Page 92 of Trusting Fate (Hope Falls: Brewed Awakenings 2)

It showed fun things like when he made a bullseye on a wall they were demoing and they each took turns throwing hammers to see who got closest. It showed them using towels like skates as they cleaned up the water from the pipe that burst. It showed their tile removal race, which Easton had let Grace win because he was trying to boost her spirits.

It showed him giving her hugs and kisses on her forehead, which apparently, he did a lot. It showed them discussing issues and coming up with solutions together. It also showed her checking him out when he was demoing the wall between the kitchen and the dining room. And him blatantly staring at her ass when she was bent over scraping linoleum.

But it also showed things that he hadn’t even known the camera had captured. It showed Grace’s showdown with the possum and how Cleo had come to her rescue. It showed her curled up in the living room while he re-homed the mama and her babies. It showed him coming into the living room and kneeling down, making sure she was okay and them getting up and leaving the house together with Cleo.

The last clip was just of him on staging day. It showed him like he’d never seen himself before. He was stressed and it was clear it had nothing to do with decorating the house. Every five minutes he was checking his phone, running his fingers through his hair. When his phone would buzz, he’d grab it out of his pocket so fast that twice it had dropped on the floor.

Easton never dropped his phone.

Then it showed him pacing on the porch before he went back inside and did a final walk through. It showed the moment he heard Maura’s voice and how he ran down the stairs and pretty much threw the keys at her as he said, “Grace is sick. I have to go.”

He glanced to his side and saw a single tear slide down Grace’s cheek. She quickly lifted her hand and wiped it off.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She nodded in a way that told him she did not want any attention drawn to her. He looked back at the screen and it was black.

Oliver turned toward them. “Grace we are so glad that you are feeling better. Do you mind sharing what was going on?”

Easton looked back at Grace and saw there was no sign of tears in her eyes. And when she spoke she sounded as business-like as when she’d cashed in her IOU. “I just got over exhausted and was running a high fever.”

“Well, I think I got a little hot watching that montage of you two.”

The crowd laughed.

“But seriously, did you find that this experience brought you closer together?”

“Definitely.” Grace nodded. “You really see who a person is when they are under that amount of stress and faced with such an assortment of unique challenges.”

“Tell us about those challenges.”

Grace looked at Easton and he could see that she was done talking. So, he took over.

“Well, I think you saw a lot of them. The roof issues, asbestos, termite damage. We were working under a time crunch and also had a limited budget. Which meant we had to get creative and sometimes that meant trusting the other person and compromising. I wasn’t sold on the marble finishes, but once I saw the finished product, I could see it was a worth-while investment.”

“And I had originally wanted to open up the walls between the dining and family room to the kitchen completely. But after we had some unexpected expenses, Easton came up with an alternate plan of leaving two posts and vaulting the ceiling, which as you can see, turned out to be an even better design plan and worked to our advantage.”

“Wow! Can you say couple goals?” Oliver turned toward the studio audience and there was a round of applause. He then moved down the row to talk to the other teams.

He could feel tension radiating off of Grace beside him and it was everything Easton could do not to pick her up and carry her off the stage. He wasn’t sure if she was just emotional after seeing their montage, or if she was upset at him about something she saw, maybe she hadn’t known they were going to show the possum incident.

He sure as hell hadn’t.

Whatever the reason, he knew she was upset and he wanted to fix it. To save her. But he knew better than most. Grace did not need saving.

Oliver walked back over to Grace and Easton and said, “When we come back we’ll see if all that teamwork and compromise was enough to crown them the winners of Home Sweet Flipping Home Vets versus Virgins!”

As soon as the red light went off the camera, there was a flurry of activity. Crew came in and took the chairs off of the set and everyone was directed where to stand on their marks. Grace and Easton stood on one side of Oliver and Michael and Michelle stood on the other.

“What’s going on?” he whispered to Grace.

“What do you mean?” her brow wrinkled.

“I mean why are we standing here?”

“We’re in the final two.”

“We are?”

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