All The Way (All Series Book 3)

by Ann, Natalie

  “You aren’t my secretary,” he said, laughing.

  She wasn’t sure where he was going with this and started to wonder if maybe she overstepped her bounds. He seemed to notice her unease and rushed out. “I meant I can set up my own appointments,” he explained. “But since one of the jobs that I would like you to take over is the first meeting with customers, why don’t we do it together?”

  She was so giddy she wanted to get up and do a happy dance right in the office, but squashed the urge. She was hoping she would get a chance to get her hands on some tape measures and do some work on the construction side of things, even if it was only checking over the properties and giving bids. She never expected it this early, and it was a huge confidence boost, one that she needed. “That would be great.”

  “Why don’t you see if you can set up a few appointments after hours or this weekend? That is normally when I do them since most people are home during that time anyway. Just send me an email and I’ll be ready.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “So what else did you need? Or was that it? I want to make sure someone is here for you if you have questions.”

  “Phil and Sean have been great. I’m not sure if you set up time to meet regularly or not as a team.”

  Alec groaned. “Oh God. A meeting. Don’t say that too loud, Sean has good hearing and he’ll be in here with a calendar scheduling it right away.”

  “Oh, sorry.” She didn’t realize that, and wished she didn’t bring it up now. Why did she stumble so much around him? She thought she was getting her confidence back working in this world again.

  He smiled. “I’m just kidding. We should probably set up a time to all meet. Just let Sean know to arrange it. Phil can help you with just about anything too.”

  “He has been, so has Mary. Everyone has been great,” she said, and she meant it. Everyone had been wonderful, and she was starting to understand Alec’s teasing nature, like she was one of the guys, making her wonder if he was ever serious about anything. “Sean seemed really excited over the spreadsheet I developed with the new home prices, layouts, and upgrades. Now when I meet with someone I can give them an estimate on the spot rather than getting back to them.”

  “I bet he just loved that. You aren’t supposed to make his job easier, you’re supposed to be making mine and Phil’s easier,” he said, his tone lighthearted.

  His eyes were so soft and warm that her pulse kicked up just a tad, but she pushed it back. She was here to do a job, she reminded herself. He’s only being nice to her as a new employee, almost encouraging her. “That’s what I’m here for. Just let me know what you need or want me to do.”

  “Will do. Anything else?”

  “No. I’m good for now. I’ll get on those appointments and let you know.” She had to stop looking at him. She was terrified she was blushing. She never blushed, but suddenly she was getting all hot and bothered. He was her boss, she scolded herself once again. She was going to need to have a serious self-lecture tonight. No more getting all flustered around Alec.

  Impressed

  Brynn pulled into her office parking lot at nine forty-five Saturday morning and was pleasantly surprised to see Alec’s truck already there and the lights on in the building. They had three appointments today to meet with clients for home remodels. Their first was at ten thirty, but he had said it was close by and they wouldn’t need to leave until around ten fifteen for the appointment.

  Yet here he was, early just like her. She shut her SUV off and climbed out, then made her way to the front door. She was shocked to hear a power drill running. Walking a few steps further into her office she stopped and stared.

  Alec was reaching up and drilling screws into the wall behind her desk. Actually there was a small space where the shelving units stopped and the wall was bare, except her desk hid that area.

  She had been thinking of getting some pictures to hang there. Right now she couldn’t think of anything more than how flat and defined his abs were from the glimpse under his shirt where it lifted slightly at his waist with his arms stretched over his head.

  Clueless as to what he was doing, she walked in and announced her presence when the drill stopped. “Good morning.”

  “Hey,” he said back, then picked up another screw off her desk and secured it into the wall giving her another glimpse at his abs. Damn it, she’d thought her self-lecturing last night helped. Of course that was before she saw some of his bare body, even just a tiny part.

  Curiosity got the best of her and she moved forward. Her jaw dropped and her eyes went wide.

  After he finished with that screw he looked up at her. It wasn’t hard to miss her reaction. “I saw you had a change of clothes and shoes with you yesterday. I thought this might help.”

  What was he talking about? Oh yeah, clothes. Get your mind off his abs, she mentally warned herself.

  She couldn’t believe it. She had come to work yesterday dressed in jeans again, only because she wasn’t done rearranging things just right in the office and she didn’t want to get dirty. But she brought in a suit to change into with heels. She’d had a few meetings set up with banks that day, not to mention two clients coming in to sit down and talk new home builds in the development. She didn’t want to attend those meetings wearing jeans.

  That he noticed she had laid her suit out on the windowsill and her shoes next to it amazed her. He was the most disorganized man she knew, yet he noticed that small detail. And the first thing he thought to do was to come in and install a clothing rack so she could hang any changes of clothing she needed. Not to mention what looked to be a few cubbies for her shoes and work boots. Talk about considerate.

  “That’s really sweet of you,” she said before she could stop herself, and prayed she wasn’t blushing, because images of his abs were still flashing in front of her eyes.

  He paused for a moment, held her stare, then shrugged and replied with a smile. He was always smiling. With the exception of her interview, she’d never seen him anything but laid-back and relaxed, almost like he didn’t take anything serious half the time. “It’s not a big deal. I didn’t realize you might be changing throughout the day. This will make it easier for you.”

  “Yes, it definitely will.”

  “I’ll be done in a few minutes.” He looked up at the clock. “You’re early,” he commented.

  She shook her head to clear it and focused on her job. “I tend to be, bad habit of mine. I wanted to look over a few things before we left, anyway. Sean gave me a list of all the costs of materials yesterday, estimates obviously. I plugged them all into another spreadsheet so that when we go out on these calls we can give a rough estimate right then if we want, with a breakdown for them to see what items cost.”

  His dark brown eyes sparkled. “Really? You might be putting Sean right out of a job,” he said, laughing.

  “Should I not have done that?” she asked, worried that maybe she overstepped her bounds again. She was just trying to make everything as efficient as possible. She knew that most times homeowners wanted at least a ballpark figure on the cost of construction and materials.

  “No, no. I think it’s a great idea. If I were better with a computer I might have thought of it. I use it for the basics, but that’s about it.”

  Realizing that he was good with the idea, she explained more. “One thing I learned when I was working real estate was that people are always asking how much it costs to upgrade finishes. I had a ballpark figure in my head, but I wasn’t doing construction then, so I didn’t worry too much if it wasn’t exact. But this way we can give them a cost on what they are looking for, and then as a sales pitch show the costs to upgrade different flooring and stuff.”

  “It’s a good idea. I’ve found that when I give an estimate on the cost, I always tell them it goes up with upgrades but don’t go into details on the first quote. I give the estimates on base finishes, unless of course they know specifically what they want. Giving them an idea ahead of time tak
es the shock factor off once we are already into the build and they start changing their minds. I’m sure you’re aware it happens often.”

  “There is that, or it lets them decide if they want to spend more than they originally thought. Gives them time to think it through rather than being told last minute and they don’t have a lot of time to decide before everything is ordered.”

  “Guess we’ll see how it goes today, won’t we?” he said, smiling warmly at her.

  She swore her heart just picked up pace. She had to get over this. She couldn’t be blushing every time Alec smiled at her. Geez, she didn’t have this reaction to Phil, and they were twins.

  Twenty minutes later, they were locking up the office and heading to Alec’s truck for their first appointment.

  Her second shock came when she opened the door to his truck. It was immaculate inside. It even smelled fresh and clean, but she bit her lip from saying a word. She was going to pretend she didn’t notice. She didn’t have to, though.

  “My mother blistered my ears for letting you in my truck knowing how messy it would be,” he said, grinning ruefully. She could tell there was love behind the statement, no heat at all.

  “You really did a good job cleaning it,” she replied politely.

  “I didn’t clean it.” He laughed. “I don’t have time. I brought it to get detailed last night.”

  “That works just as well.”

  ***

  Alec pulled his truck in front of their first appointment. He’d fought the embarrassment from creeping up his neck when he’d explained to Brynn what he was putting in the office for her clothing. He thought it was a nice gesture. He wanted her to be comfortable there, to feel comfortable. He didn’t expect her to be so sweet about it.

  She almost looked embarrassed when she said he was sweet. He didn’t care though. He was raised to be thoughtful, it’s how he was, but he was surprised she blushed about it.

  Together they made their way to the front door and rang the bell. It was opened quickly by a young woman, followed by her husband holding the collar of a golden retriever. “Let me just put the dog in another room,” the husband said. “She’s good, but I don’t want her to get hair all over you.”

  “She’s fine,” Brynn said, reaching a hand out and letting the dog sniff her. “I love dogs.”

  “It’s okay,” Alec seconded, then watched when the homeowner let go of the dog’s collar to see the dog rushing up to Brynn and pushing its nose on her palm again. “I’m Alec Harper.” He held his hand out to both of them. “This is Brynn Palmer.” Brynn wiped her hand on her shorts briefly to get rid of any dog hair, then shook hands with everyone.

  “Mike and Sherry Brown,” the man said. “Come on back to our kitchen, and you will see why we called you.”

  Alec made his way back through the older home. The walls all had fresh coats of paint on them and the floors looked to have been recently refinished. To his eye, someone had been making updates little by little and doing a decent job.

  Mike started. “We’ve lived here for about a year. I can handle the small things, but I promised Sherry a new kitchen when we bought the house. We’re ready, and she doesn’t trust me to do it myself.”

  Alec stopped in the small doorway of the closed-off kitchen. There wasn’t a lot of space to work with, and it was a complete gut job. Actually, it looked like it hadn’t been touched in thirty years. “What do you have in mind?” he asked, then looked over at Brynn and saw she already had her tablet and a tape measure out. He felt his lips twitch but was going to just let her take the lead and see what she did.

  Sherry spoke up first. “I want to be able to see into the living room. Can we take this wall out? And then maybe put a big bar with some stools there. It would be nice to sit in here and eat breakfast rather than always having to go in the dining room to eat. I guess I really want some kind of seating in here if possible.”

  Alec watched as Brynn started measuring the dimensions of each wall, then held her tablet up to take a picture, and quickly type in the measurements. He was intrigued and continued to watch her do it for the entire room, even the doorway. “It’s not a load bearing wall, so it can come down easily enough,” she said, after poking around a bit more.

  Alec stepped out and looked on the other side of the wall to see the living room. It was pretty spacious actually. “Do you want to make the kitchen bigger by grabbing a few feet from the living room? Or would you prefer to leave the kitchen the same size? It will be bigger with the wall down anyway, and feel bigger too.”

  Brynn slid by him and walked out to start taking measurements of the living room while Sherry and Mike talked back and forth. “I think a few feet won’t make a difference in the living room. Then it won’t feel like we’re bumping into each other all the time,” Mike told his wife.

  So far Brynn hadn’t said much. She just kept taking pictures and keying in information. Alec hadn’t even had to do one thing other than talk. He’d watched her though. To his eye, she knew what she was doing. The measurements were all correct, she did everything right, and exactly the same way he would have, minus the pictures, of course. He’d never thought to do that before and wished he had.

  “What are we looking at for the price of this?” Mike asked.

  “A lot of it is going to depend on the finishes you want. Do you want custom cabinets? What type of wood, countertops, backsplash, flooring? Do you have any ideas of what you want? Don’t forget about appliances. We can get and install them if you are going new, or you can do that after the fact, your choice.”

  “Oh, I know exactly what I want,” Sherry said, all excited, smiling enthusiastically at her husband.

  Forty minutes later Alec sat in his truck shaking his head. Though the actual consult took longer than if he had done it alone, there was less work on the back end. Brynn had everything they wanted all neatly typed in the tablet with pricing next to each item. She was able to show them different choices of standard materials they used, along with pricier pieces.

  By the time they walked out, everything was complete with current market prices. There was nothing for Sean to do other than print up an invoice based on Brynn’s projections—which were the same projections Sean used—and draw up the contract.

  “See, you are making Sean’s job easier,” he said, joking.

  She smirked at him. “Yeah, I know. Be honest, how many times have people told you on the spot they were ready to sign the contract?”

  She had him there, he had to admit. “Okay, your way worked, I admit it. I’m impressed, really I am. Even more so when you said the prices change weekly so the quote could change if the materials did.”

  “A little sales pressure never hurts. You and I both know there is a buffer in the estimates for that anyway. Very rarely does the price change so much so that it affects the complete bottom line, but they were worried enough because you can’t start for another two months, and they didn’t want to risk the prices rising.”

  “You are going to end up making us a lot of money,” Alec said cheerfully.

  “That’s what you pay me for.”

  He had to keep reminding himself that. He couldn’t help thinking about earlier when she’d turned sideways to slip by him and brushed against him. It had felt like a jolt of electricity slicing through his body on that simple contact. She’d blushed, apologized and moved on quickly. But he still saw she was as affected as he was. Damn it.

  Mantra

  The next consultation went by pretty fast. The homeowners were looking for a second-story addition and they wanted it done before the holidays. There was no way that could happen. The best Alec could promise them was the shell and roof would be up before the weather changed, and it would be a winter project. They were just too booked right now.

  Even though the homeowners weren’t thrilled, they still wanted the estimate, and then said they were going to shop around. Most of the cost was just standard construction material and labor. They were looking to add
two bedrooms and another bath. Just a small simple full bath, with simple finishes. Easy enough.

  So now, here they sat outside a local restaurant, grabbing some lunch on the deck in the sun. They had about ninety minutes until their last consultation for the day and Alec suggested they grab some food. She was all for it, as she was starved.

  “Do you think they will call you for the addition, or go with someone else?” Brynn asked as she browsed the menu.

  “Hard to say. Guess it depends on what the timelines of their other estimates are. Frankly, I’m not sweating it since we’ve got more than enough work right now to take us through the holidays. Not to mention there are several other consultations you’re setting up right now too. We’re good to go. I can probably get away without laying anyone off this winter.”

  “That’s always nice,” Brynn said. She really hated that part of the job. She had a few years where she was laid off and did some side projects. Once she was a foreman, she worked all year round while others were laid off. Plenty liked having their winters off and taking the break, but just as many would have rather worked.

  “I try not to lay people off. The last few years we haven’t had to, but I hired so many new crew with the development. Thankfully we planned it well enough so that it would take us past the holidays, which is what normally puts people in a bind when they’re laid off.”

  That he thought that through was just another testimony to the type of person he was and how he thought of his employees. Every day she loved Harper Construction more and more, and after spending some time with Alec she finally thought she was getting a handle on his personality. “It can be rough. My father was always laid off in the winter, but he had his side jobs under the table, and he plowed driveways too. I think he was more frustrated over the lack of something to do, rather than the money. My mother was always thrilled though, as all the projects she had for him got done in that time,” she said, smiling fondly at the memory.