He laughed. Oh, how she loved that sound. “You’re a joy, Eliza.”
“I see I’m notMrs. Porterany longer.”
“After the murderous glint in your eyes last night when I called you that?” He shook his head. “Not ever again.”
He directed the cart over the hill they’d crested when they’d first arrived in Hope Springs. “Ought I to turn the cart toward the north or south?”
“South,” she said.
As they rolled in that direction, she let her gaze take in the view. Mountains sat in the distance, tall and majestic and snowcapped. The nearer mountains were smaller and more barren, but still beautiful in their own way. Rolling land spread out ahead of her, unbroken, unmarred by anything but the slight wear in the ground left by the twice-weekly roundtrip of the stagecoach. This was the very opposite of the tightly packed buildings and paved streets of New York.
She loved it.
“Stop here,” she said as they reached the spot she was aiming for. “This is it.”
She didn’t wait for Patrick to come around the cart but scrambled down on her own. She moved to the edge of the road and turned to face where soon, she prayed, her inn would stand.
“This would be the inn yard. Right here”—she motioned a bit to the right—“would be the inn itself, with the front windows facing those mountains.” She spun around to motion at the gorgeous purple peaks she’d come to love. “One wing of the inn would be an infirmary and living quarters for Dr. Jones, and the other would be living quarters for Lydia and me. The middle would be the inn itself.”
Patrick nodded, his eyes darting all around the spot. “Would all the wings need windows facing your mountains?”
Mymountains. She liked the sound of that. “I’d like a bedchamber in my wing to have windows in that direction so I could see my mountains every day. But the rest can face whichever way makes most sense to the person building the place.”
He quirked her a dazzling, theatrically arrogant smile. “That would be me.”
She passed him again, snatching hold of his hand as she went, pulling him along with her. “Over here is where I’m imagining the stable. It would need to be large enough for four stage horses and Dr. Jones’s horse.”
“And yours,” Patrick added.
“I don’t have a horse.” At this point, she didn’t even have an inn.
“You likely will someday, though. It’d be easier to build big enough now than to add on later. Besides, it’d simplify things for me to be building an even number of stalls.” He eyed her proposed stable location, then looked over her shoulder to where the inn was meant to be, then looked the other way at the road. “This is a good spot. The land is level. The road is accessible. You’d be near enough to town that the locals could come by for a bite now and then.”
“Do you truly think so?” She could hardly contain her excitement. From the moment Mr. Archer had brought her here after services that morning to suggest it be the location of the inn, she’d been fighting the urge to let herself simply believe her dreams were within reach.
“I truly think so. I can’t imagine a better spot.”
“Oh, I knew it. I knew it.” She threw her arms around him. “I’m going to have my inn, Patrick. I’m going to have my dreams.”
His arms wrapped around her in return. “You’ve waited long enough. It’s time you claimed the happiness you deserve.”
She looked up at him, unable to hold back the emotion rising inside her. “The original Mrs. Porter told me I was a weight and a leech.”
“Sounds to me like a muttonhead.”
A tug of mischief pulled her smile ever wider. “A fancy lady like her? A lambchop-head, more like.”
“You’re a jewel, you know that? I’ve spent ten years unable to laugh at anything at all, and you somehow manage to make me laugh nearly every time I see you.” He brushed his thumb along her jaw.
Her heart leaped to her throat, lodging there in a thick, wonderful lump of anticipation. “Maura said I was a witch.”
“Hmm.” His hand slid to her shoulder, then down her back, pulling her into a warm embrace. “Have you considered calling your inn The Witch’s Broom?”
She smiled up at him. “What about The Crown Jewel?”
“Mrs. Porter’s Lambchops?”
They both laughed at that. How good it felt to be so easily happy with another person. “I’m so glad you came to Hope Springs, Patrick.”
