Montrose Lumber was one of Haskell’s most thriving businesses. Everything from the lumber that gave the warehouse store its name to the stone, fixtures, appliances, and windows, each in their own section, made it the most popular construction retailer in Sweetwater County. Jonathan was impressed with the aisles of siding, rows of wall treatments, and especially with the display of marble and granite for countertops and tiles that he and Calliope strolled through, along with Kathy and Cameron.

“See,” Kathy gasped, pressing a hand to her chest as her wide eyes roved a collection of marble slabs that were being unloaded from a truck and stacked against the wall. “I told you it was a good idea to get here as soon as possible. We can pick out all of the best countertops before anyone else has a chance to snatch them up.”

“Yep,” Jonathan agreed. At least, it was a good idea where the renovation project was concerned. One look at Calliope—her arms crossed, a frown etched on her face—made him second-guess whether it was a good idea in other respects.

“I think I want this one for the apartment you guys are renovating—” Kathy skipped over to a grey marble slab. “—and this one for the Meyer house project.” She moved to touch a slab that was light tan with brown flecks in it. “Or maybe the other way around. Cameron, what do you think?”

Cameron shrugged, his hands thrust in his pockets. That seemed to be all Kathy needed.

“Calliope, what about you? You’ve always had a great eye for these things.” Kathy glanced to Calliope with a hopeful lift in her expression.

To Jonathan’s surprise, like Cameron, all she did was shrug. Concern pinched Jonathan’s brow. That wasn’t like her at all. In fact, she’d been much quieter than usual since last night.

He rewound everything that had happened between the two of them since leaving the Clutterbuck house. Flirty conversation, check. Sizzling hot sex that left him on cloud nine, check. A questionable night’s sleep as he adjusted to having someone else in his bed, check. Breakfast and more flirting…well, no. Calliope had woken up out of sorts. Maybe she hadn’t slept well either.

Or maybe he was still deep in denial about how offended she’d been that he’d answered Kathy’s call while in bed with her. That hadn’t been his best move. But on the other hand, what landed him in the doghouse had led to Kathy being a happy camper as far as the renovation project was concerned. And if she was happy, all of the other team leaders and teams would be happy. That amounted to dozens of people. So yeah, he could handle being scowled at by Calliope as long as the project continued to run smoothly, his friends and colleagues stayed positive, and Kathy was satisfied. It was all about balancing the universe.

Which didn’t make him feel any easier when Calliope continued to frown, her shoulders sagging. “If it were me, I’d go with whichever option was cheapest,” she said at last.

Kathy blinked as if disappointed by her answer. “But Howie is paying for everything,” she argued. “Why not go for the best?”

“Because you can’t go spending other people’s money as if it’s your own?” Calliope snapped.

Ooh, boy. Maybe he’d created more of a mess than he’d intended. As much as Jonathan loved how outspoken and free Calliope was when she was in a good mood, it was starting to look like she was equally candid when she was in a crappy mood.

“True.” Kathy tilted her head to the side, considering. “But it’s not just for us, you know. We’re only going to pick one of the homes to live in. That means that three other people will get fabulous houses of their own after the fact.”

Calliope’s jaw hardened. She flicked a sideways glance at Jonathan. “You’re right,” she admitted slowly. “But I still think it’s better if we’re frugal.”

“Frugal is good.” Kathy nodded.

Jonathan sensed she was making an extra effort to get on Calliope’s good side. And that Calliope didn’t really have a good side that morning.

“How about this.” Kathy crossed from the wall where the slabs were being stacked to the first row of shelves facing it. The shelves held smaller bits of marble and other stones—from pieces the size of paving stones to tiny bits for mosaics. “These are super neat.” She scooped a hand into a bin of random mosaic tiles. “We could put together our own fancy design for a backsplash behind the sink.”

“That’s a cool idea,” Jonathan said, crossing to look at the different colors, sizes, and shapes of tiles. “What do you think, Cameron?”

“Yeah,” Cameron said, moving to Kathy’s side to have a look.

“Mosaics take too much time,” Calliope said, staying right where she was.

“We’ve got four more weeks,” Jonathan pointed out.

“Is that enough time?” Kathy asked, her expression full of hope…for more than just the backsplash, if Jonathan was right.

“No,” Calliope said. “It’ll take time to design. Then you have to arrange all the pieces on silicon. And then you have to transfer it to the wall and hope that the pieces don’t fall out of place before the whole thing sets. It’s messy and time-consuming, and we don’t have the budget for it.”

“But…but it would look nice,” Kathy argued, without much fight.

“It won’t be a problem.” Jonathan smiled at her.

He caught a flash of indignation from Calliope before she stifled it. “I’m just saying that we shouldn’t make the project more complicated than it needs to be. Given the limited time frame and all.”

“I understand.” Kathy nodded, glancing from Calliope to Jonathan, even to Cameron, then back to Calliope. “But are you sure we couldn’t just consider it? I would really love to see what you could come up with.”

“So would I,” Jonathan added.

This time, when she glanced at him, he knew he was in trouble. And for the first time, a sting of frustration hit him right in the gut. It shouldn’t be this hard to make everyone happy.

“I appreciate the vote of confidence, but it’s just a competition. We don’t have to get carried away. And why are you asking me about countertops and tiles and things anyhow?” Calliope’s frown deepened.

“Because we’re friends,” Kathy said, quieter than she had been. “I value your opinion.”

“We used to be friends. Right up until you used that friendship to get what you wanted at my expense.”

That was it. Jonathan closed his hand around Calliope’s arm. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

He didn’t wait for her answer before tugging her gently away. She didn’t resist, although a gloomy, guilty sort of look came to her face. At least she knew where she’d put a foot wrong.

He walked with her a few aisles down, turning the corner into a display of plumbing fixtures. “Talk to me,” he said.

“About what?” She didn’t meet his eyes.

He let out a breath and ran a hand over his face. The ever-present prickle of anxiety that he was usually able to ignore stretched and buzzed. “I’m sorry that I answered Kathy’s call last night.” It was only fair to start this conversation with his own shortcomings. “That was our time. Our special time.”

She crossed her arms, rested her weight on one hip, and arched a brow at him. Yep, he’d hit the nail on the head of her problem alright.

“I always get anxious that someone might need my help when the phone rings,” he confessed. Hopefully she’d be able to see that he really was confessing something raw and important. “It’s a throwback to the Army.” And that was all he was going to say about that while standing in the middle of a public store.

“I know you’re a super nice guy, and I really admire you for it. I just hate seeing you yanked around by someone who has a history of playing nice for underhanded reasons.”

“Years ago,” Jonathan pointed out.

Calliope’s frown darkened. “We waited so long to be together like that.” She sighed, letting her arms drop. “It was, I don’t know, anticlimactic.”

Something clicked inside of him, like she’d given him an important clue to her mystery. “Yeah, it’s been tough to find time to be together.” He huffed an ironic laugh. “We picked a crappy time to start dating.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Her eyes flared wide and her voice raised a few notes.

All of it surprised him. He blinked. “Just that between the upcoming rocket launch and the renovation competition, neither of us have a lot of extra time to be with each other.”

“You don’t have the time for me, you mean.”

Another warning bell sounded. What was it that she’d said way back when he’d pulled her out of that crevasse? That since all of her friends had started dating, she’d been left out of stuff? He shifted his weight, resting his hands on his hips. This couldn’t be as simple as Calliope feeling abandoned, could it? Was it that instead of something that had happened between teenagers decades ago? Or maybe both things colliding with explosive force.

“Calliope, I want to be with you,” he said, wracking his brain to figure out how he could make her understand, make her happy again. “I wish I had more time. Because if I did, I would spend more of it with you.”

Her frustrated frown melted to something much worse, sadness. “I know. I understand.” She huffed an ironic laugh. “Can I at least claim to be flattering you by wanting to spend more time together?”

He broke into a grin. “Okay, I’ll take it. And it could be worse. We’re working on this renovation project together,” he reminded her. “I put you on my kitchen team for a reason.”

“How romantic,” she said. He could tell she was trying, but she still wasn’t convinced.

Time to try a different tactic.

“What’s the deal with you and Kathy?” he asked. “She’s asking for your opinion and you’re—” He had to be careful to find the right words without setting her off. “—not giving it.”

She crossed her arms again with extra sass. “I’ve told you what she did to me, right?”

“But she’s asking for your help.”

“But we’re not friends.”

“Aren’t you a little short on friends at the moment? Why let an adolescent fight cause you to turn one away?”

She glared at him, pink splashing her cheeks, green eyes flashing. Damn. That was definitely the wrong thing to say.

“I’m sorry.” He let out a breath and stepped closer to her, stealing a kiss. When he stepped back, her glare had shifted back to that sad, worried look. For the love of Pete. He just couldn’t win. “If it makes you feel better, you can punish me for being insensitive by spanking me all you want later.”

Her mouth quivered into a smile, and the tension around her eyes relaxed. Finally, he’d said something right.

“This isn’t what I had in mind for ways to spend time together after a big night is all,” she said, lowering her voice and rubbing her temples.

“Me neither,” Jonathan confessed. “But it’s better than nothing, eh?” She glanced doubtfully up at him. “And this way,” he went on, “we have all the joy of anticipating the next time we can be alone together. You know, when you deliver my punishment.” He wiggled his eyebrows. Maybe that was laying it on a little too thick, but Calliope seemed to relax.

“Okay,” she said, resting a hand on his arm and pressing up to her toes to give him a quick kiss. “You win. We’ll humor Kathy for now. But you’d better expect a bright red backside later.”

Jonathan grinned, his anxiety waning. It was still there. He wasn’t fool enough to think all their problems were solved. But for now, he’d take what he could get.

Calliope hated being so frustrated, but as she and Jonathan walked back to where Kathy and Cameron were still looking at tiles and countertops, the hopeless feeling that there was nothing she could do about the burning lump in her gut had taken over from full-on anger. She just wasn’t going to get Jonathan to adjust his focus to what really mattered. Not while he was such a people-pleaser. And really, the logical part of her brain told her she shouldn’t be such an attention hound anyhow.

The emotional part of her, however, was sulking like a child picked last for a dodgeball team.

But she wasn’t going to let the emotional part win. Not after Jonathan filled her head with visions of spankings. She was going to try to be angelic so that she could be on the right end of those whacks. Although there was something to be said for being on the receiving end also.

“So do you really like the marble best?” she asked Kathy, doing her best to push naughty images out of her head. She had to give Jonathan props for shifting her mood so deftly, but that didn’t mean she wanted everyone seeing her blush.

Kathy glanced up from studying the entire row of countertop slabs. Her expression brightened. “I do. I really do.” She scooted closer to Calliope, touching her arm as though eighth grade, and the whole rest of their lives, had never happened. “There’s just something about marble that is so elegant, don’t you think?”

The last thing Calliope wanted to do was get all girly with her former enemy, but she owed it to Jonathan and his daggum people-pleasing ways to at least try to be civil. “It’s pretty, but it is expensive.”

“But expensive things are the best things,” Kathy said, then giggled.

Calliope fought not to roll her eyes. She glanced to where Jonathan had stepped to the side with Cameron. He gave her an approving wink. And dammit if that didn’t make her want to be even nicer to Kathy to get more winks.

“Hey, Cameron and I are going to go check out wallpaper,” Jonathan said. “Are you guys okay on your own for a while?”

“Sure we are,” Kathy said, bright as a daisy.

“Yep. I’ll be good,” Calliope said without quite as much enthusiasm.

“Good.” Jonathan smiled. “This won’t take long.”

He said something to Cameron that Calliope didn’t hear, and the two of them strode off. At least Jonathan looked good walking away. She stared openly at his backside as a consolation prize for being stuck with her own frustrations. And to think, just a few short hours ago, Calliope had had her hands all over that ass. And would again.

Eventually.

“You’re so lucky,” Kathy sighed, also watching the guys walking away. “Jonathan is a hottie.”

Calliope forced a brittle smile. “I like him.” And because she did like him, she’d try to be good.

“Don’t get me wrong, I love Cameron,” Kathy went on, sighing happily. “We had such a beautiful wedding. It was on the beach, in Hawaii.” She paused, glancing to Calliope with a worried look. “I hope you don’t mind that I didn’t invite you.”

Calliope blinked. “Not at all. We haven’t been friendly since grade school.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t friends anymore.” She proved her point by hooking her arm through Calliope’s and wandering closer to the mosaic tiles. “Now that I’m back in town, I’d really like it if we could get to know each other again.”

“Okay,” Calliope said slowly. What was Kathy really after?

“And what better way to do that than by planning a mosaic backsplash together.”

Calliope clenched her jaw, unable to shake the feeling that she’d just been duped. There was no way Kathy was being nice to her except as a means to get what she wanted with the apartment design. Pink and green, after all. People didn’t change that much, and she’d been burned by frenemy fire before.

“Mosaics really do take a lot of time and work,” she said instead, then added, “Oh, look at those faucets over there. Wanna take a look?”

“Sure.” Kathy smiled, tugging Calliope’s arm to walk over to the next aisle.

Calliope’s plan to distract her “friend” away from the whole mosaic idea worked, but there were far more ideas where that came from. They toured the faucets and fixtures, then moved on to an aisle that was lined with lamps. Kathy had something to say about everything, and all of it grated on Calliope’s nerves. Where did the woman get off wanting every high-end housing detail that she laid her eyes on? If they listened to everything Kathy said, the competition would keep going into next year instead of being done at the end of November.

And yet, it kind of was Kathy’s job to give the renovation teams direction. And she shouldn’t go and let her past prejudices—or her current frustrations—color how they all did their jobs. No, what she really needed was a way to make peace with Kathy in a way that would impress Jonathan and make her feel like she’d done something right for a change.

And she knew just the thing.

“Hey, um, Kathy?” Calliope asked when Kathy was distracted looking at track lighting.

“Yeah?” Kathy turned to her with a smile.

Part of Calliope thought she deserved a medal for what she was about to do. “So the other day, Linus and I were pulling up floorboards in the old part of the Silver Dollar apartment, and…and I found something.”

“Really? What?”

“I think…I think it’s a time capsule.”

Kathy blinked and rushed to where Calliope stood, all lighting forgotten. “A time capsule?”

“Yeah.” Calliope rubbed the back of her neck. She’d grown far too attached to Sam and Julia Standish and their kids in the last week, and it felt like a sacrifice to share the information, even though Kathy was their descendant. But sacrifice was what she was after right? “It had a bunch of cool letters from Julia Standish and her kids, along with a few old photographs.”

Kathy’s expression brightened so much that she went pink. “Julia Standish? Like, the Julia Standish? Who came out west to marry my great-great-something-grandfather?”

“I think so.”

“That’s so cool! Where is it? Can I see it? Oh, I’ve always been so fascinated by family history and all. My grandma once told me that I looked a little like Julia. Apparently, she was really clumsy, and I know I have a ton of those genes.”

Calliope had opened her mouth to reply at the beginning of Kathy’s outburst, and it had stayed open. She closed it slowly, suddenly wondering if letting Kathy know about the capsule was a terrible mistake. “I have it back at home,” she said, an odd itch forming in her gut.

“Does Jake know about it? I bet he’d love to put everything on display in the bar. Oh! I wonder if The Cattleman Hotel would want it for their Hall of History. I know they have a lot of artifacts from Haskell’s founding. I bet they would love to display Julia’s stuff too. We should take it to them and see what they want to do.”

The itching feeling turned into an all-out twist. She should have expected Kathy would want to take the capsule from her entirely.

And yet, the Standishes were Kathy’s family. “Um, yeah. Sure. I mean, technically the letters and pictures don’t belong to me anyhow.” And yet, if felt as though she had just introduced Kathy to Greg Meyers all over again.

“I think we’ve got a little time this morning before you guys are supposed to start work,” Kathy went on. “We could ditch the guys and go back to your place and you could show me the time capsule. It’ll be just like when we used to swap books back in the day.”

Calliope pressed her lips into a tight smile. She’d never gotten some of those books back. This was what she got for trying to be like Jonathan and make people happy.

Not that she would have felt any better if she’d kept the time capsule to herself.

Any way she looked at things, they weren’t going to turn out the way she wanted them too.

“Yeah, okay,” she said, more resigned than she wanted to sound. “We could take my car, and I guess Cameron could drive Jonathan home.”

“I’m sure that will work. Let’s go find them.”

Calliope tried to look at the bright side of things as Kathy dragged her off toward the wall treatment aisle to find the guys. This was exactly what she’d said she wanted, after all. She had a buddy who wanted to hang out with her, she had a community project to keep her busy, and she had a boyfriend who was sizzling hot and a good person to boot. So why did she feel like everything was still wrong?