Working for the Single Mom (Hard Hat Hotties #11)

Chapter 1

one

. . .

Beau

This day can go straight to hell.

"Beau, we told you to be here next week."

I close my eyes and count to ten as I look at the project manager for the job site that I've just showed up to.

A fucking week early, apparently. "Well can I go ahead and drop the pieces off?

" I point to the pieces I've made for this job.

They just need to be permanently affixed, which is going to be a pain in the ass, because I thought I was supposed to be doing it today, and next week is already booked solid.

"They're huge, and taking up space in my workshop. "

The manager, Dane, runs a hand through his hair and blows out frustration. "I get that, but as you can see," he points to the house they're working on. "We really aren't in a place where we can hold anything. The roof goes on at the end of the week, what if it rains?"

Shit.

This is what my bad bookkeeping has gotten me.

I reach up and rub at the stubble I didn't bother to shave this morning. "Gotcha, I'll figure it out."

I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to fix this fuck up, that I caused, when I hear someone yelling. "It's not my fault you don't know how to read the schedule, Will. I did it exactly how you showed me you wanted it done. You read it wrong."

"Oh shit," Dane groans. "If it ain't one thing it's another."

I don't ask him what's happening, because I'm figuring I'm about to see whatever this is play out right in front of me. A woman with long, black hair, comes out of the house. She's pointing her finger at the man I know is Will, and she's pushing him backward as she advances.

"I'm telling you it was wrong, Sadie. Your job is to make sure shit is right. This isn't the first time you've fucked it up."

Fuck Will.

I've dealt with him on two other jobs, and the man's got a mean streak a mile wide when things don't go his way. Doesn't matter whose fault it actually is. He needs somebody to blame, and it's never going to be him.

"I read the schedule exactly the way it was sent to me," she says, and her voice cracks as she speaks.

She's trying to sound tough, but she's not managing it.

"You changed the delivery date on Tuesday and never told me.

I have the email. I have the text. I have every single thing that proves this isn't on me. "

"I don't care what you got," Will says. "I care that we got a crew standing around with nothing to do because the lumber isn't here."

Dane mutters something under his breath that I don't catch, and starts walking toward them like he's going to break it up. I stay where I am, next to my truck, next to the pieces that apparently have nowhere to go for a week, and I watch.

"You're done," Will says. "Pack your shit."

The whole job site goes quiet. Even the framing crew stops hammering.

"You're firing me?" Her voice isn't cracking anymore. Instead, it’s now flat. Dangerously so. In my experience a woman is about to fuck you up when she gets this detached. "Over your mistake?"

"I'm firing you because I can't trust you to do your job. Bookkeeping, scheduling, keeping everything straight, that's the whole job, Sadie. And I got a house that's behind because of it."

"You're an asshole," she says, and there's not a damn thing quiet about it. Half the site hears her say it. "You've been looking for a reason since I turned you down at Deb's Christmas party, and you finally found one."

Will's face goes red, and for a second I think he's going to say something back that's going to make this a whole lot worse. Instead, he just points at the gravel lot. "Get your shit and get the fuck off my site."

She doesn't argue. She doesn't cry, not yet.

She turns around, walks past Dane like he's not even there, and heads for a beat-up little office trailer parked at the edge of the lot.

Then comes back out less than two minutes later with a canvas bag over her shoulder and a picture frame clutched against her chest, face-down so nobody can see what's in it.

I know what it probably is before I even see it. I’ve been on enough of these sites to know that about the only thing a woman takes with her is the picture of a kid.

She walks straight past all of us, chin up, jaw tight, headed for an SUV that's seen better days, parked crooked at the far end of the lot. She makes it about halfway there before her shoulders start shaking.

I should mind my own business. I've got enough on my plate today, thanks to my own short-comings.

Already built pieces of furniture, a week I need to somehow find room in, a project manager who's about two seconds from telling me to figure out storage myself.

I don't need to go add a crying woman to my list of problems.

I go anyway.

She's got the SUV door open by the time I catch up to her, one hand braced on the frame, the other pressed flat against her mouth trying to hold her sobs in. The picture frame's on the passenger seat now, still face-down.

"You good?" I ask, because it's a stupid question, but it's the only one that comes out.

She turns her head and looks at me like I've grown a second one. Her eyes are red, mascara running in two thin lines. "Do I look good?"

"No," I say. "You look like you're about to cry in a gravel parking lot in front of an entire framing crew."

"Well, thank you for confirming that for me.

I wasn't sure. Since I can't feel my own face right now, it's real helpful to have a stranger walk over and describe it for me.

" She swipes under one eye with the back of her wrist, smearing it worse.

"You get some kind of enjoyment out of watching women fall apart, or is that just a bonus today? "

"Neither." I lean a shoulder against the frame of her SUV, giving her a second to decide if she wants me gone.

She doesn't tell me to leave. "I was standing right there, talking to Dane.

I heard the whole thing, and watched you tell him he's an asshole in front of the entire crew, which, for what it's worth, I agree with. "

That gets the smallest crack of a sound that isn't quite a laugh out yet of her. "That’s just fucking great. I’m so glad I had an audience for the worst day I've had in about two years."

"What was your job? Exactly, I mean. He said bookkeeping and scheduling."

She rolls her eyes. "Bookkeeper. Scheduler.

Site coordinator, unofficially, because nobody else on that site can keep four different trades from showing up on the same day and standing around blaming each other.

" She says it fast, like she's rattled it off a hundred times.

"I kept that man's business running. Kept his books straight, kept his crews scheduled, kept his ass out of trouble with the county twice.

And he fired me because he changed a delivery date and forgot to tell me. "

I don't say anything for a second. I'm doing the math.

The pieces sitting in my truck bed with nowhere to go.

The job I've got booked solid starting next week that I've been putting off finding somebody to run my books for since I started, because I hate paperwork more than I hate just about anything, and my invoicing is currently a shoebox and a prayer that I have enough money to make it through the month.

"I need a bookkeeper," I say.

She blinks at me, wiping under her other eye. "Excuse me?"

"I need a bookkeeper. And a scheduler. I run a custom woodworking business — cabinetry, built-ins, stuff like what's sitting in the back of that truck.

" I nod toward it. "I'm one guy. I build things.

I am goddamn awful at everything else. Invoices, scheduling deliveries, keeping job sites straight so I don't show up a week early like I did this morning and end up standing in a gravel lot with nowhere to put six hundred pounds of finished cabinetry. "

"You're offering me a job." She says it slow, like she's checking to see if I'm messing with her. "You watched me get fired ten minutes ago and you're offering me a job."

"I watched you get fired for a mistake that wasn't your fault, by a man who's had it out for you since Christmas, apparently.

And you just told me, unprompted, that you kept his books straight and his crews on schedule.

" I shrug. "I'm not saying it out of pity.

I'm saying it because I need exactly what you just said you're good at, and you're standing right here in front of me. "

She stares at me for a long moment. Long enough that I start wondering if I've read this whole thing wrong, if she's about to tell me to go to hell right alongside the rest of my day.

Then she wipes her face one more time, straightens her shoulders, and says, "I'm going to need that in writing. And I want to know what you pay before I say yes to anything."

I almost smile. This is the first thing that's gone right for me today. "Fair enough. You got someplace to be right now?"

"Nowhere I need to be less than here," she says, and glances back once at the house, at Will still standing where she left him, at the crew pretending they weren't just watching the whole thing. "Where's your shop?"

"Fifteen minutes from here. Follow me?"

She looks at the picture frame sitting face-down on her passenger seat, then back at me. "Why the hell not."

It's not until she's climbing into her SUV, wiping the last of the mascara off with a napkin from her cupholder, that it hits me; I don't even know her last name. Don't know a thing about her except that she just told off a man twice her size without her voice ever fully breaking.

I've got a feeling this day isn't done throwing things at me.

I just didn't expect this one to feel like it might turn out all right.