But after a moment, Reggie just gave a little grunt and pulled one of the assortment of hammers he was carrying from his tool belt. He extended it to her, handle first. “Don’t touch nothing until I say you can,” he warned. But then his tone softened a little. “One thing we’ve learned since that flood took out more ‘n half this town is that willing workers are about as important as experienced ones.”
The relief that swept through her made her weak. “I promise, I’ll work harder than anyone on this site.”
“You’ll have to.” Then Reggie grinned, revealing several crooked teeth. “But stick close, girl. At least until Jackaroo gets more coffee down him and you start developing some sea legs.”
Chapter Five
Sea legs, it turned out, developed more quickly than Addie had expected. What she hadn’t expected, though, was just how brutal the process would turn out to be.
For most of that day, the rest of that week and the one following, she became what she privately considered the site’s gofer.
She hauled countless wheelbarrows full of concrete. She clawed nails out of two-by-fours. She dug holes and filled others and dragged around sheets of plywood until her muscles screamed. Reg taught her how to mark measurements on wood, swore a blue streak when she got a few wrong, set her back to wheelbarrowing until he cooled off and went through the instructions again, finally leaving her to cut seemingly endless pieces of lumber. So many that she feared he had her doing it just to keep her busy and out of everyone else’s way as the progress on the Community Center clipped on at an astonishing pace.
Working in retail, she was used to long hours spent on her feet. But that had been nothing, nothing in comparison to the days that she spent on the construction site those two weeks. And Jack—
Well, whenever she saw Jack, it was usually from a distance. But it quickly became apparent that he wasn’t just a paper pusher. Those wide shoulders of his came courtesy of working just as hard as everyone else on the build. Maybe harder, because she’d seen for herself that he was always first on the site in the mornings and last off.
The only time she saw him up close was at the end of her second week, when Ruth, whom she’d learned was Reg’s wife, traipsed around with him passing out paychecks.
“Reg says you’re a hard worker,” he offered when he reached her and extended a white envelope with her name typed on the front of it. It was obviously the last envelope, because Ruth, sour-faced as always, turned on her heel and marched back to the trailer.
Addie was covered in fine white drywall dust from her head to her toes because she’d been sanding seams for most of the day. It was messy work, but such a welcome break from hauling this and carrying that that she’d been ready to kiss Reg when he told her that morning what she’d be doing. And she was so grateful that it was the end of the workweek again that she didn’t even give a fig what sort of sight she was when she took the envelope from Jack. “Reg is the hard worker,” she demurred. The old man’s energy put hers to shame.
She folded the envelope in half and stuck it in her back pocket and started to turn away to gather up the sanding blocks she’d been using. She needed to replace the sandpaper on them so they’d be ready for the start of the next workday, which—thank you, thank you, thank you—wouldn’t be until Monday.
She had two whole days in which to curl up in the fetal position on her Murphy bed mattress and sleep away her aches and pains.
“He also tells me you’ve been walking to and from work the last several days.” Jack’s voice followed her.
Surprised, she glanced over her shoulder but didn’t stop working. She wanted to get on her way, and couldn’t do so until her tasks were done. She’d already learned there was nothing worse than coming in and having to clean up things before she could even get started. “Weather’s been nice.” Maybe she was learning something else around the site—the art of brevity, which he seemed to display so very well.
“Rust Creek Falls has finally earned some.”
She paused, struggling not to let any bubble bouquets get any ideas.
For the past two weeks, she’d watched him from afar while trying not to be caught watching. No matter how distant he’d turned since that first morning when they met, she couldn’t conquer her attraction as easily as he had.
She’d learned from the surprisingly gossipy guys around the site that Jack wasn’t married, though he’d come close about a year ago, that he’d been spared from the worst effects of the flood last summer because he lived outside town and had been one of the most avid volunteers in the aftermath, helping the ones who had been hit the worst.
“Were you close to anyone who was flooded out?” The ex-fiancée maybe? Was he still carrying a torch for her? Was that why he’d turned off the sparkle in his eyes the day they met?
“I knew most all of them.”
She nibbled the inside of her lip, vaguely aware of the mass exodus as crew members made their way beyond the fence gate. “It must’ve been awful.” Though great strides had been made—the elementary school was running again, for instance—the town was still recovering. There were even some families still living in the trailer village that had been set up for those who’d been displaced.
“Add a winter blizzard onto the heels of the summer flood, and things were pretty messed up.”
She nodded, and gave a smile to Reg when he caught her eye as he left. He was carrying his lunch pail in one hand and his gigantic, dented black toolbox in the other. He’d loaned her a smaller toolbox to use for herself until she could afford to buy one, as well as the tools that filled it, though she’d rarely had cause to actually use any of them.
“So, are you just a walking fiend or did Edith decide she wasn’t going to run at all?”
She looked back at Jack. She supposed it was to be expected that in a town this small he’d know whether or not she’d ever gotten around to taking her car to his cousin, the mechanic. “She finally gave up the ghost.” She patted her backside where her paycheck resided inside her pocket. “I hope to get that taken care of soon thanks to this paycheck.” And with luck, she’d still come away with a few dollars.
“If I’d known, I would have arranged rides for you.”
“Reg already offered,” she said. She’d turned the man down, not only because she was determined to hold her own weight, but because walking to work took her past Crawford’s General Store where she bought a coffee and a cinnamon roll to eat on her way, and walking home—exhausted or not—gave her muscles a way to cool down and actually relax a little before she scarfed down a sandwich and gratefully crawled into bed. “I don’t mind walking. Truly.”
“Okay.” His wide shoulders shrugged slightly. “But I’m heading that direction now anyway.”
She blinked a little. He’d been beyond standoffish for two weeks. “You’re offering me a ride?”
For the first time since they’d met, he looked chagrinned. “My little sister rents the other half of your duplex. I need to feed her cat.”
She absorbed that. She had noticed the other side of the duplex seemed to be empty but hadn’t realized there was a cat in residence. And she finally had an answer to her lingering suspicion that when they’d met, he’d only been in the neighborhood because he’d just spent the night with someone there.
But he’d only been feeding his sister’s cat.
She felt alarmingly cheerful all of a sudden. “The place must have great insulation. I haven’t heard a single meow.”
His lips tilted crookedly. “It better have good insulation. My brother, Cam, built that duplex.”
She hurriedly crouched down to dump all of her sanding equipment inside an empty bucket but still didn’t manage to stop one of those darned bubbles from budding just from the sight of his perfectly shaped lips curving. “Reg mentioned he was a contractor. Your brother, I mea
n.”
“Reg talks as much as an old woman.”
Addie couldn’t help smiling at that. The long-haired, long-bearded man could talk a person’s ear off about anything under the sun. And she’d always thought she was talkative. “He’s a nice man.” She straightened with the bucket in hand. “He thinks a lot of you.”
“He must think a lot of you, too,” Jack returned. His hand started to come out as if he were going to take the bucket handle from her, but he suddenly switched gears and reached instead for the inspector’s reports hanging from a peg next to them. “He’s praised your enthusiasm all week.”
Addie nearly choked. The old man had chewed her out at least a half dozen times for one infraction or another. Now it seemed the man who looked as though he belonged in the backwoods brewing up moonshine was turning out to be her biggest ally. “So, does that mean I won’t find a pink slip inside my envelope along with my paycheck?”
His eyebrows pulled together. “Mr. Swinton’s the one who hired you.”
“But I’m pretty sure that the firing decisions he’d make would be recommended by you.” She took the bull by the horns. “And you don’t seem particularly thrilled that I’m here.”
He didn’t deny it. “You’re not getting fired.” His gaze was searching and irritatingly unreadable. “Unless there’s some reason you should be,” he added smoothly. “Some reason I don’t know about.”
Like exaggerating her abilities on her job application? Her conscience pricked sharply because even that was an exaggeration.
She’d lied. Purely and simply. She’d gotten the job under false pretenses, all because she’d been so sure that the end justified the means.
It didn’t matter that Reg had told her willing hands were as necessary as experienced ones and for the past two weeks she’d worked her behind off. She’d lied to Arthur Swinton, and by extension, to Jack.
Rather than address the matter any further, she lifted the bucket. “I’ve got to clean this stuff up and get it all ready for Monday. If you need to leave, I can push the lock closed on the gate when I go.”
“I’ve got stuff in the trailer to take care of yet.”
She pressed her lips together and nodded, feeling awkward, and when he didn’t say anything more, she carried the bucket down the ramp and around to the back of the site, where she stripped the spent sandpaper from the blocks and loaded them with fresh. Then she went back into the building, where she went around picking up all the debris left behind by the other workers. It was mindless work, however, which left her brain way too free to think about Jack. And when she was finished with her tasks and found herself lingering, looking for more reasons to hang around, because she could see the light shining from the trailer window and his truck was still parked outside the fencing, she shook herself.
Everything she’d seen, and everything she’d heard, told her that Jack was a man who didn’t hesitate to go after something he wanted.
She’d been there two weeks. . .and nothing.
So the sooner she faced the fact that he didn’t want her, the better off she’d be.
She grabbed her toolbox, walked past the trailer and headed home, all the while trying to convince herself that Jack Lawson wasn’t the only fish in the Falls.
She wasn’t any more successful at that than she had been passing herself off to Reg as an expert handyman, particularly when Jack’s big black truck pulled up next to her before she’d even made it halfway home, and everything inside her squeezed with pleasure.
He rolled down the passenger window and looked across at her. “Get in.”
Chapter Six
Giving Addie a ride home wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for someone else.
Jack had been repeating that assurance for the past hour, ever since he’d made the offer to her when he gave her the pay envelope.
So why the hell was his breath stopped up in his chest as he watched her through the window, waiting for her to change her mind and accept? And why did disappointment sink through him when, after a long hesitation, she shook her head?
“I’m filthy,” she said. “I’ll just get your seats dirty.”
It was such a girly response he almost laughed. “It’s a truck,” he said dryly. “And in case you didn’t notice, it’s already dirty.” He reached across to push open the door. “Come on.”
Like every other day since she’d been on the site, she was wearing a scoop-necked top that clung to her distracting curves. And like every other day, she also wore, on top of that, an unbuttoned, long-sleeved shirt that hid ’em again. And like every other male on the site, he’d wondered, hoped, that the warmth of the day would eventually have her shedding that layer, but she never had.
Now, though, after setting her toolbox in the bed of the truck, she pulled off the long-sleeve and shook it briskly before swiping it over her face and the front of her clinging tank top. Then she bundled the shirt in a ball and climbed inside the truck, arching a little as she pulled the shoulder belt across her and clipped it into place.
He dragged his eyes away from the smooth skin and lush curves, reminded himself that she was just one of the crew, and headed down the road again.
“I’m not one of the guys, you know.”
He nearly choked. “What?”
Her cheeks reddened and she lifted her shoulder, shifting as far away from him as her seat belt and the door next to her would allow. “Never mind.” Her fingers were bunching the shirt this way and that and she was looking out the side window. “Does the Ace in the Hole serve food?” she asked when they passed the bar. “Some of the guys go there after work and they’ve been after me to join them.”
“I’ll bet,” he muttered. She’d been content to walk. Why hadn’t he just left her to it? “It can get pretty rowdy in there.”
“Fine. But do they serve food or not?”
His hands strangled the steering wheel. He wasn’t interested in the bar and he knew good and well that she wasn’t, either. “I’m well aware you’re not one of the guys.”
Her head slowly turned and he felt her caramel-colored gaze narrowing on him. “Then you just don’t like women working on one of your crews. Why? Because they’re not as good as men?”
His jaw tightened, but he refused to be drawn. “I’ve worked with some women who can outdo nearly every man on a build,” he said evenly. She wasn’t one of them. Not even close. But Reg liked her. And Jack. . .didn’t want to see her go.
“So it’s just me you object to,” she challenged.
“There’s nothing objectionable about you,” he managed. They’d reached the corner to her street and he went through the turn a little faster than he should have. “You’re fine. Good.”
Beautiful. Sexy as hell. A constant torment.
He gratefully pulled up on the street behind her old car and got out before she could launch another incendiary device.
He lifted the toolbox out of the truck bed and managed to hide his surprise at how heavy it was. He’d told Reg to get her set up with the thing. He’d even provided the toolbox that he’d used when he was first starting out, but Reg must have loaded her up with more tools than he’d expected.
“I’ve got it.” She’d gotten out of the truck, too, and her hands brushed his as she took the toolbox from him. “Thanks for the ride.”
Without looking at him again, she headed up the walkway to her side of the duplex.
Try as he might, he couldn’t pull his eyes from the way her back curved into her waist, then flared out again. He was just lucky that she didn’t look back or she’d have caught him nearly drooling all over himself.
But she merely disappeared through her front door.
He exhaled. Raked his hand through his hair and went to deal with Jana’s cat. It took only a few minutes to fill the cat’s water bucket and
top off the bowl of food. Jana would be back on Sunday and he could easily have skipped the trip since he’d already been there once that week. He’d run over during the workday. While Addie had been safely occupied, stuck in waders standing amid a cement pour. The cat—Jasper—who came and went as he pleased through a small cat door that opened only because of the special collar that Jasper wore, appeared long enough to give Jack a cross-eyed look from green eyes, meowed once, then disappeared again.
Jasper had only been an excuse, and Jack figured the cat knew it as well as he did.
He locked up and started down the sidewalk to the truck.
Then he blew out an oath and turned on his heel.
He strode back to Addie’s door and rapped his knuckles on it.
“What do you want, Jack?” Her voice came through the door in response.
He wanted his common sense back, but it had obviously taken a hike.
He pressed his forehead to the door. “Open up.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
He grimaced. Whatever her reasons, she was right.
He wrapped his hand around the doorknob.
But he didn’t turn it.
The sun was setting and the outdoor light over her door came on. Not because she’d turned it on for him, either. He knew the thing worked automatically, because he’d helped Cam install the fixtures. “D’you miss Cincinnati?” He didn’t know why he asked. It was just the first innocuous thought that came to him.
* * *
On the other side of the door, Addie swallowed. She pressed one hand against the towel she’d wrapped around herself after discarding her filthy clothes on the bathroom floor, and tightened her other hand around the doorknob.
Destined for the Maverick Page 3
