by Radclyffe
“That sounds great. Did you make it yourself?”
Carrie glanced over her shoulder. “Of course. Me and Minute Maid.”
“Somehow, I couldn’t see you squeezing lemons.”
“I’ll have you know, I make a very mean sun tea. And that requires slicing lemons, among other secret ingredients.”
“Can’t wait to taste it.”
“Then I’ll have to make some.” Carrie concentrated on putting ice into glasses. Really. Now she was making her tea. Life didn’t get any stranger than that.
Gina pulled out a chair at the table and unfolded a sheet of drawing paper she’d pulled from a back pocket. Carrie poured lemonade and carried the glasses to the table. She took the chair on Gina’s right and handed her the lemonade.
“Thanks. Okay,” Gina said, quickly sketching the borders of the kitchen and outlining the counters and appliances. “This is what we have to start.”
Carrie tilted her head to study the sketch. The proportions all looked right, as if they’d been outlined on graph paper rather than freehand. “You’re really good at that.”
“Plenty of practice,” Gina said absently. “So tell me what you see that doesn’t work and what you want to change.”
Leaning closer, Carrie pointed to various spots on the drawing, explaining where she needed more room for cooking or serving or just simple things like unloading groceries.
“Okay.” Gina paused to clear her head, distracted by the hint of violets that could only be Carrie’s scent mixing with the tang of lemons. Their bare forearms touched as they each pointed out places on the drawing, and Gina was drawn in by the softness of Carrie’s skin and the light perspiration on her own, her thoughts suddenly tangled with the image of their bodies mingling. “Um…”
“Sorry?” Carrie said, sounding as hazy as Gina felt. “I think I lost the plot.”
“No,” Gina murmured, “I’m not explaining very well.” She moved her chair a few inches away, breaking the unintentional contact, giving herself a little room to breathe. “We’ve already got good space to work with in here, plenty of room, it’s just a question of altering the dynamics of the flow, of how the workspace is used.” She quickly mapped several alternative layouts. “See what I mean? With this one, you’ll have a good view out the window as you prep, but it means moving the table and chairs in this direction, cutting down on the breeze through the back door when you’re at the table. If you want to keep the table where it is, we can switch things around”—she pointed—“here and here. Still good triangulation between the major kitchen working points but makes the table more the centerpiece.”
“Definitely that way,” Carrie said. “I can do with compromising a little on the workflow to keep the view out the back door and maximize the breeze. I like the way the air feels around here.”
“I know what you mean. So do I,” Gina said.
“So if you start down here,” Carrie said, “I’ll have the upstairs pretty much to myself while this stage is ongoing, right?”
“True, but the bathroom is still going to have to be torn up pretty quickly. We can leave working fixtures for you, but it won’t be pretty.”
“I don’t need pretty. I just need hot water.”
“I took a walk through the first floor while I was waiting,” Gina said slowly, sketching again. “What do you think about this—there’s that long, narrow room underneath the staircase that’s not really useful for much of anything. We could put a second bathroom in there.”
“A full bath?”
“Stall shower, but one big enough to accommodate. If we did that first, you’d have the use of that while we’re working upstairs. It means more of a project, and the expense—”
“Do it, absolutely. I’ll have to clear it with Harper, but I want it.” Carrie smiled. “That’s a great idea.”
Gina put her pencil down and shifted in her chair, sipping her lemonade. “You sound surprised.”
“Not at all. I just didn’t expect you to be so…interested, I guess. You know, this must be a pretty small job to you.”
“Every job is important to me,” Gina said. “It’s what I do.”
“Well then, I’m glad you’re doing this one.”
To her surprise, Gina nodded. “Yeah, so am I.”
Carrie sighed. She hated to do it, just when they were getting along, but pretending they weren’t avoiding the elephant in the room was getting tiring. And she was terrible at pretending. “What happens when you start the hospital project? I guess this gets put on hold?”
“If I say yes, will you stall on getting the permits on that one?”
Carrie considered dumping lemonade on her head.
Gina laughed. “Quick, tell me what you were thinking just then.”
“How you’d look with lemons in your hair.” Carrie laughed when Gina chuckled. “You know that was an insulting remark, right?”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. No excuse, ma’am.”
Carrie’d heard Joe say the same thing when he’d apologized to Harper for dropping a fly ball in center field. “Are you ex-military too, like Joe? He mentioned his sister was—”
Gina rose abruptly. “Not this sister. I’m the one who didn’t make the cut.”
“Oh,” Carrie said softly. “I’m sorry if—”
“You didn’t. I did. No excuses there, either.” Gina rolled up the papers and shoved them in her back pocket. “We’ve got enough to get started. I ought to get to work.”
“Yes. Me too.” Carrie watched her stride outside, shoulders stiff. Every time they crossed paths she was left with more questions, and the same disquieting urge to extinguish the pain Gina worked so hard to hide.
Chapter Fourteen
The roads were empty at midday, and Carrie made it back to her desk before eleven. Forsaking lunch, she set about typing up the summary of that morning’s meeting. She emailed it to Presley at 11:31. Five minutes later, Presley appeared in the doorway.
“Everything okay at the house?” Presley asked.
“More or less.” Carrie pushed her chair back and swiveled to face Presley. “I guess I hadn’t really thought the entire thing through. Like what it would actually be like living there during the renovations.”
“You mean other than being annoying and disruptive?”
“That and not having a working bathroom for longer than a couple of days.”
“Huh.” Presley nodded, forehead furrowed in her typical problem-solving expression. “I guess you can’t talk them into doing it piecemeal rather than tearing it out right away?”
Carrie huffed. “I don’t think talking Gina into anything is a realistic possibility. And it does make sense to get the big projects out of the way all at once.”
“You can always move back in with us until it’s done. We already miss you.”
“I know you mean it, and I appreciate the offer, really.” Carrie lifted a shoulder. “It’s strange, because it’s been great living with the two of you, but it just doesn’t seem right somehow now. And to tell you the truth, I’m kind of liking my solitude.”
“Believe me, I get that. I adore Harper, but I’m not sorry our schedules don’t always line up.” Presley smiled. “But if you need emergency accommodations, you have an open invitation.”
“Thanks. I do need to get together with you to talk about some of Gina’s recommendations. And we have to talk about expense.”
“Well, we might be able to kill two birds with one stone. Mari called an emergency wedding planning meeting for tonight. Wine and nibbles at my place after work. Harper will probably be home at some point, and you can let us know what Gina had to say.”
“Okay, that will work.”
“Good. I’m going to grab lunch with Harper.”
“Don’t forget your one o’clock with the planning board.”
“I’ve got it.” Presley emerged a minute later. “Want to join us? I know you haven’t eaten yet.”
“Oh. No thanks. I’m going to
tackle this permit situation again, even if it will mean I’m going to lose my contractor before we even get started.”
“I’m sure they’ll come up with someone to handle them both. Business, after all.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Carrie said, just as sure Gina would bolt at the first opportunity to get back to the real job at the hospital. Not that she could really blame her.
“I’ll be back in forty-five minutes,” Presley said on her way past. “Text me if you want me to bring you anything.”
“Thanks.”
Carrie pulled up the number for the county licensing office. She had her priorities in order, and the hospital project came first. She ignored the swift surge of disappointment when she considered she wouldn’t have Gina showing up every day to work at her house, and dialed the number. Like Presley said, it was just business.
*****
Gina pulled into the company lot at ten minutes to four. Joe’s Mustang was parked next to her dad’s truck by the side of the trailer, and when she walked inside, she found the two of them kicked back with a couple of beers.
“You’re just in time.” Joe pointed to the cooler by the desk. “I stopped by that new microbrewery on the other side of town. It’s pretty good.”
“Thanks.” Gina fished out a bottle of beer, checked the label, and smiled. Groundhog Day. The image of the fat gopher sitting up with an ear of corn in one paw and a brown bottle in the other made her smile. She popped the top and took a long swallow. Some of the dust of the day disappeared along with the beginnings of an ache between her shoulder blades. She hadn’t done any serious demo that didn’t involve a crane and a wrecking ball in a long time. Today she’d been swinging a sledgehammer, ripping down drywall with a crowbar, and tossing debris out a window into the chute. All the same, she felt good. Nothing like looking at the bones of a room after spending a day stripping it down to feel she’d accomplished something. Honest work. Honest sweat. Honest aches and pains. “You’re right, the beer’s good.”
“So,” Joe said with exaggerated casualness, “how’s the new job going?”
Gina fixed him with a stare. “You mean the project you dragged me into to impress your boss?”
“Hey, I’m not doing this for personal gain.” Joe affected the innocent look that always got him out of trouble when they were kids. “Antonelli Construction is going to impress my boss because we’re helping out her best friend, who just happens to run the whole hospital.”
“Not we,” Gina pointed out. “Me. And as to running the hospital, actually I think Carrie does that.”
Joe pounced. “Carrie. Would that be our pitcher, the hot redhead you couldn’t take your eyes off last night?”
“Hey!” Gina said, sounding a warning before she had a chance to think. “Careful.”
“What?” Joe still had that innocent look that didn’t fool her for a second. “Only stating the truth, right? She’s our pitcher and she’s damn well ho—”
Tom Antonelli cleared his throat. “That’s enough, Joseph. We don’t talk about ladies that way in our family.”
“Yes, sir.” Joe stared down at his shoes.
He’d been joking, trying to get a rise out of her, but they didn’t argue with their father. You never won. Gina kept a blush off her face by sheer force of will and, with an even greater surge of willpower, managed not to come down on her brother for treating Carrie like a sex object, even in jest. The back of her neck was hot and she itched to declare discussing Carrie off-limits. If she did that, she’d never hear the end of Joe’s pestering as to why she should be so protective of a client when he was just playing with her. Since she couldn’t answer the question in her own mind, she punted and said to her father, “Carrie Longmire is the executive admin for the CEO over at the Rivers and seems to be the go-to person if you want something done.”
Her father said, “Then that’s the person we need to know. How’s it going there?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary. We might be adding a little bit more to the work order, especially since she doesn’t want to be without a bathroom and doesn’t want to move out.”
Joe laughed. “She’s going to change her mind soon enough when you barbarians start showing up at seven in the morning.”
“I don’t think she really knows what she’s in for,” Gina said slowly. “Besides, I’m probably not gonna be there very long. As soon as the ER project gets under way—”
“Vince can handle that until you finish over there,” Tom said.
Vince? Vince could handle the auto parts store construction well enough, but the hospital was a couple million dollar project with a crew four times what Vince was used to running. Gina put her bottle down slowly, waiting for the rush of heat to leave her brain so she could come up with something that wasn’t going to force her father into an ultimatum before she could argue the point. Once an order came down, it never changed.
“Vince isn’t really up to speed on the project, Dad,” she said quietly, watching Joe ease back in his chair as if physically drawing out of the line of fire. Oh, now he had nothing to say about any of it. No help there, so she soldiered on, hoping to avoid a minefield. “Besides, he doesn’t know this crew—”
“Then he needs to learn,” Tom said with a note of finality in his voice. “You’re going to be sitting in my chair one of these days, Gina, and he’s going to need to be able to do everything that you do now.”
“You’re right, although,” Gina said, keeping her gaze fixed on her father’s, knowing that the only way to negotiate with him was to never give an inch, “that’s a good long time in the future, and—”
As if he hadn’t heard her, Tom said, “As soon as you’ve finished up where you are now, we’ll move you back over to the hospital. We’ll make sure that Vince reviews everything with you ahead of time. You can handle oversight at a distance. That’ll be good for you.”
“Sir,” Gina said sharply, “this other thing isn’t that important right no—”
“That job is just what your brother said it is—a goodwill gesture to the right people at the right time. Besides, it’s honest work.”
Honest work. True. Gina knew when she’d lost the battle. She couldn’t even honestly say she didn’t want to do Carrie’s renovations. She’d enjoyed sitting down with her in the warm, sunlit kitchen to discuss designs a lot more than she’d enjoyed the last date she’d had. She couldn’t even remember the details of that. She sighed. “Yes, sir.”
Tom put his half-finished beer on his tabletop. “Since I’ve got you both here, there’s something we need to discuss.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Gina saw Joe tense and straighten up, all the levity leaving his face. The beer curdled in her stomach, and she set her bottle on the floor between her boots. She was surprised when Joe said nothing, handing the conversational baton to her. “What’s going on, Dad?”
“Probably nothing, and it’s nothing that I want to leave this room until I say differently.”
Gina swallowed, her throat so dry it felt like cut glass.
Her father sighed, sounding exasperated and, oddly for him, uncomfortable. “The two of you don’t have to look so serious. I just need to take a few days away from work. Gina, you’ll be in charge of the business. Joe, keep your eye out on the family. Nothing the two of you haven’t done before.”
“Where are you going?” Gina said.
“Florida. I’ve got a business thing down there.”
Gina did something she’d never done before. She challenged him. “Dad, that’s a bullshit story, and it won’t fly with anybody.”
His expression hardened. “Is that the way you talk around your father?”
“Calling bullshit when it’s bullshit is just honest talk. Something you taught us.” Gina shook her head. “As long as I’ve known you, you haven’t gone anywhere for more than a day. You don’t even take Mom on vacation.”
“Your mother’s idea of a vacation is having help with the grocery shopping.�
� He smiled briefly. “All right, I have to have some tests, and it’s easier if they do them all at once while I stay in the hospital.” He must have known they wouldn’t accept that as an answer. He grimaced. “Something to do with an irregular heartbeat.”
Gina’s stomach dropped. Joe jerked as if he’d been zapped with a live wire.
“How long have you known about this?” Joe asked, finally finding his voice.
“Not that long. A couple months.”
“A couple months? Jesus, Dad—”
Tom thundered, “Joseph.”
“Sorry. Sorry. But come on, why have you been putting this off?”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Does Mom know?” Gina asked.
For the first time, his stern composure wavered. “Not yet. I want to know what we’re dealing with before saying anything. There’s no point—”
“You have to tell her,” Gina said. “It’s the right thing to do. It’s the fair thing to do.”
“Your mother’s and my relationship is none of your concern,” he said sharply.
Gina set her jaw. “That’s not true. We’re family. We all look out for each other. You taught us that too.”
He let out a long breath. “I wish that the lot of you weren’t quite so much like me, especially you.”
“Thanks.”
“When?” Joe said. “And where?”
“I’m going into the city,” Tom said. “I figure then everybody won’t know my business.”
“I’d like to know the name of the doctor,” Joe said. “I just want to make sure you’re seeing the best person.”
“Fair enough.” Tom resumed drinking his beer. “Sometime in the next few weeks. I’ll let you know exactly when.” He looked from Joe to Gina. “And in the meantime, the both of you will keep doing your jobs exactly as you’re doing now, understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Joe and Gina said simultaneously.
Gina picked up her beer but didn’t drink it while they all pretended nothing had happened. She’d had a lot of practice doing that in the last eight years, and it never got any easier. The only way she’d ever found to block out fear and pain and disappointment was to act as if she had everything she wanted and needed, and she was so damn tired of the lie.
