They looked like they were having fun, in thatdon't mess with me, I've got serious business going on herekind of way. Ollie was happy to both not mess with them, and to encourage picnickers and gawkers alike to move away so the construction equipment could be fenced in with the gazebo. He did murmur, "And here we have a rare sighting of a wild gazebo inside a human enclosure. After being injured, this gazebo actually approached the humans to ask for help," in his best David Attenborough voice.
Tiffany was, at that moment, close enough to hear him, beamed and sidled closer to him, dropping into her own announcer's voice. "The gazebo, although injured, waited patiently for hours while the humans called in an emergency construction team to assist with its healing. It must be emphasized that this is awildgazebo, one that had never met humans before. We believe it must have learned from other gazebos in the wild that humans could help it. What's even better," she said in a more normal voice, "is the poor guy who wrecked it is named Eric."
Ollie hesitated. "Does that make it better?"
"Oh!" Tiffany's eyes widened. "Do you not know the story of Eric and the gazebo?"
He gestured at the gazebo in front of them in question, and Tiffany grinned. "No. Or this is act two, maybe. Look it up, I don't want to spoil it for you. Oh,blastit—! Rick! Rick, are you—dammit, Rick!" She marched off, steel toes clumping up the gazebo steps while she went to discuss something with her team.
It was all mystifying in the most fascinating way. They were yelling at each other about support beams and dropping tools to one another in a way that looked psychic to Ollie: someone would yellwrench!Somebody else would hold a hand out, without looking, and release a wrench. The first person would put their hand out and the wrench would slap into it with effortless ease, like it was flawlessly rehearsed. Tiffany walked in and out of it all with absolute comfort and confidence, scrambling up the scaffolding they'd erected and taking measurements while somebody else wrote them down. It was all like numbers falling into place on a difficult accounting job, Ollie thought happily. Wonderful to watch.
The crowd who'd gathered to gape at the wrecked gazebo had mostly dispersed, and Ollie gradually realized the sun was coloring the western sky a riot of purples and golds. A big truck drove in through that sunset, carrying cut timber, and a cheer went up from Tiffany's crew, which had more than doubled in size since that afternoon. Tiffany barked, "All right,great, let's get this unloaded so Jonesy can head back up north, and then we'll get this show on theroad."
A little to Ollie's surprise, her crew fell on the job with enthusiasm, moving the boards and beams into their own truck at speed. Somebody had set up floodlights as it got darker, but when Tiffany strode back toward the construction site, Ollie cautiously waved her down. "I don't mean to break the flow, but…it's almost nine at night. If your crew wants to eat, I don't think there's much left open in a town this size after nine or ten."
"Oh, b—" Tiffany cut off one curse, then stomped off in a flood of different ones, some of them so creative that Ollie thought she might be secretly Australian. The cursing appeared to stop as she spoke with her crew, and after less than three minutes, she was back, hands on her hips. "The company's putting them all up in a hotel for the night so we can get startedearly. Thanks. I got focused and wasn't thinking. We all get like that sometimes with an urgent job, but I should know better. Boss is supposed to be better than that."
"Does that mean you're staying too?" Ollie asked hopefully. "Because I'm at the hotel too, and I'd like to take you out to dinner."
CHAPTER 9
Now that someone suggested it, food sounded like a great idea. There'd been that lemonade and a promise of cheesecake several hours earlier, but with Eric going to the hospital and the need to assess and plan for rebuilding the gazebo, Tiffany had completely forgotten about it.
Furthermore, having dinner with this slightly odd, extremely sweet,unbelievablyhandsome Australian guy was the best idea Tiffany had heard in weeks. Months. Possibly years. "Yeah, that sounds terrific." She tilted her head to get them into motion, then smiled up at Ollie. "Although you might want me to shower first, though. I've been out sweating in the sunshine all afternoon."
He took an unexpectedly deep breath, and while Tiffany was panicking about whether she smelled like sour socks, offered a reassuring grin. "Nothing but summer sunshine and grass," he promised her. "Although if you're looking for somebody to wa—" He actually clapped a hand over his mouth, eyes wide above it.
Tiffany's own eyes rounded both in surprise and a certain amount of admiration. "You don't miss a chance, do you?"
"Chance'll be a fine thing," Ollie whispered between his fingers, eyes still wide.
Tiffany laughed. "What?"
"It's, ah." Ollie dropped his hand but still looked faintly mortified. "It's a thing we say down under." He said it the way Tiffany had always heard in movies,daan undah,and a silly little thrill went through her.
Ollie, who probably didn't even notice he had an amazing accent, went right ahead with his explanation. "It's what you say when you want something to happen but don't think it will."
Tiffany tried to fight off a grin. Apparently Mr. Mild-Mannered Aikido Words Aussie Man thought washing her back in the shower was a hope outside of the realm of possibility. She wasn't nearly so sure of that. This could turn out to be agreatwedding weekend, even if she wasn't even going to the wedding.
She heard herself say, "Dinner first," out loud, and fought off a blush as something more than hope bloomed in Ollie's face. It was practically awe, Tiffany thought. She could get used to a guy looking like that when he thought about her.
"Dinner first," he agreed. "I'd offer to take you somewhere nicer than the hotel, but I know nothing about Virtue and their town website is completely useless."
Tiffany laughed. "I know! When the application for bids went out I looked it up, but the website looks like it was actually made last century. It's like they don't want people to come here."
"I don't kno—" Ollie cut himself off so hard Tiffany looked up at him in surprise.
"You don't know what? Why they wouldn't want people to come here? Me either. It seems like a nice little town. Vibrant, you know? There's all those local businesses in the shop fronts around the square, and I know there's a couple restaurants and a movie theatre."
"Big library, too," Ollie volunteered. "The librarian seems to be the social mover and shaker in town. She was the one in the retro outfit helping with the decorations."
"Oh, she was fab. Cool sense of style. And there's enough people—enough students—for a K-6 school down there on the same property as the high school." Tiffany waved a hand toward the street they'd passed, as if Ollie would miraculously understand that was where the schools were. Of course, itwasnamed 'School Street,' so if he'd noticed that….
But they'd passed it now anyway, and were heading toward a street she was surprised wasn't calledBoarding Street,because she was fairly certain the hotel, just a few blocks off the town square, had been a boarding house once upon a time. Possibly it had also been the two or three houses nearest the boarding house, because it stretched a significant part of the block. Someone in the recent past had brought them all together into a small, modern, boutique hotel that was currently absolutely bustling with business.
Even after sunset, people were in and out, sitting on outdoors benches and tables beneath thick-trunked trees that offered the both the street and the hotel's low tidy lawn plenty of shade in daylight hours. Wildflowers grew in bunches around the roots of the trees, with little curved fences protecting them from careless feet. Even the building's exterior paint job was bright and new, making the hotel look inviting. "Yeah, it's not too bad, is it?" Tiffany asked. "Virtue, I mean. It's a nice town. So your cousin lives here?"
By unspoken agreement, they took one of the outdoors tables—Tiffany was still aware she hadn't showered—and smiled as a young man in a waiter's uniform hurried by with menus for them. "I'll bring you water in just a minute," he promised. "Anything else to drink now, or would you like to look at the menu first?"
