All The Way (All Series Book 3) (2 page)

The Best

Brynn looked over at Alec in the cab of his truck. She was trying not to stare, but it was hard. He was dressed in old faded jeans, work boots and a worn T-shirt—showing way more of his body than she felt comfortable with. His arms were huge. Who would have known under that dress shirt he had on a few weeks ago? Or how big his thighs were.

For the heck of it she took one more sideways glance at his thighs on the seat, then turned back to look out the window. There, it was out of her system. It wouldn’t be good for her to start fantasizing about her boss. She was here for a job and that was all she wanted. Period. End of story.

Besides, Alec was totally not her type. He was too big, too masculine, and too much in control of the air around him. She’d been around plenty of that “macho man” type in her life, and last thing she wanted was to be attracted to one.

There was nothing wrong with looking though. Especially with the treat sitting right next to her.
Stop it
, she ordered her mind.

“All unpacked?” Alec asked, causing her to turn with a start.

“Pretty much. At least the clothes I need for now. All my furniture and household things are still in the U-Haul truck in Carly’s driveway.”

“Carly?”

“My friend. My old college roommate. She was nice enough to let me stay with her until the model home is ready.”

“If you need help unloading all of your furniture I can get a couple of the guys over after work one day and punch it out quick for you.”

Wow, that was sweet, and very considerate. “Thanks. But I need to find a place to store everything first. Later tonight I’m going to make some calls for a storage unit. I wasn’t sure what you wanted to do in terms of furniture for the model home. My furniture is nice, but I doubt I’ve got enough to stage it properly.”

“Staging? Ugh, I didn’t even think of that. Please tell me you can do that?”

“Of course,” she said around a grin. “You don’t have to, but it does help sell the houses. Sometimes it’s best to just stage the living areas, office and such, not every bedroom.”

“Okay. We’ll deal with that as we get closer. I’ll leave it in your hands.”

Even better, he had enough faith in her already to just hand it over. Maybe she was wrong; maybe he didn’t need to control everything. Of course by the look on his face he seemed uncomfortable at the prospect of buying furniture for a home. “Don’t you like to shop?” she asked.

“Not really. But honestly, I’m sure my taste is much different than what would sell a house. I’m pretty basic. Phil isn’t much better. Though I’m sure Mary would enjoy staging the house, I don’t really trust her taste either.” He stopped, turned his head while a charming smile lit up his face. His eyes crinkled, making him look even more attractive, and suddenly a slow fire kindled in the pit of her stomach, regardless of how much she didn’t want it there. “Don’t you dare tell her I said that.”

Since Brynn noticed Mary wearing a bright wildflower print shirt this morning with striped pants, she would take Alec’s word for it. “So how far is the development from the office?” she asked, changing the subject.

“About fifteen minutes. Just on the outskirts of town.”

She pulled her phone out of her purse and tapped her screen, then turned to look at him. “Tell me about it.”

He looked over at her briefly and paused. “I’ll wait till you’re done.”

“Done with what?”

“Whatever you’re doing on your phone.”

He actually thought she was going to talk to someone else. That would be completely beyond rude to do with her new boss. On her first day, no less. She explained, “I’m taking notes.” Turning the screen toward him, she showed him the app she just pulled up. “I use this to take notes wherever I am, and it links back to my computer and tablet.”

“Oh. I guess you
are
organized.” He waited a minute, then asked, “How do you type on that thing?”

She smirked. “My hands are smaller than yours.” She looked at his hands on the steering wheel and stared at them longer than necessary. She couldn’t help herself. He had some pretty impressive hands, too.

“The development is a little over eighty acres. One hundred plots for homes. Each plot is somewhere between half an acre to three-fourths of an acre.”

“That’s nice. Most of the developments in Rochester give much less property for each home. They are pretty much on top of each other.”

“I didn’t want that. I would have liked to give more land per lot, actually, but this worked out well. The guy we bought the property from had already divided the lots up and put in several of the roads and water taps for each property.”

“Why did he sell it?”

“He ran out of money. And thankfully, he did a lot of the preliminary work for us. It allowed us to start building right away.”

“What are your HOA fees?”

“We don’t have any.”

“You don’t?” she asked, stunned. Every development had HOA fees.

“We didn’t want to bite off more than we could chew right now. I don’t want to even consider managing people’s property and lawn maintenance. We don’t have any amenities for them to use, either.”

“You don’t need to. Let me ask, they can only choose one of the ten houses that you and Phil are providing, right? But they can change up floor plans, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And the exterior of the houses have to be approved by Harper Construction? No changes in color or style even after they buy?” she asked him.

“Of course.”

“Then you are providing them something. What if they wanted to put an addition on a house? Would they be able to?”

“Not without our approval. We want everything to look a certain way. The houses have to be maintained and kept up well. A nice neighborhood for people to live in,” he explained.

“Exactly. So you charge them a small annual amount for that. You are providing them a place to live that will maintain its value, if not increase it. They don’t have to worry about houses being run-down around them and lowering their own property values.”

“What would you suggest? The first nine homes have signed contracts already. I don’t want them to back out because I’m hitting them with fees now.”

“Why not start with six hundred a year? It’s peanuts, I know, but put a clause in that you can only increase it a certain percentage each year unless you offer more services. With as much as they are spending on these homes, I don’t see anyone balking over such a small amount.”

“Thanks. I’ll talk to Sean about it. He can handle all the paperwork, and he’ll be happy. Anytime he can add money to the bottom line, he is doing his Irish happy dance.”

She finished typing the rest of her notes and added another notation to sit down with Sean and discuss some of the clauses she’d seen from other developments she’d sold homes in. When she was done typing she looked over at Alec. He seemed awfully quiet all of a sudden. “Everything all right?”

“What? Sure.” He paused and cleared his throat, then shifted in his seat. “I just wanted to say there are other women on the crew.”

“That’s nice.” She was trying not to laugh at how uncomfortable he seemed to be talking about this, but she was actually pleased to hear they employed other women. “I’ve worked with plenty of men in my life. I can handle myself. But it’s always nice to see other women out there.”

“I just wanted you to know that Phil and I don’t care much about who’s swinging a hammer, only that they are good at what they do. We take a lot of pride in our work. We really only want to hire the best.”

Her heart fluttered at that, first from how sincere he sounded, and second because maybe she misjudged him. “That’s good to know because I want to work for the best.” It was a nice feeling knowing her gut was right in terms of Harper’s reputation.

He chuckled, then shook his head. “I warned the guys already, not that I needed to because they know better, and you won’t be on the site that much. But if anyone gets out of line, or if anyone says anything sexist or demeaning, let Phil or me know. We’ll take care of it.”

Eyes wide, she gasped. She really hadn’t expected that. She knew how it was with the good old boys club. She didn’t mind it much either. She could joke and laugh with the best of them, but she wouldn’t be with the crew that much, and she could hold her own. She had before, and could do it again. She guessed maybe she was totally off base with her opinion of Alec based on their first interview together, and wished she hadn’t made those snap judgments. “Thanks, Alec. I mean it. But I’ve been around construction sites and men for plenty of years.”

“I know. But you also said you left your last job because the men wouldn’t take orders from a woman foreman. That won’t happen with us.” He stopped and laughed out loud. “My mother would be the first one at the site blistering someone’s ears if they even considered saying a woman couldn’t do the same job as a man.”

Oh boy, a man who loved his mother, because it was evident in his face just now talking about her. She had to stop letting his words change her mind. She needed to put him back in the macho man category or else she would be thinking more about him and less about her job and she
wouldn’t
allow that to happen. “I think I would like your mother. Mine was the same way.”

“Really?”

“Yep. My father was a little harder to convince that construction was a good field of choice for a girl, but he supported me in the end. Of course my mother had a lot to say about it. She was all for proving women could do the same as men.”

“I think our mothers will get along well,” he said.

“They probably would have, but my mother passed away a few years ago,” she said with a sad little smile. It had been so hard on her and her father and Drew when their mother was in that accident. Icy roads in the middle of a snowstorm on her way home from work. Someone driving too fast had crossed the center line and caused a ten-car pile-up, killing three. Her mother was one. The wrong place at the wrong time.

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking distressed all of a sudden.

“Don’t be. I’ve got tons of happy memories of her. She was a wonderful woman.”

He nodded his head but didn’t say anything more for the next few minutes. Then he slowed down and took a turn into the new development. It was huge, lots of open land, and the new houses were spread out, but not by much. “How many streets are you building on right now?”

“Just three. We’re keeping them close together at the moment. Once we get a better handle on things, we’ll open up the other streets and plots. Plus put the rest of the streets in. Maybe next year.”

***

Alec pulled his truck into the driveway of the model home. He had been starting to sweat back there when he mentioned their mothers getting along and she said her mother had passed. Thankfully Brynn didn’t seem bothered by it.

Actually, she was so easygoing, so easy to talk to, he actually wished the drive were longer than fifteen minutes. It was almost like talking to one of the guys, only different. More like a kid sister who was a bit of a tomboy.

“We’re putting a rush on the model home. They should be in there sheetrocking right now. By the end of the week I hope to have the flooring finally finished, too.”

“That’s great, but you didn’t need to put a rush on it for me. Focus on your paying clients.”

“It’s okay. It will only put the other houses back a few weeks. Actually, most of the houses aren’t scheduled to be done until the end of the year or later. When we realized how many we would be working on at once, we decided to focus on getting all the shells up first and protecting them from the elements. Then we’re going to work on them on a first-come basis. It will keep us busy during the winter.”

“Makes sense. You’ve got everything picked out for this house already? All the finishes?”

“Most of them. Thanks, by the way.”

“For what?” she asked, confusion crossing her face.

“For siding with me on the high-end finishes,” he replied, laughing. “I told Phil that all along, but he argued with me. When you said the same thing during the interview, he relented.”

She nodded once, her eyes softening as she followed him up the stairs to the front porch and opened the door. The sounds of construction over loud music could be heard echoing off the walls. “I’ll give you a quick tour, then we can get out of their way, and I’ll show you the other properties if you want to see them.”

Two hours later he dropped her back off at the office after he’d showed her all ten of the houses and answered all her questions. She was smart, really smart. Not just about the construction part of it, but everything else. All the things he and Phil didn’t think about, or didn’t even know they needed to think about. She was going to be a huge asset to the team.

And therein lay the problem. He needed to get his mind on business, not her. She wasn’t even his type, he reminded himself, no matter how many times the image of her in that sexy suit flashed in his mind.

He hadn’t expected to be so attracted to her, and couldn’t let himself go there. She was his employee. A valuable employee if today was any indication of things he could expect from her. He couldn’t mess this up.