So much for that pep talk.

“So, what rooms do you want to work on?” I ask to distract myself.

“I’ll show you,” he replies as we both finish our food. We grab our coffees and walk into a series of small, awkward rooms on the first floor. They’ve been closed up, so they smell a little musty. There’s carpet—yellow shag—that needs to come up. “I have no idea what to do with these three rooms.”

“What’s on the other side of this wall?” I ask, turning a circle.

“The kitchen.”

I turn my back to the wall facing the kitchen and survey the windows to the back and side yards. “These were probably butlers' quarters back in the day,” I mutter and chew my lip as I think. “Do you have much of a pantry in the kitchen?”

“Just a small closet,” he replies.

“Okay, here’s what I would do. I would take this third room and wall it up, put in a door with access from the kitchen and make it a nice, big pantry. Then I’d open these other two rooms up to each other and the kitchen, making this long wall a half-wall of windows. Then—” I turn around and point at the windows. “—I would make these windows much larger, turning this space into a sun room.” I can even picture how I would decorate it in my head, and oh my God, it’s so pretty.

“That’s a lot of work,” Declan replies, rubbing his chin in thought.

“It’s mostly demo,” I reply. “We’ll have two walls to take out, but it’ll open the space up and make the whole floor feel really open.”

“Okay,” he says and claps his hands together. “Let’s do it.”

“Right now?”

“Right now.”

“Don’t you have a contractor?” I ask and prop my hands on my hips.

“I do, yes, but we can do the demo ourselves. This carpet has to go too.”

“Without a doubt,” I agree and cringe at what could be living in this carpet. “I’m betting there’s original hardwood under here.”

“There was in the other rooms that I’ve already done.” He nods, still looking around. “This is a great idea. I have a couple of sledgehammers. In the mood to knock down a couple walls?”

“Hell yes I am! Demo is my favorite part of the job.”

“Helps you release some built-up aggression?”

“That, and it’s just a great workout.” I pull a box cutter out of my back pocket as Declan leaves to find the hammers and crouch in a corner, cut the carpet and peel it back, revealing exactly what I thought: gorgeous wood floors. They need to be sanded and refinished, but they’re beautiful.

“You came prepared,” Declan murmurs behind me. I stand and turn in time to catch him looking at my ass and cock a brow, but he’s not embarrassed in the slightest.

I’m wearing my usual outfit for this kind of work: a fitted black T-shirt and jeans with work boots.

“I love my girlie girl clothes,” I tell him and sheath the cutter in my back pocket. “But there’s a time and place for them, and this isn’t it.”

“You’re right.” He grins and hands me a hammer, along with some safety goggles.

“Ready?” I move over to the smaller wall and smile at Declan, and when he nods, we both start taking swings at the walls, making giant holes in the drywall and sending dust into the air. I make the mistake of glancing over at Declan in time to watch his biceps flex as he hits the wall, so to pull myself together, I focus on my wall until I have all of the drywall off the studs.

When I turn, Declan is done as well, his arms crossed over his dusty chest, watching me with humor-filled eyes.

“You’re hot when you’re beating the shit out of a wall.”

I bark out a laugh, scoop up a piece of drywall, and throw it, hitting him square in the shoulder, leaving a white mark. He simply looks down at his shoulders and then back at me, his eyebrows hiked up near his hairline.

“No. You. Didn’t.”

I snort with laughter and clap, delighted with myself. “I did.”

“You’ll pay.”

“How?”

He takes two steps toward me, his face determined, just as my phone pings with an incoming text.

“Saved by the bell!” I cry and pull my phone out of my pocket, then frown when I see Pete’s name. Busy for dinner tonight?

Ugh. Pete. He’s nice, and we do have a history, but it’s ancient history, and the chemistry just wasn’t there.

Plus, he has three children, and I’m not in the market to be anyone’s mom, step or otherwise.

Rather than reply, I just shove my phone back in my pocket.

“Something wrong?” Declan asks.

“No, it’s nothing.” I glance around, surveying our handiwork. “Do you see the brick I exposed near the outside wall?” I ask, pointing. Declan nods and we walk over to inspect it. “I didn’t see any brick on the outside of the house.”

“It’s not brick,” he confirms with a frown. “Back up.”

I comply, and he continues to punch out the dry wall on the adjoining wall, exposing more brick.

“I bet it was a fireplace,” I say, excited that we found it. “Someone decided they didn’t want it anymore and just hid it.”

“You’re right,” he says as he uncovers the actual fireplace part and smiles. “Let’s take this drywall out too and expose the brick. Even if it’s no longer functioning, the brick is beautiful.”

We spend another hour carefully uncovering the fragile brick. We don’t want to take out too much. It’s going to be a challenge for the carpentry crew as it is.