This Changes Everything: McLaughlin Brothers, Book 1

by Ashley Jennifer

  Not today, sir. I have a heartache.

  Will I ever see Zach again? I live way south in Chandler, almost to Sun Lakes, and his family’s main office is somewhere around Seventh Street and Bethany Home, about thirty miles away through dense traffic. My chances of running into him casually are nil.

  I could call him. His business, McLaughlin Renovations, is prominently listed in the phone books that still arrive in my driveway, and it’s on their website. Which I don’t have up on my computer at all. That wouldn’t be allowed.

  It’s a decent website technically. Easy to navigate, fast—I hear that Ben McLaughlin is in charge of it. But it lacks pizazz. The marketer in me wants to redesign it with better colors, catchier photos, maybe a nice pic of the brothers and their dad and mom. People like a locally owned business with a family you can trust. Faceless corporations have become repellent.

  I hear Mr. Beale’s footsteps, and I quickly minimize the site on my computer. There’s a ripple of consternation that spreads out as he walks down the maze, like he’s a gator in a Florida swamp.

  And about as cold. “Warren,” he snarls at me as he halts outside my cubicle. “I need those sales materials redone before you’re out of here tonight. I’m not allowed to keep you from your lunch hour but consider taking your work to the lunchroom with you.”

  “Okay.” Nothing much else I can say.

  Mr. Beale curls his lip and stomps away. I feel the relief from other cubicles as he goes. The gator isn’t after them today.

  Usually my job isn’t bad. I like my team and co-workers, the pay is decent, and so are the benefits. I tell myself Gator-man will have to retire one day, and then we’ll have a party. For us.

  As I gather up my tablet computer and handouts on the new product, my phone buzzes.

  I check it quickly, telling myself it might be something important from my mom. A call or text from Zach? No, that won’t happen.

  So why do I drop everything to snatch up the phone?

  It’s an email, and not from Zach or my mom. I open it in curiosity, and my eyes widen as I read it. I sit down slowly, still reading, and then I go over it twice more to make sure I’m not misunderstanding.

  I hit reply and type with shaking fingers. I hesitate a few seconds with my thumb over the Send icon. Then I take a deep breath and tap it.

  If this works out, it will change everything.

  Chapter Six

  Zach

  “So you and Abby hooked up?” Austin asks me in the office Monday morning.

  I choke on my coffee. I cough and cough, setting my cup down on the empty receptionist’s desk. Friday had been Sandra, our receptionist’s, last day.

  Austin stands in front of me with his coffee, waiting in curiosity. He isn’t condemning me. He just wants to know.

  Ben, who had come out of his IT dungeon in time to hear the question, makes the zipping motion over his mouth. I didn’t tell him, he was saying.

  I didn’t think he had. Ben is honest.

  “What are you talking about?” I manage in reply.

  Austin rolls his eyes. “Come on. The two of you doing the dirty dancing, then ignoring everyone to talk together, then disappearing after the reception. Conclusion—Zach and Abby hooked up. Am I right?”

  “Yes,” I say tightly. “Don’t want to talk about it. None of your business.”

  Austin chortles. “It was good, I can tell. If it had been horrible, you wouldn’t be able to shut up about it. Wallowing in disappointment.”

  “Disappointment about what?” says a woman’s voice.

  The new speaker has us three brothers straightening our backs. Virginia McLaughlin, a.k.a. Mom, comes out of her office, a sparkle in her eyes. Her firstborn has been married off, and she’s ecstatic.

  “Nothing,” I answer quickly.

  “Zach and Abby Warren,” Austin supplies.

  Mom turns to me. She’s going on sixty, and you’d never know it. She runs three times a week, gets up early to open the office, and works harder than anyone else here. Has since she and Dad started this business when they were newlyweds. Mom does all the accounting. Once she figured out that Dad was great with clients but seriously sucked with money, she dug in and never let go. We’re all very, very glad she did.

  Austin shares a lot of Mom’s looks, her angular face and light blue eyes, hair so dark it’s almost black. Ben, me, and Ryan are more like Dad. Hard-faced, brown hair that ranges from dark to light, eyes that hide our smarts. Well, hide Ben’s and Dad’s smarts. Ryan and I are average. It’s hell living with geniuses.

  “Zach and Abby Warren what?” Mom demands.

  I pick up my mug and try to hide behind it. “You saw us. We danced.”

  “I did see.” Mom sounds interested. “And …?”

  I’m getting hot under the collar. Literally. I run my finger around my neckband. “And nothing.” I am not discussing my sex life with my mother.

  “Are you going to ask her out?”

  Austin huffs into his coffee. Ben looks innocent, but he lingers, as though there’s nothing in his closet of an office worth going back to.

  Mom pins Austin with a severe gaze. “Something funny?”

  “No, ma’am.” Austin’s still chuckling as he drinks his coffee.

  “Well?” she asks me.

  “Possibly. I have her number.” I glance at Austin and decide not to tell him who gave it to me.

  “Good,” Mom says with conviction. “Abby’s nice. I remember her from when you were kids. She was your first kiss, right?”

  Austin makes more noises of hilarity, and I want to crawl behind the high reception desk and not come out. “I didn’t know you knew that.”

  Mom sends me the pitying glance mothers get when their kids think they’re so much smarter than their parents. “Ryan told me. A long time ago. I liked her. You should call her.”

  “I might.”

  Mom smiles at me, eyes warm. “It’s your business, honey. I promise, I won’t interfere. Much.” She sweeps her glance over us all. “I assume none of you have any work to do? Funny, I thought there’d be more while Ryan’s out and Sandra’s gone.”

  “Lots.” I heft my mug. “Just getting some coffee.”

  “I already miss Sandra,” Ben says mournfully.

  “We all do.” I sketch a salute at the empty desk. “Champion handler of clients and the phone. But she needed to leave.”

  “Yeah,” Austin says. “Deciding to help her single daughter raise her children. Where are people’s priorities?”

  Ben turns on him, outraged, but I raise a placating hand. “He’s joking.” I leaf through the mail stacked on the counter, pulling out correspondence and catalogs addressed to me. “At least I hope so.”

  “Of course I am.” Now Austin is annoyed. “I’m not a dick. Oh, sorry, Mom.”

  “If you boys didn’t swear, I’d think something was wrong with you.” Mom sweeps in and takes the rest of the mail. “Now get the hell back to work.”

  She leaves us staring at each other awkwardly. Then we disperse.

  Our main office is a showroom with the middle of the floor filled with a few demo models of custom kitchens and bathrooms, lots of sample books, and tables and chairs where we can talk with clients or people we hire to do the installation.

  Offices ring the floor—Mom’s is filled with computer printouts and books, Dad’s with photos of remodels we’ve done, going back thirty years. Austin’s is surprisingly pristine. Ben’s is a dark, mysterious cave filled with humming machinery.

  Mine has piles of books about the latest in appliances and home-improvement gadgets, plus pictures of my brothers and me at the lakes or tubing down the Salt River or in Las Vegas. I glance at one of Ryan and me, arms around each other in front of the Golden Nugget with the Fremont Street Experience going off over our heads.

  “Glad you’re happy,” I murmur to Ryan’s picture as I take my seat.

  I shuffle through my mail and check my appointments for the day, but i
t isn’t long before I have my phone out, staring at it. Abby’s number is now at the top of my contacts. I’ve made it a favorite.

  Will I ever use it? I push the phone resolutely aside and get ready for my first meeting. I’m driving out to a site, which will distract me from making calls. Of course, I can always use the phone hands-free while I drive. Damned technology.

  I sigh, take up the tempting phone, and leave the office for my meeting.

  * * *

  Somehow I make it through the day without calling Abby. I think about it fifty times an hour, but I resist. Helps that I’m taking up Ryan’s clients in addition to my own—Austin and I have split them between ourselves.

  I do a lot of driving today, but I don’t mind. I’d rather be out on the road, in spite of crappy traffic and too many construction zones, than sitting behind a desk. It’s why I like what I do. I see new houses and historic ones all the time, and I help people make a nice place for themselves.

  Today I drop by the house we’re building for people who qualify for our grant and donation program—we help those who need housing but can’t afford to live in something decent. I was put in charge of the charity program, because it was my idea in the first place.

  The couple who are getting our latest donation have one little boy and another kid on the way. They’ve come out to see what we’re doing.

  McLaughlin Charities searches for and buys lots in older neighborhoods where a house has maybe been torn down or abandoned. The house or lot is usually difficult for the owners to sell, or else it’s been foreclosed on.

  We either renovate the hell out of the existing structure or simply build a new one, which is often cheaper and easier. We cover the cost and consider applicants who are the most needy but also not likely to move in with their gang and start robbing the neighbors. Folks my mom refers to as having “fallen on hard times.”

  I like when people are smiling and excited about moving into a new house. I talk with the dad, who is my age. His wife doesn’t say much but grins at me as she holds on to her son with one hand. He wants to see everything, so I give the little guy a tour.

  Ryan and Calandra will be like this in a few years, I realize, with one or two kids in tow. I’ll be an uncle. A proud one.

  I have a sudden flash of myself as a dad, my wife next to me, touching my arm with comfortable familiarity, like this man’s wife does with him. The wife in my vision is Abby, and she holds the hand of a little girl who has brown eyes ringed with gray, like Abby’s.

  Holy shit, where did that come from? Abby and I had a one-night stand, for crap’s sake. Not a relationship. Not even close.

  I shakily say goodbye to the couple and move on to my next client, and the next. But I can’t shake the vision.

  I take my phone and throw it into the far corner of the back seat.

  * * *

  “Working late?” Austin says to me as he leans on my office doorway.

  It’s after six, and I’m typing notes into my computer, getting ready for the next day. The showroom is closed, and everyone else is gone.

  “Looks that way,” I grunt.

  I’m avoiding going home. The phone will sit on my kitchen counter, mocking me while I slurp down take-out Kung Pau Chicken. You want to call her, you want to call her.

  But does she want my call? Let’s go over the facts:

  When I dressed myself in her hotel room yesterday morning, Abby didn’t ask me to stay. She said something about going home to work on a project for her job. I said “Okay, see you” or something equally inane before I departed.

  Abby didn’t tell me to wait or suggest we have breakfast together, not even room service. By the time I’d showered, packed, and reached the lobby, she’d already checked out. Brooke had told me she’d gone. Why had Brooke told me? Because she felt sorry for me, not because Abby instructed her to. If I hadn’t run into Brooke, I’d never have known.

  Brooke thought I should call Abby. Abby herself never said a word about calling, hadn’t given me her phone number, hadn’t asked for mine.

  Is Abby cringing about the night she spent with me? We’d been drunk, bonding over old times, catching up, and … that was it.

  I’m not cringing at all. I want to relive every second of Saturday night, and have often, throughout the day. I got honked at or given the finger whenever I lingered at a traffic light, not noticing that red had turned to green.

  Austin knocks on the doorframe, brows raised. I’ve drifted again. To Abby’s scented skin, her leg wrapped around me, the beautiful sounds she makes as she comes …

  “Want to grab a brew?” Austin asks.

  “Yes.” I stand up hastily, slamming my laptop closed and shoving it aside. Ben will get on me about not logging out properly, but I don’t have the patience to do it tonight. “Great idea.”

  Anything to keep me from being home alone with my thoughts. Watching basketball will help, but there are time-outs and commercials. Too many lulls.

  “Where do you want to go?” Austin asks as I join him.

  “Mason’s.” The name comes without thought. I’d been talking about it to Abby, so it’s the first place on my mind. But why not? Mason’s has the best steaks and burgers in town and also a bar with a big television. I can watch the Suns game there.

  Austin blinks at my choice—we usually go to a bar down the street from here—but he shrugs. “Okay. You drive.”

  He does that so he can bury himself in beer and I can’t, but being drunk will probably just make my thoughts more morose.

  Traffic has thinned somewhat by the time we’re on the road. Not entirely, but rush hour’s mad crush has passed.

  Our office is on a side street between Bethany Home and Missouri, about a block west of Seventh Street. It’s a little off the beaten path, but we don’t depend on walk-in business, so it’s fine with us. A quiet street means it’s easier to pull into and out of our small parking lot.

  I drive south on Seventh Street for a bit and take a left on Thomas until Sixteenth Street. South again to pull into a strip mall that’s been upgraded from mid-town sag. New restaurants have come in, and a couple of shops. I park and we walk into Mason’s.

  The hostess recognizes us as semi-regulars, and greets us warmly. Austin pauses to flirt. I push past him to the bar and take a seat, ordering a draft beer for me and a bottled one Austin likes for him, no glass.

  He joins me in a moment, hopping up onto the seat beside me, thanking me for the beer that lands in front of him. The game has already started—it’s in the Midwest tonight, the Suns at the Timberwolves.

  Austin glances around while I stare at the screen, semi-watching. After a few minutes, he pokes at me with the hand holding his beer.

  “Hey,” he says. “Isn’t that Abby?”

  Chapter Seven

  Zach

  I nearly fall off my stool turning around to scan the restaurant. It is Abby, sitting in a corner table in the shadows … with another guy.

  I’m half on, half off my barstool, beer glass slack in my hand. I’m staring like a fool, giving myself away to Austin, the bartender, and everyone in Mason’s.

  For the moment, I see nothing but Abby. She’s radiant. Her dark hair is pulled into a style that frames her face, her brown eyes sparkle as she leans into the guy and smiles at him. Abby’s wearing a dress of black or gray or dark blue—hard to tell in this light—topped with a thin jacket, as though she’s come directly from work. The skirt bares her legs and draws my gaze straight to them.

  “Who’s that with her?” Austin’s next to me, his voice in my ear.

  I shrug as though I don’t care, but I’m burning with curiosity and uneasiness. Is this her old boyfriend? The idiot she told me about and Brooke said she was done with? Or is it a new one?

  “Want to leave?” Austin asks it casually, but I hear in his tone that he’s got my back. Whether I stay or go, he’ll be right beside me.

  I shrug again. “Why?”

  “Because the woman you sle
pt with Saturday night is with another guy.” Austin likes stating the obvious. “Because it’s weird.”

  “It’s not weird. We’re not together.” If I say it adamantly enough, I’ll believe it.

  “Okay.” Austin sets his beer on the counter. “We stay. Probably you should watch the game.”

  Sounds like exciting things are happening on the screen. Fans are screaming, or booing. The Suns center is setting up a free throw. He’s a great shooter, and he’ll put them ahead again.

  I can’t be bothered to watch. He’ll do it with me or without me. I hear the guys at the bar shouting, Yes! and know the throw is good.

  At the same time I realize Austin is right. I can’t hover on my stool and stare across the restaurant. Worried. Also drooling a little. I lift a napkin and wipe my mouth.

  Abby glances up from her conversation and sees me.

  I wait for her to show dismay, mortification, to turn away quickly and pretend I don’t exist.

  Instead, she flashes a huge smile, one that smacks me right in my heart. She waves, says something to her date, and now she’s getting up, she’s walking over. What the hell?

  Play it cool. Play it cool. Austin’s whispering the same thing, like I don’t know I should.

  I drop my crumpled napkin and move to meet her. We intersect halfway between the bar and the tables, far enough from the television to cut its noise, and far enough from the tables that our conversation won’t be overheard.

  Not that Abby keeps her voice down. While I desperately try to think of what to say, she cries, “Zach. How great to see you. I remembered you mentioning this place.”

  It had been in both our heads, I guess. Me for a place to mope, her for somewhere to bring her next conquest.

  Abby glances past me as I stand mutely. “Austin. Hey.” She waves at him. Presumably he waves back or otherwise makes a sign of greeting. I can’t turn around to check.

  Abby resumes gazing at me, her smile full of warmth. “How have you been?” she asks. “You know, in the last twenty-four hours or so?”