it to Cate with a dramatic sweep of his hand.
“This is pretty exciting.”
She unlocked the door, stepped in.
Fresh flowers, autumn blooms in milk bottles and mason jars—she’d expected flowers. She hadn’t expected to see the few pieces of furniture she’d put in storage—unable to part with—mixed in with the rest.
“That’s my coffee table, and my lamp! My hunt table, too, and my chair.”
“A woman wants to have her own things.”
She turned to Lily. “They were in storage.”
“And wouldn’t have been if they didn’t matter to you.”
“But how did you get them out of storage? How did you get them here?”
Hugh mimed brushing lint off his shirt. “We have our ways.”
“Well, I love your ways. This is just so damn sweet, and everything looks great. And oh God, that view.”
Breathtaking, she thought, with no obstructions to the hard blue of the sky, the wide, wide sea, the scatter of trees twisted by the wind into magical shapes.
“I’ll never get anything done,” she murmured. “I’ll be drunk on the view night and day.”
“The kitchen’s been redone—it needed it,” Lily added. “And you actually like to cook from time to time.”
Soda bread for the Coopers, Cate thought, still dreaming.
“Pantry’s stocked for when you don’t want to come to the house for meals. Which we hope isn’t often.” Hugh walked over to join her.
She tipped her head to his shoulder. “You may have to come check on me, shake me out of my happy coma. I want to see the kitchen, and the . . .”
She turned, blinked. “I was so distracted I didn’t see. You opened up some walls.”
And the open floor plan brought the kitchen into view, separating it from the living space with a wide granite counter in myriad shades of gray and silver and hints of blue.
“It’s fabulous. When did you do all this? I love it.”
She walked over, skimmed her fingers over the granite. White cabinets—not sleek and modern but slatted and cottagey, a little distressed—hit just the right note against pale, pale gray walls. They’d gone with white, vintage-style appliances, added glass fronts on a section that held colorful glassware. Gleaming butcher block topped a small work island.
She admired the deep farm sink, opened the slatted door to a walk-in pantry. Stocked, she thought, to hold her through a zombie apocalypse.
She could eat on the rush-topped stools at the counter facing the breathtaking view, or snuggle into the nook with its benches as colorful as the glassware.
“What do you think?”
“G-Lil, I think I win the prize for grandparents.”
“Combo laundry and mudroom through there.” Lily pointed. “And I’m going to warn you, Consuela’s going to come in twice a week to clean and do laundry. No point arguing,” she added. “She’s very adamant. Very.”
“Okay, but I’ll talk her down to once a week.”
“Good luck with that,” Hugh muttered.
“Either way, this is the sweetest kitchen I’ve ever seen. I’d have been happy in the main house, and I’d have felt at home. But this? Well, it’s already home and I haven’t even seen my bedroom.”
“There’s just one more little change down here, before we go up.” Hugh hooked his arm with Cate’s. “You’ve still got the half bath and reading room over there. And over here—”
“We called it the playroom, the older kids called it the dorm.”
“We didn’t think you’d need either of those,” he said as he opened the door.
If she’d been dazzled by the changes so far, this knocked her speechless.
They’d given her a studio, fully equipped, soundproofed, complete with booth. Noise-blocking shades, up now to let in the light and the garden view, the rise of hills beyond, could be rolled down to give her complete silence during recording.
As with her furniture, the equipment she’d packed up, shipped out, wove in with new.
The mics, the stands, even the pop filters, her work comp, the headphones, the works. They’d put in a small, glass-fronted cabinet, stocked it with the water she needed to keep her throat, her tongue lubricated.
They hadn’t missed a trick.
“I’ve got nothing,” she managed. “I’ve got nothing.”
“A professional needs a professional space to work.”
She could only nod at her grandfather’s statement. “And boy, is this one of those. It’s got it all and then some. You even thought of the mirror.”
“You said you practice expressions in character to help find the voice,” Lily reminded her.
“I do.” Stunned, she stepped into the little recording booth, looked at the equipment.
“And if you’re doing a song, or an audiobook, especially, you like more isolation and control.”
She nodded. “Yeah,