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“Send us a picture,” Joe prodded. “We’ll compare her to Sarah Whitfield. Did I tell you she was back in town? And still single?”
“Guys...” Vince squeezed the tail end of his patience.
“There is no girlfriend.” Gabe pounced once more. “Which means you’re in trouble. Do you need me to spot you some cash?”
“No!” Money was the last thing Vince was worried about.
Harley spared Vince a glance. She was what Texans called a tall drink of water. Long, elegant lines, delicate bone structure, straight blond hair that she kept in a long braid down her back. Everything about her appearance was at odds with her being a construction worker. That contradiction was the reason he’d asked her out. Her gentle humor and sly wit had kept him asking.
“If it’s not money, how’s that truck of yours running?” Joe jumped in on Gabe’s fun. “I could re-bore those heads again and you’d get another fifty thousand miles.”
Vince drove their father’s red-and-white 1976 pickup truck. It had a weak air conditioner, cloth seats and unreliable headlights. Dad had been a mechanic who’d struggled with mental illness, made harder on the family when Mom had left them. Despite challenges, Dad had taught his three boys his trade. Only Joe had followed in Dad’s footsteps. Gabe was a lifer in the military, currently on leave for Joe’s wedding. And Vince—
“Messina! Break time’s over.”
Vince’s boss rounded the far corner of the house they were remodeling. Jerry wore a frown and a sunburn from a weekend spent bass fishing. “That deck’s got to be finished today.”
Vince held up a hand, acknowledging the older man. “I’m fine,” Vince said into the phone. “The truck is fine. My bank account is fine. Harley is fine.” This last came out like a backfire through a rust-ridden muffler.
His brothers crowed over his slip.
“Retire Dad’s truck,” Gabe said when he stopped laughing. “I’ll reserve you a room at the Lambridge Bed and Breakfast where I’m staying.”
“Bring me some of that oil you dredge up on that rig of yours,” Joe said, gasping for breath. “Gas in California is expensive. And a girlfriend? Sarah is going to be so disappointed.”
Vince wasn’t working on an oil rig, hadn’t been for over a year since it’d exploded.
He wasn’t retiring Dad’s truck. Other than the faulty headlight wiring, it ran like a champ.
He wasn’t dating Harley, not since she’d broken up with him.
And he had no idea if he was going to go to his brother’s wedding.
* * *
HARLEY O’HANNIGAN FINISHED wiping the grout from the shower tile in the master bathroom and sat back to admire her effort.
Carrera marble countertops. Chrome fixtures. White and black glass accents. It was luxury at its finest, not to mention it was bigger than the bedroom she’d had growing up and reminded her of the condo she used to rent in a high-rise downtown. That was six months and another lifetime ago.
“Harley!” The male voice, deep and angry, reverberated off the walls in the empty house and shook Harley’s stomach.
She moved into the master bedroom. Most of the construction crew had left for the day, except for Vince, who was sanding the deck outside the bedroom’s French doors. She wished he’d left, too.
There’s a mistake I won’t repeat.
“Harley!” Dan’s voice was as hard as his footsteps on the wood floor. “I know you’re here.”
“I’m in the back.”
And then so was her former boss, standing in the bedroom doorway.
On first glance, Dan looked like any other young, hipster architect, the kind of man her brother would roll his eyes at—close-cropped blond hair, neatly trimmed goatee, pink cotton, button-down and tight, white cigarette pants. He looked like the worst damage he could do was post a bad review online. But take a second look and you’d register cold gray eyes, an openmouthed sneer, and fingers flexing into fists. You’d recognize a desperate snake ready to strike.
Fear stuck in Harley’s throat. Why hadn’t she seen Dan’s reptilian side when he’d hired her, a fledgling architect, a year ago? Suddenly she was glad Vince was still around.
“Your design can’t be done,” Dan said in an ominous voice that conjured images of cop dramas and crimes about to be committed. “You knew this would happen.”
“Yes,” she choked out, hating that she sounded scared. “And so did you. I told you not to do it.” Not to steal her unfinished sketch. Not to present it to high-profile clients. Not to promise it could be built.
He’d stolen more than her architectural plans. He’d stolen her joy in the work and her confidence in her abilities.
Dan’s brows dropped to the locked-and-loaded position. “The structural engineers are demanding to see the plans from you. I put them off another two weeks, but that’s it.”
“Give the money back, Dan.” He’d won an international design award with her conceptual drawings of a playhouse with balconies that seemed to float in the sky. And then the city of Houston had agreed to pay Dan millions to build it.
“Give it back?” He choked on the words and then seemed angered to have done so. His face reddened. “I spent the advance on things like salaries and tuition reimbursement.” For her.
“And on cars and a new house.” An over-the-top place some other architect had designed. Dan had little talent of his own. He was drunk on new business and higher fees.
As usual, her arguments fell on deaf ears. Dan made a guttural hiss.
The fear in Harley’s throat plummeted to her legs, weakening them. He’d never confronted her alone in an isolated place before. Every instinct she had urged her to run, to get out of the house and away from Dan.
Before Harley had a chance to move, Dan did. He closed the distance between them and shoved her, hard.
As she fell, Harley’s vision tunneled until all she saw were angry eyes.
She couldn’t catch her breath. She was from a good home, a stable family. People in her world didn’t get in physical fights.
Her legs gave out and she felt cold from her head to her toes.
She became aware of a scuffling noise. Someone might have shouted. Someone who sounded vaguely like Dan.
“Harley?” Definitely not Dan’s voice.
She was incredibly thankful for whoever Not-Dan was.
Warm hands engulfed hers, not the slightest bit vengeful.
“Harley?” A gentle voice, one she should be able to identify if her head didn’t feel like someone had stuffed it with thick insulation. “You’re safe. He’s gone.”
She opened her eyes on a shuddering breath. A familiar face greeted her.
Vince. They both worked for Jerry, remodeling houses.
Vince. Friendly black eyes, a sturdy nose and black hair. That black hair. It had required a second glance when they’d first met. He had fantastic hair. The kind of hair Disney gave its princes.
Her heart was racing for the exit and her hands had started to tremble in his.
Vince’s hands, not Dan’s.
Vince. He drove an old truck, not a new Ferrari. He’d offered her carrots once when he’d heard she’d forgotten her lunch on a remote job site. He’d bought her a drink after work one day, which had led to him buying her dinner—more than once—and then the infamous weekend away where he’d learned she’d quit being an architect. Not that he’d understood Harley and her inability to pick herself up after one undisclosed setback. He may have been seven years older than her, but that didn’t mean he could be judgmental about her career choices.
Note to self... I’m not safe with Vince, either.
“Hey.” Vince gave her hands a gentle squeeze. “Are you with me?”
With him? She would’ve followed him anywhere a few weeks ago, before the let-me-tell-you-what-to-do-with-your-life debacle.
Something crashed outside.
Vince muttered what might have been an oath or a psalm. She couldn’t hear over the pounding of her heart.
He moved to sit next to Harley, tucking her beneath his arm, next to his bulky tool belt. “Breathe in. Breathe out.”
Sounded easy enough, but that heart of hers was hammering against her lungs, making her pant. Vince holding her wasn’t helping her recovery.
Not that she moved away from him. Not one inch.
“Like this.” Vince took Harley’s hand and placed her palm on his sturdy chest.
She could feel his heart beat nearly as fast as hers, but she could also feel him fill his lungs with air.
“Breathe in. Breathe out.” Vince was big and warm and calm, and completely different than Dan. He’d never be a slave to fashion. He’d never take credit for someone else’s work. He’d never put his hands on a woman with intent to do damage.
In a distant part of her brain, somewhere where things weren’t pounding, Harley’s mother recited one of her Southern lectures. Life is hard, baby girl. You need to find yourself a big, strong man to lean on when times get tough.
Finding big, strong men was something of a specialty of Harley’s. It was finding the ones she could lean on forever that eluded her.
“That’s it,” Vince reassured her.
Vince was strong, too. He looked like he could play tight end for the Houston Texans. He smelled of fresh-cut wood and hard work. And he sounded the way Disney princes should—reliable, honorable, understanding.
Two out of three...
“Your hair lies,” she murmured. It promised empathy and happily-ever-afters.
She should never have broken the no coworker rule in her dating handbook. But Vince had that hair and that smile and that self-confidence slightly older men with their act together seemed to have.
“Are you dizzy? Nauseous? Bleeding?” His fingers explored the back of her head and found—
“Ouch.” She held her breath until the pain passed. “Give...me...a...minute.” And then she’d ask Vince to stop touching her.
“Take as long as you need.”
She was afraid she’d take as long as he let her, which just wouldn’t do. She was Harley O’Hannigan. She was tough, independent and wasn’t the kind of woman who expected flowers or pretty words or who waited for men to open the door.
Harley sighed and put some space between them. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure.”
She shot him with a sideways scowl.
“I meant...” Vince held up his hands, revealing scraped and bloodied knuckles. “I haven’t had a good fight in a while.” He grinned. It was lopsided and devilish, and made her girlish fantasies flutter foolishly inside her chest.
Mr. Carrots was a fighter? How had she not known this?
I didn’t know him at all.
“You should press charges.”
A new sensation banged around her chest. Embarrassment. “I can’t afford the time off from work to fill out police reports or show up in court.” What a flimsy fib. “Which makes me sound—”
“Practical.”
There he went, being nice again. This time it sent tears to her eyes. She didn’t want his pity or his kind words. That would destroy the carefully constructed image she had of herself as The Woman Who Could Do Anything.
Which in hindsight was a lie, too.
“How about we call it a day?” Vince stood and offered a hand to help her up, flashing that grin that’d gotten her into trouble a few weeks ago. “Pack your tools and let’s get out of here. First beer’s on me.”
Harley shook her throbbing head, pushing to her feet with the aid of the wall. “Thanks for the offer, but we both know that’s not happening.”
“No worries.” The grin disappeared and, just for a moment, she thought he looked disappointed. “But we are getting out of here. Pack up your tools. I’ll lock up.”
Agreeing with Vince that she’d finished for the day, Harley loaded her tools into a bucket and headed for the driveway where she’d left her tile saw. It’d been hot inside the house, but it was hotter outside in the sun. It beat down on her head as if its goal was to melt her out of existence.
Speaking of existence, the table she’d clamped the tile saw to had been upended. And dragged. And shoved half into the bushes.
“No. Oh, no.” Harley’s stomach fell and fell and fell, all the way to the pavement. Her bucket clattered next to it. She needed that saw to make a living.
She righted the saw, which was still plugged in, and turned it on. It ka-clunked a bunch of times and began smoking. She shut it off and stared at it, unable to move.
“That doesn’t sound good.” Vince approached her, carrying a bulky black tool bag. His eyes narrowed. “I wondered what all that racket was when he left.”
“Dan... He smashed it.” The same way he’d sort of smashed her.
“There are two things a man needs,” Vince said. “Pride and honor. This Dan has too much of one and none of the other.”
Harley nodded miserably.
Vince peered at the saw. “This is totaled. You sure you don’t want to press charges against your boyfriend?”
A weight dropped on Harley’s shoulders so hard and heavy she didn’t correct his presumption about Dan. “I... Can’t you fix it?” By tomorrow when she had to tile the outdoor kitchen? Vince was always fixing something for Jerry, their boss.
Vince set down his tool bag and examined her saw. “See those dents in the casing? When it collapses like that, parts inside get damaged.”
“I can’t afford a new one.” She’d gone from a starting architect’s salary to a tiler’s paycheck. And she’d just put a new truck transmission on her credit card.
