Page 151 of Rocky Mountain Home
What the hell?
He looked over at Joel. “What’s going on?”
His brother’s lips curled into a smile. “Looking good, right?”
Without answering Jesse’s question, he urged his horse ahead till there was too much distance to demand a response.
Because when they’d topped the ridge, there wasn’t just one house in construction, there were two.
By the time Jesse caught up with Joel, his brother had dismounted and left his horse grazing. Jesse dropped his reins as well, and made his way to where activity was visible, a crew of men raising sheeting onto sidewalls and nailing it into place.
The building site made no sense. Two houses?
Oh. The Colemans were always doing house shuffles. Maybe Matt and Hope didn’t want to live in town anymore.
The ache in Jesse’s gut got deeper.
“The post-and-beam packages were up for sale,” Joel shared. “Someone paid the first half of the deposit then went bankrupt, so the company offered a fire sale if we’d take the frames off their hands. All we had to pay were the outstanding second payments. It was too good a deal to turn down.”
“Only paid half? Seriously?”
“We were in the right place at the right time.” Joel lifted a hand and pointed to the nearest house, the one on the north. “Vicki and I decided to put a small porch on this side for when we want to catch the sunrise, but the bigger porch is on the west.”
Jesse couldn’t make heads or tails of it. In fact, all he could do was point at the second building.
His brother hesitated. “Blake said not to say anything yet, but fuck it. That’s your house, Jesse. Yours and Dare’s”
The words didn’t make any sense. “What?”
For a second Joel didn’t say anything then his lips curled into a smirk. “Damn your face right now is hysterical.”
Screw what his face looked like, it felt as if his brains were dribbling out his ears. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Joel gestured at the second construction rising on the south lot. “When we brought in the guys to do the foundation, I convinced Blake it only made sense. Like taking down the old barn. There was no reason not to have them do the second basement while they were here. Plus, it was a sweet deal on the framing packages.”
“You’re building us a house.” Jesse shook his head.
“The Colemans are building two houses,” Joel corrected him. “Vicki and I get the house to the north, and if you want it, the one to the south is yours.”
There was nothing real about this entire situation except when Jesse looked hard and blinked, the house was still there. Walls finished to vertical, the roof already shingled.
“I don’t understand,” he admitted.
“You always said you wanted the south site.”
“It’s a better site,” Jesse said automatically. “That’s why I bossed you around to make sure you knew I wanted it.”
“It’s a matter of opinion which is better,” Joel said easily. “And I couldn’t build there.”
“Why not?”
Joel looked shocked. “It was yours.”
Jesse stared at him, unable to move.
His brother took a deep breath. “When you left, it was a hell of a shock, but even when I was pissed off beyond belief, I always hoped you would come back. When you finally came to your senses, I wanted you to have what we’d always dreamed about. I didn’t want you to feel like you’d been left out of something that was important to us both.”
Something turned inside Jesse at that moment, like the final tumbler falling into place to undo a lock.
