All The Way (All Series Book 3) (17 page)

Cool Off

“I heard you had a little bit of a mess last night.”

Brynn turned when she heard Phil’s statement. Alec had just dropped her off and run home quickly to check on his flip. She thought she would have been the first one in this morning, but Phil beat her. “Yeah. Not as bad as it could have been. How did you know?”

“Alec texted me this morning. He knew I would be up checking out my own property and he wanted to know if I had any damage.”

“Did you?”

“Nothing major, just some tree limbs down. The wind is normally worse on the lake and Alec knew that. It was Sophia’s first storm though. She actually found it fascinating.”

“Did she now?” Brynn didn’t think it was so great. She’d never been a big fan of storms—she wasn’t sure why—not even as a kid. As an adult she was more skittish of them. Always afraid the loud noises could block out the sound of other things going on in her house. Things she always paid attention to now.

“Yeah. After that first clap of thunder she went to sit in the window seat and watched the storm out over the water for a few minutes. Then she got bored and came back to bed,” he said chuckling. “Where’s Alec right now?”

“He ran to his house. He said he wanted to make sure there wasn’t any damage from the trees around the property.”

“We’ve seen our fair share of limbs going through windows and roofs.”

So had she over the years. Which was another reason she hated storms. “They’re good for business.”

“True.”

“Alec said he would be back before the meeting started as long as there weren’t any problems.”

Phil nodded. “So fill me in on what you found last night.”

“We drove around the development and everything looked to be fine and buttoned up good. As we got closer to my house, I noticed a window opened on the second floor of the house across the street.”

The crew had started framing in that house just this past week. The first home was almost finished, only the final touches being done, paint, molding and electrical sockets installed. The new owners would be closing on the house within a few weeks and she would no longer be alone in the development, even if it was half a mile away.

“What made you look up?”

“Honestly? A crack of thunder, then lightning. It caused my head to swing around and that’s when I saw it, when the sky lit up. We got a little drenched unlocking the door. You should have heard Alec cursing about not being able to open the garage door from his truck.”

“I bet.”

“Anyway, by time we got upstairs the rain was just pouring through the window, just bad luck it was coming from that direction. Thankfully not much work had been done upstairs yet. The plywood on the floor needs to be replaced and a few two by fours around the window framing, not much more.”

“How mad was Alec over it? He hates carelessness. Not that I like it much more, but he takes those things to heart.”

“He was pretty ticked. Said he was going to find out who was there yesterday and rip them a new one about buttoning up the house when they’re done at night.”

Phil nodded. “They should know better. Construction is a breeding ground for break-ins and theft, not to mention vandalism. I don’t want to be around when Alec finds out who did it.”

“Who did what?” Sean asked as he walked in the door and saw the two of them standing there talking. “And where’s Alec? He better not blow this meeting off.”

Brynn chuckled. Before she could answer, she heard her phone go off in her pocketbook and fished it out. “Alec’s on his way now with breakfast,” she added.

“Guess there is no damage to his house, then,” Phil said. “Not if he is on his way back.”

Sean looked concerned. “Was there damage to anyone’s house last night?”

“One of the homes in the development. Someone left a window open and the rain poured in,” Phil said.

Sean shook his head. “I don’t want to be anywhere near Alec when he finds out who did it.”

Brynn couldn’t believe what they were both saying. Alec didn’t seem to have it in him to be angry. Even after what she’d said, insulting him in the office that one Saturday morning, he wasn’t angry, just hurt and disappointed. That wasn’t hard to miss. He just seemed too laid-back to show any other emotions. She knew he took a lot of pride in his work. She did too, but she still couldn’t imagine the Alec that Sean and Phil were talking about.

Five minutes later, Alec rushed through the doors with his arms full of food. She walked over and pulled the box of donuts out of his hands. “Thanks,” he said, then leaned in and kissed her in front of Mary and a few other workers that were milling around up front.

She felt the heat spreading across her face and looked around, but no one reacted at all. In fact, Mary was grinning from ear to ear, then winked at her.

***

“I want to know who was at that house yesterday,” Alec said to Fred later that afternoon. He hadn’t had much more time than to just send Fred a message and let him know to check out the house first thing and explained why he was asking.

“Do you think I wouldn’t have anticipated your request?” Fred replied.

“Well, who was it?”

“It was Steve, Mike and Eric. Steve was apologetic and said that he sent Eric upstairs to open the windows to get a cross-breeze going before they went to work on the second floor. He took the blame for it all.”

Alec was trying not to fume. Eric was new, just filling in over the summer and now a few hours between the classes he was taking at a local college. He actually reminded Alec of himself, working on summer breaks and trying to learn everything he could, but Steve knew better. “Was he covering for Eric?” Alec really wanted to know; he needed to know if someone was just careless or really made an honest mistake.

“No, he wasn’t. I thought so too, but Steve said that he sent Eric out to the truck to put some tools away, and that he went up to shut the windows himself. He just missed that room in a rush to leave.” Fred stopped and looked serious for a minute, knowing Alec was weighing his options. “Steve never makes mistakes and you know that. His wife is due any day now, and he’s had a lot on his mind.”

Alec had totally forgotten about that, and he realized that he needed to cut Steve some slack. Accidents happened and he knew that. Besides, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. “Okay. I’ll go talk to him.”

“That would be good. He knows how you get, but I assured him you would understand. Now Eric, he was a nervous wreck.”

Laughing, Alec said, “Maybe that is a good thing. It’s a good reminder to check everything before you leave at night.”

Fred laughed and slapped him on the back.

An hour later, Alec made his way to one of the other houses. He’d just gotten done talking to Steve, who had been distracted even as Alec was talking to him. He could see that, but he understood and told him to keep him posted on his first child’s birth. As busy as they were, he realized family came first. Steve seemed to appreciate it and assured Alec it wouldn’t happen again.

He could hear the radio playing now, the sounds of power tools competing with the hard rock. It was all music to his ears.

With all the noises going on around him, no one heard him walk down the hall, but he heard their voices.

“Don’t you find it funny how Alec knew about the open window in the middle of the night?” Kyle, one of the new guys, said, talking to some other members of his crew, members that had been on the crew for years now.

“Does it really matter?” someone replied.

Kyle laughed. “I guess not, except either that Brynn is watching everything we do, or Alec is tapping that hot piece of ass. My guess is the latter.”

Alec stayed where he was, rage rushing through him, but he wasn’t ready to make his presence known. He was curious to see who else thought that, or had an issue with his relationship with Brynn. “You better watch what you say,” someone else said, and Alec was happy to hear that part.

“Why? I mean, let’s be serious. Why else would a woman want to work on a construction site, unless she was looking for someone to screw? I’m biding my time. I bet she makes her way through a few of us.”

That was it. Alec turned the corner and stood there, watching Kyle laughing, his back to Alec. Other members of his crew saw the look on Alec’s face and stopped what they were doing.

Kyle finally became aware of something off and turned around, the smile wiped from his face.

“You can pack your shit up and get off the property. You’re done.”

“What?” Kyle asked, outraged. “What did I do?”

Alec took a glaring step forward, fighting everything he had within himself to not rush forward and throw Kyle to the ground in a full-blown tackle. “I warned you. I warned everyone,” he said, looking around at the rest of the crew, “to watch your mouth, your language and your attitude toward Brynn. It’s not just her. It’s toward every woman on this crew. We treat everyone with respect.”

“Seriously. You’re going to fire me for saying she’s a nice piece of ass? That’s a compliment,” Kyle said back, his face turning red. He actually thought he didn’t do anything wrong, but it was all wrong in Alec’s mind and he was fast losing his patience and what little control he had over his actions right now.

“One warning. That was what everyone had!” he shouted, then stopped and looked around at the other members of the crew, enraged, and they knew it. He also knew they’d never seen him like this before and he couldn’t care less. “Does anyone else have the same opinion?” There were several heads shaking at once. “Good. Kyle, grab your shit and let’s go.”

Alec watched as Kyle picked up his tools, slamming things around with more force than necessary. Alec wanted to grab him by the throat and slam him into the wall, and that was the least he wanted to do. His fists were itching to meet with Kyle’s face, only he couldn’t do that, not without a lawsuit.

Even the threat of that almost didn’t stop him. He figured it might be worth it. Hell, Ryan would back him, he’d be fine. But he knew better, so he held his anger in as much as he could and escorted Kyle off the property, then watched him speed away.

“What the hell was that?” Fred asked, walking over from the house next door where he witnessed Kyle swearing loudly, calling Alec every name in the book.

“Someone decided not to heed my warning about Brynn.” With that, Alec walked away and stormed to Brynn’s house. He needed to cool off, and seeing any of his men right now looking the other way trying to avoid him wouldn’t help.

Low Key

“I hear we’re down one crew member,” Phil said.

Alec turned his head fast to see Phil standing in the doorway. He walked in and shut the door. Alec had gone to Brynn’s hoping to cool off, but it didn’t help. He found himself seeing parts of her all over the place, only causing him to stalk around. Not able to take much more, he slammed out of the house and drove back to the office. “How did you find out?”

“News travels fast. What happened?” Phil asked sympathetically. Phil knew Alec hated firing anyone, but he’d done it before and would again. Especially someone that threatened the reputation they both worked so hard to earn. They didn’t care how good of a worker the person was if he threatened everything they worked hard for. But losing Kyle was going to hurt and slow them down. Kyle was good at what he did. Too bad he was a prick.

Alec relayed what happened to Phil and watched his face turn red. They were raised better than to have that attitude toward women. “I would have slammed my fist in his face.”

Laughing, Alec couldn’t imagine that. Phil was always so mild-tempered. “You? You never get mad.”

Phil smirked. “I’ve been known to a time or two. Especially if it concerns the women in our lives.”

Nodding, Alec agreed. “So anyway, now we are down one. I could try to find a replacement, but with the winter coming, maybe it’s a good thing. We are down some summer help anyway, and we didn’t plan on being as busy over the winter.”

“Are you kidding me?” Phil said. “I know you’ve gone out on some of the calls we’ve had with Brynn. Maybe you haven’t seen the timeline of it all, but I have. No one is going to be out of work this winter now that most of the kids have gone back to college. And you might have to hire one or two crew just to replace those that did leave.”

“I hate interviewing,” Alec groaned. “I wonder if I can push that off to Brynn.”

“I don’t see why not. Or you can put some time in on the crew yourself.”

Snorting, Alec replied, “I put plenty of time in. How about you come out from behind your desk and put some time in?”

“That’s not happening. I do my share on your flips,” Phil said, smiling. Alec knew he could count on Phil if he really needed him. But Phil was right: they had both worked so hard for so long, it was time they were allowed to have a personal life. And Phil deserved it. He wouldn’t be surprised if Sophia ended up pregnant soon, either. It seemed like everyone they knew was having a baby within a year of getting married.

Thoughts of marriage and babies started to filter through his mind. He always knew he would end up there, just like his brothers and sister, he just didn’t know when. Now that he was actually looking forward to it and wanting it more than before, the thought of spending even more time at work held no appeal.

“Are you going to tell Brynn what happened?” Phil asked, breaking through his thoughts.

“Would you if it were Sophia?”

“Good question. I’m not sure. But then again, like I said, news travels fast, so it might be better coming from you.”

“I don’t know how she will react, though.”

“Honestly, Alec, you know this can’t be the first time she’s heard it. It’s not the first time
we’ve
heard, just not to this extent. Or your reaction to it.”

Frowning, Alec narrowed his eyes and asked, “Do you think I overreacted?”

“Hell no.”

“Good, because if you said yes I would get up from behind this desk and slam my fist in
your
face.”

Phil threw his head back and laughed. “I think we’ve outgrown the fist-throwing days.” Phil raised his hand and made a point to rub his finger over his eyebrow. “I think I got the better of you the last time.”

Alec grabbed a stress ball off his desk and threw it at Phil. “We were kids, and you said it was an accident. You swore to Mom you didn’t mean to do it.” Scowling his eyes at his twin, he ran his hand over the scar above his eyebrow. “Did you lie to Mom?”

“You will never know.”

“Don’t let her know. She might give you a matching scar if she thought you played her.”

***

At the end of the day, Brynn let herself into her house. The crew was still working in the development, and several trucks were across the street working on the house that received the storm damage last night.

She hadn’t seen Alec’s truck and wasn’t sure where he was. Not that he told her everywhere he was going. She didn’t tell him either.

When she got home, there were a few men milling in the garage getting drinks out of the refrigerator. They had stopped talking when they saw her, so she asked them what was going on.

Not one to take no for an answer, she more or less tricked them into telling her, playing along and pretending like she knew, until they spilled everything that happened. She could see they were embarrassed and she was positive they didn’t tell her everything that had been said.

Matter of fact, she wasn’t told anything more than Kyle had said some offensive things about her, and that Alec fired him on the spot.

It never seemed to end. She was trying not to get angry, but it was hard not to. She appreciated that Alec stood up for her, and that he did what he said he would do if anyone ever said a bad word about her or another woman on the crew. She just wished it never happened to begin with, or that it didn’t concern her.

She was walking out of the bathroom, towel drying her hair twenty minutes later when she heard someone downstairs in the kitchen. She knew she locked the door from the house to the garage. She always did when the garage door was open. She’d learned her lesson there.

Figuring it was Alec, she walked downstairs dressed in loose shorts and a cotton shirt. She’d planned on grilling a steak for dinner and then going to the basement to work on some framing. The plans were finalized and the wood had been delivered a few days ago. Alec had even brought a bunch of it down to the basement for her so that she didn’t have to carry it herself.

Turning the corner, she saw Fred in the kitchen with his back to her. She was going to ask him how he got in the house, but then Alec came out of the pantry and handed Fred a bag of chips. She didn’t want to intrude and decided to stay back.

“Are you okay?” Fred asked.

“Yeah,” Alec said, reaching into the open bag of chips that Fred was eating out of.

“You don’t look it. I haven’t seen you that angry before. Ever. Not like that.”

“I’m not sure I’ve ever been that angry before.” He looked at Fred and said, “I didn’t overreact.”

“Not at all. No one thinks you did, but I think it might not have come to that if you weren’t so quiet about your relationship with Brynn.”

“Why should it matter to the crew?” Alec asked. “It’s my personal life. It has nothing to do with their jobs.”

“You know better than that,” Fred chided him. “You and Phil have prided yourselves on getting to know your crew and treating them like family.” Fred held his hand up when Alec tried to talk. “Granted you are allowed to have a personal life, but Brynn works here too. The guys see her daily, and they like her. Those that don’t know you as well as the rest of us were looking down on her for sleeping with you.”

Alec slammed the fridge he had just opened up after grabbing a beer. “It’s not a fling. It’s nothing like that.”

“I know that,” Fred said. “But they don’t. I just think that trying to keep it low key made matters worse. Trust me; no one is going to think its low key anymore.”

“What a mess.”

“It’s not a mess, Alec. You are all worked up for nothing. Talk to the crew tomorrow. You should anyway. They need to hear it all from you and you need to make everyone know the truth. They need to know you are serious and what was actually said, and then you need to tell them why you did it. They need to understand things are serious with you and Brynn.”

“It’s kind of hard to tell that to the crew when I haven’t said it to her.”

“Why haven’t you?” Fred asked, looking like he was enjoying Alec’s unease. Brynn stood back against the wall and held her breath. She was wrong to not make her presence known, she knew that, but there was no way she was leaving right now. Not without hearing how Alec answered.

“I don’t know.”

“Bull,” Fred said, laughing “Are you afraid she doesn’t feel the same way?”

Alec had taken a few steps away and Brynn couldn’t see him now. She didn’t think he answered, but something caused Fred to laugh again.

She took that opportunity to run back up the stairs and let them finish their conversation in peace.