TRIXIE
“ G rizzly Protection Services!”
Trixie looked down at her business card to double-check the number she had just called. “Sorry, I was looking for Snafu River Security…?”
The man who had answered the phone gave a chuckle. “Yeah, we’re getting a lot of that. New ownership. Don’t worry, Alex Vex is still in charge and living large.”
In the background, Trixie heard someone scold him. “Stop saying that, Orson!”
“Why? It’s true!”
“Talk to the customer already, Orson.”
“Right,” apparently-Orson said. “How can I help you today?”
Trixie sighed. “I want to get my existing security system inspected at a remote worksite near Tok. We had a compressor stolen last week and this week someone deliberately fouled a generator. Insurance wants a professional statement about the system before they’ll agree to cover it and if it's not up to snuff, I’ll need to hire you for an upgrade in order to continue my coverage. ”
“Are you looking for electronic surveillance or an on-site guard?” Orson asked.
“Probably just electronic surveillance,” Trixie said. “I’m on a pretty tight budget.” This was already going to cost a pretty penny. Tok was a tiny town that was 360 miles north of Anchorage and 200 miles east of Fairbanks, square in the middle of nowhere.
“ Tight budget ,” Orson repeated, clearly writing things down. “ Near Tok . They had really great burgers,” he observed. “Speedy Teddy’s?”
“Fast Eddy’s,” Trixie corrected him, as the voice in the background of the call echoed her in chorus.
Orson laughed. “Thank you, ladies! Should we send my brother Hunter down to check it out?”
“I’ve lost a quarter of my staff to college starting and another quarter to hunting,” Trixie said, before she realized that Orson was not talking to her, and that Hunter was a name .
In the background, the woman sounded skeptical.
“I don’t think we have anyone else available until next week.
” Probably, the security company—whatever name it was under this week—was facing the same staffing shortage that Trixie was.
Students were back in school, and everyone who could had a moose tag and was using the final weeks of fall to fill their freezers.
“Hunter it is,” Orson said triumphantly. “He’s going to love the burgers. Let me get your details!”
Trixie gave him the location of the worksite and a time to meet there the next afternoon for a risk-free quote that sounded too good to be true, then hung up with a sigh.
This undoubtedly was going to cost a lot, even using their budget options, but it was better than replacing more equipment, or worse, missing the brief window of construction that they had.
If they didn’t get the building buttoned up before snow started flying, it would be months before they could finish, and they’d lose the entire winter of work time.
Laying and curing the concrete pad had taken longer than she’d estimated, and now they were scrambling to get the frame erected and the roof placed before weather moved in.
T he next morning, Trixie inhaled. She could smell the threat of snow in the morning air.
They were closing in on the equinox. Late September marked the start of fall in many places of the world, but meant impending winter in Alaska.
Days and nights were perfectly balanced now, but wouldn’t be for very long.
Everyone in the state suddenly realized that summer was crashing to an end, and tried to squeeze the last of their fair weather activities in before the cold and dark took over.
Trixie scowled up at the sky. Dark clouds obscured the nearby mountains, even though the sky above was still blue.
Termination dust—the first visible snow at higher elevations—had already been spotted, and it wouldn’t be long before that white line crept down to the worksite and stopped the housebuilding project in its tracks.
There wasn’t a lot she could do before her crew showed up, but Trixie went to set up ladders and fill the generator from the padlocked tank in the back of her truck.
The Taylor brothers were the first on the scene, arriving just a few moments after eight. “There’s coffee in the back of the truck,” she said. She always brewed a big pot, even though she didn’t drink it herself.
The Taylor brothers—Keith and Kyle—were part of a big family known locally as the Taylor pack, and they were reliable help, all things considered.
They arrived when they said they would, worked hard, and didn’t try to cut corners.
Trixie had worried about how young they were when she hired them, but although they chattered and rough-housed more than she might have liked, they showed up ready to go and were generally friendly and easy to train.
She wished she could say the same about Dylan and Sam.
She didn’t know what their history was, but she purposefully assigned them at opposite sides of the site after stopping several near-brawls.
Noah, an older and experienced man from Delta, had a lot of critical things to say about a woman running a work crew, but Trixie accepted him as a relic from another age who could still get things done and let him boss around a few of the summer hires while they had them.
He needed supervision to stay on task, and clearly resented it when Trixie had to get him back to work after a break, but when he was doing it, his output was fast and high quality.
When everyone had gathered and was drinking their coffee and complaining about the coming cold, Trixie laid out the day’s plan.
“I want to get the first floor completely framed in and start getting the second story subfloor down today. Tomorrow we can get the second floor framing in place and start sheathing. The truss truck is due to come in on Friday with the roof supplies. If we push, we can get it all done before the weather moves in.”
“There a bonus for an early finish?”
“Trust Sam to have concerns about an early finish ,” Dylan quipped.
The Taylor pack chuckled but Dylan hadn’t meant it kindly and Sam turned red with rage .
“We’re well past our deadline already,” Trixie reminded them sternly.
“But it’s going to be worse if we don’t have the shell up and the basement backfilled before it starts freezing.
The finish work could be a nice cushy source of income through the winter, or we might miss our window and you guys can fight over a crappy server job at Fast Eddy’s hoping you can get good tips. ”
“Maybe if Kyle wore a short skirt,” Keith joked.
That got some guffaws and Trixie dismissed them to their assignments.
Lifting walls was a team effort, and Trixie worked alongside them, coordinating their efforts and watching with pleasure as the structure itself started to take form.
By lunch, they were putting on the sill for the second floor as the Taylor brothers attached the outer sheathing and Noah started sealing the parts that would be underground with rolls of Bituthene.
Trixie bounced between whatever team needed extra hands and filled in nailing patterns behind them.
The group dispersed for lunch when they got to good stopping points and Trixie took a brief break to devour a sandwich and some chips.
She sat on her truck tailgate and looked at the building with satisfaction.
Sometimes, construction felt like an unending hurry-up-and-wait.
She was at the convenience of the excavator operator she’d hired, and then the concrete company.
Weather had stopped work for a week. The equipment broke, or got stolen, or even deliberately fouled.
Now, finally, there was some visible progress and she felt like they had a fighting chance to hit their goals.
When she heard the crunch of tires on gravel, Trixie immediately assumed that it was some of the crew.
Maybe they’d taken her little speech of inspiration to heart and were coming back early to get things done.
She crumpled the wrapper for her chips and tossed it into her lunch bag before she reached for her tool belt.
But to her surprise, it was an unfamiliar truck, emblazoned with a snarling bear on the door.
It took her a moment to remember the new name of the security firm she’d hired. Grizzly Protection Services, which seemed pretentious, and the man who swung out of the cab actually looked a little like a grizzly. He had a thick, scruffy beard and a scowl that it couldn’t hide.
To Trixie’s surprise, he was wearing a suit. Who wore a suit to a worksite in rural Alaska? Her opinion of him plummeted as he picked his way across the rough gravel towards her. He was even carrying a briefcase.
“I’m looking for a Mr. Pat Talon,” he called as he approached.
Trixie buckled the tool belt around her waist and sighed. “I’m Pat,” Trixie said. She had gotten in the habit of using the name for contract applications because she got far fewer unseen rejections with a male name. “It’s short for Patricia, but you can call me Trixie.”
But now that she had a good look at him, he could call her anything he liked.
Trixie didn’t think that she would ever swoon for someone in a suit, but that was one handsome hunk of man in his wildly inappropriate clothing and face fluff.
He was built enough that he wouldn’t have looked out of place in Carhartts and ratty T-shirt that was the usual worksite uniform; if he had a desk job, he clearly compensated for it by working out.
Trixie thought he wouldn’t look out of place with nothing at all and was surprised by the flush of heat that ran through her at the idea of it.
He scowled at her as if she had insulted him by being a woman in charge of a construction site and Trixie told herself that he wasn’t hotter for being a chauvinist. “You here to give me a quote for some security?”