.”

“He’s your lovely boy, and I’m the rug you beat?” Tavish made quite a show of being offended, but they all knew him far too well to think he was anything but amused.

“Heis behaving,” Ma said.

Ian jumped in. “Patrick, you see what you left me with the last decade? It’s a miracle I’ve any ability to converse like a human being. Thank the heavens for Finbarr, or I’d’ve been rendered a mess of a person.”

Saints, it was good to laugh with his family again. Patrick had needed it for years.

Da, though clearly enjoying the banter, brought things back ’round to the subject at hand. “Are you needing us to hold a barn raising?”

“Aninnraising, but aye. If I can get the inn framed and most of the outside walls boarded as soon as possible, I might have a fighting chance.”

“You’ll want the fireplaces in and functioning as well,” Thomas tossed out. “You’ll not be able to do a lick of work inside in the dead of winter if you can’t heat the place.”

Patrick had been so focused on the walls, he’d not even thought of that.

“Karl Kester is a dab hand at rockwork,” Keefe said. “And Matthew Scott isn’t shabby, either. Between the two of them and a few more willing workers, they could have the fireplaces you need built quickly.”

“That would help tremendously. How much do you think they’d ask for their work? We haven’t a lot to spend, but we’ll pay what’s fair.” He was taking some liberties using “us” and “we” when referring to the inn. Yet he had every reason to believe those would soon enough be the correct words.

Biddy, with her little boy bouncing in her lap, joined the discussion. “If the exterior walls are completed and the fireplaces are working, could we holdcéilísinside the unfinished inn this winter, even with your ongoing work?”

“There’d be space enough, certainly. And I don’t think Eliza would object.”

Biddy looked to the lot of them. “If finishing this inn means we won’t all have to descend into isolation for the winter, I’d wager the entire town would be willing to help get the walls up. They did for Joseph after the fire. They built Ryan’s hay shed. They’d help build the inn.”

The entire town.With that much help, Patrick would be far ahead of schedule rather than in a desperate race with the calendar. “Do you think they would?”

“You leave it to us, son,” Da said. “We’ll rally the entire valley.”

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