Chapter 6
“Oh my God,” she whispered, her eyes filled with horror. “Why didn’t he tell me this?”
Why fucking indeed? You can bet your ass I was going to find out. This was so unlike Jerome that I couldn’t explain it. In all the years I’d known him, he’d never made a mistake with such deadly consequences.
“It is unlike him,” Dad admitted, covering Phoebe’s hand with his, giving her a reassuring squeeze.
My world narrowed to that point of contact.
“It will be fixed in two weeks,” I promised. “Your home will be safe.”
If she agreed to sign with us, that was. After behaving like a total dick, I wasn’t about to turn her down if Dad managed to make up for my idiocy. It was an uncomfortable feeling to be told off at thirty by your father, but I deserved every word.
Shaking her head, she still looked past me. “No. You guys already told me that you were busy when I called last week. We’ll just stay in the city until the house is safe.”
Meaning until she found another contractor.
“Phoebe,” Dad said her name softly, hooking a finger under her chin to make her look at him.
“That is your right, but I swear to you, we’ll make your house safe.
There are times when bathroom renos and new flooring can be set aside; this is one of those times.
It would be our privilege to work on Winterbourne Manor. ”
It killed me that she all but clung to my father, eschewing any contact with me.
Lachlan was sequestered in her SUV where he’d been until Dad showed up.
Once I came out, she’d put him back in the car, using the word “Faolán” again.
It seemed some kind of code between them.
The second she said it, he stopped whatever he was doing and obeyed her without question.
I really hated that she used that word in connection with me.
“I can do the work, of course,” Dad answered her question, “but Ty has a specialist qualification to work on pre-nineteen hundred homes.”
Dad shot me a look out of the corner of his eye.
I took a deep breath, squaring my shoulders. “Phoebe.” I moved so I was standing directly in front of her. Dad was right: being an adult sucked. But I could be a man, even if I didn’t love being an adult sometimes. “I owe you an apology.”
That seemed to startle her. Green eyes found mine, and I felt that look somewhere deep.
“What happened in the house…that isn’t…” Dad shot me a sharp look of reproach.
“It was me, but it wasn’t. I would never deliberately hurt—” You, I wanted to say, already feeling overly protective.
“—anyone. I reacted poorly—” Jesus, now it was my turn to stammer.
But the familiar sickening twist of my stomach took hold, and once again stark images of blood, twisted wood, and a tiny hand flashed in front of my eyes until I couldn’t see Phoebe or Dad.
“There was a house that collapsed.” Dad took over, giving me the look he gave me when Halston, our dog, was hit by a car when I was seven.
“A city couple had moved here from Washington. The house they purchased was well known to have issues, but we didn’t know how bad it was.
Ty went out and gave them a quote. He told them of the structural issues, filed the paperwork with City Hall…
he did everything right.” I got the message.
“They were told to leave. They had two small children. A little girl who was eight and a boy who was four. We had to finish another job, or we would have gotten to work straight away…”
Phoebe’s lips trembled.
“We were working a job out of town.” Dad repeated the story that lived in my nightmares. “We’d been at the café when Wade got the dispatch call.”
“Oh…” Her whisper was barely audible, her green eyes luminous, tears making the green and gold flecks glow.
“We arrived with Wade.” Dad’s voice turned gruff, his large shoulders rising and falling rapidly. “Part of the house still stood, but we didn’t wait for the rest of the first responders.”
Phoebe turned to Dad.
“I found their daughter underneath the stairs,” Dad continued. “She was hurt, but the stairs were fortunately structurally intact enough to protect her.”
Her breath caught. I pulled at the neckline of my T-shirt which suddenly felt too tight.
“Ty found their son at the bottom of the fireplace that had been in the living room.”
“Oh, God…” Her voice broke, a lone tear slipping down her cheek.
“The fireplace was in the basement at that point, crushed beneath—”
She shook her head violently, her eyes seeking mine. “No. Please. I—I am so sorry. That had to be devastating.”
I needed to explain to her, to tell her what the aftermath was, but I still couldn’t.
Without thinking, I reached out, wiping away the tear that left a streak down her cheek. “Please let me fix your house. I swear it will be safe for you and your son.” You will be safe with me. I didn’t need to say it. My meaning hung heavily in the air.
She searched my face for a long minute, then flicked her gaze back to Dad. “Okay.”
I caught Dad’s inclination of his head out of the corner of my eye, but I didn’t really see anything but Phoebe.
“Mom?” Lachlan’s voice cut through the moment, and Phoebe jerked away from my touch.
“Yeah, bud?” She sniffled, turning on the tailgate of Dad’s truck to look at her son, who was standing behind her opened car door.
“Am I going to school today?”
Phoebe blinked several times, looking at her watch. “Oh! I—” Her eyes darted between me and Dad. “Damn,” she muttered, before saying to Lachlan, “Yeah, I just—”
“Perhaps you could feed me first?” Lachlan demanded. “It’s almost lunchtime and I’m a growing boy!”
Rolling her eyes, she shook her head while Dad and I both laughed.
“Look.” Dad patted her knee, and I found myself liking that even less than her sitting next to him.
“Why don’t you take your son—er, Lachlan, is it?
” At her nod, he continued, “To get some food and then to school. Ty and I will go through your house and see what needs doing. We can meet you or you can come back here to go over everything when we’re done.
You just can’t go into your house again without one of us. ”
“I understand. I can take Lachlan to school and then I’ll come back here—” She trailed off, biting her lip, her fingers starting to rub together again.
Dad frowned at it.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
She let out a little sound I wanted to say was a grunt, but it also sounded like a breath had been caught in her lungs and she’d finally managed to let it out. “When you say go through my house…what exactly do you mean? I mean, I have things—”
“We won’t be disturbing anything of yours unless it is directly in the way of our inspection,” Dad was quick to reassure her.
Her cheeks flushed the shade of pink I’d found so enticing earlier. I found that despite still feeling like my skin was coated in slime, other parts of me were very much getting back in the game.
“I didn’t mean to imply you’d go through my things. I—I just have some things—”
“That are private,” I finished for her, not liking that instead of rubbing together, her fingers were now pressed hard together.
“Is there anything specific we should avoid? We can wait for you to come back”—Dad’s jaw dropped in surprise before snapping closed in annoyance—“and I can lead you to what you need first, if that works better for you?”
Oh, I was going to catch hell from Dad. It was against just about everything in us as contractors and men to allow a woman to put herself in the kind of danger there was in the house. But I’d keep her safe, and after what I did, I owed her this.
“MOM! My pants are already loose!”
Getting off the tailgate, she tilted her head to the sky, muttering a prayer. “I—I appreciate your offer. The—the only real issue is the room at the front of the house upstairs. I use it for my office. Well, I will. I have to keep some things confidential—”
Waving a hand, I dismissed her worry. “I can wait to come back and check that room.”
Her fingers relaxed, even if she didn’t smile fully. “Thanks. It’s not you guys. Well, it is,” she rambled, and I felt my heart thud a little at that, hoping it was her nerves from earlier causing it. “Actually, not you guys, you guys, per se, it’s just I’m required…I don’t…I’m not allowed…”
I stepped closer and took it as a good sign that she didn’t run in the opposite direction.
“You have to protect your work,” I said simply, even as my curiosity flared.
I wanted to ask her what she did, but given the way I’d behaved, I had a feeling I needed to not press her too hard.
Me and my big fucking mouth. “I’ll wait. ”
Her half-smile didn’t reach her eyes, which told me that she didn’t fully trust me.
After I grabbed her purse, which she’d left inside, Dad and I went to work making our way through the house while she took Lachlan for food and school.
“If she signs a contract with us, it removes the City violation timeline. I can shift a few things and we can start it for her in a couple of days. There’s no need for you to take this on, son.”
I shook my head, making another note on the file I’d started. “It’s fine, Dad.”
“You don’t have to make up for your actions. You explained and apologized. That’s enough.”
“No, you explained. And that’s not why I’m doing this.” I made another note. No, that won’t do. I crossed it out.
The metal of the tape measure scraped across the floor as it slid back into his holder. Dad muttered something under his breath, standing up. “Listen, Ty. You did nothing wrong with the Ramseys’ house. None of what happened was your fault.”
Damn it. I was hoping to avoid this conversation.
Dropping my pencil on the table, I hung my head for a second before facing my dad. “I know that.” I fought not to wince. I was a shit at lying, and Dad had never fallen for it when I did. “I just—I’m doing this, okay?”
This was my chance. I wasn’t going to let it slip away.