Page 61 of Devoted Enough

I winked. “You assume wrong. I always have a change of clothes in my truck. If anything happens and I have to change. Plus, I always carry workout clothes. I have sneakers, but no hiking boots. Will that be a problem?”

She shook her head. “Not a problem at all. You can see what your generous donation helped with.”

Smiling, I got back to eating breakfast. We cleaned the kitchen, and I ran to my truck to get my bag. Once changed, I returned to the living room to see Haven frowning at something on her computer.

“What’s wrong?”

Glancing up, she let out a breath. “This estimate the contractor sent over. It’s much higher than what he originally said in the beginning. The loan we’re approved for is at the highest we can get, and he is coming in much higher than he said. I think we have to put a pause on starting until I can find a contractor who isn’t going to charge us a fortune.”

“Have you signed a contract with him yet?”

She shook her head and suddenly seemed weary. “No, we’re still trying to get everything squared away with the business loan. We’re approved, but they needed to get all the information from the contractor, and now he’s gone and changed everything up on me.”

“May I?” I asked as I motioned to her laptop.

Turning it my way, she replied, “It’s all yours.”

I sat down and started reading it over as Haven stood and paced. I glanced up a few times only to see her wringing her hands as she wore a trail into the wood floor.

“I think you need to go with another contractor,” I finally said.

She stopped walking and looked at me. “What did you see?”

“A lot of bullshit talk. This guy is stupid if he doesn’t think you’d have someone else read over this.”

Exhaling, she dropped to the loveseat. “That’s why he was so cheap in the first place. I guess he figures he is a shoe-in, and we’ll just take the higher costs.”

My hand rubbed at the back of my neck at a sudden ache. Should I stay out of it? No, I was in this for the long haul, which meant helping Haven however I could.

“I know someone. A contractor.”

Her head popped up. “You do?”

“Yeah. One of our ranch hands, his name is Solo; his father owns a construction company. He’s done several things for us at the ranch, including building my cousin Beck and Avery’s house. He remodeled the main barn a few years back and also built my house.”

She let out a little bubble of laughter. “You should have led with that. Your house is beautiful.”

I felt my cheeks heat. “I can arrange a meeting if you’d like.”

Haven jumped up, causing me to quickly stand as well. She threw herself into my arms. “Thank you, Nate! I would love that.”

Drawing back, I smiled down at her. I loved that I had made that sparkle in her eyes and those two dimples appear once again. “I’ll give him a call now before we leave.”

We walked up to a blue bus with the words, The Waggin, painted on it in white.

“The Waggin?” I asked as I looked at Haven. She winked, and if I didn’t know better, I would have sworn wild horses took off in my chest.

“Okay, so we go to each house, pick up the dogs, then head up to the trail.”

She climbed into the driver’s seat. “Chad will sometimes help me, especially if I have a full load. This morning is a light load, though.”

“What do you need me to do?”

With that big, dimpled smile, she replied, “I’ll show you on the first one how to strap them in. After that, each dog will jump into his or her seat and you can buckle them in. Once that is done, just enjoy the dogs.”

After getting on the bus, Haven started it. She pulled out a printed-out paper on a clipboard, looked it over, and then we were on our way.

“First up is Monty, a black lab and a total sweetheart.”

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