There was only one problem.
“I’m going to be a big help, right, Daddy?”
Even if Ryder was smart enough to keep his mouth shut with the woman in his life, Jamison had already blown it by telling the pint-size girl in his.
Excitement radiated from her tiny body as she bounced by his side, jumping from one flagstone to the next, one hand holding the oversize yellow hard hat on her head.
“I get to help Miss Rory fix the playhouse.”
“It’s a gazebo,” he corrected. “And I’ll be the one fixing it,” he added before realizing he sounded like a total jerk.
In the months since Monica’s death, Jamison couldn’t think of a single suggestion he’d come up with that Hannah hadn’t met with I don’t want to. Even her favorite activities back home—going to the park or the zoo—had all been shot down.
But not this chance to work on the gazebo.
Did it matter that Rory was the bigger draw when it came to Hannah wanting to lend a hand? Wasn’t his daughter’s happiness, no matter the reason, most important?
And what happens when you go back home? When there is no Rory around to add a hint of sweetness to everything she touches and to make more than smiley-face oatmeal happy?
Construction wasn’t easy work, and Jamison had had his share of injuries—the worst of them a pair of broken ribs and a punctured lung thanks to a fall through some rotten floorboards. But the sharp pain and struggle to breathe were nothing compared to what he felt when he thought of trying to care for Hannah on his own.
“But we get to help, right, Daddy?”
“Sure thing, Hannah Banana. I need all the help I can get,” he sighed, wishing the words weren’t so blatantly true.
And that was why he found himself trailing after his daughter as she raced ahead toward the gazebo.
“Hi, Miss Rory!” Hannah cried out as she rounded the curve in the path.
Jamison should have been prepared, thanks to his daughter’s early-warning signal, yet somehow he was still caught off guard. Because standing in front of the gazebo, gazing up at the aging structure as if the rotting wood and cracked paint had already been stripped away and restored to its once-gleaming glory, Rory turned to greet them with a brilliant smile.
“Look, Miss Rory! We both have hard hats!” Hannah clamped both hands on top of hers as if expecting her sheer excitement to blow the thing right off her head at any second.
And Jamison couldn’t help feeling like he should hold on to his own, considering how the sight of Rory in a pair of faded skintight jeans and a pink—hot-pink—hard hat was threatening to blow his mind.
“I see!” And then meeting his gaze over his daughter’s hard hat, Rory shot him a wink. “Safety first, right, Jamison? After all, it has been a while...”
She had no idea. If she had, she would have brought a fire extinguisher instead. Something in the intensity of his gaze must have given him away because her smile faded. His heartbeat quickened as the awareness between them grew. Try as he might, he couldn’t keep his eyes from drifting down her body.
He’d never seen her dressed so casually—couldn’t have imagined her wearing denim, a fitted white T-shirt, that outlined her breasts far too clearly for his comfort, and honest-to-God work boots. And yet there she was, like some kind of construction worker Barbie.
“This is never going to work,” he mumbled under his breath.
Despite the rush of color blooming in her cheeks, Rory pretended she hadn’t heard him. She waved a hand at a shaded area several yards away from the gazebo where a picnic basket and blanket waited. “Are you ready to get started, Miss Hannah?” At his daughter’s nod, she said, “We have a big bucket of screws and nails we need to separate so all the same sizes are in their own little cups. And then we’ll use scissors to cut sandpaper to the right size to fit your daddy’s super noisy sander.
“When we’re done with that, we have paper and pencils and paint so we can draw pictures of the gazebo and practice on them until your daddy is ready for us to help him paint the real thing. And then we can make sandwiches with the stuff I brought in that basket over there, because all that hard, hard work is going to make us all hungry. What do you think?”
Jamison shook his head. He thought she was amazing. All those little projects would keep Hannah engaged and entertained. And he never would have thought of any of them. Somehow, though, instead of his inadequacies as a father casting a dark pall over his mood, gratitude rushed through him.
He caught Rory’s hand as she walked by and gazed down at her in that ridiculous hat. Her blue eyes sparkled and her pale pink lips curved in a smile that had him thinking about their kiss...
She might not have been dressed like one, but he couldn’t help asking, “Are you sure you aren’t some kind of magical fairy-tale princess?”
“Why, Jamison, I didn’t think you believed in fairy tales.”
“I don’t,” he insisted. “But I believe in you. You have this way of making things—even the most everyday, average things—special.”
And if that wasn’t magic, then he didn’t know what was.
* * *
Despite Jamison’s initial concerns over the shape of the gazebo, a more thorough inspection revealed the overall structure—the support beams, most of the main floor and the roof—was sound. The steps, the lattice facade and the railing needed the most work, but he’d assured her the repairs were all doable and could be fixed before the wedding.
With Hannah occupied on the blanket with some of the little games she’d come up with, Rory had worked at Jamison’s side, hoping effort made up for what she lacked in experience.
“Admit it...you’re impressed.” Rory pointed a plastic water bottle Jamison’s way as they took a short break.
He gave his typical snort of disbelief as he raised his own bottle. But before he took a long swallow, he murmured, “Only every time we’re together.”
She took a quick sip of the cool liquid, thinking it might do her more good to dump the whole thing over her head. Her heated thoughts at watching Jamison do something as simple as drink from a bottle didn’t bode well for completing the gazebo without her jumping his bones.
I believe in you.
How long had it been since someone had that kind of faith in her? Months? Years?
Evie had always been the practical one, Chance the adventurous one and Rory the dreamer. The girl with her head in the clouds, whose ideas were always too impractical, too over-the-top, too silly to be taken seriously.
But Jamison believed in her.
With Hannah close by, they had no chance to repeat the kiss from the day before. But the little girl’s presence wasn’t enough to keep Rory’s thoughts from straying in that direction or to keep her from imagining Jamison felt the same way.
More than once, their gazes had locked over some small task—their fingers brushing as he handed her the hammer, his chest pressing against her shoulder as he reached around her to help with a particular stubborn nail, his breath against her neck raising gooseflesh on her skin as he offered some words of instruction.
“You told me you’re a jill-of-all-trades, but this seems a bit much for a wedding coordinator.”
“Well, I wasn’t always a wedding coordinator,” she told him, only to instantly regret it. She didn’t want to talk about LA. Didn’t want to think about Pamela or Peter or the thefts she’d been accused of.
“So what did you do before this?” Jamison asked.
“I worked for an interior design firm.” She forced a smile. “Way too girlie for you to find interesting.”
“Still not sure how carpentry falls under interior designer... And for the record, I happen to find girlie very interesting.”
His appreciative glance coaxed a genuine smile out of her, and she sighed. “I started at the bottom with big dreams of working my w
ay up. As low designer on the totem pole, I was stuck with all the jobs no one wanted—including getting my hands dirty to get a remodel done on time. If that meant ripping out carpet because the subcontractor no-showed or repainting an entire kitchen because the client changed her mind at the last minute and the painter had already walked off the job, then I was their girl.”
“So what happened?”
Rory started. “What makes you think something happened?”
Jamison shrugged casually. “You’re here, aren’t you? Something must have happened.”
“I had the chance to work at Hillcrest with my family. This place means so much to me, I wouldn’t have missed that for the world.” Even if she hadn’t been without a job and weeks from running out of rent money for the ridiculously expensive studio she’d called home.
“So...no heartbroken guy left behind?”
“Heartbroken? Definitely not.”
“But there was a guy.”
Rory squeezed the water bottle, the thin plastic crackling in her hands. “His name was Peter, and he’s the boss’s son. I should have known better than to get involved with someone at work.” But some lessons were hard to learn. By no means could she classify her relationship with Jamison as strictly professional.
“Pamela, his mother, had far greater aspirations for him than dating a lowly assistant in her company. I tried not to let it bother me, and Peter assured me his mother would come around. All I had to do was to give her some time.”
“But that didn’t work?”
“The longer we dated, the more uncomfortable things became at work. I don’t think it was coincidence that I was always assigned to the most difficult clients. My friends all thought I should quit, but—I don’t know. I guess I was too stubborn and the job wasn’t the problem. Quitting wouldn’t make my relationship with Pamela any easier. If anything, it would have proved to her that I could be run off.”
“And you weren’t willing to give up on Peter.”
“I thought he was the one. So I put up with so much crap from his mother. She’d turned a job I loved into one I hated. I dreaded waking up in the morning, knowing I’d have to do battle with that dragon, but I did it. I did it for months, because I told myself it was worth it. I was willing to fight for our relationship, but Peter...”
The worst of her ex’s betrayal caught in her throat, as did the humiliating circumstances that had led to her leaving LA. She should tell Jamison the entire story, she knew she should, but—
I believe in you.
She didn’t want to lose the faith he had in her, not when it meant so much, not when there was a chance he wouldn’t believe in her once she told him the whole truth.
* * *
“Looks like someone’s ready for a nap.”
Lying back on the picnic blanket, his eyes closed to the bright, cloudless sky overhead, Jamison said, “You have no idea.”
Muscles he hadn’t used in years groaned in protest at the slightest movement, thanks to the hard work he’d put in over the past three days, but Jamison was determined to have the gazebo ready by Ryder’s wedding. If he had to throw in the towel, his friend would never let him hear the end of it.
Rory’s low chuckle brushed over his skin on the warm summer breeze. “Like father, like daughter.”
He cracked an eye open to see Hannah slumped to one side, half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich in hand. She looked angelic, peaceful. Pushing up onto his elbows, he said, “It’s hard work being a number one helper.”
The title was one his daughter wore with pride, overcoming her shyness with strangers to tell anyone who would listen—the big, burly guy at the lumberyard, the skinny teen in the paint department, the gum-popping cashier at the hardware store—that she was the best helper ever.
He’d had his doubts about taking Hannah along on those trips, certain he could get in and out much faster and more efficiently on his own, but Rory had insisted. And since he seemed incapable of saying no to either of them, the two ladies had accompanied him. And yeah, maybe it had taken more time, but it was time spent with Hannah...and with Rory. She’d pushed Hannah around in a basket, managing to turn even the countless trips up and down the aisles in the huge home improvement store while he looked for the right L-bracket into some kind of adventure.
“When will we be ready for the big reveal?”
“I’m sure we’ll be done at least an hour before the rehearsal dinner next Friday.”
Rory tossed a crumpled napkin at him. “Very funny.”
He grinned as the wadded-up ball sailed past without hitting its mark. Despite having to work around Hannah’s nap time and Rory’s scheduled fittings, tasting and meetings with clients and potential clients, they’d made real progress.
They’d torn out the splintering lattice fasciae and trim, and pried up the rotted steps and any warped boards on the circular platform. He’d cut the replacement boards and had spent the morning sanding them smooth, filling the air with the slight scent of burning wood. A fine layer of sawdust covered just about everything. Including Rory’s toned arms, left bare by the pink-and-white-striped tank top she wore.
Suddenly not feeling so tired, he could think of better things to do while Hannah slept than to take a nap of his own...
“So tell me the story,” Rory said, catching Jamison off guard.
Talking wasn’t where his mind had gone.
“You sound like Hannah,” he said with a laugh, “but if she were awake, she’d tell you I suck when it comes to fairy tales. I can’t tell her a bedtime story without the CliffsNotes in front of me.”
Rory laughed. “Don’t worry. You already know this one. It’s the origin story of a successful lawyer with a hidden background as a blue-collar construction worker.”
“Not hidden,” Jamison argued, feeling his face heat at the lie.
“So this is something you do a lot?” she pressed. “Help friends with projects or volunteer with Habitat for Humanity?”
The simplest thing would have been to agree and hope Rory would leave it at that. But from the moment they met, she’d challenged him not to take the easy way out. Not when it came to Hannah and not when it came to telling the truth about himself. “I haven’t picked up a hammer in almost a decade,” he confessed.
“But once upon a time...”
A gruff laugh escaped him at the teasing look in her eyes. “Once upon a time,” he began, “I worked construction while I was in college. That’s how Ryder and I met.”
“So you weren’t—” Rory cut herself off, but Jamison had a feeling where her thoughts had gone.
“Born with a silver spoon in my mouth?” He shook his head, hardly offended by the assumption when he spent most of his life trying to give that very impression. “Not even close. My parents had me when they were barely out of their teens. Neither one of them took more than a few college courses. My mom worked as a receptionist off and on, and my dad was a handyman, taking on whatever jobs he could find.”
“And he’s the one who taught you how to do this,” Rory said, waving a hand at the gazebo with an expression of pride that sent guilt stabbing through Jamison’s heart.
“Yeah, my dad taught me a lot of things.” And Jamison had repaid him by being ashamed and spending most of the past fifteen years pretending the man didn’t exist.
“But the things my dad could do... It was never enough for my mother. They fought all the time. Over everything, it seemed, but mostly over money. My mom was the one who always encouraged me to do more, to be better, to—”
Do whatever you have to do so you don’t end up spending your life cleaning toilets like your father.
Jamison shook his head, trying to dislodge his mother’s bitter words from his memory. “Anyway, when I was ten or so, she got it in her head that public school wasn’t good enough and that I needed to go to prep school.”
“Prep school? As in matching uniforms with jackets and ties and argyle socks?”
He gave a mock shudder. “It was that bad and worse.”
“Hard to imagine worse.”
“Worse was knowing I didn’t belong in that uniform. That I was the charity case—the kid who could only afford to go to Winston Prep because my dad took a job there as a janitor and my tuition was waived.
“My mother was the one who was so determined I go to that school, and my dad made it happen the only way he could. But that wasn’t good enough for her, either. She hated that he worked there, was always putting him down, and after a while, I started to feel the same way. I didn’t want the other kids knowing he was my dad.”
“It’s hard to think of anyone other than yourself when you’re a kid.”
“When they divorced my freshman year, I thought the constant fighting would be over. But in some ways it got worse. Like they no longer had to even pretend that they cared about each other. I got caught in the middle and felt like I had to make a choice, and I chose to stay with my mom.
“After so many years of hearing how we deserved better and how I had it in me to ‘be something’ so long as I didn’t let my dad bring me down... I don’t know. I guess I started to buy into it. I wanted the expensive shoes and the latest electronics and the fancy cars like everyone else at Winston had, and when my mom remarried that first time, to a rich guy she met thanks to her making friends with the parents of kids who went to Winston, I got all that stuff.”
“The first time your mother remarried?”
“First, but not last. She’s on her fourth marriage. Fifth, I guess, if you count that she married number three twice.”
“Ouch.”
“It’s made Father’s Day interesting.”
“I’m sorry, Jamison.”
“Don’t be. I made my choice. I could have gone to live with my dad, but I liked have all those shoes and toys and cars.” Jamison shook his head. “You know, even after my mom remarried, and my stepdad was footing all the bills and could afford to pay my tuition a thousand times over, my dad kept working at that school. A thankless, low-paying job he must have hated...just so he could still see me.”
The Best Man Takes a Bride Page 10
