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“Makes sense,” Hank replied as he gathered their tool belts and supplies. “Why pay rent when you’ve got a nearly finished house?”
“Because Finch McGee will be all over that if he finds out,” Callie replied. She wiped her hands, waved goodbye to Jake as the bus approached, then headed to the table.
“Finch is a little power-hungry,” Hank admitted.
“A little?”
Hank shrugged. “He’s got a job to do, Cal. You know that. He just does it with more zeal than most.”
“Maybe Matt will be lucky and Colby will be his inspector.” Colby Dennis had taken the job as Finch’s assistant two years before, and he was a decent guy on all levels. Finch?
Callie’d been privy to more than one run-in with the divorced building inspector, and she knew a jerk when she saw one. She’d kept him at arm’s length, but he’d taken to coming into the diner at lunchtime lately, when he’d always eaten at the Texas Hot before. And it wasn’t a fluke that put him in her section, day after day, any more than it was coincidence that she traded tables with the other servers, keeping him at bay.
“Finch won’t let the new kid on the block oversee this.” Hank shifted his gaze to Cobbled Creek as they headed down the stone drive. “And while his inspections are all right, he doesn’t have a lick of common sense when it comes to balancing economics.”
“Ready, guys?” Buck grinned at them, crumpled his coffee cup and set it inside his truck cab.
“I am,” declared Tommy, a knit hat drawn over his bald head, a thick flannel layered over a turtleneck.
“You expectin’ a blizzard, Tom?” Hank teased.
“I’m expecting it’s cold now and warmin’ up later,” shot back the older man, “and I’ve crewed with you often enough to know that cold and number of hours don’t mean all that much.”
“I knew I liked you.” Matt smiled as he approached the group. “Supplies are due to arrive in three hours and Jim Slaughter should be here anytime with his equipment. Hank, can you get these guys together on inspecting the roofs, marking any part that needs to be redone while I finish a few phone calls?”
“I’m on it.”
They spent the first hour setting up ladders and scaffolding, then split into two groups, checking for damage.
“We’ve got a problem here,” Callie called out mid-morning as Matt passed by below. He clambered up the ladder, saw what she’d uncovered, and grimaced. “We’ll have to take this section back down to the rafters.”
“I’m on it.”
She’d been amazing and quick, working hard and long beside the men without a break, and in her hooded sweatshirt and loose-fit blue jeans, no one would even know she was a girl.
So why couldn’t Matt get it off his mind? Focus, dude. “You really have to go to the restaurant tomorrow? No chance of getting someone to cover you?”
Callie looked up. Had he tempted her? Heaven knows he tried. She shook her head. “Sorry, can’t be helped. But I’ll see if one of the girls wants to pick up my shifts next week because working here pays better than waiting on the lunch crowd at the Olympus.”
“If you can do that, lunch is on me every day next week.”
“For all of us or just the pretty girl?” Tommy wondered out loud.
“Everyone.” Matt shot Tommy a quick grin of appreciation as he jerked a thumb in Callie’s direction. “Although she’s easier on the eyes than the rest of you lugs.” He headed back toward the ladder, the crew’s work ethic easing his concerns. “I’ve got a friend who works at the Tops deli in Wellsville. She can hook us up with some pretty good eats.”
Tommy exchanged a grin with Buck. “I had a few of those friends back in the day.”
Matt laughed and discovered it felt good to laugh with a crew like this, as unlikely as they appeared. A gray truck turned into Cobbled Creek Lane, the town emblem emblazoned on the cab doors. Matt swung onto the ladder, his features relaxed.
Callie stepped toward the roof’s edge, then squatted alongside him as though checking something. “It’s Finch, the building inspector.”
Matt paused his descent and nodded, wondering how the scent of fresh-sawn wood could smell so agreeably new and different to a longtime contractor like himself. Or was it her strawberry-scented shampoo?
“You’re not from around here, but he’s a little high on himself.”
Relief tweaked Matt. She obviously didn’t know he’d grown up here a long time ago. He chalked it up to their four or five year age difference. The old Matt Cavanaugh was best left forgotten, although that wouldn’t be completely possible. He’d messed up big time back then. Now?
Now it was his turn to make things right. Make Grandpa proud. His newfound peace with his half brother and half sister, Jeff and Meredith Brennan, was a good start. Glancing down, he swept the gray truck a quick look. “Overzealous?”
“Bingo. And you can’t let him see you have stuff in the model, that you’re staying here.”
“How did you…? Never mind,” Matt continued.
Of course she’d notice, she lived across the street. His truck had been there all night and his lights were on before 5:00 a.m. “I’ll steer him clear.”
“Five-hundred-dollar fine,” she muttered under her breath. “No contractor wants to waste a cool five hundred.”
She was right. He’d traded off the apartment to save money, not throw it away. He climbed down the ladder, nodded his approval at the scaffolding Matt rigged in front of house number seventeen and stuck out a hand to the inspector. “Matt Cavanaugh. Nice to meet you.”
“Finch McGee.” The guy looked around amiably enough, but Matt hadn’t tap-danced his way through the marines. Friendly snakes were still snakes, and Hank’s daughter had this one nailed. That only made him wonder why, but he’d ferret that out later.
“I examined the initial plan when it came before the zoning commission.” Finch surveyed the half-done houses with a thin-eyed gaze, then rocked back on his heels. “I wanted to give myself an up-to-date visual. You’ve got the copy of town code my assistant gave you?”
The demeaning way he said “assistant” tightened Matt’s skin, but he tamped that down and sent McGee a comfortable look of assent. “Yes. How much leeway do I need with your office to set up inspections?”
“Forty-eight hours should do it. We’re not slammed right now.”
Not slammed? Talk about an understatement. The town had been literally asleep for the past eighteen months. But Matt heeded Callie’s warning and gave in easily. “Forty-eight hours it is.”
“You’ve got Hank Marek helping you?” Finch turned Matt’s way. His approving expression insinuated that having Hank working on this project was some kind of power-hungry badge of glory. “Gutsy.”
“Necessary.” Matt clipped the word, needing to get back to work. “Hank knows this project inside and out. Who better to have on board?”
Finch shrugged. “Just seems funny, but no worse than hanging out in that farmhouse watching this place get ruined.”
“Well, it’s in good hands now,” Matt told him, ready to cut this conversation short. “Mine and Hank’s.” He wasn’t sure why he included the older man in the statement, but realized its truth right off. Despite hard times, Hank Marek was unafraid to put his hand to the task, a guy like Grandpa, tried and true. That kind of integrity meant a great deal to Matt.
“Nice outfit, Callie.”
Matt turned in time to see the wince she hid from McGee as Callie came down the ladder.
McGee’s words pained her, but why would a pretty girl like Callie Marek be hurt by a little teasing? Two thoughts came to mind. Either Callie’d been hurt before or McGee’s words came with a personal tang.
“She’s working for you?”
Matt turned, not liking the heightened interest in McGee’s tone but not willing to make an enemy out of the building inspector who would be signing his certificate of occupancy documents. “Yes, they’re a talented family.”
McGee acknowledged that with a nod as he headed out. “They are. I’ll stop around now and again, see how things are coming along.”
Translation: I’ll stop around now and again to see Callie and maybe find you cutting code.
The latter insinuation didn’t bother Matt. He refused to shirk and never used slip-shod methods in building. That had kept his reputation and business growing heartily in the northern part of the county. Now back home in the southern edge of Allegany County, where teenage bad choices dogged him, he’d be choirboy good to erase those dark stains on his character.
But realizing McGee would be stopping by to check Callie out?
That scorched.
And while Matt knew Callie was off limits, the way his neck hairs rose in protest when Finch McGee eyed her said his heart was playing games with his head. The way she’d faced the decision of crewing with him, upfront and honest, the way her hair touched her cheek, the brown waves having just the right sheen, like newly applied satin-finish paint…
Words weren’t his forte, but feelings…those he got, and since he was fresh out of a relationship with a woman who’d wanted to change every single thing about him, he wasn’t ready to charge head-first into another one, especially in a place where everyone knew his name and all the baggage that went along with it. With an employee. Nope. Wasn’t going to happen for a host of good reasons.
“If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting, too…”
Kipling’s famous poem soothed the angst McGee stirred up, the poem a gift from Grandpa back in the day. Matt had to trust himself. He couldn’t afford mistakes or missteps. He’d already made his share.
“Matt, you wanna cut those sections we removed or have me do it?”
Matt turned, grateful for Buck’s interruption. “Have at it, Buck.”
Buck nodded and swung down the ladder. “Be right back.”
Matt climbed back up, inspecting each seam before they added the underlayment and the shingles. A mistake now would cost time and money later, every builder’s nightmare.
Do it once, do it right.
By the time Matt glanced at his watch again, it was nearly one o’clock. “Hey, guys, lunch.”
Hank waved a sandwich from the roof across the street. “Got mine right here, boss.”
Tom did the same thing.
Buck straightened and rolled his shoulders to ease muscle strain. “I’ll bring mine up so we can keep going here. You want something, Matt?”
Their dedication touched Matt’s heart. He’d worked with a lot of crews over the years, good and bad, and from both ends of the spectrum as low man on the totem pole and supervisor, but this…
He cleared his throat and nodded to Buck. “I’ve got a sandwich inside the truck. And some of those snowball cupcakes.”
“I love them,” Buck declared.
“Bring the box, we’ll share. And see if the other guys want some.”
“Hank won’t. Coconut bothers him since he got the Crohn’s, but Tom will dig in. So will Callie. She loves chocolate. Thanks, Matt.”
“You’re welcome.”
Callie headed across the roof just then, a soldier’s satisfaction marking her gaze, her walk.
A really good-looking soldier.
With great hair and pearl-soft skin.
Stop. Now.
He couldn’t afford to mess up this job. He’d seen the careful way Hank handled his daughter, although this woman didn’t seem to need protecting.
The image of her quick wince revisited him, the way she’d cringed at McGee’s teasing, and that brought back another Grandpa Gus-ism. “If you respect women, you’ll respect life.”
Maybe Callie Marek did need protecting and was good at hiding it, but either way, she was off limits. Her warm voice reenforced that notion a short while later. “Jake’s home.”
A yellow bus rolled toward them, lights flashing. Jake climbed down the steps, let the dog off the porch, then hurried their way with The General racing alongside. “You guys got a lot done today!”
Matt grinned as the pair drew closer, their enthusiasm contagious. “We did, but it’s easy with a great crew.”
“I can help.” The boy’s excitement made it tough for Matt to say no, but—
“We’d love your help,” Callie told him, staving Matt’s refusal with a sidelong glance. “First, get changed. Put on proper gear including your boots and hard hat, then head over here. There won’t be much time, but you can work on cleanup.”
“Okay.”
The kid dashed across the open lot at a run, the dog streaming alongside, his pace pretty solid for an eight-year-old. Matt turned Callie’s way, disapproving. “I—”
She held up a hand to thwart his argument. “I know what you’re going to say, but trust me on this. Jake understands construction sites. He’s been working side-by-side with us for years with no harm, no foul. He’s great on cleanup duty and this is a much better choice than television or computer games, right?”
“Yes, but…” Matt met her gaze, decided that was dangerous because her eyes made him remember how lovely she was, even in roofing gear, and he didn’t want to go there. No woman in her right mind would find his teenage police record a good thing to have around an impressionable kid like Jake. A good kid, Matt reminded himself. “Doesn’t he have homework?”
“Yes.” Callie nodded, chin down, focusing on her work, talking easily. “But he’s got some processing problems so school doesn’t come easily. We’ll do it together, step by step, after supper.”
That’s what they’d been doing last night, Matt realized. “After working here all day, you’ll do homework duty at night?”
She gave a brisk nod. “Of course.”
He’d have given anything to have a mother like that. He’d tackled educational difficulties on his own and failed miserably. “That’s amazing, Callie.”
She turned, surprised. Their eyes met.
She went still, her eyes on his, her mouth slightly open, the parted lips looking very approachable.
And she read his gaze, his thoughts. It was there in her slight intake of breath, the way she blinked, the quick flex of fingers as realization struck.
Amanda Slaughter created a welcome diversion by pulling into the tract with promised coffee.
Matt was pretty sure he didn’t want to be diverted.
Callie turned toward the ladder, breaking the connection. That was good, right? Neither of them had the time or energy to put into that quick flash of recognition. Obviously they’d be smart to ignore it.
But he caught her shifting a surreptitious glance his way moments later, and that confirmed what he’d been struggling with all day.
Working side by side with Callie Marek meant he couldn’t ignore her. And the over-the-shoulder look said she wasn’t oblivious to the spark of attraction.
