Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
RYDER
On Friday morning, I stood in the parking garage of Colburn Restorations in front of one of our work trucks, staring at Bill and Grif, both of whom were grimacing.
“So you’re telling me,” I said, “that this truck, already loaded with what, thirty thousand dollars’ worth of lumber…”
They both nodded.
“…is due on the Somerset job in one hour, where a framing crew will be waiting, only the truck won’t start, probably the battery’s dead, and there’s no other truck available.”
Two more nods.
“How?” I asked.
“Here.” Grif turned his ever-present iPad around to show me the vehicle schedule for the week. “It’s a hot mess.”
He was right. We were overloaded and there was not a single other truck available, which meant that one very expensive framing crew was going to sit on their ass at the jobsite, every breath they took costing us a fortune.
Bill rubbed his bald head and sighed. “Eddie was supposed to show up here last night for a service. I don’t know why that didn’t happen.”
Eddie was the mechanic who handled our entire fleet as needed. And it didn’t matter why it didn’t happen—what mattered was not wasting an entire team’s salary for the day.
“It gets worse,” Bill said.
Of course it did.
“Daniella called in sick. So I was going to run to the Phillips job for her, make sure the guys know what to do, then get back here in time to take this load to Somerset.”
“Do we have a battery here?” I asked.
Grif’s fingers flew over the iPad. “Yes. We do.”
I began to shrug out of my suit jacket.
“I can call the crew,” Bill said. “Push everything a day, but they’ll still charge for?—”
“No need. I’ve got this.” I started rolling up my sleeves.
Bill blinked in surprise. “What are you doing?”
“We can’t have a dime holding up a dollar.”
Bill narrowed his eyes. “ You’re going to change the battery?”
“What, you don’t think I can?”
“I think you could rebuild that entire truck without breaking a sweat, but you’re dressed all fancy like for a bunch of meetings you’ve got on the books for today. The accountant, the lawyer…”
Yep, but suddenly I saw a way out of those boring meetings. “My problem, not yours. Go. The truck’ll be ready when you get back.”
Bill just shook his head. “You want to play hooky, boy, why not call in sick and go climb a mountain or something?”
I looked pointedly at the time on my phone and he sighed. “Right. Fuck. Fine, I’ll hurry.” He turned to go, then paused. “You know how I bitch about your generation being lazy dumbshits?”
I just looked at him.
“You’re not one of them.”
Then he was gone, just as my phone buzzed an incoming text on the Colburn sibling thread.
Caleb: Need a ride to work.
Tucker: Call one of your leftover hockey bunnies.
Kiera: Offensive.
Caleb: VERY offensive.
Tucker: Translation—you can’t call one of them. They’re like cats. If you call, you can’t get rid of them.
Me: What’s wrong with your truck?
Caleb: …
Me: ??
Caleb: …
Caleb: Fine. Some asshole slashed my tires.
Tucker: Translation—you ghosted a woman and she retaliated.
Caleb: I didn’t ghost anyone. I always make it clear I’m a bad bet. But some asshole posted online that I saw the stupid Legend the other night and women are coming out of the woodwork.
Tucker: You’re the asshole. You made that post.
Caleb: Is someone coming to get me or what?
Tucker: Or what.
I bang my phone against my forehead.
Me: Go get the truck fixed.
Caleb: You need me at work. You can’t live without me.
Tucker: The only thing he can’t live without is his phone charger, which you are not.
Caleb: Wow. You’re just jealous because no one DM’s you asking for a pic of your six-pack.
Tucker: Hate to break it to you, but the only six-pack women really want to see are empathy, authenticity, integrity, maturity, self-awareness, and communication.
Caleb: You got stuck at the dentist office and had to read a touchy-feeling book again, didn’t you?
Tucker:
Thirty minutes later, I’d just finished up replacing the battery and texting Bill and Grif that it was done and ready to go when I heard the sound of a cart and familiar light footsteps. I straightened from the engine compartment of the truck in time to catch Penny Rose staring at my ass.
“See anything you like?”
Her cheeks pinkened. “As if you don’t know you’ve got a great ass.”
I laughed, but as she shoved at the cart, fighting two bad wheels, my smile faded. “That thing’s going to get you killed. Let me fix the wheels.”
“Seems like you’re already pretty busy.”
“I just finished.”
She used her forearm to swipe some hair from her face. Her ponytail holder had once again failed her. She wore her usual work uniform of a simple white blouse and black pants, which I’d seen a hundred times before, little makeup, and her usual morning scowl, and I thought she looked beautiful.
“Don’t you usually park out front?” I asked.
“You were getting a big delivery and there wasn’t room.”
I really needed to assign her a parking spot.
She eyed my suit jacket hanging off the side-view mirror. “What are you doing back here getting all dirty?”
I flashed her a grin. “I keep telling you, I like getting dirty.”
She rolled her eyes, and I laughed. “Our mechanic isn’t available, but we need this truck today. It just needed a new battery.” I shrugged. “Easy enough.”
“For you, maybe.”
“You already know I like working with my hands.”
“You’re trying to ruffle me,” she said.
“Is it working?”
“Absolutely not. And you realize you’re the boss, right? You could’ve called a mechanic.”
“I have one—he’s not available. Normally, it could wait, but we need the lumber on this truck at a jobsite ASAP.”
“The buck stops with you.” She nodded. “I understand that.”
I knew she did. In her world, she was the same as me—the person who solved all the problems. I crouched before her cart and examined the wheels.
“Can I help?” she asked.
“Hand me the pliers from the toolbox?”
She shuffled through the box. “These?”
“Yep.” I traded the wrench in my hand for it, which she dropped back into the toolbox, then stared at her hands.
Dirty. Shit. I straightened. “Sorry, just swipe your hand on my pants.”
“What? Are you nuts?” She eyed my suit. “Your pants are probably worth more than my entire year’s clothing budget.”
“You’re thinking like a girl.”
“Hello, I am a girl!”
I started unbuttoning my shirt.
She squeaked but didn’t take her eyes off me as I shrugged out of the shirt and hung it next to my suit jacket. I then tugged off the white t-shirt I’d worn beneath and held it out to her. “Here, use this.”
She gaped at me like I’d asked her to jump off a cliff. “I’m not using your spotless t-shirt to wipe my grubby hands!”
Cute. Taking the shirt back, I used it to clean off my hands first. “There. No longer spotless.” I tossed it to her, giving her two choices: catch it with her face or with her hands. She used her hands. Smart girl.
“Are you always this chivalrous?”
“No.”
She laughed and rubbed her hands clean while running her eyes over my torso. I opened my mouth to tease her about it when she reached out and ran a finger over the healing gash on my side.
I nearly closed my eyes at the touch. It was a huge effort on my part to stand still instead of scooping her up and finding a more private place to let her touch me wherever she wanted.
“It’s going to scar,” she said unhappily. Her other hand went to her jaw. “Like mine.”
Scratch wanting her to touch me. I wanted to wrap her up tight and assure her that she was safe here, with me. That, if she allowed it, I’d make sure nothing like that happened to her ever again.
There was a darkness to her gaze now, and I could see her closing ranks, pulling inward, and fuck, I needed to go hunt down the asshole who’d laid a hand on her. But that wasn’t what she needed. What she needed was to feel in control, to feel strong and safe, on her own.
I slowly lifted a hand toward her. “Can I?” I asked quietly.
She nodded, trusting me. A fact that made my heart squeeze so hard it hurt. I gently cupped her face, letting my thumb glide over her scar. “Does it still hurt?”
Her eyes closed and she gave a small head shake, but whether that was no, it doesn’t hurt or I don’t want to talk about it , I had no idea. What I did know was that she felt shame about the scar, and I hated that most of all.
“Does yours?” she whispered.
My heart gave a good, hard squeeze. And how had she even gotten to my heart? I had no idea, but I couldn’t deny it, couldn’t pretend she didn’t mean something to me.
I shook my head. “I had a good medic.” I smiled. “Good thing too. My flag football team’s in the finals tonight and we intend to win.”
“You’re going to play injured?”
“Wouldn’t be my first time.”
She gave a snort and stepped back.
I cocked my head, seeing a flash of something in her eyes. “You okay?”
“Sure.” She was looking anywhere but at me now. The other vehicle, the toolbox, the ceiling…
I snagged her hand, worried I’d missed something. “You know it’s also okay not to be okay.” Fact was, I lived in that state a lot of the time.
She lifted her head, staring at me.
“What?”
“No one’s ever said that to me before.”
I gave a wry smile. “I learned it the hard way.”
Her features softened and she squeezed my hand back. “What do you do when you’re…not okay?”
“Stupid shit.” I gestured with a head tilt to the truck behind us. “Exhibit A: problem solve when I have a million other things to do.”
That earned me a short laugh. Her hair had slipped almost entirely out of her ponytail now. With a sound of exasperation, she lifted her arms and redid it. And then frowned and redid it again.
“Hey.” Gently, I caught her hands. “If you’re having second thoughts about how we interact, it’s okay.”
“It’s not that.” Her eyes held mine, willing me to understand. “It’s just…”
“You’re not ready.”
“But not because of you. It’s me. I don’t…gah.” She drew a deep breath. “I don’t trust myself. I mean, I’m working on it, but…”
My chest ached for her. I nodded. “I understand.”
“I hope you do, because”—she stared at me for a long beat—“I’m having regrets.”
Heart. Stopped. “It’s okay?—”
“No. My regrets are about deciding not to go out with you.”
I blinked.
She gave me a small smile. “I realized that sitting at a table in a restaurant somewhere talking and laughing wouldn’t be any different from standing here in front of a big truck…right?”
Her eyes were round, and I realized her worry was more about the possibility I’d lose interest than her being ready. As if I could ever lose interest.
“Penny.” I brought our entwined hands to my chest. “I won’t rush you on this. And I’m not going anywhere. Okay?”
She took a deep breath. “Okay.”
“Baby steps?”
She nodded, giving me a relieved smile. “Baby steps. But we’re still not going to stop, right?”
The question, asked with enough emotion that I felt another pinch to my heart now, telling me just how deep I was into her, made me want to sag with relief.
“Not until you want to.”
“I don’t.” Her gaze dropped to my mouth and something much more than relief rolled through me.
“Whenever you’re ready, Pen. No rush.” I adjusted the wheels on her cart and steered it onto the elevator for her. Reaching in, I hit the button for the ground floor, then backed off.
She blinked at me. “You’re not coming?”
“Not yet,” I said, and smiled as she laughed while the doors slowly closed on her pretty face.