“If you need anything at all, you just whistle. Okay, sugar?”
She smiled, and her eyes twinkled like he’d asked her to go skinny-dipping. “Darn tootin’. You know I’ll do it.” She held out a hand to Daphne. “Come along, darlin’. Let’s leave the adults to talk about boring old business stuff while we go have some of that chocolate cake Mrs. Burris sent over, okay?”
Daphne took Beulah’s hand but stopped in front of Donny Joe. “I hope I’ll see you again before we leave.” She held out her hand once more.
Donny Joe squatted down to her level and shook her hand. “I’d like that, too, Daphne. It was great meeting you.”
They were all silent until Daphne and Beulah disappeared into the kitchen. “Is she always so serious?” he asked.
Belle sat down in a side chair and crossed her legs. “Not always. Just around strangers.”
He noticed that Etta raised her eyebrows but didn’t say anything. She sat down on one end of the couch and Donny Joe sat on the other. He picked up the briefcase and pulled out several folders. “I guess we should get down to it. These are the plans your grandmother had for this place. She designed every detail, and she spent hours laying it all out just the way she wanted it. Most of the work on the bedrooms upstairs has been completed, though eventually her dream was to add Jacuzzi tubs to every bathroom, but that’s way down the road.”
“That seems unnecessarily extravagant,” Etta muttered.
Donny ignored her and kept going. “The new appliances, cabinets, countertops for the kitchen are being installed this week, and then there is the outdoor pool and hot tub area. The plan was to have the hot tub installed next month and have the pool operational by this summer.”
“A pool? As in a swimming pool? Let me guess. That was your idea.”
He ignored her and kept talking. “Miz Hazel also had ideas for other outdoor spaces with the idea of attracting weddings and large group events. Construction on the wedding pavilion starts in a couple of weeks. The targeted opening date for the first phase is Valentine’s Day.”
“Whoa, hold on a minute. This coming Valentine’s Day? That’s only a few weeks away.” Etta stood up from the sofa and started pacing. “And you’re talking as if the Bed and Breakfast is a done deal. We haven’t discussed any of our other options yet.”
Belle smiled at him as if he should excuse her younger sister for her rudeness. “Etta is worried about Beulah.”
Etta turned on her sister. “Aren’t you worried about Beulah? You expect her to live in that old Volkswagen bus that Grammy left her?”
Donny Joe jumped into the conversation before it could get too heated. “Unless I have to put the house on the market, which is what we are trying to avoid, she’s welcome to stay here as long as she likes.”
“But she’s eighty-two years old. Without Grammy around, how long will she be able to take care of herself? And what do you mean, if you have to put the house on the market? Are you saying if we don’t agree to the B&B you’ll just sell it out from under us?”
“Look, I didn’t bargain for any of this, either, and I’m not trying to be difficult, but I already have a business to run. Backyard Oasis requires a lot of my time. Your grandmother had grand plans for this place, and for her sake I would have loved to see it up and running. But unless someone is going to step up and see them through then I have to pay the contractors and cut my losses.” Etta tried staring him down, but he stared right back. He wasn’t about to be intimidated by a mule-headed, five-foot-nothing shrimp of a female.
Finally she said, “I live in Chicago. Belle lives in Houston. Surely you don’t expect us to pick up and move here.”
“I don’t expect anything. That ball is entirely in your court. Of course you might want to consider that once we have a workable plan in place going forward, I don’t see why a long distance partnership couldn’t work—for the time being, anyway. Technology makes all kinds of communication possible—even from Paris. Right, Belle?”
Etta looked at him curiously. He shrugged. “Daphne was telling me her mother wanted to go to Paris.”
Belle smiled. “That’s true. We could telecommute, Etta. It would give us time to work out the details.”
“And leave you basically in charge to do whatever you like?” Etta asked Donny Joe.
He held up his hand. “There you go again, acting all suspicious, and to tell you the truth, it’s getting a little old.” He was through being treated like the bad guy in this situation. “Like I said before, that’s your call.”