At Wild Rose Cottage. Callie Endicott

I’ll see you then.”

      It wasn’t terrific. As a rule he no longer met with customers; he’d discovered the business did better if other employees handled contacts that required diplomacy. But the situation was different with his childhood home, and he would do whatever it took to get what he wanted.

      * * *

      EMILY ENDED THE CALL, a little surprised by the conversation with Trent Hawkins. From what she’d seen and heard, he was an odd duck.

      Oh, well, she wasn’t looking for a friend; she wanted to get her house fixed. But it was strange that the head of such a large company wanted to meet personally.

      The representative from Big Sky had been extremely thorough and hadn’t anticipated any problems. Emily had contacted a number of their references and they were all quite satisfied. The conversations had taken a while, since a lot of them wanted to chat—something she’d learned was typical of people in Schuyler. Most said they’d never dealt directly with the owner of Big Sky. A few knew Trent Hawkins through community contacts or his family, but their vague comments gave her the impression of caution, as though they considered him a slightly dangerous enigma.

      One retired schoolteacher had mentioned that she’d taught most of the Hawkins and McGregor kids in her classroom, but had never understood Trent.

      “At first glance he reminded me of his father,” she’d said. “But Gavin was such a bright, charming man. Trent isn’t as...cheerful. Of course, losing his parents that way has to affect a child. It’s probably no surprise that he was socially awkward.”

      Emily had found the comment irrelevant. Trent Hawkins’s charm, or lack of it, wasn’t important. It was his company’s skill and honesty that she cared about. Nonetheless, the opinions expressed by other Big Sky clients certainly jived with her own brief impressions of him.

      The doorbell gasped out a disgruntled squawk at precisely four o’clock and Emily realized that was one repair that had failed to make her list of improvements.

      She opened the door and though she’d already met Trent Hawkins, almost gasped herself. While she wasn’t short, he seemed to tower over her in the doorway.

      “Hello, Ms. George,” he said politely.

      “Uh, call me Emily,” she returned, taking an involuntary step backward. “I’m from Southern California. We’re informal there.”

      He hesitated a moment before nodding. “Emily, then. Call me Trent.”

      She led him into the living room where she’d set up a card table and folding chairs. That, along with the air mattress in the back ground-floor bedroom, made up her current furniture. She’d bought them in Schuyler since most of her belongings were staying in California until she was completely settled.

      Trent barely glanced at anything.

      “Is there a part of the house you need to look at?” she asked, his silence making her nervous.

      “No.” He seated himself and she sat across from him. Pulling a sheaf of papers from a folder he pushed it toward her. “You can see from the estimate that any renovations will be extremely expensive. Some might even say prohibitively expensive. So I have a proposal. I’d like to buy the house. I’ll pay ten percent over your sales price and reimburse your moving and closing costs on a new property. There are some nice homes on the west end of town you should consider purchasing.”

      Surprise shot through Emily. “Do you do this often?” she asked. “I mean, try to buy a house instead of contracting to fix it up?”

      “Generally, no.”

      She leaned forward. “I don’t understand. If you were interested in Wild Rose Cottage, why didn’t you make an offer when it was for sale?”

      “Wild Rose Cottage?” Trent repeated, staring at her as if she was batty.

      It wasn’t a new experience to Emily, but this time it bothered her more than usual. Maybe it was the other, less defined emotions in his eyes that were getting to her. It was almost as if he’d been reminded of something both pleasant and deeply disturbing. On the other hand, he was hardly a touchy-feely sort of guy, so she might be projecting her own reactions onto him—she’d always had an active imagination.

      “That’s my name for the house,” she said, lifting her chin. “There are wild roses growing everywhere. Someone must have loved them. There are even wild roses etched on the glass in the front door. Anyway, supposedly I was the only interested buyer.”

      “I didn’t have time to learn it was for sale. The property was on the market for less than forty-eight hours,” he returned sharply, and this time his mood was unmistakable—pure annoyance.

      Emily restrained a tart remark. She had no intention of letting Trent Hawkins guilt her into selling Wild Rose Cottage. It wasn’t her fault that he hadn’t known it was for sale, and considering the state of the place, she could hardly have expected someone else to be interested.

      “So what do you want with it?” she asked.

      “That’s my concern,” he answered in clipped tones.

      Her eyebrows shot up at the bald response. Then all at once he took a deep breath and smiled, except his smile looked more like a dog lifting its lip to snarl.

      “I beg your pardon,” he continued, “that was rude. It’s simply that my reasons are personal and I’d rather not discuss them.”

      While his explanation had begun in a more genial voice, it ended in the same tight tone as before. Oddly, Emily didn’t think he realized how he sounded.

      The intensity of his gaze bothered her, so she dropped her attention to the proposal and started going through it, page by page. It was thorough and organized. The prices were higher than the other estimates she’d received, though not ridiculously so. She’d had more costly work done on her home in California.

      “Are you saying that you aren’t interested in renovating Wild Rose Cottage if it belongs to me?” she asked finally.

      “You can see how expensive it will be.”

      “I’m not an idiot. I expected it to run high.”

      Trent shook his head gravely. “Housing values in Schuyler will never escalate enough to make it a feasible investment, not if you have to pay a contractor to do it.”

      Plainly he was suggesting that fixing up the house made sense for him, and not for her, since he wouldn’t have to pay himself for the work. But she couldn’t shake the conviction that he had another agenda altogether.

      “I’m not interested in selling,” Emily said, her obstinate nature kicking into high gear. “I like this house and want to fix it the way it should be fixed.”

      His jaw went tight and hard. “It isn’t worth the investment,” he repeated.

      “This isn’t an investment, it’s a home. For me. And I don’t want to live on the west end of town. I enjoy being able to walk to my store in a few minutes and still feel as if I’m living in a nice neighborhood.”

      He seemed to be breathing very carefully, perhaps controlling a deeper reaction. Anger? Exasperation? Hope? What was it about this particular house that interested him?

      Since moving to Schuyler she’d heard a fair amount of gossip about the McGregors. They had piles of old money, some coming from Texas and Oklahoma oil. On top of that, Trent Hawkins was the most successful contractor in the area. He’d been in business for over fifteen years and had gone from a small operation in Schuyler to having numerous branch offices. 320 Meadowlark Lane could only be a blip on his radar.

      Emily squared her shoulders. “Are you interested in the job or not?”

      He paused a long moment before answering. “Yes.”

      “In that case, I’ll let you know tomorrow whether I’ve chosen your company to do