I know I had my hands on it earlier, but I was much more concerned about the sopping wet girl in front of me than I was about the fabric of her sweater.
Her brow furrows and she snorts. “I wish. No, it was wool. It was scratchy as hell but one of my warmest. And I don’t think the best dry cleaner in the world is going to be able to get the stream gunk out of it. My washer has seen worse than that as far as my leggings go, but that sweater is done for.”
“I guess you can say I owe you.”
She waves me off. “It was just a sweater and it was an accident. You don’t owe me anything.”
I cock my head to the side.
Sometimes I get the idea that Eve wants to hate me but has trouble doing so. Like her nature is all forgiveness and kindness, but when she sees me she does her best to come off as tough and unyielding.
“Well, I’m sorry to have been the reason you ended up in the stream.”
She shrugs. “Thank you for trying your best to save me.”
We’re quiet for a moment before I continue, “So, still up for giving me that tour?”
She turns to look out the window, her nose crinkling as she moves. “We can, but I’m not sure how much we’ll see at this point. I love your land, but it’ll be hard to get around in the dark. And the barn is rented, so it’s not like we can go in there anyway.”
I nod, scrambling to come up with an alternate plan. “Okay. Well, in that case, maybe I can show you the draft my architect came up with? It’s not finalized by any means—I need a better look at the land and I’ll be bringing my guys through to see it too, but it’s a start.” I eye her, searching for signs of panic, but she seems resigned more than anything. “I actually think this might ease your mind a little.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Yeah?”
I move over, patting the cushion next to me, and she gracefully switches to the couch, grabbing her wine glass off the table as she moves. With her weight next to mine, the couch sags, bringing us closer together, and we both shift so we’re not touching, but we don’t move away.
The scent of her perfume wafts over to me, all delicate and floral, and for a moment I have to remind myself that I’m not here to sniff the pretty girl.
I unlock my phone and navigate to my email, pulling up the rough sketch the architect sent over that overlays the survey I sent him earlier. We tend to go back and forth a bunch—and I pay him an exorbitant amount of money for it—so he doesn’t mind sending me rough drawings while we figure out our end goal.
And what he sent me actually looks natural for the setting. A village just past Eve’s dirt road and halfway up the hill with a view that looks down on the sunflower fields. It’s far enough up the hill that it shouldn’t affect any pictures, and I’ve already accepted that the building materials for this development are going to be sky high in an effort to make everything look as cohesive as possible.
The way I’m envisioning it, these buildings are going to look so nice that Eve is going towanther customers taking pictures of them.
I hold my phone out, zooming out so she can see wherewe’re planning on building first before getting into the details.
She takes one big sip of wine before angling closer to me so she can see my screen.
“So this is where I’m planning on building,” I say, moving the image around and making sure not to obscure the path of the road that briefly dips onto her land. While I don’t think it’s the right time to ask her for anything, I don’t think she’ll be pleased if she thinks I intentionally hid the potential easement from her. “I’m not sure exactly where the property lines are, but I know there are local ordinances about building too close to single-family housing, so we might have to adjust there a little bit. Or buy out the single-family homes.”
She snorts.
I glance at her.
“Oh, you’re serious,” she says, shaking her head and taking another long sip of wine. “That probably shouldn’t surprise me.”
I shrug. “To be honest, that’s not an option I want to take. I don’t want to have to deal with Reed any more than I need to, and he’ll have a say if we need to rezone.”
She nods. “Okay.”
I eye her. “What are you thinking?”
She shakes her head, taking another sip of wine. “Nothing.”
“That doesn’t look like a nothing face.”
She rolls her eyes. “Why do you keep asking for my input? If I’m okay? You’re going to do what you want to do, right? I get that you’re trying to play nice, but it’s not like I really have any options here, right?”
I shrug. “Can’t know that until you tell me what’s upsetting you, can you?”
