Jacob nodded. “She wants a walkout from the master bedroom on the second level, a sort of balcony, that connects to the lower level with this spiral staircase. Lower level will sweep out, wrap around the side of the house so you can walk out from the kitchen.”
Ethan tapped the plans. “We’re putting French doors in the bedroom?”
“Yep.” Jacob sipped from his travel mug. “Replacing the slider on the kitchen side with French doors, too. But that’ll come after most of the rest is done.”
Ethan pursed his lips and turned to look at the house. The existing deck was just visible, a simple, single-level structure no more than ten feet wide, the wood gone silver with weather and time. He glanced back at the plans. “No way we’re going to be able to use existing footings.”
“Nope,” Jacob confirmed. “Today’s plan is to demo the old, measure and mark out the new, and get the footings dug. I’ve got concrete coming at one. We’ll need to be ready for it by then, so let’s get started.”
Jacob pushed off the tailgate, then jerked his chin at the approaching pickup. “Here’s the rest of the crew.”
Two men got out and strolled up to the truck, and Ethan automatically noted and cataloged the details. The one who’d been driving was tall, six-three or four, with a rangy build and the reddish-brown tan that spoke of hours spent in the sun. His hair was a light blonde, streaked and shaggy, surrounding a boyishly pretty face. Curiosity sparked in eyes the color of good scotch.
Except for the tan, the passenger was the complete opposite. Shorter by several inches with arms like cinderblocks, he had dark hair cut short and a face that was more interesting than good looking. The nose had been broken more than once, Ethan noted and wondered if the man liked to brawl or was just unlucky.
His eyes, a pale green, held more suspicion than curiosity.
Jacob spoke up as they drew near. “Ethan, these are my boys. Seth,” he said, gesturing to the blond, “and David. Boys, this is Ethan Sullivan. He’s Miss Winnie’s nephew, and he’s going to be helping us out this summer.”
“Great,” Seth said, holding out his hand, dimples winking in his surfer-dude face as he grinned. “We can use it.”
“Thanks.” Ethan shook his hand. “It’s been a while since I’ve worked construction, so we’ll see how much help I’ll actually be.”
The snort was quiet, but he heard it easily enough as he turned to David. Ethan didn’t want to think what it said about him that he was much more comfortable with the cautious suspicion than he was with the open welcome he’d gotten from Seth.
David narrowed his pale green eyes, then gave a short nod before turning to Jacob. “We ready to go?”
Jacob tapped the rolled-up plans against his palm. “Plans are approved and permitted, the client gave us the green light, and concrete’s coming at one.”
David gave a short nod, shifted the tool bag he carried, and with a last cool look for Ethan, started toward the house with Jacob.
Ethan turned as a hand landed on his shoulder to find Seth grinning at him. “Don’t mind him. He was born grumpy, plus his wife’s eight months pregnant.”
Ethan forced himself to relax and managed a smile. “Making him miserable, is she?”
“Other way around,” Seth said cheerfully. “He’s so worried something will happen to her or the baby, he barely lets her pee by herself. She threatened to banish him to his mother’s house if he doesn’t knock it off.”
Ethan found it surprisingly easy to laugh. “He told you that?”
“Nah, she did.” He hefted his tool bag and grinned. “She’s my sister. Come on. Let’s go knock down a deck.”
BY THE TIME they broke for lunch, Ethan figured he’d lost five pounds in sweat. It had taken more time than expected to demo the existing deck; whoever had built it had built it to last. Once that was complete, they’d spent the rest of the morning marking where the new structure would go, adding support where the massive deck would attach to the house so the weight wouldn’t pull it down, and digging the holes for the new footings.
He’d stripped off his shirt sometime around nine, as had Seth and Jacob; David, who didn’t seem to be affected by the heat, was still in his black t-shirt.
Ethan sat cross-legged on the lawn under the shade of a maple tree and dug into his lunch. Beside him, Jacob gave a heavy sigh. “Is that Winnie’s fried chicken?”
Ethan’s lips twitched. “Want a drumstick?”
Jacob sent him a mournful look. “More than you’ll ever know, but Winnie would kill me.”
“I won’t tell her,” Ethan promised, and Seth let out a hooting laugh as he sank to the ground across from him.
“She’ll figure it out. Right, Jake?” Seth nudged the older man with a friendly elbow as he dug into his lunch.
Jacob sighed and pulled an apple out of his sack. “Damn woman’s got radar.”
“She’s just looking out for you,” David rumbled as he settled next to Seth.
“I know,” Jacob said, his eyes wandering to Ethan’s fried chicken again.
“First burgers, now fried chicken.” Ethan asked as he pulled a Coke from the bag and twisted the cap. He gestured with the bottle. “What else has she taken away?”
“Everything good,” Jacob said mournfully, and bit into his apple with a crunch. “She’s made it her personal mission to make sure my cholesterol goes down.”
Ethan shook his head and guzzled his Coke. “You better put your foot down, or she’ll run right over you.”
Jacob arched a brow. “Says the man who wasn’t looking for a job until she decided you were.”
Ethan grinned as Seth laughed out loud. “Touché.” He toasted Jacob with his drumstick, then bit into it with relish while the older man groaned.
“Low,” he groused. “Very low. The next toilet we have to pull out is all yours.”
Even David cracked a smile at that.
“So, Ethan.” Seth popped open a can of Vernor’s. “What brought you to Sweetwater?”
Ethan shrugged. “I wanted a change of scenery.”
“Yeah?” Seth gestured with the can. “Where were you living before?”
“Philadelphia.”
Seth snorted, then grinned. “Well, that’s a change. What do you do when you’re not working summer construction?”
“I’m a financial planner.”
“Yeah?” Seth perked up a little. “Stocks, bonds, like that?”
“Like that,” Ethan confirmed, and polishing off his drumstick, reached for a wing.
“Cool. Maybe you could give me some pointers.” Seth fished a sandwich, piled high with turkey, out of his lunch bag. “My fiancé and I are trying to save up for a house.”
“Sure,” Ethan said easily.
“You don’t look like you sit at a desk all day,” David pointed out, his pale eyes taking in the well-developed muscle of Ethan’s bare torso, the biceps bulging from the morning’s labor.
“I don’t work for a firm,” Ethan explained casually. “I pretty much set my own hours, and my client list isn’t very big. It leaves me a lot of free time for other pursuits.”
“Like summer construction jobs?”
Ethan met David’s eyes calmly. “Yeah.”
Jacob twisted the cap off a bottle of water. “Winnie says you’ve taken a leave of absence.”
Ethan held David’s gaze for another heartbeat before turning to Jacob. “It’s probably more accurate to say I quit.”
“How come?”
Ethan shrugged at Seth’s question. “I was burning out, wasn’t happy. Not with the work, and not in Philadelphia.”
“But you were making good money, right?”
Ethan hesitated. “Yeah, the money was nice. But money isn’t everything.”
David’s snort was derisive. “Spoken like someone who doesn’t have to worry about it.”
“David,” Jacob said quietly.
“No, it’s okay.” Ethan turned to David, meeting the other man’s sharp gaze equally.
“No, I don’t have to worry about money. That doesn’t mean I’m happy.”
“It’s easier to be happy if you’ve got money.”
“Maybe.” Ethan sipped his Coke. “You’ve got a wife, right? She’s pregnant?”
David’s gaze narrowed. “Yeah.”
“You’re happy together?”
“Yeah.”
Ethan nodded. “Would you trade it, her and the baby, for never having to worry about paying the bills?”
David’s eyes were fierce, his voice a low hum. “Not for all the money in the world.”
Ethan nodded. “I don’t have that.”
In the thrumming silence that followed, Jacob cleared his throat. “Eat up, boys. That concrete is going to be here soon, and we’ve still got holes to dig.”
By the time the concrete was poured and the yard tidied up, Ethan was sweaty, filthy, and sore in muscles he wasn’t sure he knew he’d had. He could have wept with relief when Jacob called it a day. He tugged his shirt back on and packed up his tools. When he tried to hand them back to Jacob, the older man shook his head.
“Keep them, they’re an extra set.” He slammed the tailgate on his truck. “Bring ‘em with you when you come tomorrow.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.” Jacob opened the truck door, then turned back. “You did good today, Ethan.”
Ethan grimaced. “Not that good.”
“You’re rusty, and I imagine you’ll be hurting for a couple of days.” Jacob chuckled and climbed into the cab. “But you did good. See you tomorrow morning.”
“See you.”
Ethan turned as Seth walked up. “We’re going out later to get a beer and a bite to eat, me and my lady, David and my sister. Want to join us?”
He was surprised to find he was tempted. But...he shook his head. “I’d love to, but I’m going to go home, take half a bottle of ibuprofen, and fall on my face.”
Seth grinned. “You’ll get up to speed. Raincheck?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that.”
“Cool.” He clapped Ethan on the back. “See you tomorrow.”
“All right.”
Seth crossed to his truck, climbing in as David walked up. The dark man placed his tools in the bed laid a hand on the door, then turned to eye Ethan. “You pulled your weight,” he said finally, “and didn’t make any really stupid mistakes.”
“Thanks,” Ethan said, taking the laconic words for the high praise he knew them to be.
David nodded and opened the passenger door, then glanced back. “You know, we’ve got a tradition.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“New guy is supposed to bring coffee and doughnuts on the first day.”
Ethan grinned. “I didn’t know that. I guess I’ll have to make up for it by springing for lunch tomorrow, too.”
The smile hit David’s eyes before it curved his mouth. “That’ll work,” was all he said as he heaved himself into the cab.
Seth shot him a grin and a thumbs-up, then started the truck. Ethan lifted a hand as they drove past, then hauled his aching body into the Chevy. He wanted that ibuprofen, an ice-cold beer, and red meat. After that, if he was still conscious, he planned to stand under the shower jets until the hot water ran out, then go to bed, where he planned to sleep like the dead until the alarm went off.
* * *
They finished the deck in under a week, to the satisfaction of all involved, especially Mrs. Havers. She was so happy, she snapped pictures for Facebook almost before the last nail was in, and Ethan heard through Aunt Winnie that she’d tagged her ex-husband in the photos so he’d be sure not to miss them.
“She’s so mad; I do believe she’d shoot that man if she thought she could get away with it,” Winnie remarked. “I guess pushing that deck in his face was the best she could come up with without risking prison.”
Ethan, who figured the same, just nodded.
After they finished the deck, they had a small bathroom rehab and Jacob made good on his promise to make Ethan deal with the toilet. He learned how to lay tile, which he found surprisingly gratifying. He found satisfaction in most of the work, including the dreaded toilet duty, which surprised him. Aunt Winnie had told him he needed to work with his hands, and though he hated to give her any more credit, he had to admit it felt a lot better to build something beautiful that added to people’s lives than it did to tear lives apart.
Three weeks into his summer job, the crew shifted to work on the Meyers addition. The family had moved up the construction to coincide with their annual vacation to New Hampshire, and Ethan was putting up framing when he got another call from Michael. He didn’t want to call attention to himself by stepping away to answer, so he kept his voice low. “What do you hear?”
“I have no news yet on who is making these inquiries,” Michael said. “Our Parisian friend is doing some digging, but it’s delicate work.”
Ethan wasn’t happy to hear it, but neither was he particularly surprised. The people who inhabited his former world stayed alive by staying quiet. “I did some looking myself but didn’t come up with anything.”
“You?” Michael’s voice was rich with humor. “Have your skills in this area improved?”
“Not much,” Ethan admitted, to Michael’s amusement.
“I would be happy to take a look, see if there are any small details you missed.”
“I’d appreciate it. You remember the players?”
“I do. Give me a little time to be thorough, and to tie up some loose ends of my own.”
“No problem. Thanks, Michael.”
“I’ll be in touch, my friend.”
Ethan hung up and went back to work, frowning as he used the nail gun to secure a support post. He wasn’t happy with the lack of information, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. He trusted Michael, as much as he trusted anyone, and knew he’d follow through. But he wasn’t used to being on the outside, waiting for someone else to gather information, and he didn’t like it.
“Think you used enough nails there, Butch?”
Ethan jerked his head up to find Seth grinning at him. “What?”
Seth pointed to the support post. “You’ve used like, twice as many nails than you need,” he pointed out.”
“Oh.” Ethan grimaced and sat back. “Sorry. Mind was wandering.”
“Girl trouble?”
Ethan snorted. “No.”
“Gay?”
Ethan’s lips twitched. “Are those my only two options?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.” He glanced around, noted that the framing had been completed while his mind had drifted. “We going to keep going, or call it a day?”
Seth shrugged. “Framing’s done, so it’s a good stopping point. We start closing it in now, we’ll have to stop halfway through. It’s almost three, anyway, so the boss is calling it.”
“Good deal.” He started gathering his tools as David strode over.
“You ask him?”
Seth shook his head. “I was just about to.”
“Ask me what?”
“We’re having a cookout at my place tonight,” David said. “Abby can’t go out. The doctor wants her to rest as much as possible, put her feet up, and she’s going crazy stuck in the house. Since she can’t go out, we’re inviting everybody over.”
“Sounds like a good compromise.”
“Yeah.” David’s not quite handsome face shifted into a grimace. “I have to do something. She’s freaking me out. Raging one minute, tears the next, then sweet as homemade apple pie.”
Ethan grinned. “Hormones.”
“She never used to be this crazy, so I guess so.” David shook his head. “I’ll be glad when this baby gets here, and I can have my wife back.”
Seth’s laugh rang out. “Are you kidding? After the baby is born, there are more hormones, not less.”
“How would you know?”
“Dude.” Seth gave a sad head shake. “I’ve got three
other sisters with seven kids between them. Trust me. You’re hosed.”
“Shit.” David glowered. “Don’t talk to me anymore.” He turned back to Ethan. “So?”
“So, what?” Ethan finished packing up his tools and pushed to his feet. “You haven’t asked me anything.”
“What, you didn’t get I was asking you to the cookout?”
Ethan blinked. “No, actually.”
David snorted. “Didn’t take you for stupid. You up for it?”
“That’d be great. Thanks,” Ethan said, then paused, the etiquette of backyard barbeques somewhat lost on him. “Um...can I bring something?”
“More beer never hurts. We’re on Dover street, a block past First. It’s the red brick house with the black shutters.”
Ethan had to grin. He’d gotten used to people giving directions this way in the last few weeks, but it always tickled him. “I’ll find it. What time?”
“I’ll probably get the grill going in about an hour, so come by whenever.”
“That works. Gives me enough time to get a shower and pick up that beer.”
“Awesome,” Seth enthused. “I’m going to text Sadie, let her know we’re shutting down.”
“Abby says she’s already over at our place,” David told him.
“Cool,” Seth said, already tapping away on his phone as he started walking away. “See you over there, E.”
Ethan shouldered his tool bag and started out with David. “Why does he call me E?”
“Because he’s young. Painfully, painfully young.”
Ethan snorted out a laugh. “And you’re ancient?”
“Feels like it these days. Who knew pregnant wives were so much work? Why didn’t anyone tell me? My father knew,” he muttered darkly. “He had to know, and he said nothing.”
Ethan tucked his tongue into his cheek. “Probably afraid you’d never give him grandchildren if he did.”
“Probably.” David sighed. “He’s already buying out the sporting goods stores. Baby-sized baseball gloves and golf clubs and basketballs. If he brings over one more thing, I think Abby might kill him.”
“Abby’s not a sports fan, I take it?”
David shot him a look as they walked up to Ethan’s truck. “She likes sports fine, but she’s not too keen on my dad signing the kid up for little league before he—or she—is even born.”
Honey and the Hitman Page 9