by Taryn Quinn
Luna laughed and batted at him, but she didn’t demand that he put her down. When you were the size of Lucky, carting women around was probably just part of everyday life.
“Wedding plans aplenty.” She wiped her brow as if she was exhausted.
If that was an attempt to sound put out by said plans, it didn’t work. She sounded entirely too content.
Just as I was when I was working on Hilda. Men were an optional accessory package I usually didn’t shell out for.
“You’ve always got wedding plans on the brain.” Lucky’s voice was gruff but obviously filled with affection. Evidently, he was all talk when it came to complaining on the wedding stuff.
He set Luna down gently beside the booth. “Fancy seeing you here, Ruby.”
“I was just going to get going.” I swung my feet out of the booth.
“Aww, no. We just ordered.” Luna pouted.
“Oh, here it comes.” Caleb nudged my arm. “It’s no use when she bats those bluebells.”
Lucky took my hand and dragged me to my feet. “Nah. She’ll stay.” He swapped me with Luna and hip-checked me into the booth.
I landed on the bench with a bounce. “Hey.”
“Hush. Did you order?”
I folded my arms and stared up at him. “Yes.”
“Move over.”
“Go sit somewhere else, Thor.”
Lucky crowded into me until I had no choice but to slide out of the way or he’d be on my lap. He’d obviously showered. The scent of…soap hit me. But not the spicy male kind of soap I expected from him.
His hair was down and still damp. The same soap scent came from that too. I couldn’t put my finger on what it reminded me of.
“Hey, Pol.” The waitress looked up from her magazine on the counter at Lucky’s voice. “Can you add a Big Breakfast to their order?”
“Got it,” she hollered back.
Luna slid in next to Caleb, who draped an arm around her. “So, this is cozy.” She drummed her fingers on the table. “I didn’t know you two were…talking.”
How could he make the word talking sound so salacious?
“He works for me,” I muttered.
“I’m helping her remodel the old barn at the Slide farmhouse. You guys should come out and take a look. She’s got a great view of the lake.”
I turned to him. “It’s my place. Hello?”
“What? Just being neighborly. You have the perfect spot for a bonfire. You probably need a good s’mores.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Ass.”
“Is there a better scent in the world? I love bonfires.” Luna sighed.
“We’ve been looking at houses near there. We can’t afford lakeside property obviously, but there’s a new development going up a few miles from there.” Caleb reached into the pile of binders on the windowsill and snatched a pamphlet. He pushed it over between us.
Lucky pulled it closer to him. “Oh, yeah. This is right behind where I was working today. Nice to see another name other than Maitland around town.”
“Jackass,” I said under my breath.
Caleb arched his brow. “FHK?”
“No, Maitland.” I shifted closer to the window. Lucky was like a freaking furnace. “He was not happy about me buying my house. It was a private sale, and Gary Slide didn’t want to sell to just anyone.” I shrugged. “I got lucky.”
Lucky sat up straighter and slid me a devilish smile.
I rolled my eyes. “Anyway, he keeps trying to throw money at me to buy me out.”
Lucky stole my water and took a sip. “Maitland owns half of the Cove at this point. Almost every new build we see come through seems to have his name on it. I know they wanted to expand the condos around the lake.”
“Yeah, well, not on my damn property.” I took my water back, then thought better of it and pushed it back toward him. I didn’t want to drink from it now.
He folded his massive paws around the tiny glass. “By the time I’m done with it, you’ll never want to sell anyway.”
“Sure of yourself, huh?”
“Definitely. Just wait until you see the plans I started drawing up.”
I pulled out my phone to check the time. “It’s been four hours.”
“What can I say? I’m a slave to my craft.”
Caleb chuckled. “Is that so? Since when?”
Lucky’s brows drew down. “I don’t really have much else to do, so this will keep me busy.”
Caleb locked his hands behind his neck and blew out a breath.
Hello again, awkward silence. It’s been several minutes since we’ve seen you.
Luna bridged the gap between them by gripping both their hands. “Well, let’s do the bonfire thing. That way everyone can relax. I know we could use it. It’s been all wedding, all the time.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Lucky muttered. But he softened it by patting Luna’s hand. “It’s up to Ruby. It’s her property.”
Oh, now it was up to me? He was making plans for everyone five seconds ago. My palms tingled. I didn’t really want to have a bunch of people at my place. It wasn’t suited for human consumption at the moment.
And sure, that was the only reason I didn’t want to roll out the frigging welcome wagon.
Just this morning—somehow it was still the same damn day—all I could think about was how amazing it was to have my own property. Now, after looking at all the things I needed to fix…
Well, overwhelmed was an understatement.
Luna sat back and absently nuzzled Caleb’s hand as he draped it over her shoulder. “It’s supposed to be beautiful tomorrow night. Almost a full moon, so it should be nice and bright. We don’t even have to go in the house.”
I met Luna’s gaze. I was eight levels of uncomfortable from the natural affection between her and her fiancé and hell, just from the buzz of happy love vibes in the room. She was so open and friendly, but it wasn’t the cloying fake kind. She seemed to be genuinely happy about having an impromptu get together.
Some part of me was ready to dive in and say yes. That wasn’t me. I was itchy and tempted to leap over Lucky to escape. That would be the smart, sensible idea.
I didn’t want to be part of some friendship circle. Not when I wasn’t sure I could keep up my end of the deal. Better for me just to jet.
Too bad Polly picked that moment to bring over our food.
“Here we go.” She passed out the plates stacked along her arm.
The scent of gravy fries made me moan out loud.
Lucky glanced at me, his green eyes unreadable as he shifted in his seat. Neither of us behemoths were exactly built for a booth, especially when we were sharing one together. Our feet kept bumping and his shoulders were a damn wall, blasting out heat.
He didn’t even have on a coat, just one of those thermal shirts with three buttons. The white seemed even brighter against his tanned skin. He pushed up the sleeves and again, that scent of soap wafted my way. It even overpowered the gravy, dammit.
“Where’s Butch?” I asked as Polly finished passing out the plates.
“We stopped at the pet store and loaded up on dog stuff. She was passed out in my bed, even though I bought her a bed of her own.”
“Typical. My cat is the same.”
“Butch?” Luna paused with a fry halfway to her mouth.
Popping a sausage in his mouth, Lucky pulled out his phone and showed it to her. “We had some excitement today at my job site.” He finished chewing with a sheepish smile. “Ruby here brought me to get my new girl situated.”
Luna dropped her fry and took the phone. “Oh, look at her.” She looked up at him. “Butch?”
“She’s feisty.”
I dragged a perfectly golden potato wedge through my gravy. “He thought she was a boy.”
“Girls can be butch.”
“Without or without a capital B?”
Luna’s laugh was musical. “Both. She’s beautiful. What’s wrong with her nose?”
“Some piece of shit tied her around her mouth to a bush.”
The phone clattered to the table, sending a fork sailing into the air. With ridiculously fast reflexes, Lucky snatched the utensil out of the air before it connected with my forehead and returned it to Luna.
“Yeah, I was angry too.” Lucky’s tone was even, but his muscles had locked. I could practically feel the tension radiating from his big frame.
Luna tucked the fork back under the lip of her plate. “Sorry.” Her big blue eyes went shimmery.
“Oh, don’t cry,” I said automatically. I didn’t do well with all that messy emotion.
Luna sniffed. “Sorry. It’s the baby. I swear, the baby’s empath powers are even more intense than mine.” She reached over to Lucky and patted his arm. “You’re doing an amazing thing for her, and I know she appreciates it.”
Lucky relaxed. “Thanks, Lu.”
“You can meet her tomorrow.” Lucky glanced at me. “Hey, maybe Butch and your cat will get along.”
Yeah, that was going to be interesting. I shrugged. “He’s afraid of his own shadow.”
“We’ll win him over.” Lucky dug into his big breakfast.
I plucked up the cup of butter for my pancakes and slathered it on. I definitely deserved all the carbs today.
“No syrup?” he asked.
“Nope.” I folded the pancake in half and lifted it like a piece of toast.
“You’re fascinatingly weird.”
Caleb laughed around his fry. “Way to win a lady over, buddy.”
“No one is winning anyone over.” I resisted the urge to cross my arms. Not that I had any room.
Luna tipped her head and said nothing.
Lucky kept glancing at my plate and finally did the butter thing on one of his large pancakes. He folded it in half and took a bite, then wrinkled his nose and dropped it back on the plate with a splat. Clearly displeased with my culinary choices, he reached across me and grabbed the syrup that had been jammed against the wall with all the plates.
“You could have asked.”
“Eat your dry pancakes, Ruby.”
I rolled my eyes. “Rude.”
Caleb laughed. “You get used to it.”
“Yay me.”
Luna laughed. “You guys are so cute.”
“We’re not anything,” I said firmly and huffed.
“Need something?” Lucky looked down at his plate. “You can have some of my bacon.”
From rude to sweet in the space of thirty seconds. Probably a new world record for him.
What I wanted was a water, but he’d probably backwashed half the glass with that big mouth of his.
As if she was psychic, Polly returned to the table with a round of waters a moment later.
“Thanks.” I reached for one and drank greedily, then filched a piece of his damn bacon.
Lucky didn’t say anything, just kept grinning like the lunatic he was.
“So, let’s make a quick list.” Luna reached around Caleb for the sparkly notebook on the windowsill. She opened it and pulled a pen out of her curls. I wondered what else was in there. “S’mores, beer, some virgin daiquiris for the pregnant lady.”
“You mean a smoothie?” Caleb asked and dropped a kiss on her neck.
“Shut up. Daiquiri sounds way more posh and not so boring.” She elbowed him. “Oh, we should ask Gage and Rylee to come. They live right near you. Rylee has been poking at me about doing something. She’s bored since Macy is in her Halloween zone.”
“That’s no joke. I ran into her current obsession.”
Luna gave me a blinding smile. “Bats, right? She keeps trying to get everyone to put them over their door.” She shook her head. “Living over the café has been eye opening.”
I folded another silver dollar pancake slathered in butter. “She hung one at the garage. Dare threatened to put a boot on her truck.”
Lucky snickered. “He likes his coffee too much to do that.”
“Truth.” I pointed at Luna with the rapidly cooling bit of perfection. “I found it over his office door instead. His kid hates it. Wes jumps every time he sees it.”
Lucky nudged me. “You have a twisted side.”
I shrugged and took another bite. Wes, Dare’s eldest boy, had gotten in trouble for picking on his little brother and had to sweep up at the shop every day after school. If anyone was twisted in this situation, it was Dare. Wes used his new task to avoid doing homework for as long as humanly possible, as well as an opportunity to drive his father nuts every chance he got.
Some days it was a shorter trip than others.
Luna made some scribbles with her pink pen, the fluff on top furiously twitching. “You’re friends with Gage, so you can ask him. My bestie actually lives pretty close by. I’ll ask her too. You don’t mind, right?”
Is she human? If so, yes. If’s she feline or canine or any other species, that works.
I opened my mouth to reply and swiftly gave up. Luna was already rattling off a bunch of things, and the little bonfire get-together was turning into an event.
Apparently, that was that. I was having lots of people over at my damn house tomorrow. Yippee.
I aimed a sidelong glance at Lucky, happily crunching on his bacon. He sensed my gaze and turned his head to innocently lift his eyebrows.
“Jackass,” I mouthed as he grinned.
Seven
The air off the water was brisk today. Good thing, since I was sweating my ass off.
It was day two of the full-on rip out of the barn. We’d managed to get most of the building emptied out yesterday. Since this job was an official Gideon project, thanks to the sheer size and timing of it, I was able to use Charlie and Frankie from my usual crew for the early part of the day. Then a handful of kids showed up after school.
“Stone, not that…” I sighed as the muscular kid with not a whole lot of brains started swinging from one of the framing pieces to pull it down.
A sledgehammer was far easier and smarter than ripping up his ungloved hands.
The kid was just full-blown Hulk smashing everything he could. He was damn handy for the strength factor. He was almost as big as I was but seemed to have far more upper body strength than lower.
I was fairly sure he was going to fall over eventually. Damn toothpicks for legs.
I dumped my load of super gross hay into the maximum-size dumpster Ruby had delivered yesterday morning. My thigh vibrated for the eleventh time today.
Yesterday, I would have given anything for Ruby to text me. Now I was ready to block her number. I sighed and pulled my glove off to retrieve my phone.
How’s it going?
Same as last time. All the destruction for all the rebuilding. Stop bugging me, woman.
I grinned at my screen as text bubbles formed furiously then stopped. Then formed again. I wondered how many times she’d stopped and started replying? Or maybe it was going to come through as a long rant. She was really good at those. I scanned back in our chat history to see the first one of the day and shook my head.
Yeah, I was freaking glad she wasn’t on site.
I’m around the corner.
Well, fuck.
I looked around the site. Tyler and Win were tearing apart a few of the pallets we’d found in demolition derby today. They would be a perfect kindling base for the bonfire that night. Right now? Not at all perfect.
Especially when they were sword fighting with two of the larger slats.
“Guys!”
They both stopped mid-swing and the clack of ancient wood hitting wood echoed across the water. “I said strip the pallets, not pretend you’re ten years old.”
“Sorry, Lucky,” Tyler shouted, swinging at his buddy one more time before he tossed the wood on the pile.
“Win, go rake that beach for the chairs we have to put out.”
“You want me rake sand and rocks?”
“Works a lot like grass, bonehead.”
He ducked his head, but the
re was no hurt in his eyes. He just loped to the truck for the large metal rake I’d brought from my place. Win—Winston Charleston, Jr.—was a good kid. Long and lanky with it, he was more bones than meat, but he was willing to take direction. Better than his buddy who thought he knew everything.
Stone came out of the barn with part of a beam over his head. He had his earbuds in and was dancing to something. Still no gloves.
I shook my head. That was a fight for another hour. For now, I had to figure out how to make things look less like chaos.
While I knew things were moving along swimmingly, to my client—and future wife—this would look like bedlam.
The wife thing just made me laugh. We couldn’t be more different if we tried. But damn, her grouchy nature made me so hot.
I raced around the front of the barn where the worst of the trash lay. I tried to stack my demolition tools into semi-neat piles. Sledgehammers, crowbars, plastic glasses, and discarded gloves were scattered all over.
I tossed my Henley on the truck on the way by. The sun was high in the sky, taking the chill off the morning air. Since the client wasn’t on site and we were in the middle of nowhere, Post Malone and Ozzy blasted out of the speakers I had rigged to my truck bed.
Before I could turn off the tunes, I heard her motorcycle coming around the corner. A dust cloud followed her down the bumpy lane to her house.
“Yo!” I waved at Stone frantically, but he didn’t hear me. He just kept bopping his way back into the barn. “Tyler!”
“Yeah?”
“Miss Burns is here. Go grab Stone and get the trash off the driveway.”
“On it.” The kid let the last pallet slam onto the rocks and ran off to the barn.
I was hoping to stall for a second, but damn, her long legs wouldn’t give me a break. She hopped off the bike and stalked my way, already pulling off her helmet. All that gem-toned hair haloed around her head for a moment before swinging behind her in the ponytail she always wore.
I had to have some deviant gene that got off on her anger.
“I told you we were doing fine here, Ruby.”