I nodded. “They’re playing on the lawn. Haley mentioned that she’ll be spending the night.”
“Yeah. Christy asked Mylie if she would watch Haley. I guess Noah’s busy tonight, so she’s going out with Rodney.”
“Is Mylie here?”
“She had some work stuff to take care of, but she’ll be back by dinner. Annabelle was thrilled to have Haley to play with, so I suggested she leave her here.” He looked at his watch. “I guess I should start cleaning up. Oh, before I forget, Lonnie came by earlier. He wanted to talk to you about getting the ground cleared and the foundations poured for the cottages this fall rather than waiting until spring. He figured if the groundwork was done, then his guys could get an earlier start on the rest.”
“That makes sense, but I wouldn’t want them working when the inn is packed or if we had an event going on. I’ll call Lonnie. There might be a window when he can get the groundwork done.”
I had to admit that I was really excited about the new cottages. Yes, they were going to be a significant expense, and yes, they were going to require trips to the granite store, flooring store, and paint store, but I’d really enjoyed picking everything out when we’d done the inn, and I was excited to have another project to focus on. I was sure that Georgia and Lacy would be as excited to go along on these little shopping trips as they’d done before. I’d never been into antiquing until I met Lacy, but now the thought of having a reason to seek out unique furniture to restore and display had me feeling excited about the project ahead.
Chapter 12
As it turned out, when I called Lonnie about the cottages, he mentioned that the twins were feeling better and his parents were going to come over and give him and Lacy a break. He’d planned to take his wife out to dinner, but when I mentioned the catch of the day cookout and invited them to attend, he said that Lacy would enjoy an evening with friends after more than a week with no one other than the seven and under crowd to hang out with. Lonnie suggested that the two of us could talk specifics about the project when they arrived, so I headed inside to let Georgia know there would be two more for dinner. I knew Colt would have to skip this evening’s event, but Georgia mentioned that Tanner and Nikki would both be there, so it looked like we would have a full house, or in this case, a full lawn and patio area.
“Do you need any help?” I asked Georgia once I’d informed her that the Parkers would be joining us.
“No. I think I have everything under control. Jeremy washed down the patio and all the patio furniture today, and the blue and white flowers he planted look lovely. It’s supposed to be another near-perfect evening. I think everyone will have a wonderful time.”
“It looks like we can count Rodney out since he’s with Christy today. Have you heard from Chris?”
“He’s in. In fact, he’s here. He only worked a half-day today. I think he might be in the library with Samantha. He had some paperwork to do, and when I’d walked past the library on my way to the stairway, I noticed that she’d joined him. They were smiling and laughing and seemed to be having a good time.”
“That’s good. Getting over someone is hard. I’m glad Samantha’s enjoying her stay with us.” I glanced toward the back door. It looks like Lonnie and Lacy are here. I’m going to grab Lonnie while I can so we can go over his plans. I’ll send Lacy in to chat with you. I’m sure she’d enjoy a glass of wine and some adult conversation.”
I arrived at the clearing where Georgia, Jeremy, and I usually parked, and Lonnie had chosen to park as well. I hugged Lacy and told her Georgia had a glass of wine with her name on it, and she headed in that direction. I then suggested to Lonnie that we go over whatever he wanted to go over before everyone began gathering on the patio.
“I guess Jeremy told you that I hoped to get the groundwork done, and the foundations poured before the first snow. If we don’t get the foundations in, we’ll need to wait for the ground to thaw and dry out next spring before we can get started. Depending on the sort of spring we have, that could push us into May, but if the foundations are in, we can start the framing as soon as the snow melts. There have been some years when we’ve able to get started as early as March.”
“Okay. I like your idea in theory. We’re totally booked until Labor Day, and then we’re mostly booked from October through December. There is a window after Labor Day through around October first when we might be able to work it out for you to bring in crews and equipment during the week. I’ll need to verify our current reservations with Georgia. The last thing I want to do is have backhoes and work crews stirring up dust and making a lot of noise when we have an inn full of guests.”
“If you can get me some dates, I’ll line up as many men as I can get and try to get all four pads laid in as quickly as possible.”
“Do you think slab foundations are the way to go? The inn has a crawl space. So does my cottage, for that matter.”
“We could do pillars if you prefer. We’ll still need to prepare the ground and install the pillars
