The door screamed as it swiveled on its hinges, and Rett grimaced at the sound. She hurriedly smoothed out her expression when Calum stuck his head out. His face lit up at thefirst sight of her, and he bounded down the rickety steps and to her side. Despite her trepidation—her doubts—about their new future home, Rett loved Calum’s enthusiasm. He thought they could do it, and he wouldn’t give up until they did. She just wished she could be as hopeful.
She followed him inside with a soft sigh, biting back a groan at the interior. The floors were even worse than before, but he’d hauled the couch from the living room. The carpet stunk of mold and mildew, years of rot culminating in a stench that caused her eyes to burn. It hadn’t been that bad only months ago. Rett wondered if it was her imagination that made it seem more horrible than before.
No, it truly was awful.
But she was Calum’s wife, and the trailer was to be home. The least she could do was put her all into fixing it up—as much as she could, anyway. She might not have had high hopes, but she loved her husband enough to work side-by-side with him to make it a home.
Tugging her hair into a tight braid, Rett stepped carefully over the power tools on the floor and stared around.
“Where do we start?” she asked after a long moment, and Calum shrugged.
“I figured we’d wait for Charles, then decide on the bigger things.”
“Your uncle is helping?”
Rett knew the surprise was unwarranted—of course, Charles Stone would break his back to help his nephew. Not that shocking, really. But she’d believed he would be at work despite it being the weekend. She rarely saw the man around town except for church on Sundays, so she had assumed he spent his days working on the ranch outside of town. She wondered, as she tugged on a pair of rubber gloves, if he was disappointed with Calum for the marriage.
She and Calum worked together to clear out the large shards of glass covering the rotting floor. Staying near the outer edges of the room, Rett hoped against hope that the floor stayed in one piece as she made her way around. She’d just tossed the bag of glass and trash out the door when the sound of an engine cut through the birdsong. She stepped out onto the stairs and watched as Charles unfolded himself from behind the steering wheel. He dipped his chin in greeting before moving to the bed of the truck, pulling out an enormous toolbox.
“Mornin’,” she said as soon as he was close enough that she didn’t have to raise her voice.
His lips twitched, then he disappeared into the trailer. She followed behind. As if he was taking charge, Charles gestured toward the furthest corner of the living room, and Calum scooped up the reciprocating saw as he obeyed the quiet order from his uncle. Charles grabbed a utility knife from the toolbox and tossed a thick face mask to both Calum and Rett. She slipped the mask on, staying back as the men went to work cutting away the carpet.
Charles was, as ever, silent as he peeled the molded fabric from the rotting floorboard. Any conversation the man might have wanted was impossible anyway: Rett couldn’t hear a thing over the buzz of the saw. She hesitated then grabbed a screwdriver before moving down the hallway. The floor vibrated under her feet while Calum sawed through the wood.
The bathroom was just as horrible as before, though the stench of stagnant water had abated through the cold weather. She knew the odor would be back with a vengeance in due time. She only hoped they would be finished before that time came. With a heavy sigh that left her face humid and vanished in the saw’s racket, Rett set about unscrewing the door hinge from the frame.
Once she was able to, she tucked the screwdriver into her back pocket, wrapped her hands around the edges of the door, and lugged it toward the living room. Charles stopped ripping up carpet long enough to help haul the door out onto the front steps. Rett thanked him before letting it fall to the ground outside; the wood splintered upon impact, an oddly satisfying sound that made her lips twitch. She wiped her hands together then turned to go back inside.
The sun was directly overhead by the time the trio took a break for lunch. Rett and Calum clambered into the bed of Charles’s truck. The engine came to life with a dull roar that rent through the quiet day, and the teenagers kept their backs pressed to the hot metal as the vehicle bounced its way over roots and through the trees. A hand slipped into the curve of her own, and Rett smiled down at Calum’s fingers where they entwined with hers. He might have done something foolish, asking Malachi for the trailer without her input, but she knew he did it with the best of intentions. His heart was in the right place.
She was just glad that Malachi wanted nothing for it. It wasn’t like Georgie paid Calum a fortune, and even the inhabitants of the small town expected some sort of profit when selling something as substantial as a house, no matter how decrepit it was.
Once the truck came to a stop outside the diner in the heart of town, Rett hopped from the bed and waited for Calum to drop to the ground beside her. There was no hesitation when he threw an arm over her shoulders and tugged her into his side. She ducked her head with a smile, looping an arm around his waist as he kissed her hair. Charles dipped his chin before disappearing into the diner, and Rett and Calum followed the man inside.
Nobody bothered with second looks as the teens took seats in a corner booth. Charles sat at the counter, gesturing for the cupof coffee Doreen was already readying for him. Once the mugclunked onto the countertop, she made her way across the diner to come to a stop beside Rett.
“How’s the fixin’ up comin’ along?” she asked in lieu of a greeting, a hand planted on her hip and a smile on her weathered face.
“It’s going,” replied Calum. “Can’t do much yet until the place is completely gutted.”
“Sounds like y’all have a lot of work ahead of ya.”
“Too much to list,” Rett said as she unfolded the menu she didn’t need.
“Well, let’s get ya fed, then you can get back to it.”
Charles sat at the counter until Rett and Calum finished their meals, then it was back to the trailer in the woods.Theirtrailer, Rett reminded herself, as if she really needed it. She doubted she would ever forget how her first house outside of her childhood home came about. She would always remember that it was Calum’s idea, his effort, his desire to provide for the both of them that brought them there. Rett might have shown him the trailer in the first place, but it was all Calum that it became their future home.
By the time Charles drove away from the trailer, two exhausted teenagers in the bed of the truck bouncing down the trail between trees, the trio had made significant progress in the living room. The floor no longer existed, wood and carpet torn away until they could see the ground below. The windows that remained had been removed from their frames, and a garbage bag held the remnants of posters that had hung on the walls.
Rett thought they were working awfully hard for something that wasn’t really worth much, but she’d never say it aloud. She was proud of her husband, and she didn’t dare discourage him.
Charles dropped her off in front of her house before driving away with a quick beep of his horn. Calum waved from the backof the truck as they disappeared around the corner. Rett sighed, stretching out the muscles in her back, then headed inside. She needed dinner and a shower, and not particularly in that order.
Her mother sat on the couch when Rett stepped through the front door. They hadn’t spoken much since the elopement, and it killed her to know her mother was disappointed in her. Or maybe Eliza was angry. Who knew? Certainly not Rett, and she had a feeling it would be a while before her mother said a word.
“How’s Calum?”
