Free April of Enchantment (Sweetly Contemporary Collection) by Jennifer Blake Page A

acoustics. Over there on the end wall, I want to take in about four feet of the room, panel it or something, and build a storage cabinet for my stereo equipment, albums, tapes, and so on, in one end, with an arrangement for a wet bar in the other.”
    “You’re going to run into problems with the plumbing on that bar, ma’am,” the man said.
    “I don’t care,” Myra snapped. “Get a plumber out here to see to it.”
    “Myra,” Laura said, finding her voice as she advanced into the room. “You can’t mean it! You can’t be thinking of tearing this room apart like that. It’s the most beautiful in the house!”
    The other woman swung around, her red lips curving in a faintly malicious smile. “Can’t I? I told you I meant to have a game room.”
    “But not here! It would be — atrocious. You can’t!”
    “That’s your opinion. You just stand back and watch me.”
    As Myra turned away, Laura put her hand on her green-clad sleeve. “Justin won’t like it. He’ll be furious.”
    “You just leave Justin to me,” Myra said through her teeth, jerking her arm away. “Right now, he’s in Baton Rouge, and what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
    “It will ruin the house,” Laura said desperately.
    “That’s fine with me; I didn’t like it the way it was anyway.”
    Laura glanced at the carpenter, standing back with his hands on his hips, watching the two of them. She looked back to Myra. “I can’t let you do this.”
    “And just how do you intend to stop me?” the other woman sneered.
    Without wasting time, Laura turned back to the man in overalls. “This house belongs to Justin Roman. It isn’t just any ordinary building; it’s a careful restoration of a historic landmark. Look around you. Do you honestly think that the man who owns this place is going to be happy with a game room just inside his front door like the one outlined to you?”
    “I am his fiancée,” Myra declared, breaking in, “and I say he will.”
    “I’m the interior designer and consultant here, and I’ve worked long and hard to see that everything is as it should be. You can take my word for it when I tell you that Mr. Roman will not pay a cent for unauthorized construction.”
    “Justin doesn’t have to pay. My father —”
    Laura turned on her. “Your father doesn’t own this house, and so far as I know, you have not been given power to contract additions or improvements in Justin’s name.” She swung back to the man. “You heard her say yourself that what Justin didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Doesn’t that suggest to you that she’s doing something Mr. Roman would not like, and that she knows it?”
    The carpenter fingered his chin, casting a quick look at Myra. “Well, ma’am, it does look as if it would be better all around if I was to get the approval of the owner.”
    “You have my approval, and that’s all you need!” Myra screamed. “You’ll do as I say, and not waste another minute about it!”
    Laura took a step toward him. “If you touch anything in this room, if you alter it in any way, I can guarantee that you will be slapped with a suit for damages so quick you’ll wonder what happened.” She didn’t know that it was the truth, but it was the most effective threat she could think of at the moment.
    “That isn’t so,” Myra yelled at the man. “When the work is done, I can bring Justin around. Get started now, you stupid fool! Do as I say, or I can promise you that you have just lost a job!”
    The man’s face stiffened as he glared at the woman in green. “I tell you what; nobody yells at me like that. You can just take your job and do whatever you want with it, ma’am.”
    Her eyes blazing with frustration, Myra watched as he leaned to pick up his tool box. “I’ll find another carpenter, and a better one than you!”
    “You do that,” he said, and swinging around, marched from the room.
    Myra whirled on Laura. “You think you’ve won, don’t you? But by