Free Righting a Wrong (A Ripple Effect Romance Novella) by Rachael Anderson Page B

gratitude. Where was this attitude in high school? Or when she’d first come back? It was so much easier to feel close to him when he took a step back and supported her even though he disagreed.
    “But I don’t have to like it,” he added brusquely.
    Cambri placed her hand over his. “Believe it or not, I’m going to miss you. But I’m not leaving yet, and I’d love to give you a goodbye present this time. I’m good at what I do, so let me make your yard beautiful before I go.”
    “I doubt I’ll be able to keep it up.”
    “The doctor says you need exercise,” she countered. “Pushing a lawn mower around the yard and pulling a few weeds will be good for you.”
    He grunted and folded his arms. “I guess it won’t hurt to spruce it up a little. If your mother were still alive, she’d like that.”
    Cambri heard the slight catch in his voice when he talked about her mother. In his own way, he’d loved her deeply, just like Cambri had. She felt her heart lighten a little bit more. “Yes. Yes, she would.”
    That night, as Cambri booted up her laptop to work on the design for her boss, her mind opened, and a week of pent-up creativity came gushing out.
    She quickly sketched her ideas out on paper then got to work.
     

Cambri blinked at her bedroom ceiling as the first rays of morning sunlight filtered through the blinds. Even though she’d spent half of the night working on the landscape design plan, she’d never felt so invigorated. She’d look it over one last time this morning, then send it off to her boss two days before the deadline. And then she’d get to work on her father’s yard. A slow smile stretched across her face at the prospect of a new day with a new project on her plate. She couldn’t wait to get started.
    In no time at all, she had clicked Send, dressed in the oldest jeans she’d brought, made her father some oatmeal, and headed outside. An early spring chill made her shiver, but she didn’t care. Cambri had work to do, and she’d begin with her father’s poor excuse for a shed. It took the majority of the morning to clean it out and try to organize everything. Her father came out close to noon, asking what she was up to.
    “Just reorganizing, Dad. Don’t worry about it.”
    His expression wary, he eyed the boxes of fishing gear that she’d collected from the shed. “I expect everything to be put back the way you found it when you’re done. Otherwise I won’t be able to find anything.”
    Cambri lifted an eyebrow. He could actually find stuff in the chaos that was his shed before? Good thing she snapped a few pictures, because unbeknownst to her father, this shed was coming down.
    “You’re just going to have to trust me,” she said, shooing him back inside.
    After lunch, Cambri coerced him into going on a mandatory walk before parking him in front of the TV with his favorite Discovery show on, with the volume turned up loud. Then she returned to the backyard, hefted a sledgehammer, and started bringing down the house—or shed, in this instance. The fact that a few swings of the hammer could do so much damage was proof that it needed to come down.
    “What in Sputnik’s name are you doing?” boomed her father from the back patio. Evidently Cambri hadn’t turned up the volume enough.
    She set the sledgehammer down and wiped at the perspiration on her forehead. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m putting your shed to rest.”
    He charged toward her. “Where do you propose I keep all my fishing gear now?”
    “In the garage, for now. Then in the new shed I’m planning to put up over there.” Cambri pointed to the side of the house, adjacent to the garage. She’d already found the perfect pre-fabricated shed online and planned to order it through Sutton’s Hardware later that afternoon, along with the supplies she’d need for the water feature.
    “What about all that gravel?” he said, referring to the iffy foundation he’d used for his old