Mandy didn’t feel like talking, so she listened to another one of Larry’s raunchy CDs and guy talk, holding the other end of the measuring tape when Boston measured.
Carrying four-by-sixes, holding beams in place.
“You should have seen this animal last night,” Marc called from across the second floor where he and Larry worked. “Not just one, but three women.” Marc shook his head and bent over to gather a stack of wood fittings.
“How’d you manage that?” A.J.’s eyes twinkled with amusement.
Larry stopped hammering, turned with a grin and lifted his shoulders.
“First, there was this gorgeous blonde, a Pamela Anderson look alike. She was all over him. What was her name, dude?”
Larry lifted a shoulder. “Heck if I know.”
“Another dollar in the pot.” Marc shook his head.
“Then this cute little cheerleader type did cartwheels for him, right there at the bar. Bet you don’t remember her name, either.”
“Nope.”
“Lastly, this brunette comes along, hair down to her waist, legs up to here.” He held his hand to the middle of his chest.
“She was mighty fine,” Larry agreed. “Samantha.”
All noise came to an abrupt stop, along with any movement. Only the rock music blared on from the boombox. Larry’s light eyes widened. “What?”
“You remembered her name.” Shock lined Marc’s tone.
Larry scratched his head and shrugged. “Guess so.”
A.J. resumed hammering. Mandy’s eyes met Boston’s. He seemed unimpressed by Larry’s news and got back to work.
“I couldn’t even get one babe to let me buy her a drink and this guy was surrounded like a celebrity.” Marc grunted, dropping the wood closer to the window he was framing.
“That brunette liked you,” Larry pointed out. “You two looked pretty cozy when you were dancing.”
“Yeah but it ended there.”
Mandy rolled her eyes. Did everything have to be about hooking up? Was every male that desperate to do the deed? She stole a look at Boston’s face, hard lined and focused on what he was doing. If all males were like Larry and Marc, it really would be a feat of willpower for him to stay celibate.
And what about A.J.? His participation in these rank conversations was usually minimal. Something about him set him apart, but Mandy wasn’t sure what it was other than age and maturity. Maybe he had a will of stone like Boston. Or maybe he was above all this stuff.
“You’re kinda quiet today.” A.J. held a post in one hand, hammer poised in the other. His green eyes flickered over her with the warmth of a summer rain. “You okay, baby doll?”
Mandy held a four-by-six in place for Boston who was digging in his tool belt for nails. “I’m fine, thanks, A.J.” She liked that he was astute enough to notice, and mature enough to say something.
A.J. drove in a nail. “You know, construction sites are like psychiatrists offices, only better.”
Mandy enjoyed her first laugh of the day. “Oh?
How’s that?”
“You can talk all you want to a listening ear.” A.J.
readied another nail, holding it in place. “And pound something at the same time.”
“Sounds like a deal.”
“Does wonders for anger management.” A.J.
crossed the floor with a glittering grin, reached over and picked up another piece of wood. “And you can’t beat the price.”
“I imagine it would.” Mandy moved with Boston to where a window would be framed in next. Boston dug out the measuring tape, pulled the end out and held it out to her. Their eyes met for half a second.
“Thanks,” he said.
“You’re welcome.” She stood still while he dragged the tape back twelve feet, plucked a marking pencil out of his tool belt, drew a slash on the wood, then stuck the pencil between his teeth.
As the sun snuck upward and heat intensified, sweat drooled down her legs, dripped between her breasts, drizzled down her spine. When Boston came toward her for the loose end of the measuring tape, her heart banged against her ribs.
He snapped the tape back into place and measured the height of the window. With both hands, Mandy lifted her hair off her neck and let out a sigh. Eyes closed, she took in a deep breath of stifling air. “It’s gotta be over a hundred today,” she murmured.
“Around one-oh-five I bet,” A.J. piped.
She kept her eyes closed, feeling the beads of sweat stream every inch of her skin. She couldn’t wait until lunch, to get out of these hot jeans and get into something cooler. She’d shied away from shorts because of the hazards of the job, but hazard or not, she’d give them a try. When she opened her eyes, the room wobbled, then blurred and she blinked, wiping the sweat from her face. She blinked again. Sit. She needed to sit down.
Her knees buckled and she plunked to the sub floor.
Everything spun. The wood vibrated beneath her and soon both A.J. and Boston were squatted down in front of her. A.J. had his hands on her shoulders.
“You okay?” He looked her right in the eye. She tried to focus on him and blinked hard again.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. Just a little light headed there for a minute.”
“Go get her some water,” A.J. tossed to Boston.
Boston was gone in another heavy blink.
Mandy knew she’d be history if Marc saw her like this, so she struggled to her feet. A.J.’s sturdy hands helped lift her and stayed on her shoulders until she was steady. Then his strong grip slid to her cheeks. He cupped her face and brought her gaze to his. “When was the last time you drank anything?”
Mandy shrugged. She still felt uneasy, her legs like strings. “I don’t know. Maybe…” She hadn’t had anything since breakfast, she remembered now, but wouldn’t tell him that.
“You need to drink every hour at least.”
She nodded. The palms of his hands stayed locked on her cheeks.
Boston bounded back with the water and held it out for her. A.J. grabbed it, ripped off the lid and gave it to her. “Come on, drink. Now.”
Mandy wrapped shaking fingers around the bottle, pressed it to her mouth and drank. The icy cold was so blissful; she closed her eyes as the cold liquid went down.
“What the hell were you doing?” A.J.’s hard tone shocked her eyes back open. He was glaring at Boston.
“You’re supposed to make sure she gets a water break every hour.”
Boston’s body tensed. He set his hands on his work belt. The flash in his eyes told Mandy he wasn’t happy about being accused. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not his fault,” Mandy said. “I’m my own responsibility.”
“No, baby doll. That’s why there’s an apprentice and a trained team member assigned to them.” He slid his glare back to Boston. “She’s your responsibility.”
Boston dipped his head. His fingers dug into the tool belt at his waist. Mandy looked from one man to the other. “I can take care of myself. Look, I got dehydrated.
That’s nobody’s fault but my own. It was stupid, but it wasn’t his fault.”
“Hey,” Marc’s voice sliced through the tension. They all looked at him. “Something wrong?”
“We’re good, boss,” A.J. said with a wave. A.J.’s gaze wasn’t angry anymore. In spite of the pressure in the air, Mandy shivered when his green eyes shifted to hers and something cold there trickled through her. Confused, she waited for him to say something, but he didn’t, he just held her under a frosty stare.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I’m willing to take responsibility for the oversight.”
A.J. stepped back, signaling he was going back to work. “Just take care of yourself. We’re here to work, not monitor each other’s health.” He turned and headed back to his work area.
Mandy took a deep breath. Stepping on the toes of fellow workers was juvenile. Done intentionally or accidentally, it didn’t shine a favorable light on the employee doing the stepping.
Boston’s perturbed expression wasn’t helping matters, either. “I really am sorry,” she said to him.
He turned and returned to work. Mandy stood in the middle of the empty room, Boston to her left, A.J.
at her right. This wasn’t as much a triangle, she thought looking from one simmering man to the other, as it was a teeter-totter.
Mandy doubted the guys would miss her over lunch. Talk had been minimal on the side of the house where she, A.J. and Boston worked after the dehydration debacle. Marc dropped her off at home without giving her too much trouble, only telling her that she needed to be ready for pick up right at one o’clock. Then the guys took off to eat.
With a pleasurable sigh she peeled off her sweaty jeans and her whole body breathed in the air conditioned air inside the house. Much better. Her red Homes by Haynes shirt was too wet to wear again so she found a white wife-beater and pulled it overhead. That ought to keep me cool enough. And it’d keep her tan growing slow but sure.
Better idea, she thought, reaching for her baby blue bathing suit. Now she’d tan without a lot of lines.
She pulled on the sleek one piece, followed that with matching boy shorts then tied her blonde waves up in a pony tail. She turned in the full-length mirror. Yup, no chance for tan lines now. She frowned at her boots and scrunched socks. Boots were mandatory on site, so she couldn’t very well wear flip flops. She’d have lines around her ankles. Dang. A small price to pay to max out the rest of her tan while she worked.
At one o’clock Marc didn’t honk – he blasted the horn. Mandy hadn’t had time to eat, so she grabbed a banana and slipped on her sunglasses on her way out the door.
The truck idled in the driveway like a growling beast.
Boston stood at the passenger side with the door open and Mandy jogged over. From the bed of the truck, A.J.
leaned over the side, a big smile on his face. Larry, who was sitting in the back with him, did a double take and stood up.
Mandy shot them all a grin. “Hey.”
“What are you doing?” Marc demanded.
“You want me drive over separately?”
“I’m not talking about the drive to the site,” Marc ground out. “What are you wearing?”
Mandy looked down at herself. “I was too hot, and I want to get some color.” She climbed into the cab.
“In that?” Marc’s voice cranked up a notch.
“Why not?” Mandy asked. Marc stumbled over words. Nothing coherent came out. “You guys wear the equivalent of bathing suits. This will work double duty for me. Come on, let’s go.”
Marc hung in the open door on the driver’s side and looked her up and down. He shook his head. Mandy wondered why Boston hadn’t gotten in the car. He stood tentatively at the door. She patted the empty seat beside her. “Come on.”
He climbed in. Mandy reached over and turned on the radio. She didn’t like any of Marc’s preset stations and pressed the scan button.
“Just find something,” Marc growled when he finally climbed in.
“I’m trying. You guys force me to listen to raunch on site. I get to pick something decent when we drive.” She stopped on a retro eighties station.
“Tomorrow you’re not wearing that,” Marc told her.
Mandy bristled. “I’ll wear what I want.”
“Not when it’s indecent,” Marc snapped. He kept glaring at Boston and Mandy frowned.
“It’s a bathing suit and don’t be a hypocrite. You pick up women who wear a lot less.”
“They’re not my sister!”
“Thankfully,” she shot back. “I just want to stay cool and get a tan. It’s over a hundred degrees outside, Marc.
What’s fair is fair, right Boston?”
Boston’s jaw was in a knot. His hands, resting on his thighs, were tense, his fingers digging. He only glanced at her.
“You’re siding with him?” she nearly shrieked.
“Unbelievable.” She folded her arms.
“There’s a difference,” Marc snapped.
“What? Tell me? I guarantee if we measured bare skin inch for inch, you guys would have more naked flesh than me. Guarantee it.”
“It’s the flesh that’s bare that’s the problem, Mand.”
His eyes were hard flicking over her. “You’ve got…got…
stuff.”
Mandy laughed. “You can hanker after it but you can’t bring yourself to use the correct terms?”
“Hey, when I hanker, I hanker after women I don’t know.”
“And that’s a healthy male thing to do,” Mandy argued back. “So what are you worried about?”
“You prancing around the site.”
“Prancing?” Her laugh was sharp. “I’m working, just like you guys.”
Marc rubbed his jaw. “You don’t get it.”
“What I get is that you run your site with a double standard. From day one you haven’t wanted me to work with you, and so you’re taking it out on me every way you can. It’s unfair and unprofessional.”
“That is not true. Okay, part of it might be. But that’s not what I’m talking about right now.”
They were almost at the site, and Mandy couldn’t wait to get out of the close confines of the car. It was embarrassing that they were having this dispute in front of Boston and she looked at him. “I’m sorry about this,” she said.
He cleared his throat. “I agree with him.”
Mandy’s mouth opened but nothing came out—for a second. “You agree?”
He looked like he’d swallowed a thousand crickets.
“It’s…” His gaze skimmed her and Mandy felt like he’d brushed fire over her skin. Then he looked at Marc.
“Forget it,” he said.
Mandy thought she knew guys pretty well, but the last few days had shown her just how much she still had to learn about the simple complexities of the male species.
At the site, Marc jerked the truck to a stop. Boston got out and immediately went around to the back of the truck to belt up. Marc leaned close enough to Mandy to startle her. “You don’t get it, do you?” he whispered.
“Back to this again?” she hissed. Out the rear window of the cab, she saw the guys gathered around the storage box.
“You’re going to distract them dressed like that.”
She only paused a second, stunned. “I work here.
They don’t see me like girl, they see me as a fellow worker, something you might try.”
“Right. They don’t see you as a girl. That bathing suit screams woman.”
Mandy flushed from head to toe. At last her brother saw her for what she had struggled for so long to be.
It wasn’t just the change in her attire that had done it, either. It came from being seen that way in the eyes of his peers. If she gloated, he’d kill her, so she merely lifted her chin and kept her grin under control. “I’ll take that as a compliment, Marcus.” Then she got out and shut the door.
There was power in her stride now, awareness that the playing field was not just even, but maybe even tilted in her favor. The guys’ heads jerked up and all eyes were on her. She smiled when they parted for her. “Hey.”
“You want your belt, baby doll?” A.J.’s grin seemed permanent. He already had the belt in his hands, and held it out to her.
“Thanks, A.J.” She slipped it around her waist. After securing the buckle, she looked up. The guys stood immobile, attention locked on what she was doing.
Marc was busy getting his own tool belt on but he hadn’t missed the stupor the guys were in. He cleared his throat. Larry let out a whistle before heading into the house. A deep flush covered Boston, who dipped his head before taking off for the second floor.
“You mean to drive us all crazy today?” A.J.’s grin deepened. The look in his eyes was something Mandy had never seen in the eyes of any of the guys she’d spent time with: sharp, powerful, and almost peeled her bare.
As if he knew exactly how he was making her feel.
<
br /> “I just want to stay cool and get a tan…like you guys.”
A.J. wrapped his red bandana around his head, his gaze lingering over her so calculatedly, she almost wanted to cover herself. Almost. Another part of her enjoyed the way he took her in, as if he was sweeping her inside of himself with just a look.
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