They worked until eight o’clock because it was daylight savings time, the guys wanted the overtime and none of them, except Larry, had plans for the night. As Marc predicted, they finished framing the entire main floor and were ready to start on the second story.
Working late was fine with Mandy. Most of her friends had all taken off on graduation road trips or other celebrations. They’d teased her because the only thing she wanted to do to celebrate was start working.
As the sun began to dip in the navy sky, the air cooled and a soft breeze came up.
Mandy enjoyed the slight drop in temperature.
When she and A.J. carried the last shear over and nailed it in place, she took a moment to catch her breath and savor the smell of wood. Closing her eyes, she lifted her arms over her head and clasped her elbows, enjoying the air cooling her under arms.
A bird cawed, the call vanishing on the wind. A dog barked. She loved the sounds of a quiet construction site almost as much as she loved the harmony of hammers, nail guns and the occasional skill saw.
Then it occurred to her – there were no hammers or nail guns. She opened her eyes and looked into the amused faces of A.J., Larry and Marc, all standing a few feet away. Boston was over in the corner, packing up some supplies for the night, but he glanced over just as she lowered her hands to her sides.
“You all right there?” A.J. asked.
“Uh, yeah. Just cooling off.”
The guys exchanged smirks before heading to the truck.
“You want to get a drink?” A.J. stood with Larry at the back of the truck. Both were unbuckling their tool belts.
“Yeah, I could do with one.”
Mandy joined them. “So, where we going?”
Larry laid his belt inside the metal case. “Uh…”
“You like booze, baby doll?”
Mandy ignored Marc’s snicker. “I can drink my share.”
“You’ve never even tasted the stuff,” Marc teased.
A.J. took the belt from her hands, turned and put it away. Mandy felt the warm heat of a body behind her and looked over her shoulder at Boston.
“Okay, so I was just playing around.” She batted lashes.
A.J. touched the tip of her nose with his finger.
Then he moved aside so Boston could store his tool belt.
“Sweet things like you don’t want to hang in bars and places like that.”
They were surrounding her again, cool, smooth skin and spent male scents that made her stomach whirl and her pulse skip. “Can’t stand the stuff anyway. No worries there, A.J.”
“So you have tried it.” Marc cocked his head. “I knew it, you little liar.”
Mandy sent him a giant grin and backed toward her car, digging in her jeans for keys. “None of your business, Marcus. See you guys tomorrow.”
“Yeah, but we leave at seven.” Marc opened the truck door. “No more driving out to the site on your own, you know that’s against policy.”
“And you know where I’m concerned, Dad bends policy.” She jiggled her keys with a teasing laugh that made Marc roll his eyes.
“Yeah, I know.” Marc got in the truck and slammed the door. Then he rolled down the window. “As your supervisor,” his tone dripped with sarcasm, “I’m telling you those rules won’t bend as long as you’re on my job, got it?”
Mandy saluted him. “Yes boss. See ya tomorrow, A.J.
Larry.”
A.J. nodded at her before he climbed into the cab next to Marc. Larry didn’t say or do anything but get in and shut the door. Boston pulled himself up into the bed of the truck.
“See ya, Boston.”
His dark eyes locked on her as he sat, arms stretched out along the rim of the bed. He lifted the bill of his cap in a gesture of good-bye that sent a nice tickle through her blood.
She enjoyed one more look at the quiet site, took in her last breath of wood, and got in her car. She figured she’d burned off the Hooters double bacon cheeseburger, fries and chocolate shake and then some.
She drove through Taco Bell, grabbed a half-pound burrito, some Fiesta potatoes, a Pepsi, and headed home.
Summers in Saratoga Springs meant eighty-five plus temperatures most days. Even nights were warm. The valley, surrounded by tall, majestic mountains, created an oven effect.
She drove with her windows down and music loud.
Though she appreciated all types, Taylor Swift bounced from her speakers now and she bounced along, balancing her burrito in one hand, the potatoes in the other in between sips and steering.
Through chews she sang along, and her warbling reminded her of A.J. He was a lame singer, but she liked the guy. It was cool that he was older. He had manners.
The world needed more guys like him. Maybe some of his class would rub off on Marc, though she doubted it. Their own parents were classy and that hadn’t done much.
Marc still preferred crass to culture.
A horn beeped somewhere just as she stuffed the last hunk of burrito into her mouth and Mandy turned to see who it was. Cam in his red Five Buck Pizza shirt waved from his tiny Toyota zooming the opposite direction.
Mandy waved back.
Like her, Cam hadn’t traipsed off on some graduation indulgence, but had stayed home to work and put money aside for school. Some kids were just smarter, Mandy decided through a sip. You had to plan and educate yourself, or you’d end up a loser working some dead-end job the rest of your life.
Not her. She’d had her plans laid out like a set of blueprints since she was old enough to read and had chosen house plans over fiction. Graduate, go to school, and get her contractor’s license, work for Haynes Construction, and either take over Dad’s company or start one of her own.
When her cell phone played a jumpy tune, she grinned and plucked it up. “Hey, Cam. How late are you working tonight?”
“Just through rush, why? Something up?”
“Not yet. Wanna meet later?”
“Yeah.”
“K. Our spot?”
“Yeah.”
“See you when you get there.” She clicked off the phone, excited now that she was going to spend the evening doing her second most favorite thing other than working—hanging with one of her favorite friends. The night wasn’t going to be a waste.
It wasn’t that she didn’t like being at home with her parents, she just preferred hanging out and since most of her friends had taken off on her, she’d been pretty solitary with the exception of Cam.
Since it was Friday, her parents were out on their customary dinner and a movie date. She parked in the driveway. She never tired of admiring the craft and quality of their two-story, stone and brick house her dad had built some ten years earlier. He’d built the four-thousand square foot house on spec, and because the housing market had been slow at the time, it hadn’t sold.
It wasn’t for any other reason than that, because the house was appointed with every luxury and perfect detail any homeowner would want. They’d moved in and lived there ever since. She came to understand that building and business were different sides of the work.
She unlocked the heavy wood door and deactivated the alarm system. Her dog, Scamper, flurried over in a ball of white and fawn-colored fur and leapt into her arms, then proceeded to lick her neck.
“You love that salty sweat, dontcha girl?” Mandy carried her up the terracotta tile stairs to the second floor, nuzzling her. “Well, I’m covered in it today.”
She’d just reached the landing when she heard the front door open. The alarm signal jingled and the door slammed.
“Marc?”
She heard his keys hit the marble table top in the entry. “Yeah, who else would it be?”
“Why didn’t you go with A.J. and Larry?” Mandy leaned over the wrought-iron balcony so she could see him.
He didn’t look at her, just stomped in the direction of the kitchen. “I can’t show up to work wasted, you know that.”
“But A.J and Larry can?”
“He’s such a grouch,” she whispered to Scamper, scrubbing the dog’s head. Then she let the fluffy ball down and started peeling off clothes, dropping them to the floor with careless abandon. She couldn’t get her jeans off with her boots on, so she sat on the foot of her bed, unlaced the boots and kicked them across the room. They landed with a thud. When her socks were gone, the cool air made her wiggle her toes and sigh.
Standing, she shimmied out of her jeans and left them in a puddle. She couldn’t wait to shower, wash her hair and be clean.
For some reason she was humming Rag Doll. She smiled, hearing the music in her head just as she’d heard it blasting from the truck at lunch. In the large mirror that spanned the wall of her private bathroom she looked at herself.
Good, she’d gotten some color. Her face was pink and so were her arms. It was lame that the rest of her was white as an albino. Her fair skin never tanned without a lot of coaxing. She was smart enough to slather on the sunscreen, but she wanted to have that sun kissed glow all over, not just on her arms and face. For a reason she couldn’t explain, Boston’s chiseled, tanned body flashed in her mind then, sending a trembling down her middle and goose bumps on her flesh.
With the shower ready, she got in and sighed under the hot pulses of water. She never took being clean and smelling fresh for granted and reveled in the nightly indulgence of a bath or long shower.
After she got out, she quickly combed through her hair, sprayed on some watermelon body splash and dressed.
Her jeans stunk. Scamper was sniffing them with the intensity of a gopher at an empty hole. Mandy wouldn’t put those back on, but she knew she’d be sitting, so she chose some khaki shorts and a screened tee with
‘framers nail it every time’ across the chest. She’d found the shirt online, thought it was funny and bought it. Since her parents hated the shirt but happened to be gone, it was a perfect night to wear it.
Minimal makeup was her preference and she dusted some blush on her cheeks, soft shadow on her eyelids and brushed on two coats of mascara before heading downstairs.
Finished sniffing, Scamper tumbled along at her heels. The dog stopped at the top of the stairs and yipped. Mandy gathered her in her arms and carried her down the tile stairs.
Anxious to talk to Marc about the day, the job and the guys, Mandy went into the kitchen and found him hunched over a bowl of Corn Pops. The big screen TV
was on in the family room, an old episode of “Friends”
playing.
“You’re eating that for dinner?”
He grumbled, chewed and shrugged. Mandy put Scamper down and joined Marc at the granite counter where he sat. “I thought it went well today,” she said.
Marc continued spooning and chewing.
“The guys are nice. I especially like A.J. And Larry’s a total character.”
Since Marc had inhaled the bowl of cereal, he poured himself some more.
“So.” She shouldn’t ask, sure he’d have nothing nice to say, but couldn’t stop herself. “How’d I do?”
His shoulders lifted.
Mandy ignored a fluttering of insecurity she felt inside. It was Marc’s way to be silent when he couldn’t admit something. “I guess that means I did great.” She crossed to the refrigerator and pulled out a gallon of pineapple juice, got a glass from the cupboard.
“You did what you were told, that’s the main thing.”
Marc’s mouth churned yellow mush.
Mandy poured the pineapple juice. “I’m an apprentice, what else would I do?”
“As long as you remember that.”
Mandy rolled her eyes and plunked the juice at his elbow. “I know you know more about this than I do.
You’ve been at it longer. I can accept that. And I’m not asking for any special privileges you won’t give the other guys.”
“You won’t get any.” He snatched the juice, drank it all down.
“I don’t expect any.” Her voice rose.
“Be ready to go tomorrow or I’m leaving your butt at home and the day’s over for you.”
“You’re still pissed Mom and Dad let me sleep in the day after grad night? I seem to remember they let you do a lot more than that after graduating. Wasn’t there a trip to Cabo in there somewhere? Un chaperoned?”
“So.” He jerked more cereal from the box and into the bowl. “This is a job, Mand, and I’ve got a list of guys that could take your place and carry their weight.”
Mandy bristled. “I can carry my weight. I did today.”
“Yeah, with A.J.’s help,” Marc snorted. “Which took him from what he was doing, which slowed us down.”
“You said we were going up tomorrow and we still are. To me it looks like we’re still on schedule. Get over it, Marc. I’m working this job even if you hate it.” Fury boiled in her veins. She grabbed her purse so she could get out of there before the argument got uglier.
“And I do,” he shouted after her.
She whirled around. “You’ve made that clear, what, about a thousand times now?”
“A thousand and one… and counting.” He was just as furious, she could tell. He yanked the cereal box and when he did, his hand knocked into his milk-filled bowl and remnants of milk splattered out and onto the counter top. He cursed. She tried not to laugh. Before she’d taken the framing job, they both would have laughed at a moment like that. Not now. He looked ready to blow a gasket.
It was the right time for her to go upstairs and get her keys, and she did, leaving him to mutter and clean up.
chapter three
Her fisted nerves relaxed the second she opened the door of Barnes and Noble and the scent of coffee, paper and something crisp and clean she couldn’t identify but wished they’d bottle and sell tickled her nose.
Mandy walked to the reading area at the back of the store at a slow and easy pace. She scanned the display tables with their stacks of books, peering down aisles, her gaze lingering on the end displays where the newest releases or series were sometimes featured.
She found Cam loitering at the end of one of four romance aisles. He still wore his black Five Buck Pizza shirt and black jeans – the business’ required uniform. Why he had his backpack over his shoulder, she couldn’t imagine.
School had been out for two days. But the sight made her laugh.
His flame of red hair was tousled over deep green eyes and his electric smile. He leaned over, kissed her cheek. “Hey.” He smelled like onions and Italian sauce.
“Hey. You’re off early.”
“Slow night.”
“The backpack?” Mandy tugged on his strap.
“Habit. Just kidding.”
“So you can hide your romance novels, I get it,” she teased.
He looked around like a thief making sure he was all clear to rip off a bank, then pulled her into the aisle. She got squeamish faced with rows and rows of book covers of buff, nearly-naked men and women with long hair blowing in the wind.
“You pick something out yet?” she asked.
His hungry gaze scanned the shelves. “Not yet.
Here.” He plucked a random book and thrust it at her so it would look like it was her who was looking for a romance fix.
On the cover, a buxom redhead in a shred of cloth draped strategically over her arched body was in the arms of a muscled guy with waist-length hair and wearing a loin cloth. “Love’s Savage Surrender Volume Five?” she whispered.
“Just read it, okay?” he hissed, eyes darting.
“If anyone I knew saw me here—”
“I’m going as fast as I can. I can’t just pick anything.
I have taste you know.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Like, no suspense. No murder stuff. I like it straight.
Kidnappings I can deal with, because there’s always this
Mandy wasn’t sure what had grabbed him about the deep red book – the color, the title or the cover, but Prisoner of Mine had captured him.
His eyes skimmed the back. “This sounds hot.”
Nailed Page 3
