Not attractive enough for her to back down. “Okay.” She shrugged. “I’ll hire someone else,” she said, turning to head inside. One, two, three…

“Sarah, wait.”

She hid a grin as she turned back and waited. The first person to speak in a negotiation lost.

His chest heaved as he sighed. “I’ll get you a new estimate by tomorrow. But I’m warning you, you’re not going to like how much this is going to cost.”

She walked back toward him and handed him the list. “It will be worth it.” Once she made her improvements to the B&B, the place was going to look amazing and be even more functional than before. Someone would definitely want to buy it.

Her gut twisted slightly at the thought, which was ridiculous. She did not want to keep the place. Letting it go would be easy. It would not be hard to leave her hometown the longer she stayed.

Or the hot-as-hell man scowling at her.

…

Upgrades. What the hell? Sarah was suddenly going all in, and part of him was annoyed that she was making these changes to the inn, but damn, if she wasn’t uber-appealing when she was getting her own way. The smug look on her face when she’d called his bluff had made him want to kiss it right off. The gleam of challenge in her eye and the pretty pursed lips… He had no idea what was going on there with this unexpected attraction to her.

He’d hoped the physical labor would help set him right again, but he couldn’t help catching a glimpse of her as she directed the delivery guys. She was definitely more confident and self-assured than the girl he remembered. And despite his personal feelings about these changes to the inn, her new take-charge attitude was sexy.

“Dad, are you listening?” Marissa asked from below on the wraparound deck.

Unfortunately. No amount of hammering could deter Marissa from continuing to tell him all about the different course offerings from Camp STEM. And it was the latter that was making his brain hurt.

When he’d brought her to work with him that day, he’d hoped she’d ride her bike around the property or head down to the beach and build a sandcastle… Instead, she’d brought along her backpack full of books and the brochure for Camp STEM that she’d read cover to cover a million times and was now reading to him.

“It says advanced students can skip the beginner courses and take the more advanced ones…we just need to take an online submission test once we register,” she was saying from her cross-legged position on the deck below him. She twirled a piece of strawberry-blond hair around one finger absentmindedly as she talked. “Do you think I’m good enough to pass that test?”