Working for Him (Hard Hat Hotties Collaboration #9)

Rena

I’ve finally arrived in Forge Creek after hours on the road. It feels like I’ve been travelling for days. I can’t wait to get started on this job, get it finished and then move onto the next job.

I pull into the gravel lot outside Kincaid's Early Bird Diner and sit there with my hands on the wheel.

I can hear the engine ticking as it cools, and my brain resets as I try to convince myself this is just another temporary assignment.

That this faded brick building with its foggy windows and flickering neon sign isn't somehow going to be the thing that cracks my carefully maintained professional distance.

Everything in my life has been temporary over the last few years, including my jobs and where I’ve been living.

This means I haven’t had to commit to anyone or anything.

It’s been my escape clause, I don’t have roots in any city and can just pack up and leave.

I’m fine with that. It means I don’t have to think long-term and I can walk away whenever I need to, especially when things get too much.

The diner door sticks when I push it open, protesting with a sound that makes three sets of eyes turn and stare at me, before they decide I'm not interesting enough to warrant more than a passing glance.

The air inside hits me like a brick wall.

It is thick with the smell of bacon grease, fresh coffee, and decades of conversations that probably all started the same way mine's about to.

Vinyl booths line the windows. The bright red faux leather is cracked and patched with multiple pieces of duct tape that's gone gray with age. I always find it fascinating how much we use duct tape in our everyday lives. I love it, and I’m an advocate for it.

The counter runs the length of the room.

It has been worn smooth by countless elbows and coffee cups, and behind it stands a woman who looks like she was born holding a coffee pot and a healthy dose of skepticism.

I know she’s assessing me as I slide onto a stool near the end of the counter.

She’s looking at my high-visibility jacket and my bag that I dropped on the floor beside me.

The look she gives me makes me realize she’s seen people like me before, people who blow into town with clipboards and regulations and the audacity to think they know better.

"What'll it be?" she says, her voice hoarse from talking all day, every day, for a lot of years.

"Black coffee, please," I say, meeting her gaze without flinching. "Strong enough to strip paint."

The corner of her mouth twitches, just barely. I think it’s going to be all the approval I’m going to get from her. She pours my coffee in silence, but I know she is trying to work me out.

"You're new," she says. It's not a question, and it isn’t unexpected. I’d say she’s the gatekeeper for the town. Any new people stopping by for coffee will trigger an alarm in her head, and she’ll ask the right questions and pass the information on to whoever needs to know.

"I’m only here temporarily," I say as I wrap my hands around the mug. The heat seeps into my palms, grounding me.

She snorts, the sound sharp and knowing. "That's what they all say."

Before I can ask what that means, the temperature in the room shifts. It's subtle at first, just a dip in the conversations around the diner. Then I hear it: heavy boots on the diner tiles. Someone definitely knows where they’re going and doesn't need to announce it.

Every nerve ending I have lights up in warning.

I turn because my body makes the decision before my brain can talk me out of it, and the first thing I notice is the way he fills the doorway.

He has broad shoulders which strain against a high-visibility jacket that's seen actual work, not the kind you throw on for show. It’s got streaks of dirt and dust on it, and I look down at mine, which still looks pretty new.

He has dark hair cut close for safety compliance, with a hard hat tucked under one arm as if it's part of his anatomy.

His jaw is set in a line that suggests he doesn't smile much and probably has good reasons for it.

Then his eyes sweep the room. His gaze is sharp and assessing. I’m sure he never misses anything.

When they land on me, everything in my chest tightens in a way that has nothing to do with coffee and everything to do with the sudden, visceral awareness that I'm in trouble.

Not the professional kind, but the kind that starts low in my stomach and spreads like heat through my bloodstream, the kind that makes me forget I have rules about this sort of thing.

His gaze holds mine for a beat too long.

It’s like he's running calculations I'm not privy to.

I watch him take in my posture, my boots, and the way I haven't looked away first. There's no leer in it, nothing crude or obvious.

It's worse than that. It's interest, and it makes my skin prickle with awareness.

I lift my coffee and take a slow sip, refusing to break eye contact.

Two can play at this game.

Something flickers in his expression. It’s too quick to name, and then he finally looks away and moves toward the counter.

He stops two stools down from me, close enough that I can feel the heat of him, and close enough that the air between us hums with something I'm absolutely not going to acknowledge out loud.

"Morning, Caleb," the woman behind the counter says, her tone warmer now, more familiar.

"Morning, Marlene." His voice is low and rough around the edges that does extremely inconvenient things to my pulse.

She pours his coffee without him asking. I love when you can walk into a coffee shop or diner and the waitress knows your order. It’s a sign of being home, which is not something I know much about.

"Crew's already at the site," she says as she puts the coffee pot back on the stand.

"I know." He wraps both hands around the mug, and I catch myself staring at his knuckles.

They're scarred and dusted with a concrete residue that's ground in so deep it probably never fully comes out. They’re working hands, they prove that he knows how to build things and probably how to take them apart just as efficiently.

I force my eyes back to my own coffee before my brain can wander anywhere truly unprofessional.

"I'm headed there now," he adds, and I feel rather than see his gaze shift back to me.

"You're not one of mine," he says. He knows every person on his crew by name, so when he sees my high-viz he’s clearly curious.

I turn on my stool, letting a slow smile curve my mouth. "Lucky me."

That gets his full attention. He pivots toward me, one forearm coming to rest on the counter, and suddenly the two stools between us feel like nothing at all.

Up close, I can see the faint lines at the corners of his eyes, which have been earned by squinting into sun and dust for years.

There's a trace of stubble along his jaw that he probably didn't have time to deal with this morning, and my fingers itch with the deeply unhelpful urge to find out if it's as rough as it looks.

"Caleb Wyatt." He doesn't offer his hand, which I appreciate. No performative gestures. Just his name, direct and unadorned. "I run the Jefferson Street site."

"Rena Black." I hold his gaze, watching the way his pupils dilate just slightly in the dim light of the diner. "I specialize in ruining people's mornings and occasionally saving their lives. Sometimes simultaneously."

His mouth twitches, fighting a smile and losing. It transforms his face for half a second, softening the hard edges into something dangerously appealing before he locks it down again.

"What do you do, Rena Black?" The way he says my name makes something warm unfurl low in my belly.

I set my mug down slowly, giving myself time to wrestle my autonomic nervous system back under control. "I make sure people don't die doing their jobs. Safety consultant. Permits and planning brought me in for the Jefferson Street rebuild."

Something shifts in his expression. It’s not irritation, which I'd expected. It’s not dismissal, which I'd been braced for. But it’s interest, real, undeniable interest that he's not bothering to hide.

"You're the consultant," he says, and there's a note in his voice I can't quite break down. There’s a hint of surprise, maybe.

"Guilty as charged." I hold my hands up slightly as if he caught me.

A beat of silence stretches between us, it’s heavy and electric. His gaze drops, just for a second, tracking down to my steel-toed boots and back up again, slow enough that I feel it everywhere. When his eyes meet mine again, there's a flicker of something that makes my breath catch.

Approval. Well, that's what it feels like.

"You don't look like what I expected," he says.

I arch a brow, letting my smile sharpen. "Careful, that sentence usually ends badly for everyone involved."

I watch him for a few seconds before saying, "You wanted a woman in orthopedic shoes with a laminated binder and a grudge against fun," I offer, when he doesn't elaborate.

"Something like that."

"Sorry to disappoint."

"I didn't say I was disappointed." He doesn’t look away once. Neither do I.

"I expected someone older," he clarifies, but there's heat behind the words now, a current of awareness that wasn't there before. Or maybe it was always there, and we're both just done pretending we don't notice it.

"And are you disappointed?" I ask, my voice light, testing the edges of this thing crackling between us.

He studies me for a long moment, and I watch his throat work as he swallows. "No," he says finally, rough and honest. "Just surprised."

Marlene sets a plate down in front of him with slightly more force than necessary, the sound is sharp and enough to break whatever spell we've been casting. "Eat. You're no good to anyone on an empty stomach."

"Yes, ma'am," he murmurs, but his eyes don't leave mine.