“So what are you going to do?”
She shrugged. “He wants to buy the property as is with no renovations. So I won’t even have a chance to see my vision realized. But…”
“But what?”
She shrugged again and then bit her bottom lip. “I’d actually be able to go to design school and live off the money while doing it. I could start my company and…”
“Live your dream.”
She nodded. “But…I don’t know.”
“What’s not to know?” he asked.
She waved him off, and then sighed. “There’s this design school in San Francisco that I wanted to go to for forever. I remember me and Julie talking about it. But…”
“But what?”
She dropped her cell phone back into her purse. “That was kid talk. You know, the kind of talk you have when you think you can have it all and do it all.”
“You mean like breaking into a boarded up chapel and buying it on a whim to renovate it?”
She looked at him with wide eyes and then gave him a slow smile. “I guess I haven’t changed much.”
“Oh, I think you have. I…know you have.”
“What do you think I should do?”
He was torn. What kind of man would he be for telling Katie to stay and finish the project? Finish it and stay in Sweet with him.
But she’d just said it as plainly as she could. Her dream was to go to San Francisco and go to design school. She’d wanted something more for her life. He’d only hoped that he would be part of that something more, too.
“I think you should follow your dreams, Katie.”
She smiled sweetly. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
He held her by the fire and let her jabber on about dreams and San Francisco, all the while hoping this wouldn’t be one of the last times he got to hold her in his arms.
Sweet Home Montana: Chapter Nine
He had to be some kind of a masochist to continue hoping that the project Katie had started would be finished to completion. It wasn’t even their project. It’s Katie’s project. But ever since that day he saw the light in her eyes as she talked about what the chapel could be, Caleb could see it, too. He could see it is easily as looking at the road in front of him. He wanted to see it with her living there one day. He could just imagine, as she had, the colorful lights streaming through the stained glass windows into the kitchen. He imagined the floors that she had worried over so many times being ruined by the snow being sanded down and stained a beautiful rich color that would make the chapel feel like a home.
It was crazy. Caleb knew it was. Katie had purchased that chapel and the acreage surrounding it as an investment with one thing in mind. She wanted money to realize her dreams. Those dreams went beyond Sweet and him. That chapel was her ticket out again. This time it was a way for her to be successful without anyone interfering with it.
She could sell the property right now for a profit. But deep down he knew that she wanted to see that chapel finished, too. You didn’t dream for years and years of something in such detail only to give it up as if you were throwing away a candy wrapper.
Caleb knew the money was good. Those Hollywood types that drove into Montana with her fancy cars had no problem throwing around money. He’d seen enough people get stars in their eyes and enough ranches close down and become lodges for swanky Hollywood parties over the years. He didn’t want that chapel to end up like that. And it would. That was progress.
But more than anything he wanted to see it finished and he wanted to see Katie living in it. He wanted her to stay. And yeah, he’d even thought that maybe one day his shoes would be sitting in the mudroom and his clothes would be hanging in one of the closets, right next to Katie’s.
It was a pipe dream. She’d made her intentions more than clear. But when he’d held her in his arms and saw the light in her eyes as she gazed up at him when he’d kissed her, he had to believe there was something more than just a fling between them. Oh, how he wanted there to be. Otherwise, he was just an adult delusional fool with his own pipe dreams.
When had he gotten so sentimental over something that wasn’t even his? And then he knew. Katie wasn’t his. Not really. You couldn’t catch a butterfly and think you could keep it contained. And Katie had so much beauty and energy there was no way she could be held back.
But he wanted her to stay. He’d fallen for her. That much he was sure of.
She hadn’t made her decision yet and continued to move forward with work on the chapel. So on his first day off since going back to work, Caleb decided to stop by Buck’s hardware store to see if he could pick up some tarps to cover the floors. With so many guys walking through the chapel with cowboy boots and steel toe boots, dragging in mud and muck from the melting snow and gravel, those floors would get ruined in a heartbeat.
He found a space in the parking lot and parked the truck. The lot was full of trucks and old beaters that the local folks used during the winter months. There were no Hollywood cars here for change. That had to be a good sign.
But why would they be here? None of those Hollywood types did their own construction work anyway. They hired local folk from Sweet and the surrounding towns. He waved to Jamison as he saw him coming out of the hardware store.
“I haven’t had a chance to congratulate you,” Caleb said.
Jamison’s smile was wide. “Thanks.
