Chapter 25

Hannah looked around The Crab as she munched on her breaded tilapia, reflecting that she missed working there. She'd enjoyed the hustle and bustle—although at the moment the restaurant was quiet, because she was eating a late lunch during a time when the rush was over. The food was delicious, and she followed her bite of fish with a forkful of creamy coleslaw.

At that moment, the front door of The Crab opened, and Marsha walked inside. Hannah's heart leapt up when she saw her.

"Hey!" She waved to the older woman, smiling warmly. "Are you here to see Dad?"

Her father hadn't told her anything specific about how things had been going with Marsha, but she had strong suspicions that her and Olivia's matchmaking plan was going beautifully. Her father seemed to be significantly happier than usual. He was often whistling, and he had a gleam in his eyes that hadn't been there before he and Marsha started working on their costumes together.

"Oh! Well, no, I'm looking for people to interview, actually. Has your dad already asked you the question we're asking people to answer for us?"

"No." Hannah shook her head, laughing. "He's a man of few words. What's the question?"

"We want to ask people what they think it means to rebuild." Marsha smiled and sat down across from Hannah. "Do you mind if I take down your answer?"

"Go for it!" Hannah was eager to keep Marsha in The Crab for as long as possible. She knew her father was going to come out of the kitchen sooner rather than later.

"Feel free to take a minute or two to think about it. It's an involved question."

"Hmm." Hannah smiled. "Well, I think rebuilding shows care, you know? It shows that you liked what was already there, and you have hope that it can continue to last into the future." She was thinking of her father and Marsha's relationship as she said the words. She hoped they rebuilt their love story together.

"Oh, I like that so much!" Marsha said warmly as she wrote down Hannah's words.

"Hannah, are you—" Willis came into the room from the kitchen, and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw who was sitting opposite his daughter at the table. "Marsha! I didn't expect you to be here."

"Hi, Willis." Marsha smiled at him. "I've been walking around town asking people what rebuilding means to them. I decided to stop in here."

Hannah noticed that the older woman was blushing slightly. And so was her father.

"I—well, I'm glad you're here. Can I get you something to eat? A tuna melt, perhaps?"

He's so flustered, it's adorable,Hannah thought gleefully. I think he really likes her.

"I'm shocked you remembered that," Marsha said, gazing at Willis with shining eyes. "It's been years since I told you that was my favorite."

"Well, I used to make tuna melts for you fairly often." He was smiling at her, almost boyishly.

"I remember that. They were delicious. You're such a good cook, Willis. You always were."

"It's easy to be a good cook when you're eager to impress someone." He winked at her. "I used to make you tuna melt sandwiches, and I would always buy elderberry tea because you said it was your favorite."

"Oh my, it still is."

"Do you still like to put pepper on your mashed potatoes?" he asked, his eyes twinkling. "And avocado on your hamburgers?"

Marsha laughed. "Yes! My goodness, I never would have expected you to remember all that."

Willis beamed at her, and Hannah grinned quietly to herself, thrilled over how cute they were being.

"I'll go make you a tuna melt right away," he said warmly, and disappeared back into the kitchen.

Hannah observed Marsha watching him go, her feelings written all over her expression. She looked as starry-eyed as a teenager.

Oh, I know Luke told me I should stop meddling,Hannah thought, but I can't help feeling that I should give this whole thing one final push. They're both clearly smitten with each other—but they might be too scared to say that to each other.

"In case you haven't noticed, Marsha," Hannah said softly, leaning forward and smiling, "my dad is still head over heels for you."

Marsha turned to her, blushing. "Oh, that's sweet of you to say, Hannah."

"Well, maybe it is sweet, but it's also true. You see the way he looks at you, don't you?"

The older woman blinked, looking shy. "We've been through a lot. We need to take it slow, or I don't think we can move forward at all. Do you know what I mean?"

"I think there's always the opportunity to rebuild and find hope. You two should absolutely give it a chance."

A soft, thoughtful look passed across Marsha's face. She looked hesitant, and Hannah wondered if the older woman was almost as set in her ways as her father was set in his, since she was just as used to being alone as he was—if not more so.

She knew that both of them were scared to resume their relationship. She could understand how something like that might feel like going out on a limb—it might feel as though everything could break underneath them and cause them to fall. She could only hope that her words had taken root and would inspire Marsha to have courage.

* * *

"I can't believe we're doing this ourselves," Alissa said, staring up at the ceiling of their kitchen.

Beside her, Dane laughed. "Why can't you? It was your idea."

She smiled at him. "Well, technically it was your idea. You had the idea for us to start DIYing as many of these repairs as we can."

"Yeah, but you're the one who wanted to repair the drywall ourselves. I wasn't that audacious."

She laughed. "Hey, YouTube is like a whole college course. I feel like I've been training for this moment for weeks."

"But you still can't believe we're doing it?" he teased, and she affectionately stuck her tongue out at him.

They'd covered the counters and floors underneath the damaged drywall with sheets, since their work was going to get the kitchen dusty. They both had dust masks hanging around their necks, ready to be used.

"We can do this," she said, admittedly sounding more as though she was giving herself a pep talk than trying to convince him it was true. "I'm determined to make this work."

"I'm right there with you." He winked at her. "We're going to fight this ceiling, and we're going to win."

"So," she said, hopping up onto the counter so that she could reach the damaged spot, "our checklist for writing this article for the column so far is masks, covering the surfaces in the room—"

"And having an unreasonable amount of chutzpah," he said, grinning.

They set to work, bantering and laughing as they went. Every once in a while, Dane scribbled down a note for their new column in a little notebook that he kept in his back pocket.

"Can you imagine if we'd tried to fix the roof too?" he said, huffing and puffing as they worked to replace a patch of drywall.

"Hey, next time we have a leak that's exactly what we'll do," she said cheerfully. "It can't be that hard to put shingles up on a roof."

He grunted, but he was smiling.

It was hard work, and the hardest part was covering their traces with drywall joint compound. They put down a first coat, but then had to wait for it to dry overnight before they could sand it down.

"Oh, I'm ready for a twenty-four-hour break from that anyway." Alissa laughed, hopping down off the counter. She looked back up at the ceiling, and grinned when she saw a fresh coat of drywall where before there had been a crack and an ugly brown smear of water damage.

Her husband laughed. "Let's order some takeout as a late-night snack and take hot showers. I can agree that a break sounds great."

They ordered Thai food from one of their favorite restaurants, and then climbed the stairs holding hands.

"I have to say, though, the feeling of accomplishment is incredible," she said, sighing happily. "This is going to make a great informational piece for the column. I'm sure lots of people have places in their homes where the drywall could do with some patching."

"You're right." They paused at the top of the stairs for an extra-snuggly hug. "You remember when you said that it was hard to see this place as our dream house anymore? Because of all the things that were going wrong?"

She nodded, swaying a little as she hugged him.

"Do you still feel that way?" he asked her.

She shook her head, breaking their hug to look up into his eyes. "Not anymore. Now when I look around our house, I see all of the stuff we did. Our handiwork—all the projects and fixes and upgrades. Stuff we did together."

"Yeah?" He nuzzled her nose, smiling.

"Yeah." She grinned. "And I like that. Because every dream worth having is worth working hard for, and now every day I'm going to see how hard we worked to make our dream a reality. Together."