Page 90 of Unforgiven

Seth grinned, liking the idea that the Zimmermans might start thinking of themselves as a family again too. “Boundaries are a good thing.”

“You ready to work?”

“Yes, sir.” Looking at the beautiful house that was almost complete, he said, “Where do you need me?”

“In the pantry.” He waved a hand. “The owners got to thinking and decided they wanted to fancy up the space. More woodwork and new glass cabinet doors.”

“I see.”

“The lady has some kind of fancy pottery collection she wants to show off.”

“Gotcha.” The crew hadn’t done anything but the basics in that room, on account of the owners wanting to keep at least some of the costs low. It seemed they had changed their minds. People always did, he reckoned.

Inside the house, everything was essentially finished. When they reached the pantry, he had to agree with the homeowners. It looked too basic and plain when compared to the rest of the house.

The room was little more than an enclosed hallway, about five feet wide and ten feet long. Cabinets covered most of one of the walls. On the floor were the replacement cabinet doors and baseboards. To his relief, they all had been coated with primer.

“What do you think?”

“It all looks easy enough.”

“How soon can you finish it?”

“Tomorrow, most likely.”

“I’ll give you a bonus if you can do most of it today.”

“Seriously?” Seth couldn’t care less about the bonus. What he was concerned about was the fact that Cal was expecting him to work a miracle.

Cal grimaced. “I know you don’t like to work so quickly, but I can’t help the homeowners changing their minds all the time.”

“You’re right. I know it’s out of your hands. I’ll get to work. I could use an extra hand, though.” Wanting to connect with Lott again, he said, “Any chance I could have Lott? He could help me get some of the prep work taken care of.”

“That’s not a problem. I’ll send him in.”

“Thanks, Cal.”

Seth had just knelt down to look at the baseboards they were going to pull off when Lott walked into the room.

“Hiya, Seth. Uh, Cal told me to come help you.”

“Yep. I asked for you.”

“What would you like me to do?”

“Come here.” Picking up the crowbar, he showed him how to carefully pull the existing baseboards from the wall. “See how I did it?”

“Jah.”

“Go slowly, okay? We’ll be able to use the baseboards someplace else in the future.”

“We can’t just pull them out and put them in the dumpster?”

“Nope. After you get the pieces off, remove the nails and clean the area. I’ll work behind you and start putting the new ones in.”

“All right.” He removed a couple of nails and stopped.

“Hey, we’ve got to move a little quicker than that,” Seth teased.

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