Page 15 of Forever Finds Us (Wisper Dreams #7)

Chapter Twelve

Brand

Merv worked up a belch and let it rip at the dinner table. Athena giggled, and Stuey growled, trying to imitate the sound.

“Mama!” Abey scoffed, and Devo made a disgusted face across the table in Merv’s open-concept great room. Since Merv had moved into the new house, the family had been trying to eat together on Sunday nights like we used to when we were kids.

I’d been quiet. That was normal for me, but tonight it wasn’t because of my old man or feeling out of place in my own family. Tonight, I was finding it hard not to think about Roxanne, and what it had felt like when her mouth was on my body. My mouth on hers.

When she came and I caught the fountain of liquid on my tongue, I had nearly come all over the motel bed. Goddamn, that was hot.

My mother burping next to me pulled me right out of the sexy memory, and I dropped my fork. It clattered on my plate loudly, and I cleared my throat and looked around, hoping no one had noticed my distraction.

“I apologize,” Merv said. “I’ve got awful indigestion lately. It’s makin’ my ribs burn.”

“You oughta go to the doctor, Mama,” Bax said before he shoved a heaping forkful of mashed potatoes into his mouth.

“I’m fine. Just gotta eat slower.”

Stuey looked around the table, babbling and catching everyone’s attention. With a devious smile, he brought his sippy cup to his mouth to take a drink but then threw it to the floor with what sounded like the force of a tree hitting pavement.

He squealed and giggled, and Bea lifted her face to the ceiling, trying to hold onto her composure. “Lord, give me strength.” She looked at Stu pointedly. “You’re s’posed to drink the milk, Stu. Not hurl it.”

“No want,” he said with an impish grin.

“Yes, want,” Bax said, and he picked up the cup and set it in front of the kid again.

A pile of stewed beef, carrots, smushed potatoes, and green beans littered the floor in a halo around Stu’s booster seat.

I wasn’t sure he’d actually ingested any of it.

Merv didn’t care about the mess. She gazed adoringly at the little devil, like she always did, and I wondered if, in her mind, she was blocking Dixon’s face and replacing it with Stuart’s.

Dixon’s absence tonight was probably causing her a hell of a lot more pain than her heartburn.

She’d never give up on her youngest son though.

If he was out in the world still, he had a home to come to whenever he wanted.

Maybe someday he would, but Bax and Bea were planning to adopt Stu in the new year, whether Dixon showed or not.

When Stu threw the cup again, Bax groaned. “That’s it. Dinner’s over. C’mon, Athena. You’ve got homework to finish anyway.” He lifted Stu out of his seat, and more food that the little stinker had hidden between his legs and in the top of his diaper slopped to the floor.

“I’ll clean this up,” Bea said, standing and collecting all their plates and glasses.

“Child,” Bax complained, “I swear you’re a tornado on two legs.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Merv said. “I’ll get it.”

Before she could argue, Bax hitched Stu on his hip, grabbed Bea’s hand, and hauled them both toward the exit. “Thanks for dinner, Mama. See y’all tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Merv,” Bea called as Bax dragged her through the door.

“You’re welcome,” she said as they left.

Athena had her nose stuck in her phone, and she bumped into the wall on her way out and barely even noticed. She tossed a wave back at the rest of us before the screen door clattered shut behind her.

“I’ve got the mess,” I said, standing to stack all the dirty plates and silverware. “Mama, your new car will be here in a couple days. Why don’t you make a doctor’s appointment, and you can drive it and show it off?”

“Well now,” she said. “There’s a good idea. Betty Johnson will be so jealous!”

Devo snorted, and Abey rolled her eyes.

Monday morning, Tab showed up at eight forty-five on the dot and waited for me outside in her car so we could go check out some properties for rent.

Lee Construction needed a new home base.

We usually worked out of a trailer we could transport to each build site, and I was still planning to do that when possible, but I’d been thinking it might be nice to have a main office we could fix up for meetings with potential clients.

Somewhere we could display pictures of previous projects or models of upcoming builds.

I was already tired of working out of Merv’s house.

I needed a place to call my own, and Tab needed a better office than the kitchen table in her new rental.

I needed to hire a local HR manager and other positions, and they’d all need somewhere to work.

It was just an idea at this point. I wanted to see what we could find in town before I made the decision. I could always build something if the available properties didn’t meet my needs.

The plans I’d had drawn up for a home of my own sat tucked away in a corner in my room at Merv’s, waiting for me to be ready, but it wouldn’t be built until next summer, and it was just a small two-bedroom log A-frame, definitely not big enough to incorporate offices.

Besides that, part of what I thought needed to change in my life was my work-to-relaxation ratio.

If my office was inside my house, I’d never shut off my brain.

“Morning,” Tab said when I opened her passenger door and sank down into her sporty Nissan’s bucket seat.

“Morning. You need a truck. This car’s too low.”

She laughed.

“You’re laughin’ now but get back to me after you live through your first blizzard around here and have to drive on all these curvy, windin’ roads with no four-wheel drive or underbody clearance.” She rolled her eyes, so I pushed on. “What’s on our agenda today?”

“We’re meeting Mrs. Brooks from Wisper Realty. She’s got a few places for us to see. Oh, and before I forget, Gina Scott emailed. She wants to set up an appointment with you to go over the new build we’re in contract for here in the spring.”

Holding in a groan of annoyance, I said, “I forgot she was the lead architect on the project.” I shouldn’t have forgotten, but I tried to repress any memory or interaction I’d had with Gina Scott.

“She said she’ll be down this way in a couple weeks, so she wanted to get something on our books. She suggested dinner.”

“Great.”

I said it like, “Great, that sounds fine,” but I meant it like, “Fucking great, I can’t wait to see that slithering snake of a woman. Maybe she’ll try to harvest my sperm so she can tie me down for good this time.”

Unfortunately, Gina Scott was the go-to architect for the company that had hired Lee Construction to build their new residential project when they heard I was moving back home.

Based out of Sheridan, Wy Not Homes had projects going up all over Wyoming.

I wasn’t surprised they wanted to build in Jackson Hole.

Their usual MO was luxury homes, but they were savvy businesspeople and knew that if they started in the area with affordable and subsidized homes, they’d build a good rep before they started buying up land for their chance to make gazillions off rich tourists and celebrities who wanted to vacation in the Tetons.

Also unfortunately, Gina Scott was my ex-girlfriend.

The three months or so we’d dated last year had been some of the least sexy or fun times of my adult life.

We had sex and ate dinner together two or three times a week, and she’d sat at my dining table talking about how she wanted to redecorate my house, with her eyes on her phone the whole time, checking emails or Instagram.

When I’d finally called it off, she’d tried her hardest to hold onto the joke of a relationship. It had started out great. There had been mutual attraction, but it quickly turned disappointing, just like every other relationship I’d had to date.

Something’s missing.

Ninety days later, I barely knew anything about her, and she couldn’t have cared less about my wants and desires.

All she’d cared about was money and status.

She had plans to make us the Wyoming building community’s new “it” couple, whatever the hell that was, and when I’d started talking about moving home, she told me it was a mistake I’d regret.

I disagreed strongly. And I realized then that her opinion didn’t matter to me, which was the night I broke things off.

If I’d tried to wrap my hand around her throat when I’d fucked her, she probably would’ve called the cops. I imagined Roxanne showing up to the call and snorted out loud.

Tab looked at me out of the corner of her eye, like I’d just grown a second head.

So, yeah. Great. Super excited to see Gina Scott again.

“And then,” Tab went on, dismissing my outburst, “after we’re done touring properties, I’ll start reaching out to the crews who worked for you last year and see if I can drum up some more interest. The guys who’ve signed on to build the inn and those who worked on the barn and the bunkhouse this summer have already said they’ll work any job you offer them. ”

“That’s great. Thanks, Tab.”

“Welcome. So, tell me about this weekend. I saw your sister on my way to pick you up, and she told me you went up there to help search for that missing girl. I’m so glad you found her. God, can you imagine if you hadn’t?”

I could imagine, and the nightmare of that exact scenario had played out in my dreams and kept me up half the night.

“Actually, Deputy Roxanne and I found Natalie. She was only a couple miles from the trailhead, but she fell and broke her ankle so she’d veered off course.

From what her dad said, he was really close to where we found her when he looked for her earlier in the day, but apparently she wandered aimlessly for a while, and in those woods, you can get disoriented really fast. But a broken ankle was the worst of it.