Chapter Five
Five
The next morning, Faith’s body was still teeming with weird emotions.
It was difficult to untangle everything she was feeling.
From what had begun when Hayley had called him attractive, to what she’d felt when she’d watched him continue to chat with the blonde, to when she had ultimately excused herself because she couldn’t keep looking at their flirtation.
She realized—when she had been lying in her bed—that the reason she had to cut her girls’ night short was that she couldn’t stand knowing whether or not Levi left the bar with the pretty blonde.
She was sure he had. Why wouldn’t he? He was a healthy, adult man. The kind who had apparently had a fake ID, so very likely a bad-boy type. Meaning that an impromptu one-night stand probably wouldn’t bother him at all.
Heck, it had probably been why he was at the bar.
Her stomach felt like acid by the time she walked into the GrayBear Construction building.
The acidic feeling didn’t improve when she saw that Joshua was already sitting there drinking a cup of coffee in the waiting room.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, then kicked the door shut with her foot and made her way over to the coffeemaker.
“Good morning.”
“Shouldn’t you be home having breakfast with your wife and kids?”
“I would be, but Danielle has an OB appointment later this morning.” Joshua’s wife was pregnant, and he was ridiculously happy about it.
And Faith was happy for him. Two of her sisters-in-law were currently pregnant.
Danielle very newly so, and Poppy due soon.
Mia and Devlin seemed content to just enjoy each other for now.
Her brothers were happy. Faith was happy for them.
It was weird to be the last one so resolutely single, though. Even with her dating life so inactive, she had never imagined she would be the last single sibling in her family.
“I need to be at the appointment,” he said. “She’s getting an ultrasound.”
“I see. So you came here to get work done early?”
“I’ve been here since six.”
“I guess I can’t scowl at you for that.”
“Why are you scowling at all?”
She didn’t say anything, and instead, she checked her buzzing text. It was from Levi. Just his address. Nothing more. It was awfully early. If he had a late night, would he be up texting her?
Maybe he’s just still up.
She wanted to snarl at that little inner voice.
“You busy today?” Joshua asked casually.
“Not really. I have some schematics to go over. Some designs to do. Emails to send.” She waved a hand. “A meeting later.”
He frowned. “I don’t have you down for a meeting.”
Great. She should have known her PR brother would want to know what meeting she would be going out for.
“It’s not, like, a work meeting. It’s, like, for...a school talk.” She stumbled over the lie, and immediately felt guilty.
“No school contacted me. Everything is supposed to go through me.”
“I can handle community work in the town of Copper Ridge, Joshua. It’s not like this is Seattle. And there’s not going to be press anywhere asking me stupid questions or trying to trip me up. It’s just Copper Ridge.”
“Still.”
The door opened and Isaiah came in, followed by his wife, Poppy, who was looking radiant in a tight, knee-length dress that showed off the full curve of her rounded stomach.
They were holding hands, with their fingers laced together, and the contrast in their skin tones was beautiful—it always ignited a sense of artistic pleasure in Faith whenever she saw them.
Well, and in general, seeing Isaiah happy made her feel that way.
He was a difficult guy. Hard to understand, and seemingly emotionless sometimes.
But when he looked at Poppy... There was no doubt he was in love.
And no doubt that his wife was in love right back.
“Good morning,” Isaiah said.
“Did you know Faith had a meeting with one of the schools today to give some kind of community-service talk?” Joshua launched right in. The dickhead.
“No,” Isaiah said, looking at her. “You really need to clear these things with us.”
“Why?”
“That’s not on my schedule,” Poppy said, pulling out her phone and poking around the screen.
“Don’t start acting like my brothers,” Faith said to her sister-in-law.
“It’s my job to keep track of things,” Poppy insisted.
“This is off the books,” Faith said. “I’m allowed to have something that’s just me. I’m an adult.”
“You’re young,” Joshua said. “You’re incredibly successful. Everyone wants a piece of that, and you can’t afford to give out endless pieces of yourself.”
She huffed and took a drink of her coffee. “I can manage, Joshua. I don’t need you being controlling like this.”
“The company functions in a specific way—”
“But my life doesn’t. I don’t need to give you an accounting of everything I do with my time. And not everything is work-related.”
She spun on her heel and walked down the hall and, for some reason, was immediately hit with a flashback from last night. Levi didn’t talk to her like she was a child. Levi almost...flirted with her. That was what last night had been like. Like flirting.
The idea gave her a little thrill.
But there was no way Levi had been flirting with...her. He had been flirting with that pretty blonde.
Faith made sure the door to her office was shut, then she opened up her office drawer, pulling out the mirror she kept in there, that she didn’t often use. Just quick checks before meetings. And not to make sure she looked attractive—to make sure she didn’t look twelve.
She tilted her chin upward, then to the side, examining her reflection. It was almost absurd to think of him wanting to flirt with her. It wasn’t that she was unattractive, it was just that she was...plain.
She had never really cared. Not really.
She could look a little less plain when she threw on some makeup, but then, when she did that, her goal was to look capable and confident, and old enough to be entrusted with the design of someone’s house. Not to be pretty.
She twisted her lips to the side, then moved them back, making a kiss face before relaxing again. Then she sighed and put the mirror back in her drawer. It wasn’t that she cared. She was a professional. And she wasn’t going to...act on any weird feelings she had.
Even if they were plausible.
It was just... When she had talked to Levi last night she had left feeling like a woman. And then she had come into work this morning and her brothers had immediately reset her back to the role of little girl.
She thought about that so effectively that before she knew it, it was time for her to leave to go to Levi’s place.
She pulled a bag out of her desk drawer—her makeup bag—and made the snap decision to go for an entirely different look, accomplished with much internet searching for daytime glamour and an easy tutorial.
Then she fluffed her hair, shaking it out and making sure the curls looked a little bit tousled.
She threw the bag back into her desk and stood, swaggering out of her office, where she was met by Isaiah, who jerked backward and made a surprised sound.
“What?” she asked.
“You look different.”
She waved a hand. “I thought I would try something new.”
“You’re going to give a talk at one of the...schools?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Which school?” he pressed.
She made an exasperated sound. “Why do you need to know?” He said nothing, staring at her with his jaw firmed up. “You need to know because you need it to be in Poppy’s planner, because if it’s not in Poppy’s planner it will feel incomplete to you, is that it?”
She’d long since given up trying to understand her brother’s particular quirks. He had them. There was no sense fighting against them. She was his sister, so sometimes she poked at them, rather than doing anything to help him out. That was the way the world worked, after all.
But she’d realized as she’d gotten older that he wasn’t being inflexible to be obnoxious. It was something he genuinely couldn’t help.
“Yes,” he responded, his tone flat.
If he was surprised that she had guessed what the issue was, he didn’t show it. But then, Isaiah wouldn’t.
“Copper Ridge Elementary,” she said, the lie slipping easily past her lips, and she wondered who she was.
A woman. That’s who she was.
A woman who had made an executive decision about her own career and she did not need her brothers meddling in it.
And her makeup wasn’t significant to anything except that she had been sitting there feeling bad about herself and there was no reason to do that when she had perfectly good eyeliner sitting in her desk drawer.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Are we done? Can you add it to the calendar and pacify yourself and leave me alone?”
“Is everything okay?” he asked, the question uncharacteristically thoughtful.
“I’m fine, Isaiah. I promise. I’m just... Joshua is right. I’ve been working a lot. And I don’t feel like the solution is to do less. I think it might be...time that I took some initiative, make sure I’m filling my time with things that are important to me.”
Of course, she was lying about it being schoolchildren, which made her feel slightly guilty. But not guilty enough to tell the truth.
Isaiah left her office then, to update the planner, Faith assumed. And Faith left shortly after.
She put the address to Levi’s house in her car’s navigation system and followed the instructions, which led her on much the same route she had taken to get up the mountain to meet him the first time, at the building site.
It appeared that his rental property was on the other side of that mountain, on a driveway that led up the opposite side that wound through evergreen trees and took her to a beautiful, rustic-looking structure.
It was an old-fashioned, narrow A-frame with windows that overlooked the valley below. She appreciated it, even if it wasn’t something she would ever have put together.
She had a fondness for classic, cozy spaces.