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I glance over at Sawyer and find those gorgeous eyes looking right back at me. I look down at his lips for a second before I force myself to look back at my tablet.
I can’t tell if I’m dreading it, unsure if I can resist the way my curiosity is blooming into full-fledged attraction, or if I can’t wait for a chance to spend more time with him.
Chapter 13
Sawyer
Before I can plan to go to Denver, I need to check in with Jason. So, two days after Dalton proposed that awesome idea of Claire riding with me, I head to the Goldfinch, where he’s working.
Honestly, if Dalton didn’t suggest his cousin should hitch a ride in my truck, I would’ve offered myself. When she mentioned looking up the drive time details, it was on the tip of my tongue to tell her I could take her there. The man saved me from having to put myself out there and ask instead.
As I drive along the crappy road up to the B&B, I wonder how far along my older half-brother is on the flooring install in Marian’s kitchen. Even though Jason retired a few years ago and gave me his part of the company our dad left us, he’s never gone idle. I doubt he’ll ever properly quit and exchange his existence for a lifetime of relaxing and lazing around. Since he quit the construction work with the company I now oversee, he’s taken up more handyman sort of tasks. He’s also taken up a friendship with Marian that I suspect might be something more.
I’m glad if that’s the case. Marian is a sweet woman, and I’ve always felt bad about her husband passing away when he did. She’s been alone up on this mountain for so long. When Lauren showed up, then Caleb, they breathed new life into her world. Each time I see her, she’s smiling like a doting mother on Lauren and Aubrey, and I’m relieved she won’t be isolated and lonely for the rest of her days. She deserves love, and if she’s got her eye on Jason, I’m damned happy for him, too. He’s been a stubborn bachelor all his life, never wanting to settle down when he was committed to Dad’s company. Now that I’m the man in charge of our “legacy,” he seems much more open to Marian’s company as more than her being a client of his work around the bed-and-breakfast.
Meanwhile, Claire is kind of my client, a guest at a cabin I’m fixing up, but still…I shake my head at my thoughts. Still, I never drive clients to Denver for the hell of it. Claire, whether I want her to be or not, is starting to sneak under my skin, which is decidedly inconvenient.
I park at the B&B and head inside to look for Jason. Lo and behold, there he is, on his hands and knees in the kitchen, three-fourths of the way done.
“You’re not overdoing your back, are you?” I ask as I enter.
“I’m not even worth a hello or a greeting? Straight to the old-man jokes?” He peers up at me, grinning.
With a twenty-two-year age gap between us, this running inside joke never loses its fun.
“Nah. I’m serious.”
Jason shakes his head, kneeling up as I lower to the floor to pick up where he needs the next slat of wood. “My back is fine.”
But three years ago, about the time he considered leaving the company, he threw his back out, and it marked the change of his desire to keep up with the demands of manual labor outside with big equipment. It’s a good fit for him, though, despite the ease with which we worked after Dad passed away. We are brothers from another mother, but Jason’s two decades on me always made him more of a father figure than a sibling. Regardless, he is a solid coworker to rely on, a dependable brother, no matter what.
Unlike Kevin. I sigh, wishing I could move on past my issues with him. It wasn’t all my fault. Kevin was never close with Dad, not like Jason and I were. He was into teaching, more studious and academic—less blue-collar and smarter, like Gina decided so long ago when she’d date me, then flirt with him. Date him, then still want to come back to me.
Kevin simply never fit in with the three of us, and when Dad passed and left Jason and me the company, a monetary grudge was combined with the differences between me and my youngest brother.
“Have you talked to Kevin lately?” Jason asks once we fall into a seamless rhythm of handing boards to one another.
I swear, it’s like he can read my mind sometimes. I’m not sure how to reply, though. I never am. Maybe that’s why Jason always brings him up whenever he can because he knows how both of us will resist reconciling. Kevin and I never got along that well as kids. Then Gina came between us, making me realize women would always want a stable man with a clean-cut job like Kevin’s over my more rugged and unpredictable life in construction. And since then, we’ve festered in a limbo of awkwardness around each other. Kevin and I haven’t behaved like close relatives for several years, but I can’t see why Jason seems to think I’m the one to reach out to Kevin.
“Not really.”
“Hmm.” He carries on, slotting boards in and tapping them into place. Jason will never give up and mentioning Kevin in hopes that my answer will be different one day, but he’s a good enough guy to know not to push.
Before he can follow up with something else, I speak up. It’s more like blurting, a desperate spew of words that I’ve been thinking about constantly. Claire is always on my mind, so it shouldn’t be a shock that she’s the first thing out of my mouth. “I’m driving Claire, Dalton’s cousin, to Denver when I go tomorrow.”
Jason cringes slightly as he moves with the progress of the floor being put in. He can claim all he wants that his back is okay, but it looks like his knees are suffering more. “Short blonde? Yeah, I saw her when she stopped in here to pick up a delivery that Caleb had sent here instead of to the cabin she’s staying in.”
“The very crappy cabin.” I shake my head, loathing how beat-up that building is. “Dalton hired me to do repairs there, and the list is long.”
“And now you’re driving her to Denver?” he asks. “Out of the goodness of your heart?”
I furrow my brow at his teasing. “Are you trying to imply I’m not good?”
“Depends on if you’re taking her as a favor for Dalton, a paying client, or if you plan on taking her for something else.”
I hate that he’s reminding me that Claire should be hands-off. She’s practically Dalton’s little sister, and even though Dalton is paying me for my construction work, he’s become a good friend, too. And dudes just don’t go after a buddy’s little sister.
I shrug, avoiding answering him altogether.
