Page 28 of One and Only

“They’ll believe us,” he said. His voice was so smooth and sure, his face so confident, that I felt an unwilling fluttering sensation underneath my chest. “They’ll believe us, Greer.”

I sucked in a deep breath. “Then let’s do it.”

Chapter5

Greer

“I already told you, that’s not how I want it to look.”

My brother—not the football-playing one but just as stubborn—crossed his arms over his chest and stared me down. “Greer, you have to make up your mind.”

“I did make up my mind. You just don’t want to do it my way.”

“Your way is wrong,” Cameron said.

The crew behind my brother was completely unfazed by our bickering. They’d worked with us long enough to know that at Wilder Homes, there was a very specific process to the completion of each gorgeous custom house we worked on.

Cameron was the general contractor. He was the level head and organizer of the chaos that would bring us from start to finish.

But I was the imagination. I oversaw the construction plans with the architect. I was in charge of the design of each square inch and pulled together our client’s vision through many, many conversations and calls and texts and Pinterest boards.

“My way isn’t wrong,” I said through gritted teeth. “You just have the creativity of a potato, Cameron.”

He sighed, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Fine. Explain it to me again.”

While the work continued around us, I unrolled the plans, and we stood side by side at the makeshift table in the middle of what would eventually be a kitchen. We’d been working with Marcia and Bill for over a year already on one of the biggest homes we’d ever built.

Because we were still in rough-in stage—wires and plumbing and HVAC getting filled into the frame before drywall would start—the house was still a skeleton of what it would end up being.

And most importantly, it was when plans could still shift and change on a dime.

Like when Marcia found something on Pinterest and called me the night before asking if we could add hidden shelving with built in electric around her massive fireplace.

I pointed at the plans. “If you wire here and here, we can still leave the ductwork for the fireplace where it is. We just need to bump this out about four inches on either side to accommodate the adjustable shelves.” I nudged his shoulder. “But it’s doable. I’ll find some flat hardware that will tuck along the top, and they can affix the paneling with those invisible hinges we used on the Marcos job last year.”

Cameron sighed. “Fine.” He shoved a pencil behind his ear and hollered for the foreman on this site. “Wade, Greer has something fancy to add.”

Wade ambled over, his beat-up hat pulled down over his face and an unlit cigarette hanging from his lips. I could never quite tell how old Wade was. He could’ve been forty-five, could’ve been sixty, but he did damn good work, and without fail, he bitched like a mule when I sprang last-minute design changes on him.

“Of fucking course she does,” he grumbled. “What now?”

I laughed, setting a hand on his arm. “I’ll bring cookies tomorrow to make it up to you.”

He grunted. “Hopefully, you’re not the one baking them because the last time you tried, they tasted like tire rubber.”

Cameron snickered, and I leveled him with a glare.

While my brother started explaining the changes, my phone buzzed in the back pocket of my jeans. I pulled it out, stomach fluttering briefly whenBeckett callingappeared on the screen. The room was loud with the sound of nail guns and saws and cursing workers, so I stepped around a sawhorse and hopped over an air compressor next to the front door.

“Hey.”

“Do you have a minute?”

Directly behind me, someone shouted about needing an extra set of hands, and I leveled the kid with a glare.

He winced. “Sorry, Greer. Didn’t see you there.”

I sighed, returning to the phone. “Yeah, I have a minute, just very little privacy, depending on the nature of what needs discussing.”

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