Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
RYDER
I was in heaven with Penny in my bed, her hair in my face, breathing slow and even against my chest, an arm and leg thrown possessively over me.
And then I woke up.
Alone.
I ran a hand down my face, wishing she’d stayed last night, when my phone vibrated with an incoming text.
Hazel: I just won the bid for a big job out in Healdsburg. You know anything about that?
I did, and I’d given Hazel’s company a glowing review.
And because I never recommended a subcontractor I didn’t personally know, he’d taken the recommendation seriously.
Not that I could tell Hazel that. She’d kill me.
Well, first she’d beat me up for the pity—which it wasn’t—and then she’d kill me.
She was tiny, and cute as hell, but she had a mean right hook.
I knew, because I’d taught it to her myself.
I looked out the window and caught the unhindered streaks of color painted across the sky that signaled the sun was ready to start the day. Which meant I was already behind.
“Ah…”
Hank appeared in my bedroom doorway, wearing nothing but his birthday suit. Old man junk was not my favorite thing to wake up to, but unfortunately, I was getting used to it.
“What happened to your pajamas?” I asked, rolling out of bed.
Hank shook his head. Code for I didn’t like the color.
I didn’t bother to argue, since doing so would be the same thing as bashing my head into a wall, repeatedly. I started to walk past him to go to his room, but he took my hand in his. The hand that once upon a time had seemed so massive to me. Now, it felt small and fragile in mine.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “You okay?”
“Ah.” With his free hand, he reached out and patted me on top of my head.
Affection. From the man who’d never known the meaning of the word. I sighed and patted the top of his head.
He beamed at me.
Thirty minutes later, I dropped him off with Nell—fully dressed—and had just walked into my office when my phone buzzed an incoming call from Hazel.
“You recommended me for the job, didn’t you?”
A statement, not a question, and I wasn’t sure if she was pissed or not.
“Either you just had a stroke, or the answer is yes, you recommended me.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but she beat me to it. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “I shouldn’t have come to you like I did.”
“You can always come to me.”
“I know, but it was wrong of me to ask when I know why you can’t. I owe you a beer.”
I was glad we were okay, but I really wanted to ask why she and Tucker weren’t. But my brother, infamously private, wouldn’t thank me for butting my nose in.
“A beer sounds good.”
We disconnected and I eyed the iPad in the center of my desk, the one with a long-ass list of shit I needed to get done today. I started to dig in, remembered my convo with Caleb, and smiled as I forwarded a whole bunch of it to his email. I might’ve even cackled as I hit Send .
I eyed the clock and headed to the kitchen, telling myself I was starving.
Myself was a liar.
Every time I closed my eyes, a video replayed across my eyelids from last night. Penny breathing my name like it was the only word in her head. The feeling of her soft, warm skin up against mine. The look on her face when mine was between her sweet thighs, her fingers fisting in my hair.
Don’t stop, please don’t stop…
The words she’d whispered as I’d pleasured her with my mouth.
As if I could ever stop when she asked me anything, especially like that, her voice needy, breathless.
Stop? I wanted never to stop. At that thought, I froze in my tracks right there in the hallway, brought back to reality like I’d been dropped on my head.
Never? I wanted never to stop? I ran a shaky hand down my face.
You’re in love with her…
“You look like you just saw a ghost.” Caleb, of course.
I looked up as he stepped into my space, his hulking height and build filling the hallway. I was the oldest Colburn brother, but at six foot, I was also the shortest.
“I’m fine,” I said. “What’s up?”
He slid his hands into his pockets. “Have you heard the local news?”
“No, what happened?”
“The hardware store sold out of binoculars. Everyone’s going to Harvest Peak tonight to look for the Star Falls Legend.”
I blinked. “And?”
“Daniella asked to borrow some binoculars, but I don’t have any. Do you?”
“Why would I have binoculars?”
“I don’t know, man. Why do you have more tools and stuff than anyone I know?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I’m sure there are some in the stock room somewhere. She’s welcome to them. Or you can tell her she can take the sighting we already had. Let’s hereby officially pass it on.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t see shit.”
I snorted, but Caleb began fiddling with his glasses like he only did when he felt unsettled.
“Spit it out.”
He looked around, then lowered his voice like someone might overhear. “You still think the Legend’s bonkers, right?”
“Uh, yeah .” I paused. “Don’t you?”
“The news reported a confirmed ten new romances in the past two days. All people who’d seen three stars arching across the sky.”
“Is that ‘news’ TMZ?”
He let out a breath. “You think it’s all BS.”
I saw an opportunity to fuck with him, and sue me, I took it. “I think…” I also looked around, then lowered my voice. “We should be really careful until the news says it’s safe.”
He nodded grimly, then walked off. Hopefully to do his job.
My peace lasted twenty seconds before Bill found me.
“Got to the bottom of the missing materials,” he said with his usual scowl.
“And?”
“It was an internal mistake, made on the inventory side. Remember that day the power went out here for a couple of hours?”
“The scheduled outage,” I said. “For the PUD to do some street work. What about it?”
“The materials had been scheduled to be moved to the job that day. Only they weren’t because Daniella had called in sick at the last minute. The materials never left our warehouse.”
“So they were never missing off the job because they never got to the job?”
“Bingo,” Bill said.
“Why were they marked as gone from our inventory?”
Bill did a palms up. “Dunno. But bright side, no theft.”
I nodded, still not liking it. Our system had failed us. “I’m giving Caleb a bigger role at the company.”
Bill chewed on that for a beat. “Because you think we have a bigger problem, and you trust him because he’s blood?”
“Because I need help on the business side of things.”
“He’s our fixer. We need him in the field.”
“He’s going to do both.” We were both going to do both, and I couldn’t wait. I watched Bill thinking too hard and waited him out.
“It’s a good call.” He nodded. “Caleb’s got a way with the clients, so things are smoother in the field now.
He’s charming and it lulls people. Truth is, he’s sharp as a tack and doesn’t miss much.
Too bad you can’t also get Tucker full time.
He’s good too. He’s nosy, and nothing gets by him, which means no one gets away with shit, and that’s always a good thing. ”
I nodded. A very good thing.
Bill drew a deep breath, then hemmed and hawed a moment. Code for: I don’t want to talk about this but I have to . “I, uh, talked to Hazel. She shouldn’t have come to you like that and put you in a position of having to choose between us.”
“We’re square.”
He nodded and shifted on his feet some more. “We’re working at being square too. I actually think we could probably make something work, she and I. On the job. Together. If we had to.”
I met his gaze. “You once told me you and she would probably kill each other if you had to decide something as simple as what to eat for dinner together.”
Bill grimaced. “That was a long time ago.”
“Two weeks ago you had a blow-out fight at the bar.”
“Okay, so it’s a work in progress. But fuck, Ry…” Bill put his hands on his hips and stared down at his boots. “She’s… in trouble.”
And as her dad, he wanted to help. I got that. As her friend, I wanted to as well. “She just picked up a big job this morning. She’s going to be okay.” I’d make sure of it.
He stared at me for a long beat. “You helped her somehow.”
“Her work speaks for itself.”
A glimmer of pride in his eyes, Bill nodded and walked off.
I continued into the kitchen. Penny was there, and I could feel my blood pressure lower by just taking her in. Her back to me as she unloaded food, moving with easy, effortless grace, softly singing something I couldn’t quite catch, wriggling her hips a little to the beat only she could hear.
I could’ve watched her all day. “Morning.”
She jumped, then turned and pointed at me with a spatula. “You, sir, need a bell.”
I smiled, and she returned it. “Looking for breakfast?”
“For starters.”
She bit her lower lip, and all I wanted to do was bite it for her. Instead, I took the plate she handed me.
“Load up,” she said.
I did, and then handed it to her. “You first.”
“I’m fine.”
The words weren’t even out of her mouth when her stomach growled, loudly. I raised a brow.
She clapped a hand over her belly. “Ignore that.” It rumbled again. “And that too.”
I handed her a fork.
“It’s supposed to be for you.”
“I know. But that’s not what I’m hungry for.”
“Oh,” she breathed shakily.
“Yeah. Oh .” I shifted close enough to lightly brush my mouth over that sweet spot I’d discovered just beneath her ear. “I want to taste every inch of you, Penny.”
“Y-you already did that.”
“I want to do it again. I want to hear those little sounds you make. I want…” Pausing, I realized the truth. I wanted to be hers.
Just as I wanted her to be mine.
Knowing she’d run for the hills if I alluded to that, I kept my mouth shut and instead took the plate back and the fork.
I stabbed a big bite and brought it to her mouth.
Then, as she finished unloading the food, I alternated, one bite for her, one for me, while getting a closer look at her, and the dark smudges beneath her eyes.
“You okay?”