Building on Love

by Kat Bellemore

  “Probably not the way you anticipated meeting Chloe, but I can give you a more formal introduction when you’re feeling yourself again.”

  Chloe. Why did that name sound familiar?

  Travis snorted. “I don’t think anyone else can boast of puking on their boss.”

  Chloe. Chloe Rodgers. Founder of Building for Hope.

  “Vivian gave me tuberculosis,” Chloe said. “Remember two years ago, after she came back from her trip to Bangkok?” She sounded amused by the recollection. “We both had to spend two weeks in the hospital.”

  “How could I forget? I’m the one who sped you to the hospital while trying not to crash and die in the middle of the Thai forest. Worst night of my life.”

  Davis’s body instinctively tightened, his muscles refusing to relax. He was in full-on panic mode. Could they not talk about crashing and dying? Flashbacks hit him hard—worse than they had in a long time. He gasped for breath, and Chloe ran over to him with a fresh bottle of water.

  He passed out shortly after, Chloe’s concerned face etched in his memory.

  4

  Chloe sat at the bedside of the Joneses’ son. He didn’t have a fever, and his breathing had evened out. She sighed and rubbed her brow. Just another day working in the middle of a Thailand jungle.

  Looking at him now, so peaceful, she could tell that he was as good-looking as the rest of the Jones family, and just as strong. It hadn’t been so obvious earlier, when he had been throwing up on the floor. And her shoes.

  “Where’s Davis?” Kara said as she burst into the tent. “Travis told me he’s sick.”

  Chloe stood from her chair and nodded at the bed. “Right here. He’s sleeping, which I’m sure is exactly what he needed.” She walked over to Kara to comfort her, but Kara stepped past Chloe and hurried over to the chair that she’d just vacated. “What happened?”

  “I’m not completely sure,” Chloe admitted, knowing that wasn’t the kind of answer Kara would accept. “He stumbled into the tent, hands covering his ears, and he slumped onto the bed. I was trying to talk to him before he sat up straight and hit his head on the metal frame. I don’t know if that sent him into a seizure or something, but afterwards he threw up, and then his whole body convulsed, and he passed out.”

  Okay, when she said it like that, it sounded way worse. Apparently, Chloe had learned over the years how to compartmentalize to keep herself from freaking out. Which a normal person would have already been doing by now.

  Horror was etched in Kara’s features. “He what?” She shook her head, then sucked in a long breath. “Okay. He had just arrived in the Jeep. Travis was driving, of course.” She lifted one shoulder. “That explains most of it. This boy gets motion sick just by watching a moving vehicle, let alone being inside one.”

  Chloe’s gaze took in the man lying on the bed. His tall frame, and those defined muscles—that was no boy. But she supposed in his mother’s eyes, he’d never grown.

  “You sure nothing is wrong with his ears? What if he has an infection or something?” Chloe tore her gaze away from Davis’s sleeping figure as she remembered how his hands had cradled his head, like he was in pain.

  Kara paused briefly, as if listening for something. She gave a slight nod, seemingly having found what she was looking for. “He doesn’t have an ear infection. Too much noise. It’s my fault for encouraging him to join us out here. I should have known he wouldn’t do well with—”

  Davis stirred in the bed, and Kara’s words faltered. Her grip tightened over her son’s hands. His eyes opened, and when his gaze landed on Kara, he smiled. It was the softest smile Chloe had ever seen. And it gripped her heart. It was the smile of a son who loved his mother very much.

  “Hey, Ma.” Davis struggled to sit up, his eyes crinkling with his smile. “Long time no see.”

  Kara returned his smile, then whacked him on the shoulder. “You don’t visit for two years, and then decide the first thing you’ll do is scare the life out of me?”

  Rather than be offended or annoyed, as Chloe would have if her mother had spoken to her that way, Davis just laughed. “You know I wanted to visit. Besides, you can come home any time. It’s all ready for you, waiting. I haven’t even changed the sheets on your bed since you left.”

  Kara stood up, also laughing as she shook her head. “That’s gross.”

  It was only then that Davis seemed to realize they weren’t alone, and pink tinged his cheeks. When he spoke with his mother, despite his tall frame taking up most of the bottom bunk, it was almost as if he were a child. But when his gaze swept the room and landed on Chloe, he seemed anything but. His eyes held something that Chloe couldn’t quite put her finger on. Defiance. Or pain, maybe.

  Chloe felt like an intruder in that moment, despite the fact that she was the one who ran the place. Thankfully, Travis entered the tent, providing Chloe with an escape. “I…should get out there. Those huts won’t build themselves.” She moved toward the door and motioned with her head for Travis to follow her. He raised a questioning eyebrow, but he excused himself and followed her out.

  “What’s up, boss?” he asked once they were outside. “Shouldn’t I be taking Davis to the clinic to get checked out?”

  Chloe glanced back toward the tent. She was used to new volunteers. But they were usually young, taking a break from college to see the world, do some good. Find themselves.

  This one was different. And he made her nervous.

  She didn’t like that.

  “Kara knows him better than any of us, and cares more about him than any of us. She says he’s fine, and I believe her. She’ll make sure he’s taken care of.”

  Travis nodded once, then his gaze swept the sky. The sun was still high. They probably had another good four working hours left before they’d call it a day. “When you told me I was picking the Joneses’ son up from the airport, I thought I was picking up a young guy, figured he wouldn’t be much older than the twins.”

  Truth be told, so had Chloe. She knew they had a son who ran their store, but even a kid fresh out of high school could do that, given the right training. And with Kara and Rick as his parents, he certainly would have had plenty of that.

  “Sounds like he’s capable.” Chloe threw a glance Travis’s way. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s outdoing you by the time he heads back home in a couple of weeks.”

  Travis snorted. “More like out-puking me.”

  Chloe couldn’t deny that Davis’s grand entrance made her more than a little nervous. She couldn’t have Kara coddling her son the entire time he was visiting. Then, not only would Chloe not have her extra volunteer she’d been looking forward to, but she’d be down by one volunteer as well.

  “Kara assured me that he’s very good at what he does. He runs their hardware store back home, you know.” Chloe hoped she sounded convincing, like she believed her own words—that Davis would be an asset rather than a liability.

  Travis didn’t answer, instead walking over to the Jeep and opening up the back door. He bent over and disappeared inside for a moment before reappearing with several bags of food. “Just because the man knows how to sell a hammer doesn’t mean he knows how to use one.”

  That was a bit harsh, but Chloe couldn’t help but wonder if there was more truth to the statement than Kara had let on. Following Travis’s lead, Chloe walked over to the Jeep to grab some of the food. When she peeked in, she paused.

  “This is…a lot of fresh food. You think we can eat it all before it goes bad?”

  The villagers wanted to appear polite, never taking more than they felt they needed or deserved. Which resulted in Chloe needing to find creative ways to slip food into the villagers’ huts, or tents, when they weren’t looking.

  Travis gave her an incredulous look. “How long have you known me? If the village and our volunteers can’t get through this food in the next week, I am happy to sacrifice for the greater good.” He narrowed his eyes. “You’ve seen me put away more food than this, a
nd in less time.”

  She laughed. They’d worked together since she began Building on Hope, and yes, she was very familiar with his appetite. They didn’t usually have access to so much food, and the good stuff no less, so he’d lost a lot of weight since working for her, and gained a lot of muscle. Something he was always willing to point out. Especially when they got a new batch of female volunteers.

  Chloe took it upon herself to educate them on workplace relationships when they first arrived, just so they wouldn’t run into any problems.

  Unfortunately, there was always one who didn’t listen and ended up heartbroken.

  Travis was a good guy, just not a good settle-down-with-wife-and-kids kind of guy. Which made him perfect for this job.

  “Half to the village, half in the volunteer tent?” Travis asked as he tested his limits of how many bags he could hold at one time. So far, he had three large bags in one hand and two in the other. Chloe hoped he wouldn’t drop it all before he made it to his destination. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  “If you can get the villagers to take that much. Last time they wouldn’t take more than a couple of bags from me, even though it was clearly not enough for all of them.”

  Travis adjusted one of the bags that was beginning to tip, even as he added another. “That’s because they like you. They have no problem taking food from me.”

  Chloe moved toward the tent, a bag in each arm. She threw a smile back at Travis. “Maybe you should try being nicer.”

  “Maybe you should try going out with me. If they see you like me, maybe they would too.”

  This again. In between flings, he always came back to the one woman he saw on a regular basis. Thankfully his advances were so routine that by now he knew what always came next.

  “I didn’t realize you wanted ten kids and a picket fence.” She turned her attention back to the tent and smiled. That was the thing that scared Travis the most…the prospect of having children. Little mini Travises. So much so, that Chloe knew for all of Travis’s bragging about the volunteers he’d hooked up with, the most he’d ever done was kiss them. And sometimes she wondered if he’d even done that.

  Chloe heard Travis curse behind her, and she laughed as she pushed her way into the tent just as Kara was walking out.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t—” Kara started, but it was too late.

  Chloe walked in just as Davis was taking his shirt off.

  5

  Davis froze, puked-on shirt in hand, his gaze landing on the founder of Building for Hope.

  Chloe.

  When she’d entered the tent, she’d been carrying a large bag in each arm, but when she saw Davis, shirtless, she lost her grip. She tried to prevent them from falling, but both bags slipped from her arms. Several packages of meat landed on the floor with a dull thud, and dozens of the round purple fruit rolled over the floor as they escaped. Chloe’s gaze lingered on Davis’s bare chest before she tore her gaze away and took in the mess that surrounded them.

  Davis snatched a clean shirt from inside his bag—it didn’t matter which one at this point—and pulled it over his head so fast that one arm got stuck. He noticed Chloe watching him again, his own shock mirrored in her expression.

  He quickly adjusted the shirt and then dropped to the ground and began to gather as much of the escaped food as he could. He adjusted one of the bags so it stood upright, and he placed several of the purple fruit inside.

  When he chanced another glance in Chloe’s direction, he saw her lips had quirked up into a smile. It made his heart beat faster than it should, so Davis busied himself with chasing a few rogue fruits that had rolled under the bunk beds. When he reemerged victorious, he saw that Chloe had already finished gathering up the rest and was carrying the meat over to an ice chest at the other end of the tent.

  “I was just…changing,” he said, lifting the bag of fruit and joining her. He was an expert at stating the obvious.

  “Of course. No worries,” Chloe answered as she put the meat in with the ice. Her tone was casual enough, but she would no longer look at him. Instead, her gaze was fiercely attached to the fruit she was placing in a large bowl on a table next to her. “We do have an area set up back here if you are ever in need of privacy.”

  She nodded to the corner opposite where they stood, and sure enough, several sheets had been hung on ropes, resulting in a makeshift changing room.

  “I guess my mom forgot to mention that,” Davis said, though he was not surprised. Her mind was often so busy, she forgot to mention certain important details. Like the existence of a changing area. Of course, no one else had been in the tent, so Davis hadn’t thought of it either.

  “Did you manage to eat a mangosteen on your way here?” Chloe asked. “Or did Travis keep them all to himself?” She finally turned and threw a smile his way. It seemed to be Chloe’s way of trying to change the subject—move past the incident.

  “Mangosteen?”

  Chloe held up one of the purple fruits. “I could eat these things all day, and it doesn’t hurt that they have a crazy amount of vitamins in them. We need all we can get out here.”

  Still flustered, Davis said, “Oh, yeah.” He paused. “I mean, no. I was too busy trying not to puke on the ride here.”

  Which brought up memories of then puking over the side of the bed, removing the puked-on shirt, and…Davis shuddered. He was not making a very good impression on his first day in Thailand.

  Chloe no longer seemed embarrassed for Davis, though, but instead nodded in understanding. “Travis’s driving could do that to even the strongest of stomachs.” She smiled and handed the fruit to Davis. “Try it.”

  He rotated it in his hand. It had thick, round green leaves and a stem protruding from the top. How was one supposed to get inside this thing? Maybe you had to peel it like an orange.

  “All right.” He dug in a nail, the purple skin of the fruit instantly staining his finger. He stopped when he realized that Chloe was holding a pocket knife out to him.

  “This will make it easier. Just cut a horizontal line around the middle.”

  Right.

  Davis didn’t like the feeling of being the only one who didn’t know what was going on—the only one to which everything was so unfamiliar. The only one who was bothered by the noise and the chaos.

  The only one.

  Davis had been that person a lot over the years. But here, everything seemed to be compounded. He had come because his family was here, and he had known he could contribute with his building skills. But this… This wasn’t what he had expected—what he had wanted.

  He took the knife from Chloe, because things were turning awkward, her patiently waiting with hand outstretched. He slit the fruit in the way she had instructed.

  “Now remove the top portion,” she said.

  Davis did so and was surprised to find a white fruit inside, perfectly portioned, none sticking to the peel, just waiting to be eaten. It was almost like an orange that had already been segmented but with no membrane surrounding it. Just the good stuff.

  Chloe watched him, her expression eager, like she couldn’t wait for him to take the first bite. Having an audience was a little nerve-racking, but he complied and removed one of the sections.

  As he bit into it, sweet juice filled his mouth, with just a little tang.

  She had been right. It was amazing.

  Chloe must have been able to sense how much he was enjoying it, because a smile erupted over her face. “The food here is so much better than any of that American stuff. Seriously. Give me mangosteen and lychee over an apple or orange any day. And just wait until you try the naam dok.”

  Davis raised an eyebrow as he removed a section of the mangosteen. Another strange word being thrown at him.

  “It means waterfall,” Chloe said, taking a mangosteen for herself. “It’s a beef dish that they make in the eastern part of the country. You can buy it from street vendors in town, though. It’s spicy, but you’ll get used to it.” She held
her hand out to him. It was slender, but the small ripples of muscles told him how strong she was from all the work they did here. “The knife?”

  Heat traveled to his cheeks, and he handed it to her, though his hand lingered as she took the knife—not quite ready to let go. There was something about her that intrigued him. He hadn’t met a woman, other than his mother, that knew her way around tools. It wasn’t that the women in Starlight Ridge were afraid of hard work, but they just hadn’t needed to learn the skills, and they weren’t interested enough to go out of their way to learn.

  His fiancé, Bridgette, had wanted to learn. She was tough like that, always wanting to push her limits. That had been what got her killed.

  It had been two years, but it still felt like yesterday. Maybe if he had had someone to talk to about it, it wouldn’t have been so bad—but he hadn’t told anyone. Davis had always driven forty-five minutes along the coast to meet up with Bridgette at her place. He hadn’t wanted anyone to know, not until everything was official. Didn’t want the small-town gossip and the attention it would draw.

  After his and Bridgette’s engagement, he’d resolved to call his parents in Cambodia, where they’d been working at the time. Once he’d broken the news, he’d bring Bridgette to Starlight Ridge.

  He had finally been ready for everyone to meet her.

  And then the accident had happened.

  Chloe was just like Bridgette. Tough. Independent. An accident waiting to happen.

  “Are you okay?” Chloe’s words floated through his thoughts. Davis realized he was hunched over, his face contorted in pain. It was just as much physical as emotional. He didn’t usually allow his thoughts to settle on Bridgette for too long, because it was always too much. Davis tested the water occasionally, hoping it had gotten easier. It hadn’t.

  “Yeah, I’m fine, just still feeling a bit ill,” he lied. “I think I better lie down a bit more.”

  Davis felt pathetic. He wasn’t the type to shirk his duties, feigning ill when he was having a bad day. If anything, it usually made him work harder. He loved getting lost in the sound of his hammer or figuring out how to fix something that seemed unfixable.