Page 52 of Luna

“Soon,” she said, with a hasty nod as Laila grabbed her hand and started pulling her away. “We’ll plan on it soon.”

Once she’d returned with Laila, Tony, and Ilsa to the house, she was too full of energy to sleep. She wrote a long letter to her parents, sharing the details of her day, describing the parade, the picnic, the ballgame, and the fireworks. She intentionally made no mention of Hunter. She certainly didn’t need her parents to know she was falling in love again, especially when she was convinced she was all wrong for Hunter.

Chapter Sixteen

“Well, what’s the verdict?” Hunter asked as Walker Williams wrote notes on a paper tablet.

He’d met Walker an hour and a half ago at the house Hunter someday hoped to live in, and the architect had been meticulous in looking over the house from top to bottom and back up again.

Right now, they stood in the attic, which was stuffed to the gills with the treasures of a family Hunter had never met. Some of the furniture he planned to clean up and use because it was good quality. The rest of the stuff, though, he intended to dispose of. He would have asked Dally to help him sort through it and decide if any of it could be donated to the church or the Pendleton Women’s League to distribute to families in need, but his sister was in no condition to sit in a musty, dusty attic.

Luna’s sweet face came to mind, and Hunter smiled just thinking about her. He’d had such a grand time with her during the Independence Day festivities. Luna had been so engaged and interested in everything. It had made his experiences of the day that much richer for enjoying them with her.

At church on Sunday, he’d hoped to figure out a time for her to come out to the ranch. Those plans had fallen apart when Dally hadn’t felt well, and Nik had been called to the hospital, so Hunter had rushed his sister home instead of lingering to chat after the service.

Now, the week was half over, and he still hadn’t spoken with Luna. He fully intended to catch up to her before another day passed. He wouldn’t admit it if asked, but he missed her. Missed the energy snapping in her deep brown eyes, the vibrance of her being, and the way she brightened his world with her smile.

Lost in his thoughts of Luna, Hunter didn’t notice at first that Walker was moving toward the stairs.

“I want to take one more look around before I give you my opinion,” the architect said as he headed back to the second floor.

“Fine by me,” Hunter said, following Walker to the main floor.

Walker got down on his hands and knees and used a flashlight to illuminate the dark space inside the chimney in the fireplace in the parlor. Without saying a word, he added more notes to his writing tablet, then went into the sitting room that Hunter intended to turn into his office with a library. There was a second fireplace there, and Walker again got down on the floor and peered into the chimney. After jotting more notes, he went through the dining room and kitchen and up the back stairs again.

Walker examined each room a third time before he finally went down the front stairs and outside. He crawled around the foundation, using a shovel to push aside weeds that were in his way and moving a bullsnake that took exception to being disturbed.

Hunter shuddered, glad it was Walker who had come upon the reptile instead of him. He could handle almost anything, but he really did not like snakes. Thankfully, Walker was busy studying the foundation and didn’t notice his aversion to the snake as it slithered away.

Finally, Walker stood, walked over to the warped porch steps, and sat on the top one. He glanced through his many pages of notes, then looked over at Hunter as he took a seat beside him.

“We should fix it,” Walker said.

“Fix it? The house? You mean repair, restore, and remodel instead of demolishing it?”

Walker grinned. “That’s exactly what I mean. The foundation is in great shape. The house has solid bones. Even the chimneys are only in need of cleaning and not repairs. It would be worth the time and effort to fix the house instead of tearing it down. I had a few thoughts for adding more comfort to the home, and you mentioned turning the sitting room into a library you could also use for an office. Overall, though, if we got started in August, I don’t see any reason the work couldn’t be completed before Christmas, if not sooner.”

“Really? That quickly?” Buoyed by the thought of having his own place to live, and much sooner than he’d anticipated, Hunter grinned and reached out a hand to Walker.

The architect shook his hand and then stood. “I need to go through my notes and draw up official plans. I’ve got a few projects ahead of you, but I’ll try to get something on paper by the end of next week, and then you can decide what you’d like to do.”

“That sounds great, Walker. Thank you. I’d like to add a space for a laundry room, and a bedroom for a housekeeper downstairs near the kitchen. We talked about a bathroom upstairs, and I’d like one downstairs as well. Can we make all that happen?”

“We absolutely can.” Walker jotted several notes, gave Hunter’s hand another shake, then hurried out to his automobile and waved before he left.

Hunter went back inside the house and envisioned it not as it looked then but how it would a year into the future when he’d had time to settle into it. He could hear the echoes of laughter and stepped into the hall, almost expecting to see his sister and Luna there.

Frustrated with himself, Hunter scrubbed a hand over his face. Why was Luna so incessantly in his thoughts? It was as though she’d taken up residence in some deep crevice of his brain. That was bad enough, but she’d also claimed a huge part of his heart.

After Katherine had left him feeling both betrayed and stupid, he was sure he’d never fall in love again. Yet, he had.

Only the timing was terrible. If all he had to do was work on his newly purchased properties, he could labor from before dawn to after dusk and still have months and months of duties weighing him down. Add to that time spent training Dally’s horses and helping around the B Bar D, not to mention finding himself on the local baseball team that sometimes required traveling out of town to play. Some days, Hunter wasn’t sure if he was coming or going.

At that moment, he longed to sit on the veranda at Bramble Hall with a tall glass of sweet tea and some of the butter cookies his grandmother liked, watching the thoroughbreds race each other across the pasture without a care in the world and no responsibilities waiting for his attention.

There were many hands to see to the necessary tasks at Bramble Hall. Right now, Hunter felt overwhelmed with responsibilities and duties.

One of the more pressing weights was Dally’s continued and stubborn refusal to contact their parents and share her happy news with them. Hunter knew everyone at Bramble Hall would be excited to know she and Nik would welcome a baby in a few months. However, Dally had gotten some notion in her head about it, and no one, not even Nik, could get her to talk reasonably about the subject.

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