What if that heavy board came crashing down? Itcould hit someone. It could damage the house further. It couldn’t wait until tomorrow, let alone Monday.
As I stared at the waving board, determination filled me, making my spine stand straighter.
Fine.
If he couldn’t be troubled to do his job, if he was going to treat me and this project with such disrespect, then I’d figure it out myself. How hard could it be to tack up one measly piece of wood? Secure it properly until tomorrow? I refused to believe he wouldn’t return, even if it was Saturday.
The thought, born of pure, adrenaline-fueled indignation, seemed almost reasonable in that moment.
I marched into the dilapidated carriage house that served as a makeshift tool shed, rummaging through a collection of rusty implements left behind by previous, equally unsuccessful renovators. I emerged with a hammer too heavy for my hand, a handful of nails that looked suspiciously bent, and an ancient, rickety wooden extension ladder.
Setting the ladder against the side of the house was a challenge in itself. It scraped against the old paintwork, its feet sinking unevenly into the soft, sandy soil. With a grunt, I eventually had it positioned. The siding board, when I reached it from the upper rungs, was even heavier and more unwieldy than it looked from the ground. It was long, at least twelve feet, and made of some kind of composite material with all the flexibility of a granite tombstone.
And the darn thing was heavy.
My first attempt to lift it into place nearly sent me, the ladder, and the siding crashing to the ground in a tangle of flailing limbs and G-rated expletives.
“Oh, for the love of pelicans!” I gasped, clinging to the ladder as the board swayed dangerously. My hearthammered against my ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage.
Okay. New plan. Maybe if I just tried to secure the loose end first?
Sweat trickled down my face, stinging my eyes. The sun beat down relentlessly, turning the air into a shimmering, suffocating blanket. I fumbled with a nail, trying to hold it steady against the wood while simultaneously wielding the ridiculously oversized hammer. The first swing missed the nail entirely, grazing the side of my hand with a sickening rush that sent a yelp of pain tearing from my throat.
Tears of pure frustration and agony welled, blurring my vision.
“Shit!” I hissed, shaking my throbbing hand.
This was harder than it looked. Austin, with his reserved competence and easy way with tools when he’d repaired the hedge, would have had this sorted in five minutes flat, without breaking a sweat or resorting to invoking baffled seabirds.
My determined B&B-hostess professionalism began to crumble like the ancient plaster in the Magnolia Suite. I tried again, my movements clumsy and jerky. The nail bent in half under a poorly aimed blow. The siding, instead of becoming more secure, seemed to sag even further, pulling away from the house with a groan of protesting wood. I grabbed it quickly to keep it from falling.
A wave of dizziness, born of heat, exertion, and panic, washed over me. I clung to the ladder, my knuckles white, my breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps.
I can’t do this.
The thought, cold and sharp as an icicle, pierced the fog of my frustration.
“I really can’t do this. What was I thinking? Taking on this house? This town? All by myself?”
Self-doubt, that cold and familiar companion I’d tried so hard to leave behind in Abingdon, reared its ugly head, whispering its insidious, poisonous truths. Aunt Constance believed in me, but maybe she was wrong. Maybe she saw a spark that wasn’t really there.
This was just like the studio in Virginia. The brilliant idea, the initial burst of energy, then the first major, impossible hurdle where I quit. The moment it stopped being fun and started being hard, I always found a reason to walk away.
Maybe I’m just not cut out for this.
Maybe I was just a disaster, like Austin no doubt thought. A walking, talking, hibiscus-drowning, siding-dropping catastrophe.
I made one last, desperate, sobbing attempt to shove the siding back into place. My hands were shaking too badly. The heavy board slipped from my grasp with a sickening scrape of wood against wood, swinging wildly for a moment before one end crashed against the side of the house with a splintering thud, hanging even more precariously than before.
The hammer clattered from my nerveless fingers, bouncing off a rung of the ladder before landing with a dull thunk in the overgrown grass below. A choked sob escaped me. Then another. The cheerful house of cards I called optimism came tumbling down as I gripped the unsteady ladder with both wildly trembling hands.
It was too much.
The only sound was the gentle, mocking creak of the loose siding in the afternoon breeze and my ragged, increasingly panicky breaths.
Chapter Ten
AUSTIN
