Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 142050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 474(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 474(@300wpm)
Look at me, she thought at him. Stop and look at me again.
When he did no such thing, she felt cheated. But come on, it wasn’t like they knew each other—
“It’s a miracle, Lyric of Lyrically Dressed,” Marcia cried out, “that you’re still alive—”
“Oh, shut up, Marcia,” she muttered as she shucked the woman like a bad coat.
Then she took two steps over, bent down… and picked the man’s hard hat up out of the snow.
CHAPTER FIVE
After Devlin dumped the billboard out of the way of traffic, he took a moment to look at the advertisement. Then he shook his head and started back to the construction site. There was going to be no glancing over his shoulder. No final check that the blonde was okay. Absolutely no more talking to her—
His eyes staged a mutiny and shot to her once again. Like she was the only thing in Caldwell he could focus on.
She was still standing in the middle of the street where he’d left her. In the glare of the cars and trucks that had pulled up short, those flaxen waves of hair danced on the wind currents and flashed like strands of pure gold, and likewise her iridescent dress gleamed, as moonlight on restless water. The club’s wait line had closed in on her, as if she were the nucleus around which an entire atom’s components spun, and a small, dark-haired woman jumped about waving her arms like she was a crossing guard who’d been ignored.
In spite of the chaos… the blonde was calm.
And focused on him as she held his hard hat in her hands.
Even though he should go back for his shit, he forced himself to keep on walking. He felt better when he reminded himself that it had been a long time since he’d been with anybody, felt a breast brush his chest, smelled sultry perfume. He was used to living the life of a monk, nothing but solitude, sustenance, and work.
So maybe he needed to color outside of the rigid lines he’d set over the last couple of years some night. God knew there were countless options for scratching any kind of itch in this city—
The second he stepped back through the construction site’s pedestrian barrier, he stopped. Bob, the foreman, who wasn’t a bad guy, was standing at the head of an isosceles triangle of inconvenience, the other workers drafting behind his middle-aged paunch.
Jesus Christ. People thought old ladies were nosy? Broads in housedresses and Depends had nothing on a bunch of men with hammers and hard hats—and he’d really fed that gum-flapping beast tonight, hadn’t he.
“How ’bout we say it all comes out even,” Dev offered to the foreman.
Bob’s bushy eyebrows popped. Then he took off his own hard hat. “How you figure that works, Big D?”
“I saved a woman from certain death over there.”
“I don’t think that matters for our purposes.”
“I’ll apologize to Petey then.”
On that note, he glanced in the guy’s direction—and Mr. Big Mouth took a couple of steps back, his hands going to his throat like he was remembering exactly how hypoxia worked.
Wonder what the half-life on that reflex was going to be, Dev thought.
“He deserved it, and he knows it.”
Bob stepped between them and held his cell out like a penalty flag at a football game. “I’m sorry, D. I have to call the police. It was an assault, no matter what he said to you, and I gotta follow union and company procedure—”
“I won’t do it again.” He met the man’s tired eyes. “How about we just get back to work—”
“This ain’t personal, Dev. I like you, I really do. You’re a good worker and no trouble until now, but if that billboard hadn’t fallen, we’d be havin’ a different conversation, wouldn’t we. ’Cuz there’d be a dead body on this property.”
Dev slowly shook his head. “We’re already behind schedule. You think the CPD showing up is going to help that? It’ll just make the delay worse, and cut into your performance bonus.” As Bob put a hand to his head like something had started thumping up there, Dev tacked on, “Besides, I promise to keep my hands to myself, and I don’t think Petey’s saying shit to anybody anytime soon. Right?”
Petey nodded like he had a gun pointed at him.
“See? It’s all done—and you won’t have to fill out any paperwork.”
The foreman stared down at his phone like he was expecting advice from it.
“Tell the boys to go to work now,” Dev said softly. “So we can get back on schedule.”
Bob cleared his throat. Then he shoved his phone back into his Carhartt jacket. “Finish your lunches, boys. Break’s done.”
In a lower voice, he added, “You better not make me regret this.”
“No problem, boss.”
As the other fellas muttered their return to the picnic table area—with Petey heading for his turkey sub like it was a Bible he really needed to be studying—Dev turned back to the jackhammer.