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smiling proudly. “I was thrilled when Grandfather bought this place and suggested I draw up plans to remodel it.”
    “Seymour Higgins is your grandfather?” Josie asked.
    “Yes. Cool, isn’t it?”
    “Yeah, cool,” she replied unenthusiastically. Just what she needed—an inexperienced architect.
    “I can’t wait for your crew to get started.” Christopher Higgins appeared to hesitate. “There are a few last-minute changes that I wanted to talk over with you.”
    “Changes?”
    “A few very minor changes.” He picked up an elegant and expensive-looking calfskin briefcase from the floor. “I have the drawings here, if you have a few moments to take a look.”
    “I . . .”
    “I’m going to show them to my grandparents as soon as we go over them,” he added.
    At least he was giving her an opportunity to see them first. “Sure,” she said trying to sound enthusiastic. “Let’s go inside.”
    “Great. I think you’re really going to be interested in this. I’m proposing some really innovative concepts.”
    To Josie, innovative sounded like it meant expensive. She had signed a contract with Seymour Higgins and they had agreed on a price. Changes would be made throughout the project—there always were—but making changes before the demolition even began made Josie nervous.
    “And some of my ideas are real money savers. Grandfather and Grandmother will really like that!”
    “But I thought they were rich. I mean . . .”
    “Oh, they are, but Grandfather says only fools don’t like bargains, and Grandmother clips the coupons in the paper every Sunday and insists that her housekeeper use them when she shops. They’re both going to appreciate all the money we’re going to save them.”
    Josie wasn’t quite so sure about that “we” in his statement, but she didn’t feel the need to share this with him. “Let’s look at those plans. My crew is going to be here to start demolition in a few minutes.”
    He hesitated a moment on the door step. “I pulled a few things I thought Grandmother and Grandfather might want to save—some pieces of furniture—and put them in the garage. I hope you don’t mind.”
    “No problem.” In fact, it was the first thing that morning that wasn’t a problem. After her conversation with Sam the day before, she was going to insist that her crew empty the house and carefully store the contents.
    Christopher opened the door for Josie and she walked into the house.
    Josie realized immediately that Christopher’s idea of “a few things” was different than hers: her immediate impression was that the house had been stripped of almost all the sixties touches that Sam had waxed so enthusiastically over the previous day. She smiled. He had just saved her and her crew a few hours of tedious work. Now they could immediately get busy with crowbars and sledge hammers.
    Just as soon as she looked at Christopher’s ideas . . .

FIVE
    MONTHS LATER, JOSIE was to realize how lucky it was that she had been so busy that day; otherwise she might have taken the time to count all the things going wrong with the Bride’s Secret Bed and Breakfast project, and the resulting list would certainly have been a daunting one.
    Christopher was a self-confident young man, happy to pass the spare time that Josie certainly didn’t have talking about himself. He revealed the name of his girlfriend; he mentioned where he was going to college; he apparently thought nothing of explaining that this project was his first architectural job. It wasn’t actually a professional job, he explained. His grandparents weren’t paying him for his work, but, he added, at least he would get college credit.
    Josie had been forced to interrupt at that point. “You mean you’re in graduate school?” she asked, hoping for a positive answer.
    “No, but I’ll be a senior next year. In fact, this house is my senior thesis project. This should be an easy year for me, don’t you think? I mean, most of my work