Page 41 of Coffee Shop Girl
She’d lived here long enough that everyone knew her, if the sheer number of greetings and friendly catcalls when she walked in meant anything.
“Fair enough. Let’s take this to my place.”
With one last uncertain glance, she agreed. I grabbed my coat and followed her out the front door, relieved to get her somewhere I could have her to myself.
15
Bethany
The sun had just started setting by the time we made it to his grandfather’s cabin.
I knew the area as soon as Maverick turned off the highway to wind through roads that led deeper into the mountains. The truck climbed effortlessly up steep, dirt hills until we leveled out on a small driveway that fed off from a one-track residential road. The driveway curved over a forested slope before stopping at a hidden house that took my breath away.
The seat belt hissed as it slid across my chest.
“This,” I breathed, is your grandpa’s cabin? This looks like a luxury home.”
He cracked a half-smile. “Yeah, but it’s not as glamorous on the inside. It only looks this good on the outside because the contractors just finished the wood siding.”
I followed him through the dusky evening. He led me to a door along the side of a three-car garage below the house. Above it, a sprawling deck jutted out, elevated above the treetops on the steep mountain below. My breath caught at the sweeping panorama view.
“It’s the most beautiful house I’ve seen near Pineville.”
Considering how often I’d stalked all the real estate sites over the last five years, thatwas saying something.
“It is, but there’s a lot to be done. Electrical rewiring. Laying down some tile in the kitchen, installing new countertops and carpet, reworking the wooden floors and the brick around the chimney. He built it big, but not modern.”
“Is this why you’re here?”
He didn’t glance up, but his expression grew thoughtful. “For the most part. My grandfather died and left it to me in his will. He knew I liked this sort of work, I think. I have good memories from here.”
A flurry in my stomach caught me by surprise. The fact that Maverick had family here, and had visited before, meant we might have run into each other in the past. And, though this felt like alongstretch, maybe he could be here to stay. Because that was a wagon ride I’d jump on.
His vague response left me with even more questions. But I let most of them go. For now.
“Who was your grandfather?”
“Wayne Davies.”
“Oh! I knew him, but not well. He’d play golf with my dad. Sometimes he’d come get coffee in the morning, but he seemed to like his isolation.”
Maverick smiled and opened the door into the house. “He loved golf and silence.”
The warmth in his gaze and the hint of a dimple on his left cheek forced me to look away or make a fool of myself. I steered the conversation back to safer ground as we stepped inside. “You’re doing the renovations yourself, aren’t you?”
He nodded, meeting my gaze with a wry look. “A lot of them. That surprise you?”
“Not really.”
He lifted one eyebrow, and I took it as a silent question.
“You seem like the hands-on type.” Though it went far deeper than that. If Maverick thought I’d assumed he wouldn’t do all the work because of his leg, he was dead wrong. Dad had always proven that having a prosthetic leg didn’t stop him.
“I am.”
“Well.” I turned back to my perusal of the interior. “It’s breathtaking.”
Thanks to the height of the main A-frame, the house peered over all the trees that draped like a skirt down the mountain. In the distance, the reservoir glimmered in the dim light, reflecting the rising moon. The far-off mountains looked like jagged black teeth. Aside from tools, wooden planks, and plastic sheeting, there were no hints of life in the house. No knickknacks or errant shoes. Not even a dirty dish.
