By the time Andie went to meet Maxi at Sandcastles, she was wilting from the heat. Her hair hung in damp clumps, and her T-shirt was covered in antique dirt. They chose a table outside, and Claire brought them a tray of scones and some coffee.
“Hey, guys, I wish I could join you, but I’m slammed. Hailey is off today.” She glanced over at a table that was flagging her down. “Let me know how things work out with the loan.”
She headed off, and Andie turned her attention to the paperwork Maxi had placed on the table.
“These papers outline the guidelines and terms. Did you find anything historically significant in your search?” The dust on Andie’s shirt must have given away the fact that she’d been digging in the attic.
Andie pulled out an old rolled-up paper. “We found these Civil War discharge papers from a relative. I was thinking of looking it up to see if he was prominent in the war. Do you think that would be enough?”
Maxi made a face and cut her pistachio scone down the middle. “I’m not sure. Doesn’t sound that exciting.”
“We’ll keep looking.” Andie picked up the raspberry scone and looked it over, but she didn’t feel like eating. Two hours searching that attic had come up with nothing. Thoughts of the secret stairway haunted her. If there really was a passage, wouldn’t that indicate the house was part of the Underground Railroad or maybe something else? Maybe they should start looking for that instead.
“The application is in there too.” Maxi waved at the pile of paperwork. “James said to fill it out and he’d push it through quickly. There are specifics about paint colors and all that too. I mentioned the boutique Airbnb idea, and he said there is nothing that specifically prohibits her from doing that. As long as the outside is historically preserved, the inside can be updated.”
“That make sense. I mean, they could hardly expect you to work in a 1700s kitchen. Most people would want modern appliances.”
“Right. They just want to make sure the exterior is in keeping with what would be appropriate for the time period of the house.”
“That’s easy enough. Not much has been done to it structurally on the outside, so it’s mostly repairing and painting.” Andie was already wondering what they would do to the inside to make it suitable. She hadn’t taken a good look at the partition that had been done. Maybe there wasn’t a lot of work left to do? How much money would they get anyway?
“So how are things with Shane?” Maxi asked.
“Shane? What do you mean?” Why would Maxi ask about him out of the blue? “He worked on the stairs at the house, but...”
Maxi was smiling and glancing over Andie’s shoulder, and she turned to see Shane crossing the street and heading in her direction.
Shane nodded to Maxi as he crossed the street toward their table. Suddenly he felt awkward and shy. Which was stupid. He was a grown man just stopping over to say hello to old friends.
The awkward feeling might have had something to do with the way Maxi was leaning forward, her eyes full of anticipation and darting from Shane to Andie as if she were expecting something to happen. His heart skipped a beat as Andie turned around, the sunlight sparking off the silver highlights in her dark hair. Her eyes crinkled at the corners, and her pink lips tugged into a smile as she saw him.
“Hi.” He had planned to say something more clever, but that was what came out.
“Hey, Shane, how are you?” Maxi asked.
“Great.” Shane shifted his gaze to Andie. “How are you guys?” Again, not very clever.
“Great,” they both said.
“Would you like to join us?” Maxi gestured to the table. “We could have Claire bring another cup of coffee.”
Shane glanced at Andie. She had a panicked look in her eye. Did she not want him to join? He couldn’t tell. Maybe they’d been having a private conversation that was none of his business.
He didn’t want to appear overeager. He didn’t want her to guess that he’d been thinking of their lunch at the Clam Shack pretty much nonstop since the other day. Shane wondered if Andie had felt the same magic that he had that day. Probably not. But what if he took her to more of their old hangouts? Would she loosen up again? Did she even want to?
His instincts told him to go slow, not to push. Part of it was that he sensed Andie needed more time. The other part was that he didn’t want to be hurt by her again.
“No thanks, I’m working over at Bradford Breads.” He glanced back over his shoulder at the bread store, where he was replacing some gutters. “I just saw you over here and thought I’d say hi.”
“Glad you did,” Maxi said then raised her brows at Andie as if prompting her to say something.
“Yeah. Good to see you,” Andie said.
“I wanted to talk to you about the Thompson house, anyway,” Shane said, not ready to leave Andie’s company quite yet. “After Damien shut down the auction, Emily seemed kind of upset.”
“Yeah, he’s a jerk. We came up with a solution, though.” Andie’s face lit with excitement, reminding Shane of how she used to love to help others during high school. Apparently that part of her hadn’t changed over the years. “Maxi suggested we try a historical preservation loan to get some immediate money, so I’m going to help Emily apply for that.”
“Oh great. So that would help with restoring the house, but what about the antiques she wanted to sell at the auction?”
“Frank Fowler is going to have one at his barn, but he’s booked for a few months. That will help bring in some money for the loan, and then…” Andie leaned forward and lowered her voice as if the next part was a secret. Shane felt flattered she was sharing with him. “She’s going to try to set up part of the house as a boutique Airbnb.”
“Really? Is the house set up for that?” Shane hadn’t been inside, but he figured if you were doing vacation rentals, you’d need separate kitchens, bathrooms, and bedrooms.
Andie grimaced. “Sadie had already separated part of the house, but I’m sure we’ll need to do a lot of work to make it suit our purposes. I’ll probably ask you and Sally for an estimate once we have the loan locked in, if you don’t mind.”
Mind? He’d love any excuse to work closely with her. “Sure, that would be fine. I’m kind of busy but can probably fit you in.”
Shane did a mental calculation on what a renovation like that might cost. Kitchens were expensive, even if Emily wanted to set up the units as efficiencies with smaller kitchens. Or maybe she’d set it up more like Tides and wouldn’t need kitchens. Either way, it was going to be a lot, and he knew Emily had debt she needed to pay. But maybe he didn’t need to be paid right away. He’d talk to Sally about letting Emily defer payment until she was on her feet.
“That would be great.” Andie’s smile was brilliant, and his heart stuttered again. Better to leave while he was ahead.
“Okay. Nice seeing you both.”
“You too,” Andie said.
He nodded to Maxi and Andie then turned and walked across the street, feeling awkwardly like they were watching him walk away.