Chapter 5
By the time Trap sat down for lunch, his stomach shouted at him painfully. He’d spent too long at the apple orchards that morning, and he’d been late for his Monday morning meeting with Jason and Sawyer.
Both cousins—Jason belonged to Uncle Jeremiah, and Sawyer to Uncle Skyler—had wanted to get involved more in woodworking and construction, and while they hadn’t been living and breathing sawdust and wood shavings since they were babies the way Trap had, they had good hands, sharp minds, and a willing attitude.
Working together, the three of them were trying to grow the projects and business at MSW.
Trap had another visit and an estimate to put together that afternoon for a potential client, and then he had a plethora of phone calls to make to various suppliers and tradesmen.
As he buttered a piece of bread and laid it in a hot skillet, he couldn’t help thinking about Lila Mae. She’d crept into his dreams last night too, and kept him awake for a full hour before his alarm finally went off.
“So technically you were awake at four-fifteen,” he muttered to himself, thinking of his conversation with Lila Mae from earlier that day.
He laid a piece of Munster cheese, then one of Colby Jack, and then one of Havarti over the bread already in the pan and topped it with another buttered slice.
Though the heat had come into triple digits again today, Trap hated eating a cold lunch, and he figured a grilled cheese sandwich, chips and salsa, and a protein shake would get him through his afternoon.
And then what? he asked himself silently. Dinner for one right back here.
He frowned as he turned to wash his hands and put the butter back in the fridge. If he had an ounce of bravery, he could text Lila Mae and make it dinner for two.
“A real date.” He pulled open the large utensil drawer and took out a spatula.
It was pathetic that he’d even gone to the farm store this morning, and then he’d had to go and tell her that it was because he didn’t want to be a liar.
She was the one who had made up the story about their brunch date that day, not him.
In fact, as far as Trap could remember, he hadn’t said a single word during all of that, and his silence only made him feel more moronic.
No matter what she said, he did work for her, and if his father had taught him one thing, it was that business and pleasure didn’t always mix that well.
He pulled out his protein shake and the jar of salsa his momma had given him, and he settled at the table while his sandwich continued to crisp and melt. A light knock sounded on his door, and Trap looked up, knowing exactly who stood on the other side.
“Come on in, Ruby,” he called.
Sure enough, the auburn-haired beauty who had married his cousin a handful of years ago opened the door and stepped into his house.
“Ah-ha,” she said, grinning at him with her baby in her arms. “I knew Uncle Trap would be home for lunch. We knew it, didn’t we, Jade?” She came in and quickly closed the door behind her to seal in the air conditioning.
Trap grinned at them. “I’m home for lunch.”
“I just wanted to go over the Larkin order,” she said. “I need a second pair of eyes on it.”
Trap nodded and popped a chip into his mouth.
He got up and turned toward the stove to flip his sandwich, and when he turned back to his table for two, Ruby sat there with Jade curled into her lap.
She put a folder on the table, and Trap moved to pick it up.
He swallowed and said, “There’s chips and salsa, and I can make you a sandwich. ”
“No, it’s fine,” she said. “I’m headed over to Glory Rose’s, and we’re going to have lunch over there.”
Trap nodded, something tight in his stomach he didn’t understand. He’d entertained a healthy crush on his cousin’s wife in the past, but thankfully, that had passed, and Trap didn’t feel like such a blubbering fool around Ruby anymore. They worked together, and she trusted him, and he trusted her.
He told himself that was the kind of relationship he needed to have with Lila Mae—not a fumbling, staring, blinking, confused schoolboy who had to fight his hormones in front of the apple cider display at a small town farm store where anyone could see him.
He sat down, loaded up another chip, and put it in his mouth before he flipped open the folder.
The Larkins owned a small hobby farm on the northwest side of town, but they’d aged to the point where they no longer used the land as a farm.
Their daughter had recently gotten divorced and needed somewhere to live, and they’d hired Trap and his daddy to remodel their hay barn into a house for her and her two kids.
All of the construction had been completed, and that was the point when Ruby and her team moved in to get the interior decorating and design exactly right.
Trap sat in with Ruby on all final client meetings, and she did the same for him.
It was a system that his parents had set up as a way to check each other and make sure they both knew what was happening with any given project.
“I don’t know about this.” He took the top page and handed it to Ruby. “Didn’t she say she wanted blue curtains to go with her butter yellow walls? That says pink.”
“She texted and changed it,” Ruby said.
Trap trusted her, so he nodded. “Wow, outdoor furniture. She decided to do the patio?” He looked up and found Ruby nodding.
She reached out and took a tortilla chip and broke off the end to give to Jade. The little girl slobbered constantly as she was teething all the time now, but Trap loved her with a fierceness he didn’t know he possessed.
“And Petra Larkin wants her outdoor space done too,” Ruby said. “They want power washing, a new layout, and new furniture.”
“Huh.” Trap grunted as he continued to check through the list. “This looks right, Ruby.” He took the first paper back from her and placed it over the second back in the folder.
He got up to get his sandwich, saying, “Let’s send Sawyer with you for that outdoor consult.
He’ll do the power washing, and you can go over furniture. ”
“I’ll have Tammy check his schedule,” Ruby said.
Trap slid his sandwich onto a plate and rejoined her at the kitchen table. “Sounds like this one is almost done.” He grinned at her, and then down at the beautifully golden, toasted sandwich he’d made for himself.
When Ruby didn’t thank him and get up and leave right away, he knew she’d come for a secondary reason. He raised his eyebrows at her. “You better just ask me. I want to eat in peace.”
“How do you know I want to ask you something?”
He cocked one eyebrow. “Because you’re still here—and something tells me it’s not business, or you would’ve already asked me.”
“Fine,” she said. “It is a personal request, but it’s not what you think.”
“How do you know what I think?”
“You think I’m going to set you up on a blind date.”
“Well, you have in the past. And it was terrible, by the way, so my answer is already no.”
“Well, it’s not that,” she said. “So you can’t say no.” She huffed and broke off another piece of chip for Jade. The fifteen-month-old could grip it pretty easily, and she grabbed it and put it in her mouth. “It’s something for JJ,” she said. “And he’ll never ask you, and it’s driving me nuts.”
That caught Trap’s attention. His gaze didn’t leave Ruby’s as he lifted his sandwich to his mouth and took a bite. The ooey-gooey cheese stringed off, and he managed to get it all into his mouth while she laughed.
“That does look really good,” she said.
Trap chewed and swallowed. “I really can make you one.”
“No, no, it’s fine.” She drew in a deep breath. “JJ has a naughty horse,” she said. “One of those Gypsy Vanners that he’s added to the ranch.”
“Sure,” Trap said, as he loved the Gypsy Vanner horses that JJ had brought to Seven Sons.
“And he keeps thinking that he’s secured the stable, but the horse is out in the pasture every morning.
It makes him spitting mad, and he’s wasting time trying to fix something that he doesn’t know how to fix.
And I thought maybe you could just come by one day and listen to him complain about it and offer to fix it. ”
Trap grinned at her. “Why is everyone trying to make me into a liar lately?”
“It wouldn’t be lying,” Ruby said. “You come see the horses all the time anyway. Don’t think I don’t know you’re out there telling them all your secrets.”
Trap scoffed. “Secrets? What would I possibly have to tell them?”
“I don’t know,” Ruby said. “Maybe something about that woman you were holding hands with yesterday.”
Trap sat up straighter and immediately stuffed his mouth with another bite of sandwich.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Ruby said, grinning with that knowing look in her eyes that Trap really didn’t like.
He shook his head, but he really had bitten off more than he could chew, and it took several long seconds for him to clear his mouth of his delicious grilled cheese sandwich. “That was nothing,” he said.
“Didn’t look like nothing,” Ruby said. “And you should see what color your face is right now. You like her.”
“I work for her,” Trap said. “It’s not going to happen.”
Ruby tilted her head. “Is there a rule that says you can’t go out with someone you work for?”
“Yes,” Trap said, though there wasn’t.
“And you don’t work for her,” she said. “She’s a client.”
“It’s the same thing,” Trap said, irritated that she’d said the same thing Lila Mae had. “I have to meet with her all the time. She has to approve things. I have to work on her property. What if I take her out and it’s terrible? Then everything is just awkward.”
He kept the part to himself where she’d already threatened to fire him once, because he felt certain that if he asked Lila Mae out, then crashed and burned, he would lose the project entirely.
No, that wasn’t why he had gone to the orchard farm store that morning. He truly did believe the misunderstanding and hurt feelings between them had been cleared up.
So why did you go, Trap? he wondered. But he knew why.
The reason sat way deep down, hidden inside himself.
In the dark, quiet hour before he had to get out of bed, he could acknowledge that he’d wanted to see Lila Mae again—and not on her property, not to go over something, not to have a meeting, and not to get her approval, but just to see her.
“All right,” Ruby said. “He’s got something jury-rigged out there again today, so it’d be really great if maybe you could come by tomorrow.”
“I’ll work it in,” Trap said.
“All right.” Ruby stood up and adjusted Jade on her hip. “Come on, baby. We’re going to be late for lunch.”
She left his cabin then, and Trap finished his grilled cheese sandwich in silence. Well, sort of. The sound of him flipping his phone over and over and over as he contemplated texting Lila Mae and asking her to dinner plunked through the cabin.
In the end, the voices in his head pricked at him, telling him that she hadn’t been flirting with him that morning, and that she’d threatened to fire him less than twenty-four hours ago. She certainly didn’t want to go to dinner with him.
With lunch finished, he sighed, stood, and shoved his phone in his back pocket. “Maybe I should go on another blind date,” he muttered. Because then maybe he’d have a girlfriend and he wouldn’t be able to obsess over the client he couldn’t have.
“It sure would make going out to her place a lot easier,” he said to the sky as he stepped onto his front porch. “And don’t I deserve something a little easier this summer, Lord? It sure is hot out here.”
With that, he went to get the rest of the day’s work done, knowing he’d end up at Lila Mae’s no matter what.