Tools of Engagement Page 18
Bethany recovered, visibly shaking herself. “I’ll be careful. Ollie is going to show me what to do.”
“Lord. Don’t drag me into this,” Ollie said from his hiding place behind the lighting guy. “I didn’t think it would be a big deal.”
“It’s not a big deal,” Bethany enunciated. “Thank you for your concern, but I can manage not to plummet to my death.”
She had to go putting death in his head, sending his blood pressure sky-high. “You go up on that roof and I’ll carry you down over my shoulder, Bethany. You hear me? Tiling the roof is not a job for you.”
Yet. He should have said yet.
Her reaction had Wes regretting his words immediately. The stubbornness fled from her beautiful eyes, replaced with betrayal. It was too late for apologies or take-backs, though, wasn’t it? He’d royally screwed himself now. The hardheaded woman was backed into a corner in front of God and everyone. She had no choice but to call his bluff.
“Well . . . you know.” Her voice cracked, but she patched it fast. “You won’t have a say if I fire you.”
A sharp object got stuck in his throat. “Is that what you’re doing?”
Fear crept into her eyes, but she blinked it away. “Yes,” she said, lifting her chin.
They spent a good ten seconds in a stare down that Wes eventually won.
But as he stormed to his car, the ache in the center of his chest insisted he’d definitely lost.
Wes did what any self-respecting cowboy did when he had woman troubles.
He drowned his sorrows in a bottle of brew.
Outlander Ringtone had offered to give him the night off since she’d had an afternoon reprieve from picking Laura up from school yesterday. He’d jumped on it immediately. His mood was black and he didn’t want it affecting his niece.
“Want another?” asked the bartender on his way to ring up a round.
Wes eyeballed his empty bottle of Bud, weighing the pros of oblivion versus the cons of getting a six o’clock in the morning wake-up call while nursing a hangover. Was this parenthood? Constantly having to decide if a hangover was worth it? Not only that, there was this icky, sticky guilt over being out in the first place urging him to turn down another beer. Why did he feel guilty when this was his first night out in a month?
Hell, it wasn’t even nine thirty.
“Yeah,” he muttered, pushing his empty bottle toward the bartender. “Thanks.”
Truthfully, he’d rather be at home reading Laura a bedtime story instead of taking up space in Grumpy Tom’s, but sometimes a man needed room to think. That went triple tonight.
How had everything gone to shit so fast?
He still couldn’t make sense of it.
Three days prior to being fired by Bethany, they’d been right there on the edge of something more. God, he’d been eager to get there, too. She’d been so close to giving in and saying yes to their date. He was going to take her out, open doors for her, treat her like a queen, and fuck her to high heaven.
Now he’d lost his shot and his job.
His world had turned upside down faster than a bull bucking him onto his ass—and right at the time he needed to have his life together. He was serious about taking guardianship of Laura if he could get his sister to agree to the arrangement. Wes didn’t have any notions of keeping Becky from her daughter forever, but while he was her caretaker, he wanted to give her stability. He didn’t want her waking up every morning wondering if today would be the day he lit out of Port Jefferson.
Which brought him to his most immediate problem. Stability for Laura meant a steady income—and as of this afternoon, he no longer had that.
He couldn’t blame Bethany, either. All day he’d been replaying the scene outside the house. God, he’d been an idiot. Bethany’s whole reason for wanting to head this flip was to prove herself capable. He’d tried to rob her of an opportunity to further her confidence in herself. Shit, he was as bad as Stephen.
As if his thoughts had put up a Stephen Bat-Signal, the man in question walked into the bar a few minutes later, holding another note in his hand. Deep in concentration, Bethany’s brother almost walked right past Wes, but tripped to a halt before he could get too far.
“Wes. What are you doing here?”
“What’s it look like?”
Stephen settled into the stool beside Wes and ordered a Coke, smoothing his crinkled note out on the bar while he waited. “Is my sister giving you headaches?”
Wes held up a hand. “Let me stop you right there. I’m not here to gossip like a middle schooler.”
“Ah, you’re no fun.”
“Says the man who ordered a soda in a bar,” Wes drawled, bottle to his lips. “I see you’ve got another cryptic note from Kristin. What does this one say?”
“‘After every storm, there is a rainbow.’”
Lord, the woman was certifiable. “Let me ask you a question, man. Have you just come right out and asked her what the notes mean?”
“I can’t do that.” Stephen gaped at him like he’d just suggested they steal a cop car and do donuts in the town square. “She’ll be disappointed in me if I can’t figure it out on my own.”
“But you can’t.”
Stephen faced Wes on his stool. “One year, Kristin knitted me some socks for Christmas and I didn’t react with enough appreciation. I mean, they were socks. But she gave me the silent treatment straight through New Year’s.” He popped a straw into his Coke. “I finally figured out what was wrong. Turns out, they were exact replicas of my christening socks, right down to the little red crosses on the ankles.”
Wes knew he must look stupefied. He was. “How the hell did you figure that out?”
“My mother came over for dinner and saw them. Kristin had left them out on the mantel, but I was too naive to realize she was trying to give me a hint.” He nodded as if that explanation was completely normal. “Anyway, my mother knew right away and commented on the resemblance of the socks. So Kristin threw them in the fire.”
“What?”
Stephen leaned in. “She wanted me to figure it out.”
Was this Long Island or Mars? “That sounded like a horror film, but thank you, I guess.”
“Thank you?”
“Yeah,” Wes said, sipping his drink. “My own lady troubles don’t seem quite as daunting now.”
“I knew it.” Stephen wrapped smug lips around his straw. “Bethany ghosted you, didn’t she? Wasn’t sure how she’d manage it since you’re working together, but my sister is resourceful.”
Goddammit. Why had be mentioned trouble? The last thing he wanted to do was listen to Stephen talk a bunch of nonsense about Bethany. But he was also one beer deep, heartsick, and confused about what had actually happened between them. He’d been caught in a weak moment. “What do you mean, she ghosted me?”
“That’s her thing. She casts her line out into the water.” Stephen moved his Coke aside so he could mimic fishing. “The man bites. And then she throws the whole damn rod back into the ocean while the poor sucker is still attached.”
The back of his neck prickled ominously, but he scoffed. “How long have you been working on that metaphor?”
“It’s my mother’s, actually, and there’s more,” Stephen responded, squinting back down at his note. “So there’s the rod floating on the ocean, the man is hooked at the end, and Bethany stands on the boat blaming the fish.”
Wes’s entire life, he’d avoided any kind of long-term relationships. This right here was why. Stephen had clearly lost his fucking mind and what was to blame?
Love.
Marriage.
Sure, Stephen’s wife was a complete loony toon, but Wes would have been standing on the outside laughing at this manner of conversation a few months ago. He’d have ridiculed Stephen for letting himself get played like a fiddle. Now it wasn’t so funny. Because he was the hooked fish and if he closed his eyes, he could see Bethany standing at the bow of a ship, watching him sink.
Was he just going to swim off now when they’d come so far?
No. He was going to jump back into the goddamn boat and throw the rod down at her feet. Let her know he wasn’t going anywhere. She’d caught herself a Texas man and he refused to sink like the chumps she’d dated before. More important, he was going to figure out why she continued to throw the fish out with the rod.
A crack of thunder sounded outside, as if the heavens approved of his new course of action, and rain began to pelt the windows of Grumpy Tom’s. The downpour sent the smokers scurrying inside using their jackets as shelter.
Damn.
The forecast didn’t call for rain. He’d checked as recently as this morning, to make sure there would be no bad weather causing them delays. Back when he’d been the foreman and he was paid to have contingency plans in place, anyway. He’d need to drive over to the jobsite and put some tarps on the roof.
With a sigh, he took out his wallet and signaled the bartender so he could settle up. “I need to get to the site,” he told Stephen. “Fired or not, I can’t let all that hard work go to waste.”
Stephen spit Coke onto the bar, earning a stony look from the sleepy barman. “She fired you?”
“Yup.”
“First of all, welcome back to the winning team,” Stephen said magnanimously. “Second, I don’t know why I’m surprised. This is classic Bethany.”
Wes flicked an irritated wrist, sending a twenty fluttering down onto the bar. “Have you ever asked Bethany why she pushes people away or do you just bitch and moan about it behind her back? Maybe there’s a good reason she does it. You ever thought of that?”
“You’re defending her?” Stephen sputtered. “She fired you!”
“I pushed her to it. It’s on me. And I don’t want back on your team.”
Stephen stayed silent a moment. “There’s obviously something going on between you two or she wouldn’t have pulled her parachute.”
Ire pinched his nerve endings. “Oh, fuck off with your metaphors. What is wrong with everyone in this town? No one can just say what’s on their minds?” Wes plucked the note up off the bar and tossed it into the air. “Your wife is pregnant, you moron.”
“She is?”
“Yes. And I’m sure he or she will grow up completely stable.”
To Wes’s shock and horror, Stephen launched off the stool and threw his arms around Wes’s shoulders, cry-laughing noisily. “I’m going to be a dad.”
Wes sighed and patted him on the back. “Congratulations.”
Finally, Stephen pulled back with moisture-filled eyes. A loud beep had Bethany’s brother disengaging to pull his cell from his front pocket, his rapturous expression turning to exasperation. “Just got a text from Bethany. She wants to know if a staple gun is waterproof.” He flicked a glance at Wes. “Sounds like she’s way ahead of you on the roof situation. You better go.”
Wes’s heart took an elevator up to his throat. “What? Text her back. Tell her to wait for me—”
The phone beeped again. “Never mind,” Stephen read aloud. “I googled it.”
Wes propelled himself out of the bar into the rain, visions of Bethany slipping and falling chilling his blood.
Apparently one more fight was in order before he won her back.
Although, had he ever had her in the first place?
Chapter Eighteen
Bethany spit rainwater out of her mouth and did her best to unfold the tarp blind. No matter how she positioned herself on the roof, the rain seemed to slant directly into her face, so she planted her feet shoulder-width apart and sarcastically thanked Mother Nature for this glorious piece of timing.
She was not too proud to admit she should be anywhere but a rain-slicked roof during a storm. In fact, she would even have given the job to Wes, if she hadn’t fired him in the bonehead move of the century. But she’d spent six hours on that roof this afternoon, her hands were torn to shit, her back was sore, and something felt broken inside of her. So she was going to salvage her hard work, dammit, and everything in the line of fire beneath the leaks while she was at it.
Her right boot slid a little bit, but she righted her stance in time to get the tarp open. Going down on her hands and knees, she spread the blue covering and stapled it into place as close to the roof’s edge as possible. The wind and needlelike raindrops made it almost impossible to see what she was doing, but surely the worst of it would be over any second? The forecast said overcast through tomorrow. They’d all been lied to! Who would be held accountable?
She was being dramatic, but whatever. She was soaking wet on a roof beneath a full moon and there’d been a rocky turbulence inside her since that afternoon. Even before the rain started, she’d been pacing in her living room, unable to sit still. This wasn’t right. She shouldn’t have this awful foreboding in her stomach because of a man.
It was never like this.
At worst, when she decided her association with a man had run its course, she felt mildly peeved when they didn’t try and get back in her good graces. Not that she ever let them. But the chance of Wes deciding she was too much trouble . . . it really truly scared her.
He’d hung in there through countless traded insults and arguments. He’d witnessed a near panic attack at Georgie’s wedding. He hadn’t even flinched at the ugly mark on her neck. Would the blow she’d dealt to his pride be the final straw?
She hadn’t wanted to fire him.
He was the Zellweger to her Cruise.
There were feelings. She had feelings.
Bethany adjusted the hood of her jacket so the rain would stop dripping in her eyes and set about laying out the second tarp. She secured one corner, then crawled slowly toward the opposite end of the roof as the blue tarp flapped in the wind. The coarse material of the shingles bit into her knees through her jeans, but she welcomed the distracting pain.
What was it that really scared her about Wes leaving this afternoon and not even looking back once? The slam of his truck door reverberated with such finality. It was the sum of her fears, wasn’t it? That a guy would finally know all the negative things about her and leave. Isn’t this what she’d been avoiding for so long?
The proof that she was imperfect.
Bethany swallowed hard and picked up the pace of her crawl. Making it across the roof, she applied the final staple. There. Done.
Still . . . maybe she should check for unsecured openings. She’d lost Wes today. She wasn’t going to sacrifice all the hard work they’d accomplished together on the house, too. The added blow would be unbearable. Just a few more minutes and it would be perfect—
“Goddammit, Bethany!”
Wes?
She twisted toward the sound of his voice, though she couldn’t be sure where it was coming from because the wind was so strong. As soon as her head turned, the rain lashed her in the face and she flinched, dropping the nail gun. She tried to snatch for it blindly, but missed and lost her balance.
Bethany slid on the part of the roof that hadn’t yet been tiled, a scream ripping from her throat. There was an unnerving moment of clarity where she realized death was imminent, right before her body went sailing over the edge. In a sudden burst of self-preservation, her fingers caught on the ancient rain gutter and clung, but just like everything else attached to the house, it was too old to be viable and a snapping sound was her only warning before it gave, leaving Bethany dangling from the edge of the broken gutter.
“Wes!”
“I’m here. I’ve got you, baby. Let go.”
“I can’t. Are you insane?”
“I won’t let you hit the groun
d, you know that.” His voice was stronger than the storm, tunneling inside her and putting down roots. “Come on. I’ve got you.”
It was the biggest leap of faith she’d ever taken. Perhaps she never would have realized that she did, in fact, trust Wes—maybe more than anyone—if she wasn’t dangling from the roof like a sodden monkey. But she wholeheartedly trusted that he would catch her and she let go with a squeak. His arms banded around her a split second later, her body colliding with his hard one, and Wes stumbled back a pace. He positioned her more securely against his chest and then he was moving.
Bethany’s view of Wes’s face was obscured by the hood of her rain jacket, but she saw his leg strike out and kick open the door to the house. He stomped them both inside and set her down carefully in the pitch black, leaving her to shiver and drip onto the floor. A moment later, one of the hanging lights came on across the room, illuminating Wes—and wow, he was pissed.
The masculine planes of his face were highlighted on one side, blanketed by the darkness on the other. His breaths were harsh and uneven, joining the pelting rain as the only two sounds in the room. Besides her heartbeat, that was. The sight of him was so welcome, her heart seemed to be beating even harder than it had been while suspended from the gutter. She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing would come out. What could she say? This buildup inside of her was so unusual and it ached. She had no idea what kind of words it would produce.
Wes had no such problem finding something to say.
He took off his drenched hat and threw it across the room, where it slapped off one of the only finished walls in the house. “Goddammit, Bethany. Of all the stupid—” He pressed a fist to the center of his forehead, slowing his breathing. “I’m rehired. Simple as that. If only to keep you from killing yourself by being stubborn as shit. And it’s permanent. You can haul off and fire me as many times as you want, baby, but I’m going to show up every morning like it never happened. Deal with it.”