Page 11 of As They Are
“Seriously?”
“I know it’s not perfect, but I can’t think of a single thing I’d change. This place is how he left it. And while it might not be magazine perfect, it feels like home. Isn’t that the most important thing?”
I blinked. I’d known she loved this place and wouldn’t want to change much, but surely there had to be somethingI could do. When I walked in, I’d seen a bunch of things I would have done if it were mine.
But it wasn’t mine. It was Mollie’s. Of course she’d want to keep the inside exactly as it was.
“Are you sure there’snothing?Not even outside? What about a fence? A new house for the animals?” I’d never tried anything like that before. I bet it would be a ton of work.
Exactly what I wanted.
“Wren.” Her voice was gentle. “You just got done renovating a wholemansion.Relax and take your break. You’ll need it for when you work on season two.”
“But—”
“Cain and I have a good handle on the farm. You need to take your break.”
Fuck.If she didn’t have anything for me to fix, then I’d have to do what I wassupposedto be doing.
The director, Madison, had told me to use my break to find a new place to renovate in Nashville for the upcoming season. We’d found a few options, but none were bigger and better than the mansion we’d just finished. When time kept passing without us deciding on something, she’d grown more and more annoyed. Now she wanted all hands on deck to get this figured out. Even I had to chip in, despite everyone knowing I needed this week off. So I came here anyway. It was petty, but the slight rebellion after letting her tell me what to do felt nice.
And what felt nice was catching up with Mollie and finding something to swing a hammer at.
“I’ll try to relax,” I said. “But you know me.”
“You love working,” she replied. “But you have a second season that’ll be keeping you busy soon, right?”
Too soon.
“Thatcan wait.”
“Really? They’re waiting? It’s so popular, even here. I bet half of the town has seen it by now, and they started it before I told them I knew you.”
My stomach rolled again. Seriously? Half the town knew me as Wren fromRenovating with Love?Fuck. They’d see me as the Wren who was with Jude. The one who flirted so hard it nearly killed her.
And who was I now? Just Wren. Just a woman looking for something to fix.
“Wren, what happened on the show?” Mollie asked. “Was it not what you expected?”
“The show was great,” I said. “And I loved where the mansion ended up.”
“But?”
“There’s no but. It was just great.”
Mollie squinted at me. She knew I was hiding something, and I wouldn’t blame her for being mad at me for keeping it from her.
I couldn’t talk about it. At least not when I had to go back in a week and do it all over again.
“Fine,” she said. “I get what it’s like to have some bad things happen. Things you’re not ready to talk about.”
“Do you mean Trevor?”
“Yes,” she said. “And, you know, it took a while for me to open up about it. And it wasn’t easy, but when I did, I felt so much better.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” she said. “It was kinda like magic.”
