Chapter 2
Chapter Two
S erenity punched her code into the door lock and pushed it open, immediately wrinkling her nose. “What is that?” Stale air and mildew assaulted her, and who knew why?
She lived on the coast. The smell of mildew was common enough, but not inside her shop.
Letting the door shut behind her, she walked through the first section, past the t-shirt table and mug display. The shot glasses were on her right, followed by magnets, clinging to a mirror with sunglasses and hats nearby.
The smell grew stronger, and Serenity’s heart began to pound. “Oh no.” She paused at the door that led back to her storage area, along with the stairs up to her office.
The other room that lay behind the door? Her bathroom.
She had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that she wasn’t going to like what she saw. Pushing open the swinging door, Serenity pinched her lips together and tried not to curse. The tears that pricked her eyes weren’t any better of an alternative, but at least her mother wouldn’t scold her for crying.
Two inches of standing water covered the entire storage area and looking back, Serenity realized that if any more came, it would go right over the threshold and into her actual store.
Not caring about her shoes, she hurried to the bathroom and stuck her head inside. Sure enough, the toilet was flooding over the bowl and onto the floor. It had to have been going all night, from the looks of it.
Lunging forward, Serenity tried to turn off the water at the back of the toilet, but the damage was obviously already done.
Pretty sure she had the water turned off correctly, she straightened and jumped up to sit on the small counter, biting her lip to keep from collapsing in distress. How could this have happened? How had she not heard anything last night when she walked past this very room at closing?
Serenity’s part-time worker had been on last night, but whenever possible, Serenity came by to do a walk through when it was time to close the doors.
She pushed her hands through her hair, tugging on the roots. The pinch of pain helped ground her, and Serenity was able to slow down her breathing so she wasn’t as close to hyperventilating.
“What do I do?” she whispered to the quiet building. Glancing back out the door, the tears threatened again. All her boxes. All her storage. All the shipments of souvenirs. How much would she be able to save? Things like shirts and clothing would be lost if they were soaked with toilet water. Other stuff wasn’t porous, but still…the work…the money!
Serenity groaned. “Life just keeps getting better and better,” she muttered. Shaking her head, she pulled out her phone and stared at it for a few moments before giving in.
She’d spent years avoiding the McCoy family, but this…this was an emergency, and Serenity had no one else to turn to. Her friends might help her clean up, but that wouldn’t be enough. If this water had been standing all night, Serenity needed more than a clean up. She needed a complete restoration.
“Hello?” One of the twins answered on the second ring, and Serenity almost hung up. “Hello?”
“Uh, hey,” Serenity said, her voice barely audible. She cleared her throat. “Hey…this is Serenity. Serenity Michaels?” She almost slapped her forehead. Why had she said that like a question? She knew her own name…most days.
“Little Sister!” the twin crowed, using the old nickname they’d given Serenity in high school. “Haven’t heard from you in ages. How’s it going?”
“First of all, who am I talking to?” Serenity asked, feeling a little more confident now that the twin hadn’t hung up on her.
A low chuckle that sounded too much like Luca came through the phone. “Tate.”
“Thank you, Tate,” Serenity said formally. “I…” She blew out a long breath. “I need help. I walked in to discover that my store flooded this morning.”
There was some fumbling on the other side of the line, and Serenity could have sworn she heard a few curse words. It made her smile, as she remembered what it was like to have the twins as friends. She hadn’t exactly lost them, but when Luca had cut off all communication, she’d sort of drifted from the family. She didn’t blame Jett and Tate for what Luca had done. But part of her wished they’d tried a little harder to help her.
“Tell me exactly what you see. Do you know what’s leaking?”
“The toilet downstairs,” she explained, going through what she’d seen since arriving. “I think I turned off the water, but…you know…” Serenity shrugged even though she knew Tate couldn’t see her. “I don’t really trust that I know what I’m doing.”
“Well, good thing you called the guys who do,” Tate assured her.
Serenity couldn’t help but smile a little. The McCoy’s had always been on the confident side, but never enough to be jerks. Big, popular, strong, and capable. The kind of guys who could back up their attitudes, though Luca, of all three of them, had been more teddy bear than predator.
Serenity shoved the traitor out of her head. She didn’t need him taking up space right now. She needed to solve the problem in front of her, and while that meant dealing with the McCoy’s, it didn’t mean dealing with Luca.
Thank goodness.
“Hang tight,” Tate told her. “I’m sending a guy over to make sure the water is well and truly off, then he’ll do a little investigating about the leak itself. Okay?”
“Okay,” Serenity said weakly. She was so grateful she’d called Tate. Serenity had no idea where to start with all this clean up. Was she going to have to shut down the store? For how long?
While she wasn’t hurting for money, it was her sole source of income, and more than a few days wouldn’t be awesome, especially with the tourist season coming up.
“We’ll more than likely need to shut off the main water supply,” Tate continued as papers shuffled in the background. “So close up shop for the day. But hopefully, we’ll have you back up and running, with a few quick modifications.”
Serenity blew out a breath, and a tiny piece of her relaxed. It really had been the right choice to call the McCoys. “Thank you,” she whispered hoarsely, then cleared her throat again. She’d never been the kind to fall apart easily, and she wasn’t going to start now. Problems were made to be solved, and Tate had given her enough to help Serenity get started.
She could work with that.
“I appreciate your help, Tate. You and Jett, since I’m sure he’s in the background somewhere.” Serenity tried to add a light note to her voice, but it was harder than expected. Her life had just gotten unexpectedly difficult and precisely at a time when she was already struggling.
“Eh, it’s what big bro’s do,” Tate teased. “I haven’t seen your carroty hair in forever. Maybe this was a sign that we’d let it go too long.”
“Maybe,” Serenity responded, not even bothering to get upset about his name for her hair. The twins had always treated her exactly like older brothers, just as he described, and that included painful, but funny nicknames. Today wasn’t the day to make a fuss about it. “But seriously…thank you.”
“Anytime, Carrot…anytime.”
Luca wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. It wasn’t even that hot outside, as Oregon was in the first blushes of spring, but somehow, swinging a hammer for a couple of hours was enough to have him sweating like a pig.
The sky was gray, but Luca could still feel heat on the back of his neck and he cursed the fact that he’d forgotten sunscreen. Believing you wouldn’t get burnt on an overcast day was a total rookie mistake and one that many tourists paid for every year.
Luca shouldn’t have been a rookie.
He made a mental note to grab some for his head and his neck on his way home from work today and put his focus back on smashing the nail in front of him into the two-by-four he was currently putting in place.
“You look awfully familiar,” a guy a few feet down said to Luca.
Luca glanced up, squinting slightly. “I suppose I do.”
The middle-aged man gave Luca an amused grin. “Name’s Stew.” He waited, obviously wanting Luca to reciprocate.
“Luca,” he said, grabbing another nail out of his pouch.
“And?”
Luca glanced up. “And?”
“Are you going to tell me why you’re familiar?”
Luca sighed. He didn’t want to go around declaring he was the boss’ brother. Most employees took offense to that kind of thing, assuming the family member would get special treatment or something.
From the job Luca had been given, there would absolutely be no special treatment on his end at all, but that didn’t mean others would believe it. He was definitely working his way up from the bottom.
“Your last name wouldn’t happen to match the name on the company truck, would it?” Stew grinned, as if he knew he’d cornered Luca.
“It might.”
Stew put his hands in the air. “No judgment here. I heard they had a brother. I’ve just never met you.”
Luca nodded. “I suppose you have now.”
Stew chuckled. “I can’t decide if they put you on framing duty because they don’t like you, or because they want to show you who’s boss.” He stuck a nail in his mouth and grabbed his hammer out of his belt.
“Probably a little of both,” Luca admitted, making Stew chuckle again.
The conversation died for a moment while the work continued. The sounds of nail guns, wood beams, and shouting workers kept the place hopping but was hard on Luca’s ears.
Along with the sunscreen, he was gonna need earplugs.
“When we get a little warmer, we’ll know how they really feel about you,” Stew continued, as if they hadn’t just taken a break. “Roofing will start then.”
Luca made a face. “I guess only time will tell.”
Stew pulled the nail from his mouth and began tapping it into the wood. “How long did you serve?”
Luca paused. “What?”
Stew indicated the eyepatch. “I suppose you could have had an accident of some kind, but it seems more likely, given your size and all that you were wounded in the service.”
Luca pinched his lips together. “Nine years.”
Stew nodded. “Right out of high school, then?”
Luca nodded.
“And now you’re hitting nails.”
Luca huffed and nodded again. “I suppose I am.”
“You seem like the type that might be better off in a gym.” Stew’s grin softened his words, but the curiosity behind them was getting to Luca. He wasn’t exactly the effusive type by nature. “Boxer maybe?”
Luca frowned and pointed to his eyepatch. “I think that career choice was taken away from me.”
“True enough.” Stew nodded slowly. “I suppose when you have no peripheral vision, you can’t exactly defend yourself.” He grinned again. “Still…you’re big enough to intimidate most guys out of the ring before it ever gets started.”
Luca grunted and shook his head. Stew was chatty, but Luca didn’t think he was trying to be rude.
“You’ll have to forgive Stewie,” Tate said as he walked up behind Luca and slapped his shoulder. “The guy has three teenage daughters at home. He never gets a word in there, so he gets them all out at work.”
Stew laughed and shrugged. “Just making friendly conversation, boss. Nothing wrong with that.”
“As long as the framing goes up, you can talk as much as you want, Stew.” Tate gave Luca’s shoulder a squeeze. “Hey, can we chat for a moment?”
“In trouble already, Luca?” Stew called out. “Better be careful. That McCoy family are crazy.”
Tate rolled his eyes. “I’m putting you on the next septic dig, Stew! See if I don’t!”
Laughter grew softer behind the men as they walked out of the building and away from the other workers.
“Is something wrong?” Luca asked. “I didn’t think I was so out of practice that three hours on the job would already see me fired.”
Tate chuckled, but the sound was strained, setting Luca’s senses on edge. “Nah, nothing like that.” Tate put his hands on his hips and sighed, then squinted up at his brother. “I need to send you to a different job.”
Luca frowned. “Okay.”
“There’s been an emergency downtown. A flood in one of the shops. I’m going to put you in charge of clean-up and then the renovation.”
Luca blew out a breath and rubbed a hand over his sweaty head. “That’s kind of a big project. I haven’t done construction work since high school. Are you sure that you really want me there? I’m sure you have someone else who would be a better fit.” Not to mention the favoritism he’d been worried about earlier sounded like it was rearing its head. Would the other workers even listen to him if he was put in charge?
Tate shook his head. “I’m hoping this will be a mostly one man job. You’re welcome to the subs as you need them, but I think you can probably handle most of it yourself, except maybe the plumbing.”
Luca jerked back. “What? Just me? Why? Why not send a crew and get it done faster?”
Tate rubbed the back of his neck. “Well…I’m not sure I can spare that many?—”
“Cut it, Tate.” Luca folded his arms over his chest. “I’m half blind, not stupid. Why are you really doing this?”
Tate blew out a breath. “Promise not to break my nose?”
Luca narrowed his eye but didn’t respond.
Tate huffed. “The person who needs help is a friend. And we’d like you to personally oversee the project.”
Luca’s heart began to pound against his ribs. He had a sneaking suspicion of where this was going, and right now, his emotions were all over the place. Fear because he wasn’t ready, eagerness because it had been too long, and worry because he hated that she’d had a tragedy at the shop.
“Who?” he asked hoarsely. He had to clarify this. Maybe the hurricane of turmoil was for nothing.
One side of Tate’s mouth pulled up in an apologetic smile. “Sweet Serenity needs your help, Rambo. Are you willing to give it to her?”