She smiled to herself. This was the moment he realized he was seeing a pregnant woman, that her girth wasn’t just from her coat that fell from her shoulders in voluminous folds.
Evvy had not been surprised or, at least, not bothered.
After more smiles and nods, Baylor snatched up KayLee’s shoulder bag from the floor, and they all headed down a hallway, Evvy Doyle in the lead.
The ranch house was big—bigger than she expected. Good. They were already used to big spaces inside as well as out. Hopefully, they’d like the wide-open design of her guest cabins the best. If K. L. Morgan and Associates got this job, her design firm might have a future, she might have a future and so might her baby, who was the only associate she had.
KayLee buried any sign of desperation under a bright Hollywood smile and kept her place in the parade.
Moments later, they stepped into a den with a knotty pine floor and walls, and a cheery fire in the fireplace. Five more faces assessed KayLee as they stood to greet her—two women and three more men. Seven against one. Fine, she’d faced worse odds when her husband’s creditors came after her.
The older man, no doubt the Curtis Doyle from the phone calls and the father in the photo, stepped forward to stand beside his wife. If there were middle-aged, Western-wear wedding-cake couples out there, then this pair had been the model. There weren’t two people in the world as well-matched as Evvy and Curtis Doyle, or who looked more honest and upstanding.
Or two people she knew she couldn’t disappoint. Well, where did that come from?
“Mr. Doyle, I’m KayLee Morgan. Nice to meet you in person.”
He shook her hand firmly and then introduced her to the rest of the family. The younger men and women were dressed in what KayLee thought might be casual-office Western wear, jeans and boots with open-necked button shirts from plain to plaid, and they all inspected her carefully.
Lance and Seth were Baylor’s older brothers and the women, Holly and Amy, were their wives. The wives grinned and the men smiled politely. All handshakes were firm, not one limp hand in the bunch. She expected no less and gave as good as she got.
Crystal, the sister from the photo who had painted the stallion, apparently lived in Denver and wasn’t able to make the meeting Curtis had said.
When they were all seated, Baylor and his father flanked the elder Mrs. Doyle like the Fu Dogs outside Grauman’s Chinese Theater. She was guarded well. Point taken, KayLee thought. The family was tight.
Good. She’d rather set up an alliance than broker family squabbles any day.
She shifted her gaze from one Doyle to the next. These were not boardroom types. They didn’t come here to posture and preen. They came to review the package she had prepared for the development of the ranch project and to make a decision. Excitement frizzling along her nerves let her know she was ready for this.
“Small talk or business first?” she asked.
Lance, the oldest son, barked a sharp laugh. “Well played, ma’am.”
Most of the others nodded.
Time was money—their money, not from the bank account of some big corporation—and she knew how they felt.
“I think we pretty much laid out our position in the information we sent to you.” This was from Curtis Doyle. “Why don’t you show us what you brought?”
KayLee donned her let-me-entertain-you smile.
As she did a quick study of the group, the fire crackled and the sounds of children’s laughter filtered in from a distance. “Great then, I’ll get started.”
She splayed open her leather shoulder bag and took out a half-dozen copies of her proposal, including samples of her past work, her work from her life before Chad. Her old laptop sat on the backseat of her car. Its age wouldn’t make her presentation cutting-edge, and she suspected these people were hard-copy types anyway.
She kept one for herself and placed the rest on the large round wooden coffee table in the center of the room. “I apologize for not having enough.”
“We can share,” Amy said, handing one to Holly. The husband-and-wife couples snuggled close and KayLee suddenly wanted to cry.
Pregnancy hormones. She blinked, had several soothing swallows from the glass of water on the table in front of her and continued. “In the final plan there are the seven guest cabins you requested and I recommend they be of varying sizes. My proposal is to build one of the medium-sized and one of the smaller ones first. I believe beginning on all of them at once would put too much of a strain on the resources here in the valley. The sheer noise created by doing the project on such a large scale would be unpleasant for the people as well as the wildlife.”
She saw a couple of nods and one slight smile. The smile was from Evvy. The rest had remained neutral, except Baylor, who just frowned harder. Tough nut. She wondered what it would take to crack him.
KayLee took another drink of water and then checked to see that her smile was still in place. She’d made harder sales than this one and that was when she was a youngster compared to now.
“I suggest, in keeping ahead of the curve, that all of the building materials be as green, as eco-friendly, as possible.” There were a couple more nods with this proposal. “But I also propose that the second medium cabin, when built, be constructed with the materials and ventilation needed to make that particular house a safe environment for anyone who, for health reasons, cannot tolerate what most of us consider normal indoor pollutants.”
The faces of the group had all taken on a rather neutral countenance. She searched for a sign. Approval? Bewilderment? Boredom?
Amy leaned forward and refilled the glass of water in front of KayLee. It wasn’t much, but she took it as a sign someone wanted her there.
She nodded her thanks, took a drink and then drew herself up and pressed on with the details. She answered their questions as they asked them, giving a solid look of confidence and an honest response. She had built her premarriage business on integrity and expected to do the same now.
As she explained the family area concept where two cabins were located near an all-natural play area, but not near the other cabins, she got nods and smiles from the three women.
She had worked hard studying their wish lists, the absolutes of the landscape, aerial photographs, topographical maps and available supplies in the area. She had a decent idea of what she was facing. She hoped it showed. By the time she had spread out her design of the first medium cabin to be built in a stand of pines, near enough to the stream to hear the burbling water on a quiet night, but not close enough to pollute the water, and the second near the proposed play area, she was sure she had all of them in her corner. Well, all except Baylor.
The more she talked, the more questions she answered, the more confident she felt she had sold herself and her ideas to the others, the more Baylor seemed to scowl. She wondered how much influence he had on the group as a whole.
By the time KayLee was almost finished, it seemed as if the sun should be setting, but only about an hour and a half had passed. She hoped what she had to offer next would make even Baylor sit up and smile.
“I know you all want this project started as soon as possible, and I can arrange my schedule to accommodate an immediate launch if you should choose to go with these designs.”
She scanned each Doyle. Evvy and Curtis were the image of warmth and receptivity. The younger husband-and-wife teams held hands and expressions of approval. KayLee gave in to a small shiver of excitement. This was the first real hope she’d had since the accident that had taken her husband.
And then her gaze landed on Baylor.
He sat, arms crossed over his big chest, chin tucked, forehead creased. He had asked many questions, grilled her was more