Because I Can (Montgomery Manor)

by Tamara Morgan

  She blinked as he released her hands, her vision blurred with red dots as if she’d spent too long staring at the sun. Her whole body felt the same sense of dazed bewilderment. She honestly had no idea if she’d just been insulted, propositioned or crowned queen.

  “Would that be okay? I normally wouldn’t push so hard, but your request for help came at the perfect time.” He reached up and adjusted his already impeccable dark green tie in a gesture of nervousness. “I’m no expert at manual labor, but I’ve always been a fast learner and I promise to work hard.”

  Even though it had been her intention to spend the rest of her life pretending Monty was nothing more than a figment of her dirty, irrepressible imagination, she felt herself weakening toward him.

  It wasn’t her fault. He was just so freaking nice. Men weren’t supposed to be nice when she revealed her inability to behave according to proper female norms. They were supposed to run as fast as their legs could take them. It was what they’d always done in the past.

  “Please don’t say no,” he said. “I don’t get very many opportunities like this, and it’s rare for me to be looked at as anything other than a suit. I can help you with this, Georgia. I know I can. I just need you to give me a chance.”

  Well, hell. She found herself nodding along, her empathy feelers tingling in all the right places. If someone were to walk up to her right now and offer her the opportunity to be looked at as more than a pair of coveralls, she’d jump up and hold her hammer against their throat until they made it happen.

  People didn’t like looking past the surface of things—no one knew that better than she did. A suit was confidence, an unattractive woman was worthless, a homeless family was trash. End of story.

  “Of course you can help,” she said, resigned. She’d no more turn down Monty’s plea for help than she would shut the door on a friend. “Just show up Saturday around seven, and I’ll put you to work. I wasn’t kidding about needing all the hands I can get.”

  There was a gleam in Monty’s eye that had her immediately regretting her choice of words.

  “I mean hands for building. For building.” That was it. She was throwing herself into the old mill pond the next chance she got.

  “I wouldn’t dare presume anything else,” he said, his voice laced with laughter, clearly enjoying himself at her expense.

  She took back what she said about him being nice. He was horrible.

  And maybe a little funny. And sweet. And possibly more gorgeous than she remembered, the sun playing with shadows in his hair until it was gold and red and brown all at once.

  She bit back a sigh and hoisted her toolbox once again, glad to have a concrete task to provide a temporary distraction. For all that she was pleased to have Monty’s offer of assistance for the weekend, it was difficult to decide if his presence would make things better or worse.

  Better, because if she didn’t do something about her volunteer numbers soon, there was every chance she’d lose the one job that meant even more to her than Montgomery Manor.

  Worse, because she knew now what happened when Monty held her in his arms.

  He became real.

  Chapter Five

  “Good morning, sis!” Adam breezed through the diner door with the confidence only a man in possession of the world’s largest ego could manage. Never mind that old men were quietly lingering over their coffee, or that the raccoon-eyed waitress bearing a plate of French toast clearly had one of the biggest hangovers known to mankind. Adam had exactly one volume level. On. “I’m not too late, am I?”

  “For breakfast?” She scanned the table where she and Danny had demolished most of a stack of pancakes, half of a pig and enough eggs to start their own farm. “Yes. It’s all gone. The diner is officially out of food.”

  “Ha-ha.” In addition to conversing at devastating decibel levels, her oldest brother also had the habit of speaking laughter instead of making the sounds. “Not even you two could eat an entire restaurant’s contents.”

  “Want to bet?” Georgia asked. She’d always thought she’d make an excellent competitive eater. It was the incongruously svelte women who won those contests every time. “Put your money where your mouth is. I’m just getting started.”

  Adam ignored her with a wave of his hand, which was only to be expected. He hated parting with his earnings unless he absolutely had to. It was a good thing she hadn’t had to play him in Monopoly for the rights to the above-garage apartment, because he was impossible to beat. He hoarded play cash like it was the real thing.

  “Seriously, Adam. Sit. Eat. You’re making the other patrons nervous standing there.”

  He obliged her in the sitting portion of events but pushed the plates away from his side of the table. “Thanks, but I’m not hungry. I already ate—Nancy has us on this gluten-free thing.”

  “Gluten-free?” Danny asked, horrified. “Why would you do something like that to yourself?”

  “Some of us aren’t as young as we used to be,” Adam said. Which was preposterous, because he was only five years older than Georgia. Their parents had been very busy during their procreative years. “In fact, Nancy is pushing me to start working out more—she’s worried about my heart. That’s why I’m here. I’m not too late, right?”

  Georgia felt an impending sense of doom taking up residence alongside the gallon of maple syrup in her stomach. Until the day treadmills were used to generate electricity and cut back on utility bills, she couldn’t imagine him willingly stepping on one.

  “Too late for what, Adam?” she asked.

  “To help you with your house-building stuff.” He didn’t make eye contact. “You’re always on our backs about how little we pitch in. I thought I might join you today.”

  She dropped her fork with a clatter. Not once, in her entire twelve months of serving as a contractor for Homeward Bound, had Adam expressed the slightest interest in helping. As the oldest sibling and the only one to remember their father before he died, he’d stepped into his role as male figurehead early on and with a tenacity that was neither warranted nor welcomed. He dominated, he instigated stupid rules and he’d made quite a name for himself as a personal injury lawyer. But he didn’t pitch in.

  And from the way Danny was squirming uncomfortably in the seat across from her, she had a good idea why he was here today.

  “You’re too late. Danny has already selflessly arisen from his bed before the ungodly hour of five to lend a hand. We’re all full up.”

  “But you’re always trying to get us to come,” Adam protested. He gave in to the lure of her last remaining pancake, ripping pieces off and shoving them in his mouth. “Last month you told me volunteering was my duty as a community leader and as a man whose career was equal to that of bottom-feeding lampreys.”

  “It still is. But not this weekend.”

  Adam looked at Danny, who shrugged and slumped further in his seat. “You have to take me. Nancy rescheduled her cycling class to stay with the kids, and she’ll kill me if I ask her to undo it now.”

  “You made him drag poor Nancy into this?” Georgia shoved Danny in the arm. “You asshole. What did you say?”

  “I didn’t say anything!”

  “So help me, if I see Charlie walk through that door next...”

  She did. Her favorite brother, a levelheaded chemistry teacher she’d thought she could count on to behave like a normal human being, was the next to enter the chiming diner door. He, like Danny, at least had the decency to look ashamed of himself.

  “Hey, George,” he said, and plopped next to her. He was the only one who got away with calling her that. There had been a brief period in her teens when she’d insisted everyone call her by the more masculine nickname, but the phase hadn’t lasted long. When a girl had three older brothers, a bowl cut and a mean left hook, it was wise to hold on to what scraps
of femininity she could. “I guess you’re on to us by now, huh?”

  “I thought better of you, Charlie,” she accused, ignoring the other two. The Testosterone Trio was together once again. “How could you?”

  “Danny said it was bad. He said you shaved your legs.”

  “Does it strike anyone else at this table as odd that my depilatory habits are a regular topic of family discussion?”

  Three male voices mumbled an incoherent response, and Georgia was filled with an alternate urge to murder and hug each of her brothers in succession. This situation—the four of them sitting over the demolished remains of breakfast as they debated her love life—wasn’t as bizarre as it looked to the outside world.

  From her earliest memories, Georgia had been the possessor of not one, but three protectors willing to stand up for her, no matter what. At a time when other kids struggled to understand their place among their peers, she’d known exactly who she was. She was Georgia Lennox, one of four, beloved in her family, able to fight and climb and scrap as well as any boy, and don’t you forget it.

  Although that period of her life held sad memories too—the loss of their father to a quick and painful cancer, a single mother working double shifts to pay the lingering medical bills while supporting her family—it was contentment that stood out most in her mind. It had been impossible to hurt for long when you had three built-in companions so wholly and unquestionably devoted to your happiness.

  Unfortunately, the idyll of her isolation lasted only until the day she entered kindergarten, when classroom walls separated her from her brothers. Without their shielding presence, she became aware of a vulnerability that hadn’t existed before, an otherness she was too young to understand at the time. She could still remember the day Adam caught her crying during recess because Bobby Strom kicked her in the shin and called her ugly.

  With the blustering anger that characterized him even today, Adam told her that being ugly was better than being stupid, and then he’d promptly gone over to Bobby’s house and punched him in the nose.

  That day had become the foundation for pretty much all of her adult dating life. And she couldn’t blame them for it—even if she’d wanted to—because their intentions were one hundred percent honorable. This was what happened when the ugly duckling didn’t grow into a beautiful swan. The brother ducks formed a mallard army and dared anyone to mess with her.

  They were her best friends in the entire world. God, she hated them sometimes.

  “We want to meet the guy, that’s all, George.” Charlie pushed his wire-rimmed glasses farther up the bridge of his nose. “He’s a bit of a high-flyer, don’t you think? John Montgomery isn’t the type you normally go for.”

  “I’m not going for anyone. We had a business meeting the other night, that’s all. Danny was misinformed.”

  “Mom corroborated,” Adam said. “She mentioned wine.”

  Goddammit. She knew asking for the wine had been a bad idea. With alcohol and shaved legs on the table, there was no way she could legitimately deny her interest in Monty. It was a rare day when she pulled out all the stops in her efforts to woo a man, and her brothers knew it.

  “And it’s not like we’re going to do anything to him,” Charlie added, his expression earnest. He had these wide-set eyes that made him look innocent, but he was the most dangerous of the bunch. Chemistry teachers knew sneaky things. “Not physically or anything. We’re going to make sure he checks out, that’s all.”

  “He checks out,” Georgia said firmly. “I’ve known him for over half of my life.”

  “And that’s another problem.” Adam polished off the pancake and moved on to hungrily eyeing the bowl of flavored creamers. “There’s a tricky ethical issue at play here. He’s your boss. How do you know he’s not using his position of power to take advantage of you?”

  “He’s not my boss. I’m my boss. You know that. You’re the one who helped me file all the small business paperwork.”

  “So you’re really not going to let us come?” Charlie asked. Since there were no more forks left on the table, he plucked the spoon from her coffee cup and used it to start poaching the last of her sausage crumble. From the way her brothers acted, you’d think no one had ever fed them before. “Is this an official veto?”

  She sighed, feeling the walls of her predicament closing in on her. As much as she’d have loved to order her brothers to sit this one out, she could hardly turn down the offer to add three semi-willing volunteers to her ranks. Not only was it unfair to the people who needed roofs over their heads, but every passing week propelled her closer and closer to failure as it was.

  Failure wasn’t an option—not in this arena. Yes, Georgia sucked at being a woman. Okay, she was even worse at relationships. And her softball skills deteriorated with every passing year. But she was a good contractor. She’d prove it even if she had to sneak out to the build site every day and hammer each nail with her own two hands.

  Which, given the current state of affairs, was a likely possibility.

  “Of course you can still come,” she said, resigned. If she had to choose between being relieved of her position and being saddled with the Testosterone Trio, she’d pick unnecessary machismo every time. “But you have to promise you’ll be nice to him.”

  “Ha-ha, that’s a good one,” Adam said, and sobered once he realized Georgia had no intention of backing down. “Wait—you’re serious?”

  “No ganging up.”

  “We don’t gang up.”

  “No scaring him away with threats of violence.”

  “Threats aren’t prosecutable.”

  “And no dropping hints about our relationship—I’m begging you. It’s not romantic between us, and you’ll only make things weird if you mention it. We’re just friends. I get the feeling he’s a lot more lonely up there at the Manor than he lets on.”

  “Lonely?” All three of her brothers stopped gnawing on their various breakfast items to stare at her. Lonely wasn’t a word that figured in their collective vocabulary. They’d climbed over one another growing up, they continued climbing over one another now that they were all grown, and there was never a shortage of Lennox support to go around.

  At least, that was how it worked for the male Lennoxes. None of her brothers had ever lacked for female admirers, and between their family, friends and lady loves, their lives had been a continual onslaught of attention.

  Georgia had the family and friends, of course, but not the love. She sometimes thought they didn’t realize how much one missing piece could hurt—that the constant, gnawing ache was so much a part of her she wasn’t sure it would ever go away—but then they looked at her with that combination of pity and affection, and she knew they knew.

  They wanted her to find love and acceptance almost as much as she did. It was why they fought so hard on her behalf.

  It was also why she let them.

  “And I want each of you to behave like the professional adult I know you have hidden somewhere inside you. Yes, Adam, that includes you. You’re all going to be assigned to a different area, and you won’t be given walkie-talkies to play with.”

  “Come on, Georgia—”

  “My site. My rules. It’s for the safety of everyone involved.”

  Charlie sent her a wheedling smile. “Not even me? I promise only to communicate for the betterment of mankind.”

  “Especially not you,” she said. “Don’t think I haven’t forgotten that time you taught Adam and Danny how to speak in Morse code so you could have dirty conversations about my friends through the bedroom wall. There will be no clandestine signaling. You’ll be nice to Monty. You’ll work hard. And don’t you dare undermine my authority in front of my team, or I’ll tell Mom.”

  All three men straightened in their seats, nodding their solemn vow. The threat of maternal intervention
was one they’d all learned to make in only the most extreme circumstances. If people thought Georgia was tough, that was only because they’d never had to face the woman who’d raised her.

  “It’s a deal,” Adam said, and stuck out his hand. “But you’re buying lunch.”

  She shook. As if there’d ever been a question otherwise.

  Chapter Six

  “That didn’t count. You started before I was ready.” The man who’d taken up the spot alongside Monty on the angled rooftop dropped his nailer with a clang, and they both narrowly escaped the resulting projectile. “Ahem. Sorry. That was a lawsuit waiting to happen.”

  For reasons Monty couldn’t quite understand, the man assigned as his partner for the day—he’d introduced himself as Adam—voiced his exclamations rather than made them. He was also strangely combative, to the point where Monty found himself evading the roof’s edge and any sudden movements in that direction. He wasn’t afraid of death, per se, but it seemed a shame to go before he had a chance to enjoy himself a little.

  Yes. That was right. He was going to enjoy himself. Despite thirty-five years of convention and obedience—or perhaps because of it—Monty was ready to throw caution and roofing nailers to the wind. He was going to have fun even if it killed him.

  Which, given the current expression on Adam’s face, was a distinct possibility.

  “I went on your mark,” he pointed out, holding his own nail gun close. He could use it as a weapon if it came down to hand-to-hand combat. “You’re the one who counted that round down.”

  “You had your shingles laid out already. It was an unfair head start.”

  Monty eyed Adam wordlessly. At first, the man’s request to go head-to-head and see how fast they could respectively nail down their rows of roofing tiles had seemed like a joke. After all, they were two men working toward a common goal, covered in tar and sweating under the noonday sun. Surely camaraderie was the more effective way to reach their quota.

  But the more time he spent up here, the more he wanted to beat this overly confident jerk. It wasn’t uncommon for people to meet him and take him into immediate dislike, but it was rare for them to actually do something about it. His peers were far too polite to ask him to leave, the organizations he served too grateful to hint at the same. Like an unwanted suitor, he sat in on board meetings and attended conferences, invited out of a sense of obligation rather than because anyone actually contemplated accepting his hand.