Suddenly Entwined (West Isle Romance #3)

1. Berg

Chapter one

Berg

I stumble over a rogue rug corner, catching myself on the wall before I fall and squash one of my children. My blood pressure is ticking up and we aren’t even out the door yet.

“What do you mean you think you left your shoe at school, Louisa? How would you leave school with only one shoe?” I ask my youngest daughter, running my hands through my hair.

It’s situations like these that really make me realise I am in full on dad mode.

“Daddy.” She gives me a stern look. “You promised you wouldn’t use your loud voice this morning.”

Tiny shoes, backpacks, and papers that have fallen out of said backpacks litter the front entrance of our home. It’s a step beyond “lived-in” and, hopefully, one step before a pig sty .

“This isn’t my loud voice, Lou.” I take a controlled breath. “It’s my incredulous voice.”

She wrinkles her freckle smattered nose. “What’s crincredulous?”

“Incredulous. It’s the word of the day,” I say, gesturing to the table where the tiny calendar that gives us a new definition daily sits.

“But it’s the first today,” Louisa says.

I glance at my watch, confirming my six-year-old child has a better grasp on our schedule than I do.

“Darn it.”

Not only do I not know what day it is, I didn’t realise it’s a whole new month either. How is it February? I swear Christmas just passed, but that could also be because I only stuffed the decorations in the storage shed at the back of the yard a couple of weeks ago. Time is speeding up lately.

Sometimes the girls climb into my bed in the morning and I can barely recognize them with their long legs and cheeks free of baby fat. Natalie, who is eight already, is my mini me with dark auburn hair and green eyes. But Louisa? Well, she’s resembling her mom more each day with those wavy brown curls and dimpled smile. There are some moments where she’s looking at me like I’m her entire world, and it’s as though Trudy is still right here.

With Lou’s birthday right around the corner, it’s also the anniversary of my late wife’s death, so February is always a little dark for our family. Grief has a way of reappearing around significant dates. As I’m tearing off squares from the calendar so we’re back on track, shoving the paper in my pocket, Lou emerges from the hall closet with the missing shoe in hand.

“Found it!”

“Oh. Whaddya know? I guess it isn’t at school,” I tease as she dodges my attempt to give her a noogie, protecting the hair I hastily pulled back into a lopsided ponytail while she ate breakfast.

My smile is strained as I wait for Lou to adjust her sock, then her pant leg, and then put on the shoe.

“What's today's word?” asks Natalie.

“Uh. Denouement.”

“What is that?”

“It says: the final part of a play, movie, or narrative in which the strands of the plot are drawn together and matters are explained or resolved.”

“Huh,” Natalie says, nodding like she approves of the definition.

“Listen, I’ll use it in a sentence. After a crazy search for the shoe, the denouement of another chaotic Monday morning arrived, and the MacMillan family was on time for once. The End. Let’s go.”

“That’s a boring story,” Natalie declares.

I glance at my watch, frowning. “It’s not true either.”

“Ready!” Lou chirps, unaffected by the fact we’re running late .

When we’ve departed the house, arms laden with bags and coats, the girls climb into the backseat of my truck and buckle into their boosters. I back out of the sloped driveway toward their elementary school to the soundtrack of them bickering over their personal space.

Creeping along through the morning traffic, lifting my hand in greeting to a few neighbours, I do a mental run through of my day. I’ll drop the girls off, race through the closest drive thru for coffee and a breakfast sandwich, then go check in on the Pebble Beach house. The beachfront home owned by my former tenant, Chris, is a bit more of a fixer upper than he thought.

Something about today’s date is bothering me, but I can’t recall anything specific that I’m forgetting. I haven’t received any notifications on my phone to tip me off.

Dentist appointment for the girls?

No.

Car insurance renewal?

I fucking hope not.

“Hey, girls? Do we have something important today?”

“I need to get my permission slip for skating signed,” Natalie says.

Louisa chimes in too. “I need to bring two dollars for popcorn day on Friday!”

It’s not those things either .

I give them a thumbs up, slowing to a stop in the drop off line at the exact moment the mechanical buzz of the school bell sounds.

“Yes and yes, I will do those things. The bell just rang! Go! Goodbye. Be good.”

It’ll come to me, I think, as I blow kisses to the girls. Natalie links arms with a friend, waiting to make sure Lou is right behind her. Absorbing the rare moment of silence, I stretch my stiff neck and watch them until they disappear inside. I love my girls to pieces, but being a single dad is hard as hell.

When I pull up to the job site with a paper coffee cup in hand and a greasy breakfast in my belly, I pop my hard hat on. I split my time between several job sites, working on framing or whatever needs doing, really. I’m a Red Seal tradesman in both carpentry and plumbing, so I’m used to taking on different tasks. Weaving through the maze of work trucks lining the driveway, I spot Isaac shaking hands with the electrician at the front door.

“Berg, hey!”

Isaac strides toward me and I can tell I’m not going to have a slow start to my day. Just once I’d like to sit at my kitchen table on a weekday, eat a hearty meal and drink a coffee while it’s hot. Before Trudy and I had kids, we always sat down to a full breakfast together. Eggs, bacon, oatmeal. It didn’t matter. We’d discuss our plans and make sure we were on the same page before we went our separate ways .

Isaac opens his mouth to launch into whatever he’s buzzing about, but I hold up my hand and take a long sip of my coffee.

“Can I talk yet?” he asks.

I shake my head no as the caffeine works its way into my veins.

“Okay. Go.” A puff of air clouds around my mouth.

“Need you to take point on the Lake Brighton project for me next week.”

Our farthest job from West Isle, Lake Brighton is a good hour's drive along winding gravel roads to a home overlooking a small lake.

I raise my eyebrows at him. “What does that entail?”

“You know what it entails. Lots of babysitting grown men, signing things,” he glances at my coffee cup, “not showing up late…”

“I am not late.”

“You’re not early either.”

As the only partner of Isaac Lauri Restorations with children, Isaac gives me a lot of flexibility, so I know he’s joking. Last year, when we all left his father’s construction business to form a new company, I made it clear that I needed a schedule that would allow me to care for my kids.

I try to visualise next week and can’t think of a good reason to say no. It’s a fine balance between putting my daughters first, and keeping my career moving forward so that I can give them the life they deserve. Plus, I want to be a team player.

Isaac claps me on the shoulder. “Honestly, Berg, the business is growing. If we want to take on more projects and keep our standard of service up, I need help.”

I nod, a pretty good idea of where this conversation is going already forming. It’s not only about next week.

Isaac and I enter the front door, boots echoing on the plywood. Skill saws whir as we walk through an open floor plan and head out to the back deck that overlooks the beach. The glass door thuds shut, muffling the power tools enough that I can enjoy the lapping waves and crying seagulls. We lean against the second story railing, taking in the view.

“We’ve had a pretty unbelievable first year, and like we talked about in our last meeting, we’re expanding. I guess I want to know when you think you might be ready to step into a management role.”

And, there it is. This isn’t the first time we’ve talked about me taking on more responsibility within the business. Sure, Isaac, Chris, Dean, and I all bought into the company so we’re equal partners, but Dean and Chris have no interest in leadership. Or at least not now. And Dean keeps talking about taking the summer off, but I don’t know if that’s happening.

“I’m going to be hiring more people, getting the office up and running, and I’d really like you to be involved more in the operation of things.”

I’ve turned Isaac down more than once, concerned that more responsibility at work might pull me too far from my obligations at home, but maybe it’s time to say yes. Life with my daughters isn’t likely to slow down soon. I have two college funds to save for, and if taking on a bit more responsibility is what I need to do in order to achieve that, I’m in. I only hope I can make it all work.

“Okay, man. You’ve got me. Ease me into it?”

“Yes!” Isaac jostles me with an arm around my shoulders and I can’t help but grin.

In a year Isaac has taken his business from a start up working out of his grandfather’s 1960s backyard workshop to an award-winning construction company in a competitive market. We’re all more than a little tired, but we keep trucking forward and know that it’s worth the struggle. I took an enormous risk last year when I quit working for an established construction firm and took a chance on this business, but it’s paying off. We’re building a foundation for ourselves to live on, and it’s going to be rock solid.

“We have before school care that we rarely use…so I’ll start dropping them off earlier.”

I shudder at the thought of needing to be out the door a whole hour sooner than we were today. It’s going to be dark out, practically. I have to figure out how to put my coffee pot on an auto timer and we won’t be able to spend our time looking for missing shoes.

Isaac pats me on the back once more before lifting his cell to his ear and heading off.

So, our schedule will change a little bit? No big deal.

It’ll work. It has to.