Page 4 of V is for Valentine
He walked with her to the door. “Great job with Fork Horn.”
“There’s a lot of work to do before we sign.”
“I’m aware,” he said with a half-smile. Years of the elements blowing through the many broken windowpanes had taken its toll. “Apex Industrial is coming on Thursday to give me an estimate on the clearing and cleaning. The window guys start replacing the broken panes on Friday. The foundation guys will start work in two weeks.”
“The windows, clearing, and cleaning are the important things right now,” she said. “Fork Horn loves the footage, the price, and the location on the river, but I have a feeling they would keel over if they saw the current state of the building.” One corner of her mouth quirked up. “As in they would use it as leverage to reduce the price or conditions of the lease.”
“I’ll let you know what I hear from Apex. They sounded certain that they could get the job done before the foundation guys started.” Since the foundation was still stable, he was able to have the windows fixed first, which worked with everyone’s schedule.
“Excellent. As soon as I hear from you, I’ll contact Fork Horn to schedule a walk-through.” She gave him a smile and headed down the steps to the freshly shoveled walk.
Danny stayed at the door, waving as she pulled away from the curb, then shifted his focus next door to the empty spot in the driveway where the red Audi TT had recently been parked.
He was certain from the way Felicity had cavalierly dismissed his offer of help that she had no idea of what she was up against finishing her dad’s project. Maybe Pete had been too loopy from the drugs to tell her.
This is none of your business.
Except that he liked Pete Evans and he owed him.
He pulled in a resigned breath. He liked Felicity, too. He wasn’t certain when the shift had occurred, but somewhere between egg wars and bike tire flattening, he’d started to see her differently. Reading the signs, then and now, he had to conclude that she had not experienced a similar epiphany.
But shewasgoing to need help with her dad’s project. That was a given.
How long was it going to take her to figure that out?
*
Felicity strode throughthe ground floor of the historic Holly High School building, the hardwood floor squeaking beneath the drop cloths. The high school, built in 1917, had been decommissioned in the late 1960s and used as storage by the school district until the city had purchased it with the dual goals of expanding their office space while utilizing a historic building.
The basement was still used as storage, but the ground and second floors had been framed into offices, closets, meeting areas, and reception. Felicity was glad to see that the entire second floor was finished, except for texturing the walls, leaving her and Zach to finish the dry wall on the ground floor, then tape and texture before painting both stories. The last step would be remounting the original molding, which was nowhere to be seen. Felicity assumed it was in the locked storeroom in the basement because she’d inspected every inch of the place as she got a feel for the scope of the work ahead of her.
Due to a recent building boom in Boise and the surrounding areas, her dad had had a tough time with his contracted help quitting on short notice to take more lucrative jobs elsewhere. Jobs that could pay a couple dollars more an hour. Only Zach Barnes had remained, and that, Felicity suspected, was because no one else would hire him. But her dad was a big believer in second chances, and Zach had remained on the job, so maybe her father was correct on this one.
Except that Zachary should be hard at work right now and he was not.
She glanced at her watch. It was well past lunchtime.
Frustrated, she crossed the creaking hardwood floor to the basement door, heaved it open, and called his name down the dark stairs, wondering if perhaps he ate, or took a nap, in one of the many locked rooms down there during his lunch break. It was one way to keep from being caught if city personnel happened by to check progress.
Felicity shut the door. He must have gone out to a late lunch. Or he hadn’t shown up for work because he’d known Pete wouldn’t be there. If that was the case, she needed to let him know that he was to show up tomorrow morning early, because they had to make up for lost time.
She was in the process of texting Tess and Stevie, her younger sisters, to see if they had Zach’s number when she heard the front door opened. Excellent. Now they could put their heads together and come up with a plan of action that didn’t involve her dad paying penalties for not completing the project on time.
She canceled the text and tucked her phone back into her work pants as she headed around the half-finished wall which separated the foyer from the basement access door, then skidded to a stop when she saw who was waiting for her. “I thought you were Zach.”
Danny dug his hands into his jacket pockets. “Zach quit.”
Felicity’s heart jumped. “No. My dad would have told me.”
Danny merely lifted his eyebrows. He was not messing with her. She’d known him long enough to recognize his game face and this wasn’t it.
“I haven’t seen Dad today,” she admitted. The hospital was her next stop after scoping out the high school situation. “How do you know Zachary quit?”
“Because I contacted him about doing a job for me when he finished with this one.”
“What kind of job….” It didn’t matter. She pulled a deep breath in through her nose as her brain raced through possible solutions to this rather massive problem. Nothing came to mind. She met Danny’s gaze and saw a touch of empathy there. Danny and her dad had always gotten on fairly well. “Why didn’t you tell me this at the house?”
“Because you make it hard to tell you anything?”
