Chapter 13
Before I can plan to go to Denver, I need to check in with Jason. So, two days after Dalton proposed that awesome idea of Claire riding with me, I head to the Goldfinch, where he’s working.
Honestly, if Dalton didn’t suggest his cousin should hitch a ride in my truck, I would’ve offered myself. When she mentioned looking up the drive time details, it was on the tip of my tongue to tell her I could take her there. The man saved me from having to put myself out there and ask instead.
As I drive along the crappy road up to the BB, I wonder how far along my older half-brother is on the flooring install in Marian’s kitchen. Even though Jason retired a few years ago and gave me his part of the company our dad left us, he’s never gone idle. I doubt he’ll ever properly quit and exchange his existence for a lifetime of relaxing and lazing around. Since he quit the construction work with the company I now oversee, he’s taken up more handyman sort of tasks. He’s also taken up a friendship with Marian that I suspect might be something more.
I’m glad if that’s the case. Marian is a sweet woman, and I’ve always felt bad about her husband passing away when he did. She’s been alone up on this mountain for so long. When Lauren showed up, then Caleb, they breathed new life into her world. Each time I see her, she’s smiling like a doting mother on Lauren and Aubrey, and I’m relieved she won’t be isolated and lonely for the rest of her days. She deserves love, and if she’s got her eye on Jason, I’m damned happy for him, too. He’s been a stubborn bachelor all his life, never wanting to settle down when he was committed to Dad’s company. Now that I’m the man in charge of our “legacy,” he seems much more open to Marian’s company as more than her being a client of his work around the bed-and-breakfast.
Meanwhile, Claire is kind of my client, a guest at a cabin I’m fixing up, but still…I shake my head at my thoughts. Still, I never drive clients to Denver for the hell of it. Claire, whether I want her to be or not, is starting to sneak under my skin, which is decidedly inconvenient.
I park at the BB and head inside to look for Jason. Lo and behold, there he is, on his hands and knees in the kitchen, three-fourths of the way done.
“You’re not overdoing your back, are you?” I ask as I enter.
“I’m not even worth a hello or a greeting? Straight to the old-man jokes?” He peers up at me, grinning.
With a twenty-two-year age gap between us, this running inside joke never loses its fun.
“Nah. I’m serious.”
Jason shakes his head, kneeling up as I lower to the floor to pick up where he needs the next slat of wood. “My back is fine.”
But three years ago, about the time he considered leaving the company, he threw his back out, and it marked the change of his desire to keep up with the demands of manual labor outside with big equipment. It’s a good fit for him, though, despite the ease with which we worked after Dad passed away. We are brothers from another mother, but Jason’s two decades on me always made him more of a father figure than a sibling. Regardless, he is a solid coworker to rely on, a dependable brother, no matter what.
Unlike Kevin. I sigh, wishing I could move on past my issues with him. It wasn’t all my fault. Kevin was never close with Dad, not like Jason and I were. He was into teaching, more studious and academic—less blue-collar and smarter, like Gina decided so long ago when she’d date me, then flirt with him. Date him, then still want to come back to me.
Kevin simply never fit in with the three of us, and when Dad passed and left Jason and me the company, a monetary grudge was combined with the differences between me and my youngest brother.
“Have you talked to Kevin lately?” Jason asks once we fall into a seamless rhythm of handing boards to one another.
I swear, it’s like he can read my mind sometimes. I’m not sure how to reply, though. I never am. Maybe that’s why Jason always brings him up whenever he can because he knows how both of us will resist reconciling. Kevin and I never got along that well as kids. Then Gina came between us, making me realize women would always want a stable man with a clean-cut job like Kevin’s over my more rugged and unpredictable life in construction. And since then, we’ve festered in a limbo of awkwardness around each other. Kevin and I haven’t behaved like close relatives for several years, but I can’t see why Jason seems to think I’m the one to reach out to Kevin.
“Not really.”
“Hmm.” He carries on, slotting boards in and tapping them into place. Jason will never give up and mentioning Kevin in hopes that my answer will be different one day, but he’s a good enough guy to know not to push.
Before he can follow up with something else, I speak up. It’s more like blurting, a desperate spew of words that I’ve been thinking about constantly. Claire is always on my mind, so it shouldn’t be a shock that she’s the first thing out of my mouth. “I’m driving Claire, Dalton’s cousin, to Denver when I go tomorrow.”
Jason cringes slightly as he moves with the progress of the floor being put in. He can claim all he wants that his back is okay, but it looks like his knees are suffering more. “Short blonde? Yeah, I saw her when she stopped in here to pick up a delivery that Caleb had sent here instead of to the cabin she’s staying in.”
“The very crappy cabin.” I shake my head, loathing how beat-up that building is. “Dalton hired me to do repairs there, and the list is long.”
“And now you’re driving her to Denver?” he asks. “Out of the goodness of your heart?”
I furrow my brow at his teasing. “Are you trying to imply I’m not good?”
“Depends on if you’re taking her as a favor for Dalton, a paying client, or if you plan on taking her for something else.”
I hate that he’s reminding me that Claire should be hands-off. She’s practically Dalton’s little sister, and even though Dalton is paying me for my construction work, he’s become a good friend, too. And dudes just don’t go after a buddy’s little sister.
I shrug, avoiding answering him altogether.
“Aha.”
I shake my head. “No. I’m just a convenience for her.”
“One and done?”
I shake my head again. “She just sees me as an easy-to-find supplier of manual labor. Just someone who can fix the issues with that cabin. Or drive her to Denver since I’m already going there to pick up my trailer.”
“You’re not convenient, Sawyer,” he says tiredly, no doubt exhausted by the way I cling to that label.
One girl came between me and Kevin, and with the polar opposites between us, it’s been impossible to get over that stigma that clings to me. Just a convenient laborer. Just another man. Dime a dozen and dirty. Someone Claire would never see herself with.
“When’s the last time you dated anyone?”
I think back, trying to place the last time I went on a date or enjoyed a woman’s company in bed. It’s been a while, but I haven’t been looking anyway, too busy with work. Jason can’t accuse me of being celibate. I’m not. I’ve had girlfriends, but none of them were ever very serious. None of them ever made me feel like I couldn’t get them out of my head, not like Claire.
I didn’t mean to bring up Claire with Jason, but I realize that when I talk about her, I feel good. And when I think about her—which is nonstop—I can’t get her out of my mind. The lines are blurring between viewing her as a client or as Dalton’s guest and just a sexy woman I’d like to get to know better.
Maybe it’s because she fights with me every chance she gets. That antagonism that is so natural between us makes her something like a forbidden enemy I’m lured to in the sense that we always want what we can’t have.
Or maybe it’s because deep down beneath the high-maintenance exterior, I can recognize and respect her drive and work ethic. A woman knowing what she wants and not giving up pursuing her dreams is such a turn-on.
Whatever it is about her, I’m starting to really look forward to bringing her to Denver with me. Even if I struggle with the knowledge that I’ve got no business wishing she could be a part of my life and belong in my world, she won’t fail to amuse me or charm me.
So long as she isn’t wearing another sexy robe in the truck…
I’m saved from having to answer Jason about my rusty love life when Marian pops her head around the corner. “Looking good! It’s almost done!”
Jason grins up at her. “And soon you can resume sticking with your system in the kitchen, huh?” he teases.
“Speaking of…” she says with a wide, maternal smile for me. “Sawyer, are you staying for dinner tonight? Lauren and Caleb are coming over soon.”
That’s got to be really convenient. Caleb and Lauren had their big house built adjacent to the bed-and-breakfast, so they can wander over for this woman’s delicious food whenever they want. I almost want to be jealous. Her chicken is to die for, but I know if I stay and enjoy the plate they might set out for me, I’ll want to linger and talk far into the evening.
“Thanks, but not tonight.” I want to go home and get to bed early. I intend to stave off this excitement about having Claire all to myself tomorrow, and being well-rested is the first step. “I’ve got to drive to Denver tomorrow morning.”
And I can’t wait to see how it goes.
I really am a glutton for punishment, craving the presence of one beautiful woman who will only see me as someone who does the grunt work no one else wants to put up with.
And I never learn, either.