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texting Avery as she strolled up toward Vesta. On my way.
    Almost instantly Avery came out the restaurant’s door. “Me, too,” she called out. They stood on opposite corners, waiting for the light—Clare in her breezy sundress, Avery in her black capris and T-shirt.
    They met halfway across Main.
    “I know damn well you spent half your morning riding herd on three boys, dealing with breakfast, breaking up spats.”
    “This is my life,” Clare agreed.
    “How come you look like you never sweat?”
    “It’s a gift.” They started down the sidewalk, ducking under scaffolding. “I always loved this building. Sometimes I’d just look at it out of my office window and imagine it the way it used to be.”
    “I can’t wait to see how it will be. If they pull this off, your business and mine, baby, we’re going to see a jump for sure. So are the rest of the businesses in town.”
    “Fingers crossed. We’re doing okay, but if we had a nice place for people to stay right in town, boy oh boy. I could lure more authors in, have bigger events. You’d have guests staying here heading over for lunch or dinner.”
    They stopped a moment at the back, looked over the uneven ground, the planks and rubble. “I wonder what they plan for back here,” Avery began. “With those porches, you want something fabulous. Rumors are abundant. A bigger parking lot to an elaborate garden.”
    “I heard fountain and lap pool.”
    “Let’s ask the source.”
    When they went inside, into the noise, the clutter of tools, Avery glanced at Clare. “Testosterone level just jumped five hundred points.”
    “And counting. They’ve kept the archways.” She stepped closer, studying the wide, curved openings ahead and to the left. “I wondered if they could, or would. They’re about the only thing I remember from when there was an antiques shop in here. My mother used to come in sometimes.”
    She moved through the center arch, noted the rough, temporary stairs leading up. “I’ve never been upstairs. Have you?”
    “Snuck in once when we were in high school.” Avery studied the steps. “With Travis McDonald, a blanket, and a bottle of Boone’s Farm Apple. We made out up there.”
    “Wild child.”
    “My dad would’ve killed me, still would, so no telling. Anyway, it didn’t last long. He never made it to second before he got spooked. Doors and floorboards creaking. I wanted to check it out, but he was such a wimp about it. He never did make it to second.” She laughed as she started up. “He didn’t smell the honeysuckle, either—or never admitted it.”
    “Honeysuckle?”
    “Strong—heady, really—like I had my nose buried in a vine. I guess with all that’s going on here now, whoever—you know—walked the night’s moved on.”
    “You believe that? In ghosts?”
    “Sure. My great-times-three-grandmother is supposedly still haunting her manor house near Edinburg.” Stopping, Avery set her hands on her hips. “Wow. It sure didn’t look like this when I kissed Travis McDonald.”
    Rough-framed doorways led off a hallway on the second level where the smell was dust from wood and drywall. They heard workers above on the third floor, below on the main. Clare stepped into the room on her left. The light, dim and faintly blue from the tarp blocking the front windows, washed over the unfinished floor.
    “I wonder which room this is. We should probably find one of the Montgomerys. Oh, look, there’ll be a door leading out to the porch. I’d love that.”
    “Talk about love.” Avery gestured. “Look at the size of this bathroom. From the looks of the pipes,” she said when Clare joined her, “you’ve got a tub here, shower over there, double sinks there.”
    “It’s bigger than my bathroom and the boys’ combined.” Pure and undiluted bathroom envy washed through her. “I could live in here. Could they all be this big? I’ve got to know which room this is.”
    She hurried across the bedroom space, and turned