Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Reid
“Wait.” My brother Ethan held the coffeepot aloft and stared at me. “You have a job? Seriously?”
“Don’t look so surprised.” I reached past him to grab a mug from the cupboard. “Rumor has it I’m Trickle Creek’s best handyman.”
Ethan laughed and thankfully filled my cup before returning the pot to the machine.
“What? You don’t think so?” I leaned against the cupboard and glared at him.
“Oh no.” My brother shook his head with a grin. “I don’t doubt that you’re the best. But you’re also the grumpiest. And the way I heard it is that you can’t keep your mouth shut long enough to keep a job these days.”
“Grayson?”
Ethan nodded and took a sip of his coffee.
“He doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about.” I shook my head and muttered a string of expletives under my breath. The last thing I needed was my own twin brother running his mouth about my attitude on the job.
Even if it was true.
“I don’t know,” Ethan said. “He mentioned the other day about this huge opportunity you had to fix up the Tamarack Inn.”
I lifted my eyebrows and waited to see what else my twin had to say about me.
“To hear Grayson tell it, the Walkers’ granddaughter came in looking for a little help and you turned it down. He also mentioned she’s very pretty.”
“Did he?” I exhaled slowly, counting to ten under my breath.
“He sure did.” Ethan wiggled his eyebrows.
I had to fight back the urge to say something I would definitely regret. After all, I was still living in his house.
“Too bad, though,” he continued. “Gray said you were a total dick to her, and she hired Danny Davis instead.”
I choked on my coffee. “Grayson needs to learn to keep his mouth shut or get the facts straight,” I said when I’d recovered. “He doesn’t have a fucking clue what he’s talking about.”
“She’s not cute?”
“No,” I said. “That part he got right. Avery’s very fucking pretty.” There was zero point in arguing that fact. Ethan had two eyes in his head, and in a town the size of Trickle Creek, it was only a matter of time before he met Avery himself.
A surge of jealousy and protectiveness I had no right to filled me. “Which means, you need to stay away from her.” I shot him a glare over the rim of my cup.
My brother only laughed. “Right, because as a single dad of a hormonal pre-teen daughter, you think I have any interest in getting involved with another woman?” He shook his head. “She’s all yours.”
“She’s not mine at all.” I set my cup down and grabbed a granola bar from the box on the counter to serve as my breakfast. “But she is my boss,” I added. “Your source got that piece of information wrong.”
“No shit?”
I nodded. “There’s no way I’d let Danny fuckin’ Davis anywhere near that beautiful old inn.”
“Or the pretty young inn owner, eh?”
I spun around and snarled at my brother, who only laughed harder.
“Whatever. I’m just glad you’re working. Maybe you’ll be able to get your own place.”
I didn’t miss the way his voice changed. “You kicking me out, brother?”
“Not yet.”
“But soon.”
“You know we love having you.”
It was my turn to laugh.
“We do,” he said. “Especially Quinn. And it’s nice to have an extra set of hands to help with her.”
My niece was a hormonal pre-teen, but she was the best thing that had happened to our family in a long time. And definitely, the very best thing to ever come out of my big brother’s ill-fated marriage.
“Hey.” I waved off his explanations. “It’s not a big deal. It’s time for me to get my space anyway. And a bigger workshop. I noticed some boxes moving in.”
Ethan’s face lit up. “My supplies are starting to arrive. I’m hoping to get something going in a few days and pretty soon I’ll have a few brews to sample.”
It was hard not to get excited about my brother’s vision for a local brewery, especially when you saw the way it lit him up. Ethan deserved it after everything he’d been through with his ex.
“I can’t wait, brother.” I poured the rest of my coffee into a go-cup and stuck my phone in my pocket. “I better get going.”
“Don’t want to be late for the boss lady on the first day,” Ethan said. “Especially if she’s as cute as I hear.”
“Uh-huh.”
His laughter followed me down the hall before he called after me. “Don’t forget you promised to meet Quinn for an ice cream this afternoon.”
“You know I won’t.” I threw up an arm in a wave. “See ya later.”
It was a short drive to the Tamarack Inn and not nearly long enough to get my brother’s comments about Avery out of my head. I was going to have to pay my twin brother a visit later to make sure he kept his mouth shut about shit he knew nothing about.
And Grayson certainly didn’t know anything about Avery or how I may or may not feel about her.
Did he?
Having an identical twin brother had its advantages, but it also had more than its fair share of disadvantages, too. And this was a perfect example of the latter.
Ultimately, it didn’t matter what I thought about Avery. She was about to be my boss. Even if I couldn’t quite figure out how that had happened either.
I’d replayed the whole scene in the Bean Bag over and over in my mind. If it had been anyone but Avery, I would have been positive that I’d been set up.
But Avery didn’t seem like the devious type. Not even a little. She was far too good.
Far too good for me, that was for sure.
But I wasn’t going to date her, I reminded myself as I pulled up in front of the inn and saw her petite form dressed in jean shorts, a bright-blue T-shirt, and a ball cap with her blonde ponytail sticking out the back.
She was bent over in the garden, tugging on a dead shrub, her perfectly round ass up in the air.
I swallowed hard and scrubbed a hand over my face.
No. I wasn’t going to date her.
I was going to work for her.
That was it.