and unrolled the inner documents.
“Can you hold this?”
Claire held one side of the huge blueprint and he held the other.
His heart hammered. Sure enough. The very plans he’d helped create were about to complicate his life. Big-time.
Plans on paper were supposed to be adjustable. Erase them, start over and redo the mistakes. Right?
Well, it was too late for that. Everything had been set in motion. Official documents had been approved and registered. Construction had begun. Demolition permits had been filed.
The map that lay on the plans spread in front of him indicated that straight ahead they would turn right onto a narrow road. The town, in consultation with his firm, planned to expand and widen this particular rural road, providing a very necessary secondary egress to Paradise Lake and the development homes and condos.
Urban renewal—except this time it was in the country. But the theory was the same. The town of Paradise had the right of eminent domain: a legal instrument to move people and property for development projects that improved the town.
In Paradise that meant that all three of the houses along that road were slated to be razed. Homeowners had been given generous market value offers and they’d receive positive responses from all but one.
The single holdout, by virtue of no response, was address twenty-two-fifty.
Too late, he realized that twenty-two-fifty was the house that belonged to Lily Gray.
What were the odds?
Ten years later and Anne still lived with her aunt. Matt fought the desperate urge to turn the truck around, go back home, pack his bags and head straight to Denver.
If that wasn’t bad enough, and it absolutely was, he realized he was about to come face-to-face with Lily Gray after all these years. The woman he blamed for turning Anne against him. For destroying the happy ending he’d planned for his life.
He began to roll up the blueprint, carefully tucking the document back into the protective tube.
“Is something wrong?” Claire whispered in her soft voice.
Matt released a breath and rubbed his jaw. “Yeah. You could say that.”
“What is it?”
“Hard to explain,” he answered. “But it’s nothing that a little prayer won’t fix.”
Claire frowned slightly and cocked her head, her amber eyes clear. “Do you pray about everything?”
“I try to.” He turned and fully faced his daughter. “Do you pray, Claire?”
“I guess.” She shrugged. “Sometimes.”
“That’s good, because God is the best daddy either of us has. He won’t ever let us down. Today I am definitely going to need His help. And if today is one of those ‘sometimes’ for you, I’d like a few prayers, as well.”
She blinked and studied him, as though digesting his words, and then offered him a small nod.
The gesture comforted him as he signaled and got back on the road.
After driving a quarter mile farther he turned right. He saw the house long before the GPS device announced their arrival. This was the house Anne had talked about all the time when they were together. The home she was raised in as an orphan by her aunt. He’d recognize the cookie-cutter-trimmed Victorian from her descriptions. Architecturally he could appreciate the amazing structure with its period corbels, fish-scale shingles and cedar shakes.
Matt regretted that he hadn’t actually looked at the house before this, instead relying only on the geographic maps to plan the construction.
Would he have changed his mind and found another way to the lake if he’d seen how unique it was? If he’d known it was Anne’s home?
He’d never know for sure. “That’s her house?” Claire breathed.
“Looks like it is.”
“It sort of looks like a castle,” she said, talkative for the first time ever.
“What makes you think that?”
“Look at that pointy room there with the long windows.”
“A turret.”
“Turret,” she repeated. “That’s a room where a princess lives. Like Rapunzel.”
“A princess,” Matt murmured. He shook his head, trying to see the big house from his daughter’s eyes.
“I never thought about it that way, Claire. But I can see you’re absolutely right.”
Yeah, it was a castle with a princess inside. A dark-haired princess with chocolate-brown eyes who apparently had no clue that her castle was under siege.
“They’re here,” Aunt Lily called. Excitement bubbled over in her voice. “Oh, hurry, hurry.”
“I’m right behind you.” Anne smoothed her hair and took a deep breath as her aunt pulled back the heavy, paneled curtains for another peek.
“My, isn’t he handsome?” Lily said, cocking her head to the side. “He looks a little familiar. Do I know him?”
Anne swallowed and began a hasty prayer under her breath.
“Oh, look they brought their dog,” she announced.
“He’s a big fellow.”
“Yes. Six foot three.”
Lily laughed. “I meant the dog.” She turned to Anne and smiled. “My, you look lovely, dear.”
“Thank you.” Anne glanced down at her black slacks and rose-print blouse and removed a small thread. She tucked her hair behind her ear and fussed with her bangs.
She’d obsessed over what to wear this morning, finally deciding to go casual yet professional. However, confidence in her apparel and being fully prepared to instruct on Type 1 Diabetes still failed to take the edge off her churning stomach or to still her trembling hands.
When the doorbell rang Aunt Lily carefully maneuvered her walker down the short hall. She straightened her dress and pushed her shoulders back, ready to greet her guests. A huge grin lit up her elfin face as Anne opened the door.
“Hello, hello,” Lily brightly called.
Behind the screen stood Matt, bigger than life on crutches, with Claire by his side, her arms protectively crossed. A pink backpack with all her diabetic supplies hung from her wrist. Stanley panted eagerly, ready for action, though he obediently waited on the sidewalk, his tail slapping the cement.
“Ma’am.”
