Love Under Construction (Love By Design Book 1)

by M. C. Cerny

  This week brought more hurdles with permit troubles and supplies being delivered either late or not at all from the supply house I was using, so much for using locally sustainable supplies.

  I was pissed because I had to rely on Hunter to weave his magic down at the town hall. I had never done this before and I didn’t know some aspects of the project required specific permits, which in turn took more time to acquire. Apparently, my best friend had also bonked, yes, bonked the girl behind the counter at the municipal building. He flapped his Hunter eyelashes and dazzled the damn girl into waving the waiting period so we could speed things along. Do you have any idea how sickening it is watching him lean over the counter and glass partition flirting with a girl who could barely file alphabetically? I almost missed seeing Miss Marbles after that fiasco.

  He even knew the town inspector, which I should have realized because he was a reliable honest contractor who did a lot of jobs in town. I just didn’t gather the inspector, if you could call her that, had already inspected Hunter’s goods and services a long time ago. I was embarrassed, hurt, and angry for not knowing this and having it surprise me.

  I stalked back to the house pounding my boots into the gravel driveway when another slip of the hose had me tripping.

  “Whoa, easy there, Moonbeam.” Damien took the gun of the power washer from my hands, pointing it away from his manly parts, and started coiling up the hose. He wrapped it around his thick and equally muscular arms, which did nothing for my libido. “I thought Hunter planned to take care of this later?”

  I had no earthly idea how relatives in the Hart family could be any more dissimilar. Polite, kind Damien and his ass of a cousin Hunter should not have been branches of the same family tree and yet they were.

  “Not you too, Damien. I am perfectly capable of handling a little cleanup job on my own.” Eyebrows raised, he handed me back the power washer. Was every man going to question my abilities? I was an independent woman and last time I checked, the dingleberries in my pants might have been biologically different, but no less than Hunter’s. The thought that my longtime best friend didn’t have faith in me hurt more than I cared to admit. The last week had been filled with revelations of his tomcatting around town as we hissed at each other like feral cats. We didn’t say things you couldn’t take back, but I was definitely hitting below the belt while he steadfastly gave me stoic and infuriating silent looks.

  Hunter had been in a huff ever since the bird incident, becoming short with me and dictating how my project was getting done. Holding the power washer one handed, I dropped the hose and struggled to cross my arms defiantly. I tossed my braid of hair over my shoulder, standing my ground with raised eyebrows of my own. If he wanted me to throw down my gauntlet it was well and truly down.

  Damien held his hands up in mock surrender. “Listen, nobody is saying you can’t do it, but I think Hunter is ah…” Damien paused to look around, and I was increasingly annoyed with both of them.

  “He’s what, Damien? Insufferable? A pain in the ass, and a dictator?” I let dictator sound more like dick-tator while Damien bit back a laugh. “Come on, this is my project and how, how dare he try to take over?” Convincing no one, I stomped my work boot into the dry mound of grass that could use a good landscaper, something else that was slowly getting squeezed out of my budget. “I’m the project manager and the designer, damn it.” Every word out of my mouth sounded like a pitiful whine, like I was some spoiled petulant child who wasn’t getting her way.

  “Tell me how you really feel, T-Rex. The louder you say it, the more convincing you are.” Leave it to Damien to make one lick of sense standing with his arms crossed mimicking me. I wanted to kick him too.

  The pit of worry I pushed down surfaced. There was a reason why this project had to succeed and it would fall on my shoulders alone if it didn’t. Hunter wasn’t aware of this additional stress that had me panicked on a daily basis to get more done than there were hours in the day and sticking to the budget. Heck, if he did know, he would be disappointed in me, and I couldn’t bear that knowledge.

  “Taylor, he’s used to being in charge, comes from the Marine days.” He removed his hat, rubbing his crazy hair back before putting it back on to speak. He acted like he was telling me some big secret, and I bit my bottom lip, thinking maybe I was wrong.

  “That doesn’t give him the right to come riding in on a white horse like he owns the place.”

  Damien mumbled something about overprotective boyfriends, which I ignored while I grabbed the hose of the power washer unsuccessfully slinging it over my arm hauling it toward the wall of green moss growing up the side of my house, currently ruining the historic wood siding. It was beautiful and gave the house a certain je ne sais quoi, but the moss had to go and I didn’t have time on my schedule to wait for Hunter every single time I was about to tackle a project. He was just going to have to deal with doing things my way. This time I was the one in charge. Hadn’t I hired him at his begrudging behest? He acted like I knew nothing, and I wanted to prove him wrong, that I wasn’t the little girl he needed to handle with kid gloves.

  “Taylor, have you ever used one of these before?”

  Shrugging off his concern, Damien helped me uncoil the hose, handed me a pair of work gloves for my hands, and reluctantly connected it to the outdoor water faucet. I walked up to the wall covered in grunge, determined to remove the offending greenery. I shrugged my shoulders. I mean, how hard could it possibly be?

  “Turn it on, Damien.” I picked up the gun with renewed spirit and pointed it up at the wall closer to the second story, hoping to clear this off the to-do list and get back to matching paint chips and picking out new plumbing fixtures.

  “Don’t you think we should close that window into the living room?”

  Clicking the trigger, I turned the gun on to get the sprayer action going, ignoring Damien. Why did all the Hart men have to be so infuriating? They were a bunch sewing circle busybodies if I met any. I looked back and with a grunt I faced forward, ready to give aim and punish the wall since I couldn’t do anything to Hunter. Anger made me press the trigger button and let the water fly recklessly. A thick stream jetted out of the hose and I staggered back.

  “Whoa!” I completely underestimated the force at which water streamed out of the power washer, hearing Damien yell somewhere from behind me. The kickback from the gun knocked the wind right out of me and I landed hard on my ass, rolling to my back, the hose now snaking in the air like a cobra set on attack.

  “Damn it, Taylor Jane!” Hunter’s voice echoed from somewhere above me, but I’d already ducked my head down, avoiding the bulk of the out of control spray.

  Damien shouted as water arced wildly in the gravel driveway, trying to turn the main water valve off. The hose slowed to a stop, dropping in the air and bouncing on the ground near my spot.

  By the time it was all over and done with I was soaked, Damien was soaked, and Hunter peered out of the window, his shirt just as soaking wet. My ass hurt and my cheeks flared bright red in embarrassment.

  “Sorry?” Meekly there was nothing else to say and Hunter shook his head, ducking back inside. I didn’t want to hear it, whatever it was he wanted to say, hugging my knees before I looked over at Damien.

  “Not that I want to point out the obvious here…” Damien chuckled and brushed water off his shirt, offering me a hand to pick me up.

  “Then don’t.” Red faced, I pushed the gun into his folded arms, forcing him to take it from me as I stalked back inside, ready to apologize to Hunter. If I wasn’t careful I’d have a foreman quitting this project of mine and that was no good at all.

  “Hunter?” I called up the staircase, which looked better than ever sanded down to the original wood. The stairs still had a cardboard runner to protect the surface but the rest looked smooth.

  “Go home, Taylor Jane.”

  I didn’t see him around the upper landing, but I sure as heck heard him. He was grumbling and not that I could b
lame him, but still. It was an accident.

  “Seriously? No.” My foot stomped the first riser of the staircase and I’d run up there if he continued to act like an ass. I didn’t know what I’d do when I got up there because jumping on him seemed childish and we had outgrown those behaviors long ago, even if the itch got to me since we’d started this project.

  Hunter poked his head out from around the corner, looking over me, but not stepping into view. “Go home and get dry clothes on before you catch a cold or something.”

  “A cold?” Unbelievable, the ass thought he could send me home from my own project?

  “Yes,” he yelled back.

  “It’s spring.” Neither of us was being reasonable.

  “What are you twelve? I said go home.” This time he wouldn’t come around the corner to yell at me and my anger kept me rooted to that first step stubbornly.

  “Arrrgh. Fine!” I yelled.

  “Fine.” He shouted back.

  “Great!” That was the best comeback I had.

  “Good. I’m glad.” Hunter made me madder with each passing moment and comment.

  “Jerk!” I was being mean but in the moment I wasn’t sorry.

  “Brat!” Hunter yelled loud enough I felt the sharp sting of the letter ‘t’ from the flight above. Now I definitely wasn’t sorry for anything I said next.

  “Oooh!” I slapped my hand on the wall, wincing before I turned around and barreled into Damien’s arms that held me up by my shoulders. His whole body shook and I looked up into mischievous eyes as he held back laughter.

  “I love watching the two of you fight.”

  I tried kneeing him in the balls because after all, Hunter called me a twelve-year-old and I wanted to act like one. Damien dodged my knee and hauled me closer in a ridiculous bear hug.

  “You’re sick, you know that?”

  “Yeah, but I get all the girls with it.” He chuckled, and I pushed him off, running down the steps to my little bug car, driving home like a crazy woman. My dry clothes ended up being a set of flannel pajamas followed by ice cream, a marathon of Twilight movies, and calling Kristen to hang out. Boys were stupid.

  11

  Hunter

  “Flip a house, she says… it’ll be easy, she tells me… I only need you for the bare essentials….” My ass slammed down onto the barstool nursing a cold beer, watching the condensation travel down the brown glass, hoping it would take the edge off my temper. My fingers peeled the label back on another famous Easton microbrew, distracting me from driving back over to the death trap and potential money pit Taylor Jane has sunk her fingers into. A body dumped itself next to me and the happy radiating energy coming off my cousin was enough to make me queasy.

  “Chin up, buttercup, at least she didn’t hit you in your beautiful face with the power washer.” Damien took a long drag from the frosted glass, and I was surprised he said so many words between gulps of beer.

  Andy Easton, pub co-owner, high school buddy, and general townie know-it-all, smirked, sliding a new beer from the tap in front of me. Did everyone in town hear about this? Apparently so because Andy had the good sense to back away whistling. I’d hate to knock the hipster glasses off my good friend’s face.

  “Sometimes I don’t know what I did to deserve being related to you.” Hunched over the bar counter, I wished without fulfillment that Damien would go away and leave me in my misery tonight.

  “At least you don’t need a rabies booster. I heard about the bird, Mr. Hooter Hart.”

  “I hate you.”

  “You can’t live without me, big guy, admit it. You looove me.”

  I wanted to punch him in the throat. Is that a thing, throat punches? Because it should definitely be a thing. I make a fake gagging sound he should recognize considering that’s the only face he gets from Kristen.

  He laughed and instead of carrying on I told him, “Shut up.”

  Enjoying alone time at the bar would be impossible with Damien here now. He winked, smiling at me.

  “Something in your eye, dipshit?” I wasn’t in the mood for any company right now. You would think he could have left well enough alone, but not Damien. Sometimes I thought Kristen was right to call him a Demon, not that I would ever tell her that. I still had a pact with Taylor Jane to remain an annexed neutral zone. Ever the non-romantic, I was convinced the Calloways and the Harts of the world were a modern day version of the Capulets and Montagues waiting to blow.

  “Aw, come on, I bet you’d rather flip her over your shoulder, sunshine. Maybe spank her ass for being insubordinate on the job site?” Damien jabbed me good in the side, causing me to grunt, and laughed to himself at his own joke.

  I’d give him a punch of sunshine right to the eye if he kept this up. The anger simmered under the surface. Sure, I’d love to flip her, right over my lap, and beat the hell out of her pert little ass to a rosy shade fifty fucking times darker for today’s stunt. I agreed to help her flip this house, but I told her, damn it, I told her that I would be in charge of the construction while she designed to her heart’s content. I didn’t anticipate she would be such a pain in the ass interfering on every level possible making me worried sick she might hurt herself.

  Speaking of her ass… the way she looked standing on the aluminum ladder taking measurements for crown molding that I was sure we were going to argue over the budget on made her look like an angel on the stairway to heaven. She even had me waxing poetic shit I wouldn’t be caught dead saying out loud.

  She was a goddamn angel with her long blond braid and ripped up denim shorts, her thin legs tucked into a pair of Timberlands. The perfect fantasy I couldn’t have, I reminded myself. I was beyond screwed. My aunt would have cursed my religious blasphemy, but the big guy and I were on the outs anyway, so no harm no foul at this point. Pretty sure I hadn’t seen the inside of a church since Jolene Bryant’s death. Even Aunt Ginny begging wouldn’t get me inside a house of worship without having to worry if the place would go up in flames.

  I hated to think how things would go when demo really got underway. I’d have to tie her up and toss her in a closet somewhere, preferably one she could organize while I ripped up toilets and busted through walls. Damn woman.

  “I doubt Taylor Jane would appreciate your thoughts, Damien.” I continued to use her full name to give me the brevity of distance, or what I hoped was appropriate distance that had been years in the making. Once I started with her full name I couldn’t use the short versions everyone else did. Her name was kind of my thing.

  “She’s a doll and I never did understand why you haven’t tapped—”

  I grabbed Damien by his shirt collar, pulling his face close to mine, my knuckles white and clenched, the scars running over my hand visible and deeply etched. The vein in my forehead would probably burst before tonight was over.

  “Don’t even think about finishing that sentence inappropriately or I’ll beat the ever loving shit out of you.” My voice brooked no argument, and I released Damien as quickly as I had grabbed him.

  He stumbled back and the jackass kept on smiling like it had all been some kind of joke. Taylor Jane and I, we’d been friends from the beginning and I wasn’t going to let a little redecorating get in the way of ten plus solid years of friendship with the only woman who wasn’t trying to get in my pants or take advantage of me. She was a nice girl and girls like Taylor Jane deserved a nice guy, something I had no desire of ever becoming. Being a nice guy wasn’t in my DNA to begin with and I wanted her to have better than me.

  “Aw, come on, cousin, I’m not into T-Rex the house terminator like that.” Damien concocted another nickname I didn’t like while he ordered a second beer, which came sliding down the counter toward him with a nod from the pretty little bartender, Remington, who worked our end.

  “Better not be.” I took another sip, wishing he’d leave me alone. My entire family or what was left of it was interfering to a fault. My aunt and uncle were relentless and it was my gratitude for supportin
g my ass as a kid that kept me from lashing out. Damien, though… that shithead was another story. He was the brother I hadn’t asked for or wanted, but he thrust himself into my life at every opportunity he could. I had two years on him, but it felt like twenty even when he acted his age.

  “Howdy, Hunter.”

  I turned to see Kristen dump her bag on the bar next to me. The cavalry arrived and I looked for her partner in crime, but she was flying solo tonight.

  “Hello! I’m here too, Pebbles. What? No love for me?” Damien stretched out his arms, and Kristen looked ready to kill him. Half the time, I want to set him on fire myself, so I couldn’t blame her.

  “Why are you so annoying? Was I speaking to you? No, I was not.”

  “You like me….” he teased her mercilessly, grabbing a long curl of her hair, tugging it, and I wished they’d just bang and get it out of their systems. Funny how easy it was when the table was turned because I couldn’t bring myself to act out on anything with Taylor Jane.

  “You, Demon James Hart, do not exist to me.”

  “Uh, shot to the heart. Direct hit, KC.” Damien pretended to be mortally injured, and I shut my eyes, hoping when they opened he would be gone along with his piss poor acting skills. Yeah, nope, he was still there.

  “Ugh, why don’t you just send me an unsolicited dick pic and see how that goes over?”

  “Anytime, Pebbles.” He winked.

  “I fricken hate when you call me that. When are you going to grow up?”

  “I’m waiting on you, sweetheart.” Damien grabbed his junk and wagged his eyebrows.

  I smacked him in the back of the head, and he sat up, rubbing the spot that I hoped stung him for being such an asshole.

  “You know what, I gotta go.” Kristen left as quickly as she arrived sans drink, which was probably for everyone’s benefit.

  I was sure by tomorrow whatever it was that was bothering her would have blown over, and Taylor Jane would be privy to the details.