I followed Macy onto the porch. Michael was running circles around Nolan with his Nerf…something. Maybe a bow and arrow type thing?
Nolan was sizing up the target even though Michael was doing everything he could to distract him. There was already a foam arrow stuck to the board on the ring outside of the red bullseye.
Nolan deliberately dropped the plastic bow down and shot next to Michael’s arrow.
“He let him win.”
Macy grinned. “Yeah, he did. He used to do the same with me. Nice to know some things don’t change.” She headed down the stairs. “I’m next!”
“Mom! You wanna play?”
“Yeah, sure. Can you show me?” Michael skipped around as Macy crouched for a lesson. She cocked the bow and shot Nolan who immediately fell to the grass. “Like that?”
“Mom!”
“Not like that?” She hauled Michael close in a headlock. “Show me again.”
The laughter made my chest ache.
I remembered the Macy I’d first met and gotten to know. The woman who rarely let anyone close had changed so much when she’d had a family.
My gaze tracked to Nolan, who was smiling at the interaction.
Nope.
Not for you, Dahlia.
But oh, how a big part of me wished it was.
TWENTY-FIVE
June came in with even more heat, if that was at all possible.
There was a crew working on the roof and Archer was in his harness along with them. The Widow’s Walk needed to be fleshed out, and he was afraid they’d mess up his plans. Micromanaging was Archer’s middle name when it came to his artistry.
Which was why I’d called him in to help.
I grabbed two bottles of water from the cooler and went down to the beach with the walkie we were using. “Get down here, asshole. Let them do their jobs.”
Archer shielded his eyes and looked out on the water. He pulled his walkie out. “They’re messing up the foundation—”
“Don’t care. You can’t do anything until they’re done.”
He held up a middle finger and reholstered the walkie. I thought he was going to ignore me, because he went to talk to the hulking Lucky before finally making his way to the ladder. Thankfully, Lucky Roberts was one of the more easygoing members of the crew taking care of the house.
Gideon was lead, but Lucky seemed to be his second-in-command. They’d brought in a few of their own heavy hitters on the Gideon Gets It Done crew, but the project was massive enough that they also were using some day laborers. There was an overwhelming amount of people on my property every damn day.
And it still seemed as if nothing was getting done. Mostly because there were far too many fires to put out.
The windows were going to take until fall to be ready, which pushed back a lot of the timetables. But Tarrow had agreed to do the glasswork. It had taken me three meetings to prove my worth, but in the end, I’d badgered him enough to actually take a look at the house. I knew that was all I needed to do.
She was a stunner and somehow stately at the same time.
Archer stopped to talk to one of the other people on the crew. I couldn’t keep all the damn names straight. Nor did I want to. If they were doing their job, that was all that mattered to me.
Archer was wearing his usual jumpsuit that made me itchy and hot just thinking about it. He unzipped it as he skidded his way down the hill to the beach.
I tossed him the bottle. “You’re driving the crew crazy.”
“And you’re not?” He drank half the bottle then pulled off his battered LA Dodgers cap off and dumped the other half of the bottle over his head and shook like a dog. “I swear, this heat is unnatural. If I wanted to be this sweaty, I’d be on a beach with a willing woman.”
I pulled off my sunglasses and wiped them on the hem of my shirt. “Ass.”
He shrugged and gave me his usual shit-eating grin. “Where’s the fair Dahlia today?”
My mood darkened. “Not my day to watch her.”
“So, you don’t know then?” He stole my bottle and took another long drink. “You want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“So surly. Even more than you usually are.”
Probably because Dahlia had been MIA for the last three weeks. She chalked it up to working on the specifics of the supplies we needed for the flooring, furniture, and the like. But then I would find out she’d been on site on the days I was gone.
As if she was making sure not to see me.
