Chapter 14 #2
“He wanted to,” Connor said, leaning one hip against her desk. “You know what I think? You’re going to dismiss it, but I think I’m right.”
She looked up at him, curious. “What?”
“You’re too organized.”
“There is no such thing.”
“There is for a man who doesn’t want to be closely watched.”
She squinted at him. “What do you mean? If this is about Bayside Mechanical—”
“And Hawke Brothers Framing along with Gulf Breeze Electric.” He stepped to his desk and pulled a manila folder from a drawer.
In one remarkably smooth move—for a man with one wonky hand—he opened it and spread three pages across her desk. Each one was a list of contractor recommendations from Vance, organized by date and project.
“Where are you going with this?”
He pointed to each name as it appeared, again and again, across multiple change orders and project phases. “Every subcontractor recommendation Vance has made since we opened this office has come from the same three companies. Every single one.”
Meredith scanned the pages. “He has preferred vendors. That’s not unusual.”
“It’s not unusual if they’re the best options.
But I checked—like Bayside, Hawke Brothers isn’t even on the Pippin Lake approved vendor list. And Gulf Breeze Electric has a C rating with the Better Business Bureau.
These aren’t preferred vendors because they’re good.
They’re preferred because Vance prefers them. ”
She shook her head. “Maybe. And that’s Doug Fenton’s problem. But it has nothing to do with Vance cutting me off at the knees and acting like I’m here because Daddy gave me a job.”
He closed the file and nodded. “Okay. I’m just a broken-armed dental student on a hiatus, but I think that guy is intimidated by—”
“Not by me.”
“By your attention to detail. He knows Eli is pulled in a lot of different directions with a firm to run in Atlanta. Maybe he’d prefer a more distracted person on this job.”
She considered the point—and the man making it—and felt a complicated mix of gratitude and resistance.
“Keep the file,” she said. “But don’t go looking for trouble.”
“I never look for trouble.” He tucked the folder back in his drawer. “Trouble keeps showing up in my filing cabinet.”
At five-thirty, Meredith was still at her desk, rebuilding the clubhouse presentation with additional documentation that no one had asked for and no one would read.
She was cross-referencing the original design brief against the marketing materials line by line, highlighting every instance where “usable event space” appeared without the qualifier “indoor.”
It was unnecessary. It was also the only thing keeping her from calling her father and asking him to come back from Atlanta and fix everything, which she absolutely would not do.
“Meredith.” Connor was standing by her desk.
Surprised, since she hadn’t heard him move, she looked up and blinked. “Yes?”
“Stop.”
“I’m almost done.”
“You’ve been ‘almost done’ for two hours. You’re stress-revising a document that doesn’t need revising to prove a point to a man who won’t read it.”
The accuracy of that statement was annoying enough to make her lift her hands from the keyboard and mouse.
“Walk with me,” he said. “One hour. The place is called Lakeside. Let’s walk around the lake.”
“It’s a retention pond,” she corrected, trying not to notice his hair was doing the thing over his forehead. His sleeves were rolled up. Once again, even his bad arm looked good.
And he was giving her “the look”—the one that said, I’m not going to force you, but I’m right and you know it.
“Okay,” she said, giving in because…yeah, he was irresistible. “But I’m not going home until this clubhouse has three thousand indoor square feet and a pavilion where Vance’s kids will not be allowed to play.”
He snorted a laugh and put a hand on her shoulder. “Change your fancy shoes.”
For some reason, the fact that he knew she kept sneakers in her bottom drawer for job site walks touched her. It went well above and beyond “admin” duties and sailed right into…boyfriend duties.
Stop it, Mer.
Closing her eyes, she yanked open the drawer and pulled out her filthy Nikes.
“’Kay.” She was done fighting.
Construction had stopped for the day, with the trucks gone, deep muddy tracks in their wake. Dumpsters dotted the partially paved streets, with the occasional Porta-Potty in between.
But past all that, in the center of the Lakeside development, was a modest body of water ringed by a walking trail that would eventually be landscaped with native plantings and park benches.
Right now, it was mostly cleared land with a gravel path and a few young live oaks that would someday provide shade to walkers and bikers and moms with strollers.
The late afternoon light was soft, the humidity dropping toward bearable, and some birds sang as if celebrating the end of the noise and the disappearance of hard hats.
They walked in silence for a few minutes and Meredith felt her shoulders drop incrementally with each step, the tension of the day loosening its grip.
“You don’t have this job because of your dad,” Connor said.
She looked at him. “Did I say that?”
“It’s what you’ve been thinking since the meeting.”
“Well, Vance practically demanded Eli Lawson or else.” She shook her head. “And please don’t tell me he has it in for me because I’m too detail oriented.”
“Just remember something, Mer.”
She looked up at him, deeply aware it was the first time he’d ever used the nickname reserved for only her very closest friends and family. “Yes?”
“It’s the other way around. Acacia won the project because of you.”
“You don’t know that.”
He lifted a brow. “Do not underestimate your secretary’s ability to suss out the old 411 from the gals in the employee breakroom.”
Like all of the silly things he said, that made her laugh. “They’re talking about me at the water cooler?”
“Essentially, yes. The gossip is that the Alastair model won the bid. Full stop. No one else had anything even close. In fact, Greg Hollister’s assistant—”
“Doris? I actually think that’s his mother.”
“It is, but she doesn’t think people know that because she’s had work done, you know. And if anyone knew she had a forty-something son, it would kill her vibe. Direct quote.”
She chuckled, thinking of the woman who was pulled and tucked like a hospital room sheet and marveling at this man’s ability to not only fit in but…become one of “the gals in the breakroom.”
“Doris said Acacia got the contract because of your work,” he continued. “And so did her son, Greg, when your dad got the business.”
“You talked to Greg Hollister? At the water cooler?”
He laughed and shook his head. “Remember, I was around, quietly minding my own business at the Summer House, trolling for a job when the call came in.”
“I thought you were trolling for sympathy and coffee.”
“Nah. Just a little face time with…” He slid her a look. “The girl who never stops working.”
She stopped then—dead in her tracks. “You’re kidding. Of course you are. You always kid.”
“Not always.”
She let his words roll around in her head and land…somewhere she hadn’t been expecting. Or had she? The attraction was mutual, she knew. But coming out and talking about it? She wasn’t quite ready for that.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
“It’s true.”
They walked a little farther. A heron stood motionless at the water’s edge, patient and perfectly still, waiting for something beneath the surface. Like she was—waiting for something beneath the surface of this man.
“What made you want to become a dentist?” she asked.
“Oh, you know, a great experience in the chair when I was eleven.”
She laughed, but he didn’t.
“I’m serious,” he said.
“You had a great dental experience?”
He slowed his step, toeing a rock in the ground as he considered his answer and Meredith waited for it.
“I took a line drive to the teeth when I was in Little League,” he said, making her suck in a breath and put her fingers over her own teeth, realizing their worth.
“My mother freaked out. I mean, she can be pretty high drama and helicopter-y, but my dad was away on a police assignment, and she just lost it so bad that one of the other moms literally slapped her.”
Meredith didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “It must have been awful.”
“All I could taste was blood and broken teeth and hear my mother screaming,” he said. “Someone helped her get me to the ER, and then to an emergency dentist, and now…” He gave her a big smile. “Chompers courtesy of some amazing dentist.”
She’d have never suspected his beautiful teeth were veneers. “He did a great job.”
“She, actually. Dr. Jane Wahl, an artist. But more than anything, she was calm and steady and like human Valium after my mother. And to an eleven-year-old who didn’t want to be toothless? She was a saint.”
She studied him intently for a moment, enjoying the excuse to drink in every feature and not feel like she had to look away. “And that’s all it took for you to want to be a dentist?”
He lifted a shoulder. “I didn’t want to be a cop, like my dad and, eventually, my brother. I didn’t want to do the full med school thing, but I liked the idea of helping people and it seemed…secure. And the path required hard work, which I like.”
She smiled at him. “We’re similar that way.”
“Why are you such an overachiever?” he asked.
She drew back, not expecting that question. “I guess because my mom died when I was thirteen and I clung to my father like a lifeline. I never wanted to disappoint him. In fact, I wanted to be exactly like him. My mother’s death was…defining.”
“I bet,” he said softly. “Not quite the same level of tragedy, but my parents’ divorce was rough on me, too.”
“How so?” she asked.