this morning?”
“Absolutely. What can I say? I’m good.”
“Oh, you’re something, all right.” Decker gazed around the room. “So why are we here? Kyla and Jess have ideas you need me to take a look at?”
“No. We’re going upstairs, actually.”
“We’ve already got two thousand feet downstairs. Don’t tell me Kyla wants a two-story spa?”
“Nope.” Cole started up the stairs. “Better.”
When they had both reached the second story, Cole walked out into the middle of the huge space. Just like on the bottom floor, windows occupied almost every square inch of wall space, bringing in light from every possible angle. In the original design for the building, they’d had fewer windows on the second story, but Kyla had insisted they mirror the downstairs, and now that he stood in the middle of the space, Cole was glad they’d gone to the extra expense.
Future expansion, Kyla had said. Daycare. Executive meeting space. Wedding suite. You never know!
She’d been right, as usual, but he wasn’t viewing this space as any of those things right now. No, he had a much better vision in mind, and he had a feeling Kyla would wholeheartedly approve.
“Okay, enlighten me. Why are we here?” Decker turned around slowly. “Damn, this is a nice space.”
Cole took a deep breath and unrolled a long piece of paper he’d been sketching on for half the night. Yeah, Decker was the architect of the family. Everyone knew that. But he’d had to take a stab at this, had to see if he could make an attempt at creating something out of all this empty space.
With four quick taps of his hammer, he pinned it up on the wall. “Take a look.”
Decker drew his eyebrows together, stepping toward the sketch. “What’s this?”
“A vision. Just a stab at it—a crude sketch. But I’d be curious to know what you think.”
Decker put his hands on his hips, leaning in a bit to scan the drawing. Cole hated that he felt like biting his own damn fingernails while he waited to see what Decker would say.
Which was nothing.
For what felt like ten minutes he stared, and cocked his head, then cocked it the other way, then took a step back, then forward again, but still didn’t utter a word.
“Well?” Cole finally asked, unable to take it any longer. If Decker was going to say the sketch was complete crap, he’d rather he just came right out with it, rather than take all this time to sugarcoat his feedback.
“Holy shit.”
He waited another minute while Decker pointed at something with his index finger, tracing it along the drawing and finally nodding slowly. “Just a quick question for you: Did you sketch this out before you decided to try to get Jess to stay, or after?”
Cole shrugged. “Does it matter?”
“Might. Am I looking at this as an apartment? A home? Or an executive rental?”
“Either. Both. All of the above. Not sure.”
Right.
Decker nodded thoughtfully. “I like it. Like it a lot.” He pointed at the western-facing wall on the drawing. “Like how you kept this view intact from the whole place, love the open concept, and any woman would kill for that bathroom.”
“But from an architectural design perspective, does it have legs?”
“Yeah. Definitely has legs.”
“What would you do differently?”
“Nothing.”
“Seriously?”
Decker nodded, shrugging his shoulders as he turned back toward Cole. “It’s good. Really good. I’d live here.” He turned to look at the drawing again. “Where’d you learn to do that?”
Cole shrugged. “Not sure. Just sat down and started sketching what I saw in my head.” Because my damn head won’t stop churning with ideas for how to convince Jess to move out here for good. Even though a week ago I wasn’t sure even I wanted to stay out here for good.
“Well, Jess is gonna love it.”
“It’s not for—”
“Sure.” Decker put on his hat and headed for the stairs. “And yet another woman arrives at Whisper Creek and causes me more work.”
He clomped back down to the lower level, but Cole didn’t miss the smile he was trying to hide under his grumbling. He stood for another moment in the middle of the room, gazing out the windows toward the Rockies, then sighed as he pictured Jess in this space. Pictured her sitting on a low, wide window seat with a cup of tea and a soft blanket. Pictured her standing behind a granite countertop, looking out at the sunset as she made breakfast wearing just his shirt and nothing else. Pictured her waking up in a big, soft bed, mesmerized