Page 20

TRIXIE

“ H ey, boss.” Dylan was the first to arrive, and he went straight for the coffee. “Truss truck still coming this morning?”

Trixie frowned at her phone. “Yeah, they’re on their way from Fairbanks and should be here in about thirty minutes. Sam’s texted in sick.”

She looked up just in time to see a flash of something she couldn’t identify cross Dylan’s face.

Concern? Trixie didn’t usually care about gossip, but she had a lot of unanswered questions about their history that she was dying to ask.

Did they fight over a girl? Tok was a small town with an even smaller dating pool.

“Good thing we got Hunter,” Dylan said with a shrug. “He’s turned out okay.”

Trixie was pretty sure her face gave away exactly how okay he’d turned out, because Dylan grinned. “Sure,” she said, as blandly as possible. “It’s good to have the extra hands.” It was almost like he did have extra hands when they were making love .

Dylan nodded knowingly, and they both turned as Keith and Kyle drove up, Hunter right behind them. “Speak of the devil.”

Trixie told herself to be professional and play it cool as she waved to them to park well out of the way. It wasn’t long before Noah pulled in, too.

“Big day, crew!” Trixie said, when they all had their coffee and were milling about ready for directions.

“Most of you have done this before, but here’s a rundown of how it works for the new folks.

” She pointed up. “The trusses for each wing will be delivered all bundled together on a crane truck and set up right on the walls. They’ll be laid down flat at the end and we’ll be lifting and walking them one at a time down the length of the building to put them in place from the far end.

This is a risky operation, I don’t want to see anyone without a hardhat on at any point today.

Slow down if you have to. It’s not worth meeting a deadline to take a tumble; we are absolutely not rushing this.

I’ll be on the walls with Keith and Kyle.

I want Hunter and Dylan with ladders on the floor to help support and fasten the trusses in place.

Noah, I’ve got the wet walls on the first floor measured out.

Sam’s out for the day, but you can get some of that done solo and once the trusses are tacked in, I can leave Keith and Kyle to do soffits and come give you a hand. Any questions?”

Everyone nodded their understanding and scattered to prepare.

Trixie caught several sly looks as she showed Hunter how to place the pre-cut blockers snugly between the trusses and tack them into place.

She reminded herself that she wasn’t showing any favoritism; she always trained the newbies herself so they didn’t learn any sloppy habits.

“You’ll be doing all the sill fastening with a nail gun and we’ll be putting up purlins—the boards that run along the top between the trusses—with hammers.

You don’t want to be dragging heavy hoses up there before everything is secured.

This, believe it or not, is one of the most dangerous points of construction.

A lot can go wrong.” Noah watched the demonstration, nodding along approvingly and looking slightly smug.

The truss truck came exactly when they said they would and Trixie clambered up to the top of the walls to take point while Noah took the dangling guide line and helped maneuver it into place.

“Boss?”

Trixie ignored the first call, but not the second.

“Boss!!”

Keith and Kyle were chatterboxes, but they rarely raised their voices, so when Keith echoed his brother, Trixie signaled to the crane operator to stop lowering the trusses. “What is it?” she asked, trying not to sound cross. It was one thing not to rush, but quite another to be dragging things out.

“There’s a problem with the studs at this end!”

“What kind of problem?”

“You gotta see it.” Keith and Kyle were at the end of the wing where the trusses were being lowered, ready to scurry up and connect them once contact had been made.

Trixie walked carefully back along the wall to the ladder as the crane operator leaned out and hollered, “What’s up?”

“Give me a minute!” Trixie hollered back, hurrying down. “This had better be good,” she warned Keith…and then she saw why he’d called her.

The studs in the corners and all along the short wall had been cut partway through from the power penetrations, back against the sheathing where she wouldn’t have noticed it until too late. “Shi?—”

Trixie wasn’t an engineer, but she could guess the weight that the studs would safely take in their current compromised state before they buckled.

It was possible that the wall would have held under the trusses, but it was more likely that they would have crumpled and failed, and the failure would have taken half the wall, the trusses, and probably Trixie herself when they broke.

Who knows what further damage would have occurred when the sheathing ripped off.

A dozen of the most critical studs had been very deliberately sabotaged.

“I got other deliveries!” the crane operator hollered. He couldn’t see through the sheathing on the second floor, so it probably just looked like they were standing around chatting.

“Hold on!” Trixie dashed for the other end of the work site, stopping to inspect the studs at regular intervals.

Only the delivery end had been damaged. Someone knew when and where the trusses would be placed.

This damage hadn’t been there the night before, and it had been done with surgical precision and in such a way that they wouldn’t be noticed easily.

She went back and out through the porch opening where she’d sat with Hunter the night before.

“Change of plans!” she shouted. “We’re putting the trusses at that end. ” She pointed imperiously.

The crane operator swore and grumbled, then retracted the boom while Noah walked the guide line in.

The driver had to get out of the truck and draw in the outriggers, cussing like a sailor, but it wasn’t long before he was repositioned at the far end of the building and the trusses were dropped without drama onto the waiting walls.

“That could have been bad,” Trixie said, when the delivery truck was gone.

“Noah, Hunter, we need that wall ripped out and rebuilt. Keith, Kyle, I owe you. That could have killed someone. We’re behind again, but let’s get to work and see if we can close the gap.

I’m good for all the overtime I can legally offer and dinner as well.

We’ll stage a pile of trusses there”—she stabbed a finger at a bay far enough from the end wall to be sturdy—”and start working back from there.

It adds a step, but not like hauling them up one by one would have. ”

Keith and Kyle swarmed back up onto the walls and Noah went to get new 2x6s for the replacement studs.

“Could have killed someone , or could have killed you?” Hunter growled, when the others were out of easy earshot.

“There’s no reason to assume it’s that personal,” Trixie said, but the idea had occurred to her. “Anyone could have been collateral.”

“But you would have been up there, the closest.” Hunter’s voice was flat and unforgiving.

“I could have sent anyone up,” Trixie said with a shrug. But she wouldn’t have. She was always working point on her jobs, and she was slighter than anyone else, with a natural head for heights. “Hunter…”

“I didn’t protect you.”

“It turned out okay,” Trixie said. It was flattering that Hunter looked incredibly bent out of shape at her near miss, and she wanted to indulge in a hard embrace to chase the last of the shock from her limbs, but she was a professional, and so was he.

She lowered her voice. “We might need to expand your search, though. Keith and Kyle were the ones who pointed it out.”

Hunter frowned and glared down the building. Keith and Kyle had already unwrapped the trusses and were starting to walk the first one down the building, Dylan beneath them keeping an eye on their level and spotting them towards the bay that Trixie had indicated .

“I’m up,” Trixie said, and she risked a quick squeeze of his shoulder. “Go help Noah replace that wall. We’ll stage six of them here,” she commanded as she raised her voice. “Then we can start building backwards. Dylan, hold the tape, we need to make sure this measurement is perfect .”