Page 10 of Flippin' Cowboy
“I know who he is,” Winnie said. She wondered how Grandma and Karla had managed to bring him on board.
Guess I’m going to have to treat Autumn to that mani-pedi, after all,she thought.Her sister had bet her that Grandma could bend Nick to her will. Winnie had scoffed and taken the bet without hesitating.
Grandma Abigail continued serenely, “Nick, this is my granddaughter, Winter. You may have seen her on TV.”
His eyes widened. “Winter…WinnieSnowberry?TheWinnie Snowberry? From Seattle?” He sounded incredulous.
Winnie couldn’t help grinning at him. “The one and only fake celebrity flipper,” she said acidly. “Nice to meet you, Nick.”
He glared down at her from his imposing height, then turned to Grandma Abigail.
“Thisis the ‘experienced and trusted contractor’ you and Karla Jones want me to work with? You’ve got to be kidding me!”
Chapter 4: Cursed by the Traffic Gods
State Highway 89
Fifteen miles south of Livingston, MT
Two hours earlier
“Fuck me,” Nick Evans grunted as he heaved a full-sized spare tire into place on his front passenger side axle. “Of all the stupid, fucking inconvenient times to get a flat tire!”
He prided himself on punctuality, and before this disaster, he was already running late for an important meeting. In fact, today was possibly the most important meeting of his career as a historical preservationist. He only hoped his tardiness wouldn’t torpedo his chances with HomeRenoTV.
The drive from his home in Butte should’ve only taken two and a half hours. But the traffic gods clearly hated him today.
First, there had been an overturned big rig on the stretch of highway through Bozeman. Now, ten miles from his goal, his electric Jeep Wrangler’s “Tire Pressure Low” warning light had blinked on, forcing him to pull over to the side of the highway to deal with a flat.
Childish shrieks of joy rose in the clear, cold air, followed by feminine giggles.
At leastsomeonewas having fun right now.
Nick’s mood instantly lightened, and a smile stretched his cold-stiffened lips as he watched his six-year-old son, Kegan, having a snowball fight with his nanny on the side of the road. Luckily, this stretch of highway between Livingston and Gardiner wasn’t busy.
Absorbed in watching Spider-Man cartoons on his tablet, Kegan had been quiet during the first half of the long drive. But Nick had noticed him growing restless as the trip dragged on with stop-and-go traffic.
When Nick pulled over to deal with the flat tire, Kegan’s nanny, Kelsey, had jumped at the chance to let the little boy work out his wiggles.
On any other day, Nick would’ve joined in the snowball fight. But he had to stay on point right now and finish changing this tire ASAP.
After years of toiling in near-obscurity to preserve Montana’s precious historical heritage, he’d just received an offer to work on the filmed restoration of an old hotel on the south end of Paradise Valley.
The building’s owner, Mrs. Abigail Snowberry, had mentioned she was working with someone named Karla Jones from The Renovation Channel, and that they wanted a Montana-based preservationist to manage the project.
The offer seemed almost too good to be true, especially after all those times he’d criticized projects televised on the HomeRenoTV network. He’d built a large social media followingover the past few years. About half of his followers were interested in his restoration projections at various locations around the state. The other half showed up for the righteous rants he dished out whenever something aired on The Renovation Channel that irritated the fuck out of him.
Nick didn’t care that he was becoming famous for being an online grump. There was absolutely no excuse for shoddy work, cheap shortcuts, or—worst of all—trying to make the interiors of historic homes look like cookie-cutter tract houses.
Frankly, most of the designers and contractors on The Renovation Channel could take their open plan living spaces and quartz-topped kitchen islands and shove them right up their asses.
And right there was the sticking point in Nick’s prospective broadcast deal with The Renovation Channel and its parent company, HomeRenoTV. The network’s executives wanted him to work with one of The Renovation Channel’s celebrity general contractors.
Based on what he’d seen on HomeRenoTV’s shows, he didn’t think much of their GCs. He hoped he could talk them out of it and recommend one of his guys, instead. There were a couple of construction firms he recruited for every new project, with GCs and trades who were as interested in preservation as he was. Even better, they did meticulous restoration work.
He hoped the TV producer he was supposed to meet with today wouldn’t take a hard line on the celebrity contractor thing.
If I can secure this TV deal, maybe Dad and the rest of the family will finally take my “little historical hobby” seriously, he thought as he twisted the lug nut wrench.
