Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
RYDER
Worthless waste of time POS…”
Bill had been on this tirade about yesterday’s missing materials for so long I’d stopped listening as we walked out of the police station the next morning. “Let it go.”
He gaped at me. “You can’t be serious.”
A few months ago, Bill had suffered a silent myocardial infarction.
The mini heart attack and subsequent procedure to clear a partial blockage of his coronary artery had been a success, and he’d been back at work for weeks.
He wasn’t supposed to stress, but given the way his eyes were about to pop out of their sockets, he was doing just that.
“I’m as serious as that heart attack you had.”
He waved this off dismissively. “I’m fine now. I’ve told you a million times. I can’t believe you’re willing to write off 13,500 bucks. This is our third theft this year. It’s adding up. What’s wrong with you?”
“A lot, and I’m not willing to write this off.”
My superintendent stopped in the middle of the lot, hands on hips. “So what are we going to do about this?” he demanded.
“Investigate. I’m going to pull in Caleb.” He’d been learning the ropes the past few years, fitting into wherever he was needed. He had a way with people, but he was just as good on any of the jobsites getting shit handled. “He’s observant and thinks outside the box.”
Bill snorted. “You mean he’s nosy as shit, and beneath that affable smile, he’s got the nose of a hound dog.”
All true. And not for the first time, or even the hundredth time, I wished I could keep my brother onboard. But he deserved to find his own path. Didn’t mean I wasn’t going to utilize his talents until he left.
Bill’s phone rang and he answered with a “you okay?” and an unusual worry in his voice. “I’ll be there right after work—” He listened, brow furrowed, but it wasn’t until he put a hand to his heart that I figured out who he had to be talking to—his daughter Hazel.
Hazel had gone to high school with Tucker. They’d been best friends, and she’d been a pseudo-Colburn sibling—until she’d left Star Falls without a word shortly after graduation and hadn’t looked back.
She’d been gone for years in radio silence, only to reappear a few months ago. It’d been great to see her but awkward as well, trying as adults to reconnect to the relationships we’d had as kids. All of it made harder by the fact she refused to talk about the past.
I understood that.
Caleb understood.
But she and Tucker, who’d always been the closest, hadn’t yet found a middle ground and were currently, mysteriously, ignoring each other whenever their paths crossed.
Which happened frequently because Hazel, a master carpenter, ran her own custom woodworks company.
Bill, always a cranky closed book, hadn’t said much, but I was guessing father and daughter—oil and water on the best of days, and the reason I could never hire her—were having some growing pains getting reacquainted as well.
“Everything okay?”
“Is it ever?” he muttered, then got into his truck and drove off.
Huh. I called Tucker.
“Yo,” he answered breathlessly, odd noises in the background.
“Am I interrupting something?”
“Yes, but don’t let that stop you.” Tucker shut a door and then it was quiet. “I sent you a text. I’m at the fire station, working out with some of the guys.”
Tucker was a volunteer firefighter paramedic, had been for years.
His dream was for Star Falls to get the funding for permanent staff so he could get paid for the only job he’d ever wanted.
Since that hadn’t happened, he worked at Colburn Restorations for a paycheck, and I was grateful to have him.
He was, and always had been, the heart of our family.
“Have you talked to Hazel?” I asked.
A beat of silence, heavy on wary. “Why?” he finally asked.
Not an answer. “She just called Bill,” I said. “It didn’t sound good.”
Tucker snorted. “Have you met them?”
“So…you’re not worried?” I asked.
“I didn’t say that.” And then he was gone.
Shit. I called Hazel’ s phone next.
“Hey, Ry.”
“Hey back. You good?”
“Where’s the fun in being good?”
I laughed, because true.
“I’ve got an idea to run by you though.” She paused. “I’ll give you a ten percent bro deal if you hire me for your finish carpentry contracts.”
“To risk the watery grave your mom promised me if I hired both you and your dad at the same time, I’d need a whole bunch more than ten percent off.”
She was quiet for a moment. So was I. We both knew I couldn’t hire her. We both knew why. I cared about her deeply, but Bill had been with me for years. Shit, I hated this. If she was asking, she needed help.
“You really okay?” I asked.
“Always. You?”
I drew a deep breath. “Always.”
After a few seconds of dead air, she chuckled mirthlessly. “We’re both so full of it. Buffalo wings and darts at the Cork and Barrel this week?”
“Yes. And it’s Caleb’s turn to buy.”
“Nice. Leave Tucker’s grumpy ass home. Twenty-five percent off for a carpentry contract. Final offer. Think about it.”
“You know I can’t fire your dad.”
“And you know I can’t stop trying.”
She was joking, but I could read between the lines. Even though she’d told us her business was doing great, she needed the work, and that had my stomach sinking. And what was up with her and Tucker? My brother, good-natured and easy-going, was the last person on the planet I’d call a grumpy ass.
Later. This was a later problem, and I had plenty of now problems to deal with.
In fifteen minutes, I was at Nell’s house.
I never got tired of admiring this place—the red brick walls that perfectly contrasted with the pale stone detailing, the curved windows unique to an early 1900s Queen Anne Victorian, the decorative arches, the steeply pitched roofline with fish-scale slate shingles and large dormers.
The fact that the structure was showing her age in cracked and broken bricks, chipped paint, and broken trim made me ache to get my hands dirty giving the old girl some TLC.
For once, Hank wasn’t here. Once a week, my neighbor Teresa “borrowed” him when her dad came to visit.
Charlie could talk anyone’s ears off, and since my dad couldn’t talk at all, it was a match made in heaven.
Plus Teresa always made Hank his favorite foods, meatloaf and potatoes.
Just the thought made me shudder. I hated meatloaf and potatoes with the heat of a thousand suns.
It reminded me of the military food we’d lived on.
To this day, I start twitching if I have to eat anything that resembles cafeteria food.
Kiera used to tease me that I had such a lame trauma trigger.
And I suppose, compared to her and my brothers’ various triggers, it was.
Kiera was an over-planner who became anxious and bossy if things didn’t go the way she’d orchestrated, making everyone around her miserable.
Caleb—big, burly, tough as hell—would step in front of a bullet train for someone he loved, but if the conflict became emotional, he walked.
Always. Tucker couldn’t handle seeing someone he cared about getting hurt.
I’d once fallen while rock climbing when the guys I was with hadn’t properly belayed me, and he had suffered nightmares for months after.
None of us needed a shrink to know where the triggers came from.
Shaking off the memories of how screwed up we all were, I grabbed the faucet repair kit I’d brought to fix Nell’s sink along with the necessary tools and knocked at the back door.
Penny sat at the kitchen table with her laptop, a very large glass of wine and a plate of what looked like her own mint chocolate chip cookies at her elbow.
I’d probably kill for either, especially since there was still that matter of the favor Nell had asked of me.
I’d spent far too many hours when I should’ve been sleeping trying to decide just how stupid I was for actually considering asking Penny out.
The thing was, I wanted to do it for me, not for Nell.
Penny was muttering to herself, which reminded me so much of Bill that I snorted.
She turned her glower my way. “ What? ”
Her hair was piled on top of her head, held there by a clip that wasn’t quite doing its job containing those wild waves of hers.
No makeup, and near as I could tell from her Bite Me t-shirt, no bra either.
I loved the look, to the point that all of my stress promptly melted away. The power of nipples…
She narrowed her eyes.
I had zero idea why her attitude both cracked me up and turned me on, and even less of a clue if she felt any of that back, but I smiled.
“Hello to you too.”
She sighed. “Sorry, paying bills makes me cranky.”
I knew what it was like to struggle with not enough money, and seeing her stressed out pinched my heart. “ Anything I can do?”
“Gift me a winning lotto ticket?” She popped a whole cookie in her mouth and gestured to the rest, along with the wine. “Help yourself,” she said around the large bite.
I picked up her glass, holding her gaze while I took a sip. When I swallowed, she bit her lower lip. I tried not to let it go to my head as I inhaled two cookies.
“Good?” she asked, amused.
“Amazing.” I took one more. “I skipped lunch.”
She stood, went to the fridge, and pulled out two wrapped sandwiches. “Turkey or roast beef ? I made them this morning and no one here has claimed them yet.”
I ate both. She poured me a glass of wine as I did.
“What’s up?” she asked when I finally filled up.
I gestured to the faucet repair kit I’d set on the counter and rolled my sleeves to my elbows.
Her gaze drifted to my forearms. “What are you doing?”
“Promised Nell I’d fix the sink.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know.” I opened the kit and headed to the sink, and two seconds later, felt Penny breathing over my shoulder. I turned my head and our mouths nearly collided.