Page 394 of Summer Heat
She almost fell off the stool.
Now what meeting was she going to again?
* * * * *
PULLING UP TO HER driveway, Abby couldn’t believe how tiny her cottage looked now, after just over a week staying at the mini McMansion. Careful not to step on any industrial power cords or knock over any ladders, she slipped around back to where the builders were making excellent progress on the patio enclosure. “Hey Tom,” she called out to the foreman.
“Abby, hi.” A worried look flashed over his expression. “We’re not behind schedule are we? I could’ve sworn you were coming back next—”
“No, no. Don’t worry. I’m just here to pick up some books I left behind.”
Connor would collapse in laughter over that one, she thought to herself.
Tom raised an eyebrow. “Tell me what kind of books make you smile like that and I’ll go to the bookstore right now and get a set for my wife.”
She blushed. “They’re just research books my advisor wants me to re-read.”
“If you’re looking for more hands-on research, honey, count me in,” called out the journeyman passing by carrying sheets of drywall.
Goodness, her face would never return to its normal color at this rate.
Slinging a dusty arm around her shoulders, Tom led her away from all the whistling and howling echoing from his crew. “You’re too easy to tease.”
She walked with him into the kitchen and offered him a bottled water, taking one to cool off her cheeks. “You guys are horrible,” she pouted, chuckling despite herself.
“Hey, I meant to ask, are you staying over at Connor Sullivan’s place?”
Abby looked over at him warily.
“Don’t worry, I’m not following you or anything. It’s just I pass his home on my way over here and I could’ve sworn I saw your car parked in his driveway—the duct tape on the bumper is pretty distinctive.”
Oh. The tension quickly left her shoulders. “He’s my best friend’s brother. When he heard I needed a place to stay for a few weeks, he offered me one of his guestrooms.”
Tom nodded. “Yeah, sounds like him. He’s a really great guy.”
Surprised at the familiar tone, she asked nosily, “How do you know him?”
“He helped me and my brother out big time when we thought our business was done for.”
That didn’t make any sense. To her knowledge, Connor only did legal work for huge corporations—small construction businesses like Tom’s weren’t his normal clientele base.
At her puzzled expression, Tom explained, “It must’ve been five, six years ago, I think. Back when we’d just started the business. We’d been up and running for two years, making a decent name for ourselves by word of mouth referrals all over. The money was good, but not great. Mostly since there were long pockets of down time between projects. And that’s exactly why, after one really slow month, my brother decided he wanted us to take a shot at flipping houses. You know, like they do on TV? I wasn’t so sure about the whole thing, but he’d made it sound so easy, especially since we’d be doing all the work ourselves. So, I eventually got on board.”
“And at first, he had been right. We flipped five houses in half a year, and made twenty times more money than we would’ve made just picking up reno jobs here and there.” He shook his head in a big brotherly way. “But then my brilliant brother wanted to go after a bigger fish—a foreclosed mansion in Scottsdale.”
Tom nodded when she winced. “Yup. It was waaay too big a fish. We had to start taking money out of all our accounts just to cover the expenses; the house was just so frickin’ huge. The finish fixtures alone bled us dry since up until then, we hadn’t gotten all those high end fixtures. But our real estate person told us that if we went with the more standard stuff, the house just wouldn’t sell. Not in this neighborhood. So, we cleared out all our savings to cover it because at that point, we couldn’t even afford to stop.”
Abby couldn’t believe how angry he suddenly looked. Since meeting him a few months ago, she’d never once even seen the guy frown. He was just the jolliest man.
But at this moment, he looked downright scary.
“We worked nonstop to get the house ready as quickly as we could. Then fate threw us the worse possible curveball. With just a few days of work left before we could officially sign-off on everything and list the house for sale, a bunch of kids broke in and partied it up in there. Jacked the whole house up in the process, from top to bottom.”
Jesus. Now, she was scowling right along with him.
“We went in the next day to broken glass, graffiti, doors hanging o
ff hinges, gouges in the hardwood floors, vomit and other crap all over the new carpet…shit, the place was a mess. These kids were frickin’ insane. The banister was hanging off the stairs with some rope strung from it like a noose, some of our tools had been launched up at the ceiling, and they’d even bashed something straight through one of the main weight bearing walls.”
