Chapter 6
[Trinity]
Ihated how I hated that Dart had disappeared last night, but it was a good reminder that he was as unreliable as a cool breeze on a hot summer day.
The morning progressed like a well-oiled machine, as in no structure. I woke when Mirabelle cried out, fed her a bottle, then snuggled with her a bit before attempting to clean. Laundry was suddenly a daily necessity, and bottle washing was constant. I needed to get to the store and—
The distinct clatter of a metal ladder stalled my mental list of things to do.
I glance at the ceiling as if I can see through it to where the noise is coming from.
Everything in me says don’t panic, but I rush up the staircase to my bedroom, double-checking all was well with Mirabelle in the bassinet.
Then I hear a thump on the roof, like Santa decided to visit early, followed by the distinct thud of someone walking above my head.
“What the . . .”
Leaving Mirabelle sleeping, I race down the stairs and yank open the front door with enough force that it slams against the interior wall. I am only slightly gentler with the screen door that makes a distinct crick.
Rounding the house, when I probably should have been calling the police, the sharp rip of shingles being torn from my roof hits my ears.
“What the hell are you doing?” I shout at the intruder who thinks breaking into my house by going through the roof is a viable idea.
Within seconds, Dart is standing on the edge of the roof, two stories up, staring down at me. A god on a mountaintop gazing down at a minion.
“I’m replacing the roof,” he shouts down, like the situation is obvious.
I don’t need him to fix the roof, even if I had been trying to get my brothers over here for weeks.
What was the point of them owning a home exterior company if they couldn’t put family first?
Then again, I would be getting the lifetime guarantee of free service along with a friends and family discount on roofing materials.
“You’re going to wake Mirabelle.”
“Who?” he hollers back at me.
“The baby,” I growl.
He stiffens before turning around and climbing down the rickety extension ladder that had been gathering dust in the garage.
Something on my list of things to do was to clear out the space that once belonged solely to Dart.
His man cave, he’d tease, about the collection of automobile memorabilia and a Chevy Camaro he’d been working on in hopes of racing her one day.
He eventually did get to race her.
As he scrambles down the ladder, like the professional construction worker he once was, my gaze falls to the butt of his jeans.
Ones where the worn denim clings to the firmness of his fine ass.
His legs are long, yet the rest of those jeans still outline the strength in them.
A small tear just below the back pocket shows a sliver of skin.
As he clomps to the ground, feet landing without touching the final rungs, the sound snaps my attention away from his backside.
Because I don’t care how well those jeans fit him.
“About that . . .” he starts, spinning toward me and approaching.
“About what?” I blink, my hand coming to my chest, as if I can slow my pulse, which races through my veins because of the way he’s staring at me. Like he wants to rush me, devour me.
But he couldn’t possibly want those things.
His amber eyes scatter my thoughts for another beat before my brain catches back up to our conversation.
I scowl. “She’s not a that. She’s a she. A baby. A— You know what? I don’t owe you an explanation. Stay away from my roof.”
His mouth ticks, one corner lifting higher than the other, like I suggested something dirty. Like it had whenever I did suggest something dirty. His gaze roams down my body, taking his time to coast over my breasts and settle on my hips.
“It’s my roof, too,” he mutters. His gaze snaps back to my face and his expression sobers. “And I think a baby . . . Mirabelle . . . resting under it, is a pretty big deal between us.”
“There’s nothing between us,” I argue.
Dart flinches. The edge of his jaw clenches like I’ve taken the hammer dangling off his tool belt and whacked him in the knees.
“Trin,” he whispers, strained and winded. Hurt is handwritten in every letter of my shortened name.
Exhaling, I cover my belly with my hand, like I’m the one who took a punch to the gut, knowing that lashing out at him isn’t going to get him out of here. And I need him gone.
I need him out of sight and swept back to the recesses of my mind where I keep him filed away between broken heart and failed marriage.
“Look.” I take a deep breath. “I don’t need your help. Clint or Cort will get to it.” Eventually.
I’m so proud of my eldest and youngest brother, who own Haven Exteriors, an exterior painting and roofing company, that has really grown since they started.
Dart used to work for them. He’d not only been Tate’s best friend as a kid, but he was practically one of the family by association with Clint and Cort. Then he officially became family when he married me.
“How are your brothers?” he asks, casual, calm, like it hadn’t hurt either of them that he’d quit their business. Quit their brotherliness with him.
“Don’t,” I choke, weakly warning him my brothers are off limits.
Don’t act like he cares about the rest of my family, especially Clint, who worked side-by-side with Dart before he and Cort started their own business and brought Dart into the fold like one of them.
Don’t even think about Tate, his best friend since childhood, who took the breakup of our marriage almost as hard as I did.
All of this was off limits. Dart taking interest in the roof. Him standing in my yard. Him standing so close to me.
He squints toward the front yard. “Still gonna fix the roof.”
My roof, I want to argue. Instead, I say, “Mirabelle is sleeping. I need some sleep.” I should be napping, but a load of laundry calls and baby bottles need washing.
I’d taken a leave of absence from the hospital, but I was only given six weeks off.
So much for FMLA—Family Medical Leave of Absence.
The hospital was short-staffed. Every nurse mattered.
At one time, I’d taken on more responsibility in my department.
Took every extra shift. Worked doubles to avoid coming home.
Most of that time away hadn’t mattered. Dart wasn’t here either. He’d been out at an old coal mine canyon, running circles in that Chevy Camaro he’d finally fixed up. Around and around and around he went, until he caught the attention of someone.
“You look tired.” He reaches for my face, thumb ready to swipe under my eye, but I jerk back.
His intended concern mingles with another flicker of hurt in his eyes, causing my stomach to ache once more. Then again, he doesn’t really care about me.
He left.
I do not want his concern. I do not want him looking at me like he is. Like he wants to take my burdens and carry the load a while.
“Let me fix the roof,” he says finally, softly, like he truly wants to tackle the protective layer of this house.
“Go away,” I mutter with no fight in the demand.
“Not happening.” He straightens and hooks his thumbs into his tool belt.
Construction worker porn is a real thing, and once upon a time, seeing Dart in a tight tee and faded jeans with that thick belt at his waist would set my heart fluttering.
Home renovations were like an aphrodisiac.
He’d fix something, and I’d want him to break me in the most pleasurable ways.
But not anymore.
When the silence between us becomes too much, he turns back for the ladder. His boot-covered foot hits the first rung with a clang. The distinct sound of metal rattles against the house. The hammer at his belt swings forward, adding another clank to the symphony of noise.
And a sharp cry comes through my phone.
A baby monitor app is almost always open on the device, and I pull it from the back pocket of my shorts.
Dart freezes as the quiet wail rings like a tornado siren. He twists toward me. “Sorry,” he whispers from feet away, then hitches his thumb toward the ladder, continuing to keep his voice quiet. “I’ll get back to this later.”
Later.
A word that holds a thousand promises. Implies a future.
We had our time. It’s now the past.
“I gotta hit the hardware store anyway.” He steps closer to me again. “I’ll be about an hour.”
The nearest hardware store is almost to Huntington, the closest large city near us.
“Don’t rush,” I mutter, spinning toward the house as Mirabelle’s cry grows more insistent.
Having the strange sense Dart is watching me, I step through the screen door without a glance back at him. But before I shut the front door, I pause, finding him at the edge of the yard, looking at me.
With his hands on his hips, nostrils flaring, he looks like an eager racehorse behind a starting gate. Like he can barely contain the energy waffling around him, the need to charge. The flicker in his eyes is recognizable.
I’ve seen that look before.
When I’d tease him with a seductive taunt or an extra sway in my hips while walking away from him. Then glance at him over my shoulder. An invitation to follow. Within seconds, he’d be chasing after me.
Once, I didn’t even make it up the staircase before he caught me, tugged down my shorts with one hand, undoing his jeans with the other, and slammed into me without any foreplay.
The extra touch wasn’t necessary. I’d already been so wet, so needy, so gone for him.
He fucked me on the stairs with my knees digging into the hardwood step. One of his arms was braced on the next highest riser, the other hand between my thighs. And all the while, he whispered sweet things in my ears.
You drive me wild.
Always so wet for me.
Take me like you own me.
A neglected part of me clenches, and I force myself to ignore the deep crater of loneliness inside me. The channel of desire clashes with the hint of attraction to my ex-husband.
No, I want to scream, like I can stop the magnetism with a simple command.
Hastily, I close the door, shutting out the memory and the sight of him.
Damn Dart Rivers for still making my body tingle and my thoughts race.
Damn those wild, whiskey eyes and the curl of his lips like he can read my mind, my memories.
Like he was thinking about the exact same one I was and wanted to re-enact it.
With me.