by Kim Law
She’d convinced Heather and Trenton to leave about thirty minutes before, swearing she wouldn’t be far behind them, then she’d checked to make sure the lights were off at the house next door. She was alone.
And there was one thing she had to do before she could go home.
She settled a pair of goggles over her eyes and twisted her hair up behind her head, then she picked up the sledgehammer she’d brought in from her truck. She tested the weight of the tool in the palm of her other hand as she eyed the first wall she intended to take down. It wasn’t that she wanted to get a head start on Cal by staying late, she just had pent-up frustration she needed to shed. Frustration that came from spending the last three days acting.
Or, at least, acting like she didn’t mind being around Cal.
She rolled her shoulders, loosening up her too-tight muscles, and angled her head from side to side to stretch out her neck. She could use a good massage. But more than that, what she really wanted was to rear back and treat the sledgehammer as if it were a baseball bat.
She dropped her gaze to the tool gripped in both hands. Cal had been the one to teach her this trick.
Then she grunted as she pulled back and swung. The head of the sledgehammer splintered slats between two studs, instantly showering the small kitchen with chaos, and she retracted her arms and swung again.
Damn man.
She brought the sledgehammer up over her shoulders and chopped down with a vertical strike. The section of wall she connected with shattered as if a small bomb had gone off inside it.
She didn’t want to think about Cal. Or be near Cal.
The hammer sliced through the air once more, this time connecting with the side of the lower cabinets. They splintered, as well, and the case of bottled water that had been sitting on top dropped to the floor.
And she certainly didn’t want to be thinking about the day that Cal Reynolds had first handed her a sledgehammer and told her to go to town.
She swiped loose strands of hair out of her eyes and jabbed forward with the head of the tool, pounding the weight of it over and over into another section of the wall until there was nothing left but studs.
Cal should not be in her life these days. He’d given up that right. And she should not have to worry about being caught on a stupid camera staring at him!
She took another swing at the cabinets.
Stupid cameras. She’d played the part they’d expected with Bob and Debra today, and she’d done an excellent job. She’d played the part for the last three days! And throughout it all, she’d been damn near perfect. However, every single time she’d so much as peeked next door—just to see if she could get a read on how things were going—she’d found at least one of the cameramen turned her way.
“They need to leave me alone!” she shouted as she wound up and took another swing. The redheaded cameraman’s name was Len. She’d learned that not long after getting into the house Monday morning and discovering that it was his job to stay on her.
Trenton and Heather liked Len. They thought he was a big teddy bear.
“Len needs a new hobby!” She swung again. That time taking out the pantry door.
“And to trim his stupid beard!”
After slamming the head of the sledgehammer into the last unmarred surface scheduled to come down in the room, she left the tool wedged in the wall, and bent over at the waist. With hands on her knees, she fought to catch her breath, her panting so loud that it temporarily blocked the music coming from the front of the house. Who needed a gym when they could have a sledgehammer and a couple of walls to tear down?
She scrubbed the back of her hand at the sweat collecting along her hairline and hung her arms and head toward the floor. Gravity pulled at her muscles, stretching them out, and when she once again straightened, she discovered that the door leading out the back of the house now stood open.
And that Cal Reynolds stood just on the other side of it.
“I see you still remember how to swing a sledgehammer,” he said.
Anger scorched her insides. “Get out of my house.” She pointed to the backyard.
He only crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe.
“I’m not kidding.” She would have swung the sledgehammer again, but her shoulder muscles pleaded for a break.
“And it’s good to see you actually speaking to me again.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I am not speaking to you.”
“Could have fooled me.” He lifted one booted foot onto the half step leading into the house. “Just like you have everyone else around here fooled. They think your little temper tantrum at the diner Monday morning was a fluke. That you’re nothing more than cute and charming little Jilly-Bean Sadler.”
“Do not call me Jilly-Bean,” she growled. She wanted to take the sledgehammer and pound it into his smug face, but since that would likely only get her thrown in jail, she grabbed it and went for one more swing instead. Only, in her disgruntled state, she connected with the wrong wall. She took out a chunk of an outer wall, punching a hole clear through to expose the pipe running the length of it—as well as the yard on the other side.
“Be careful there, Jilly-Bean. Wouldn’t want you creating more work for yourself.”
She whirled and jabbed a finger in Cal’s direction. “You don’t get to call me Jilly-Bean ever again. Or Jilly. Or Jill, for that matter. You don’t get to call me at all.”
She shoved her goggles to the top of her head as the music in the other room switched, the new song starting off with a heavy bass thumping in the background, and she worked to calm herself down. Nothing worthwhile would come from screaming at the man she hated most in the world. “This is not me speaking to you,” she began in a strained, but much more sedate voice. “This is a contractor informing a trespasser that if he doesn’t get out of the house she’s renovating, then he’ll be answering to the police.”
She once again pointed to the backyard.
“Now leave.”
He didn’t leave, but he did slide his foot back down beside his other one. The laughter also disappeared from his eyes. He held up both palms. “I just came over to see if we could call a truce.”
“I don’t do truces.”
“Come on, Jill.” He tilted his head. “It’s been almost twelve years. I’ll admit that I handled things poorly back then. Very poorly. In fact, I’ve wanted to say that to you for a long time. I’m sorry about the way things went down.”
“But you’re not sorry that they went down to begin with?” she asked. Not that she expected him to be.
Or that she cared one way or the other.
“I’m sorry I didn’t handle things in a more grown-up fashion,” he clarified, and if she hadn’t known better, she’d have thought he actually meant the words. “I know my actions hurt you, and for that I do apologize. Sincerely.”
She didn’t want his apology.
The man had ripped her apart by doing the only thing she’d ever asked that he not do. That he’d sworn he would never do. So no, she didn’t want his apology. Not now. Not ever.
Not so long as she was drawing breath.
Yet as she stood there looking at him, for some reason, it felt as if a tiny portion of the anger she’d been so proudly hauling around for the last twelve years was trying its hardest to leak out. But not in a bad way. It was as if a pin had pricked her outer shell, and she could either plug it to keep her anger securely bottled tight . . . or she could allow the hole to be an escape hatch. Slowly releasing steam until there was nothing left. She wanted to ask if he’d told Heather the truth. Had he really not been the one to tell Texas Dream Home about them?
If not, he’d still jumped at the chance.
He didn’t need this opportunity the way she did, and he knew it. He was doing this purely to hurt her. Because knowing she’d failed in Hollywood clearly wasn’t enough.
She shook her head as if he’d asked her a question. The decisions he made were his alone. She ne
ither wanted nor needed to know the reasons behind them. But she also found herself unable to immediately repeat her demand that he go. Instead, she dropped the sledgehammer to the floor and grabbed a bottle of water from where it had rolled across the room.
Unscrewing the cap, she drank the entire bottle, and when she finished she decided to say one thing to him before she kicked him out. Because it was important to her.
“You didn’t have to make that offer.”
When he only shot her a questioning look, she added, “In the truck Monday. To get them to delay filming.”
She couldn’t have him thinking his gesture had mattered.
“Oh.” He gave a casual nod. “I guess not.” Then some of his smugness returned. “Should have known you wouldn’t need any help from me.”
“I don’t. But I also have more sense than to lose my shit on camera.”
“Is that so?”
She braced herself, thinking he’d bring up the two chairs she’d sent flying across the linoleum as she’d left the café, but he surprised her by looking around at the damage she’d done tonight instead. At the dust particles floating through the air. The room looked like a war zone.
Then he brought his gaze back to hers. “Yet wouldn’t you call what you’ve just done a hefty dose of that very thing?”
“And do you see any cameras following me around at this very moment?”
When his gaze lifted to the far corner of the room, Jill had the violent urge to throw up. She’d completely forgotten about the cameras that had been installed “for those moments when the crew wasn’t around.”
Son of a—
“What do you think, Jilly-Bean?” Cal taunted. He brought his dark gaze back to hers, laughter dancing in it. “Think they’re recording right now?”
“It doesn’t matter if they are.”
He laughed out loud at her lie, and he laughed so loud and so long that his voice boomed right over the guitars shredding in the other room. As it continued, Jill found herself once again having the desire to pound the sledgehammer into his face. So much for that escape hatch.
“Tell me another one,” Cal said when he finally got himself under control. “No need to stop now. You’ve been entertaining me all week with your ‘acting’ skills.”
He air quoted the one word that he knew would get under her skin the most, and that was the final straw. Dammit, even after all this time, the man could slice her to the core. She marched across the room, stopping only when she got within two feet of him.
“My shit is fully intact, Calhoun Reynolds. Now and always. No need for you to worry.” She motioned to the mess around her. “What you see here is simply Bluebonnet Construction getting a jump on the competition. A competitor they’re going to grind into the ground. So you run along now.” She waggled her fingers at him. “Go find someone else to play your games with, because sweetheart, it is not going to be me.”
She slammed the glass-paneled door in his face, and when he didn’t immediately turn away, she shot him the bird.
He only smiled. And danged if her pulse didn’t try to flutter at that. The stupid man and his stupid charm.
“Go away,” she mouthed, and in return he winked.
Then he blew her a kiss.
She gaped. But before she could pick her jaw up off the floor and figure out how to retaliate, he’d disappeared into the night.
Chapter Five
“Always tell the truth. But only if you tell anything at all.”
—Blu Johnson, life lesson #75
“I seriously have to get back into lifting weights.” Jill ground the words out as she hefted the blue ceramic sink above her shoulders and sent it sailing over the side of the metal dumpster. It clanged against the wall before being muffled in the pile of flooring that had already been tossed in. She, Heather, and Trenton were working hard on cleaning up the debris that had been removed from the house, determined to have a clean slate by the end of the day.
“I call uncle,” Heather huffed out. Her usually stylish hair was a matted mess of sweat and dust, and her jeans and T-shirt were as grimy as Jill’s and Trenton’s.
“You’re too soft,” Trenton informed her. Trenton scooped up a pile of subway tiles and tossed them into the bin.
“Someone in this group has to be soft,” Heather argued.
It wasn’t that Heather wasn’t into the physical-labor side of the job, but she was better suited for the beautification of it. She typically designed the interiors, as well as made final decisions with the landscapers. Those were the activities she enjoyed most.
“And someone has to get the job done,” Trenton lobbed back. Another shovelful of tile clattered off the walls of the dumpster.
“I’m siding with Heather on this one.” Jill glanced at her watch as she caught her breath. “We need a break. We’ve been going since before daylight.”
“And we forgot to eat lunch,” Heather added.
Trenton stopped midmotion, shovel angled down for another scoop, and put a hand to her stomach. It responded with a loud rumble. “How did we forget to eat lunch?”
Trenton had a healthy appetite, with a metabolism to match.
“We worked through while everyone else took a break, remember? No time to waste.”
At the mention of the other ladies working with them, an interior door sailed from the hole on the second floor where the dormer window used to be. It landed in the middle of the dumpster, and Ashley Mayberry immediately poked her head out and looked down. She cringed when she saw them. “Sorry,” she called out. “Sarah bet Josie that she couldn’t score two points.”
Sarah’s and Josie’s faces appeared beside Ashley’s, and Heather muttered something about “not having time for this.” She headed off to retrieve their lunches, while Trenton searched out a spot in the front yard to “get horizontal.”
Jill shaded her eyes and looked up.
Bluebonnet Construction was a company that hired only females, mostly girls who’d spent time living with Aunt Blu and who needed a place to land after they turned eighteen. And thankfully, a lot of those women were either still around or already working for Bluebonnet. Jill had reached out to each of them, and pretty much everyone had been eager to be a part of this project. Which meant a full crew had been lined up for the remaining five weeks. However, also thanks to that same excitement, a few of that crew were overexcited.
“We have a house to renovate first and foremost,” Jill reminded them. “No horseplay, no one gets hurt.”
“Yes, boss,” the three of them recited.
But almost as soon as the words left their mouths, their gazes locked on something behind Jill and their postures straightened.
Jill turned—and then she groaned. “Seriously, Len. Don’t you ever get tired of following me around?”
Len produced a broad grin. “I can think of worse ways to spend my time. Especially when I’m in the ‘following’ position.”
If Jill hadn’t been so exhausted, she would have laughed at the big man. Or punched him. Since pounding out some of her frustration on the kitchen walls a couple of nights ago, she’d been noticeably less worked up, and as part of that, she’d also begun to see her personal cameraman through her foster sisters’ eyes. He really did seem to be a good guy.
Len was originally from Georgia and had lived in California when he’d started out in the business, but since holding a permanent position with Texas Dream Home, he’d bought a house in Waco, where he now spent most of his time.
He was kind of like a jolly Santa Claus, only with red hair—and a lascivious mind.
“You’ll miss me one day.” Len winked, and tired or not, Jill laughed.
“I will, Len. But not soon enough.”
Len winked at her again—a man who could appreciate a good smart-ass comment—and Patrick made his way over to them. He had his trusty clipboard in hand and motioned toward the porch. “Can we get in a quick stand-up before you break for lunch? Then while you eat, Len can get s
hots of the interior now that it’s down to the studs.”
“Get some shots of us, too, Len,” Ashley singsonged down from the second floor.
Jill looked up again to find a dormer full of smiling faces staring down at them, and she just shook her head. At least they were hard workers. Otherwise, with most of them trying to finagle their fifteen minutes of fame, the schedule would get out of hand in a hurry.
She also knew that Len most definitely would get shots of all of them. He’d at least check them out. Because from what she could tell, the man’s libido could put a younger man’s to shame.
Jill allowed Patrick to position her on the porch where he wanted her as Heather returned with a backpack cooler thrown over her shoulder. Heather had also managed some quick repair to her hair while she’d been gone, but instead of her and Trenton digging into the food, they sat together under a nearby tree and turned their focus on her. That had been the strategy they’d come up with. All three of them had pieces of their lives they’d rather the show not delve into deeply, so if anyone got pulled to the side, someone else would “stand guard”—ready to rescue, if need be. Thankfully, no rescues had been needed thus far.
Patrick walked Jill through a series of questions about the work that had been done over the past couple of days, as well as the next steps they’d take in the renovations, and Jill instantly relaxed into the role. She’d easily grown comfortable with the cameras.
“So, just one more thing.” Patrick slid a photograph out from beneath the papers on his clipboard. “We came across this beauty the other day.”
Jill stared down at the photo of her and Cal on their wedding day.
She’d gotten used to Patrick’s attempts to get her to talk about Cal. Or to be on camera with Cal. In fact, she’d turned his attempts into a game, trying to predict and then outsmart the producer’s next maneuver. But this one caught her off guard. She passed the picture back.