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Authors: Eileen Key
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all this time, he’s not going to be able to support a store.”
“I have as much business as I can handle through my website and craft fairs.”
“That’s just the point. You can’t handle any more because you need to hire someone so you can grow, and you can’t hire anyone because you work in a shoe box.”
Willow looped the handle of her purse over her shoulder. “But you should see his work space. An artist needs a beautiful place to create and display his work and—”
“Stop!” Elsa held a spoon in each hand. “Look.” She set one spoon on the table. “Love is here.” The other spoon slammed down a foot and a half away. “And business is here. You have to keep them separate. Have. To. Keep. Them. Separate. Do you understand?”
“Yes. I. Un. Der. Stand.” Willow copied Elsa’s insulting cadence. “But I disagree. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to clean Wilson’s apartment. And if you two want to help me, you’ll vote for Wilson. Daily.” She shoved a two-dollar tip and Wilson’s business card under her saucer and stood. “Happy Valentine’s Day, ladies.”
Their whispers followed her out the door. “If she doesn’t figure out how to separate her business and her love life …”
Even though Wilson wasn’t home, just being in his living room banished all traces of her bad mood.
“Ohh-ohhh livin’ on a prayer …” She waltzed across the wood floor with Wilson’s dust mop and stopped at a painting on an easel in the corner. It hadn’t been there last week.
It was a painting of the barn she stood in. She’d never seen it from this angle. Wilson must have sat out by the creek to capture it. She imagined sitting beside him while he painted this summer setting—reading a book or simply gazing at the riot of wild columbine and purple coneflower carpeting the hill that sloped up to the stone foundation.
She counted the tall windows in the painting. Nine. She stood back. There were only four in the living room. She looked at the dark blue curtain hanging on the south wall. No light seeped through, meaning it didn’t cover a window. She touched the bottom with the dust mop, feeling like a six-year-old waiting for the bogeyman to jump out of the closet.
A tiny puff of sawdust landed on her clean floor. She pulled the heavy blue corduroy aside. And gasped.
Like Lucy walking through the back of the wardrobe, she stood in a completely different world. An enormous, light-filled, white-walled room. Old, hand-hewn timbers on the slanted walls met at a massive beam a good twenty feet over her head. On the far wall, a fieldstone chimney rose above a large open hearth.
Everything else in the unfinished and unfurnished room was brand spanking new. A black granite island, walnut flooring still with stickers on some of the boards, banks of cupboards and a whole wall of empty shelves all in walnut, just a shade darker than the floors. Recessed lighting everywhere, but hardly even needed at this time of day, not with sunlight pouring through giant west-facing windows.
Willow walked over to the island where the sparkling granite was partially concealed by blueprints with Woodhaus Studio printed along the top in perfect block letters. An invoice lay to one side. An electrician’s bill—in five figures. An ostentatious red Paid covered half of it.
“And all this time he’s made me think he was poverty stricken!” Her fingers curled into her palms. New wood whined under her feet as she stomped toward the deceptive blue curtain and flung it open. Back in the tiny, dark living room, she pulled out her phone and made a call.
Voice mail.
She took a deep breath. “Elsa, I’m so sorry for everything I said and for not listening to you. I’ve changed my mind. I do need your help because I do want to win.
Boy-oh-boy
do I want to win!”
Chapter 10
W illow’s dangly emerald earrings caught the light from the candle flickering on the white linen tablecloth between them as she bent over
“I have as much business as I can handle through my website and craft fairs.”
“That’s just the point. You can’t handle any more because you need to hire someone so you can grow, and you can’t hire anyone because you work in a shoe box.”
Willow looped the handle of her purse over her shoulder. “But you should see his work space. An artist needs a beautiful place to create and display his work and—”
“Stop!” Elsa held a spoon in each hand. “Look.” She set one spoon on the table. “Love is here.” The other spoon slammed down a foot and a half away. “And business is here. You have to keep them separate. Have. To. Keep. Them. Separate. Do you understand?”
“Yes. I. Un. Der. Stand.” Willow copied Elsa’s insulting cadence. “But I disagree. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to clean Wilson’s apartment. And if you two want to help me, you’ll vote for Wilson. Daily.” She shoved a two-dollar tip and Wilson’s business card under her saucer and stood. “Happy Valentine’s Day, ladies.”
Their whispers followed her out the door. “If she doesn’t figure out how to separate her business and her love life …”
Even though Wilson wasn’t home, just being in his living room banished all traces of her bad mood.
“Ohh-ohhh livin’ on a prayer …” She waltzed across the wood floor with Wilson’s dust mop and stopped at a painting on an easel in the corner. It hadn’t been there last week.
It was a painting of the barn she stood in. She’d never seen it from this angle. Wilson must have sat out by the creek to capture it. She imagined sitting beside him while he painted this summer setting—reading a book or simply gazing at the riot of wild columbine and purple coneflower carpeting the hill that sloped up to the stone foundation.
She counted the tall windows in the painting. Nine. She stood back. There were only four in the living room. She looked at the dark blue curtain hanging on the south wall. No light seeped through, meaning it didn’t cover a window. She touched the bottom with the dust mop, feeling like a six-year-old waiting for the bogeyman to jump out of the closet.
A tiny puff of sawdust landed on her clean floor. She pulled the heavy blue corduroy aside. And gasped.
Like Lucy walking through the back of the wardrobe, she stood in a completely different world. An enormous, light-filled, white-walled room. Old, hand-hewn timbers on the slanted walls met at a massive beam a good twenty feet over her head. On the far wall, a fieldstone chimney rose above a large open hearth.
Everything else in the unfinished and unfurnished room was brand spanking new. A black granite island, walnut flooring still with stickers on some of the boards, banks of cupboards and a whole wall of empty shelves all in walnut, just a shade darker than the floors. Recessed lighting everywhere, but hardly even needed at this time of day, not with sunlight pouring through giant west-facing windows.
Willow walked over to the island where the sparkling granite was partially concealed by blueprints with Woodhaus Studio printed along the top in perfect block letters. An invoice lay to one side. An electrician’s bill—in five figures. An ostentatious red Paid covered half of it.
“And all this time he’s made me think he was poverty stricken!” Her fingers curled into her palms. New wood whined under her feet as she stomped toward the deceptive blue curtain and flung it open. Back in the tiny, dark living room, she pulled out her phone and made a call.
Voice mail.
She took a deep breath. “Elsa, I’m so sorry for everything I said and for not listening to you. I’ve changed my mind. I do need your help because I do want to win.
Boy-oh-boy
do I want to win!”
Chapter 10
W illow’s dangly emerald earrings caught the light from the candle flickering on the white linen tablecloth between them as she bent over
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