Chapter 13

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

E mmerleigh

"Shit!" I sputtered as quietly as I could, having just stepped outside the guest room I shared with a still sleeping Georgia and ran into a human wall. Warm hands gripped my arms as my eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness before dawn.

"What are you doing up so early?" Warrick whispered, his voice a raspy growl that set my skin ablaze. The intimacy of the darkness in the hallway made me want to fumble for a light switch just to flood out this stupid attraction.

"What are you doing up so early?" I countered, shrugging off his hands. I didn't drop my gaze to confirm, but I was pretty sure I'd hit a solid slab of muscle. A slab without a goddamn shirt.

"I've found with age, I visit the bathroom more frequently at night than I used to," he answered wryly. I didn't even need light to know his mouth was tipped up in that smirk of his.

"Sucks to be old, I guess," I snapped, my pulse finally slowing.

And then he must have reached out and hit the light switch because suddenly I was blinking my eyes against the warm yellow light flooding from the bathroom in the hallway. My heart took off again, this time because of the broad muscled chest that didn't look a day over twenty-five. Except when I took in the sprinkling of chest hair and realized half of it was gray. Somehow that nod to advancing age didn't detract from the overall look of lean, hard, virile, tattooed muscle. My gaze traced that line of hair down between stacks of ab muscles and finally hit the waistband of slate-blue pajama pants that were most certainly not composed of the same cheap cotton my own sleep shorts and tank top were made of.

Warrick's throat clearing had my face burning bright and my gaze snapping back to his face. Yep, he was smirking alright. Though he wasn't meeting my gaze any longer. No, the man was taking me in with the same hot intensity I'd been leering at him. My nipples stood at attention and I crossed my arms over my chest, just now realizing how little I wore.

"I need to place a few more calls to lawyers who might actually call me back, get the dumpster picked up, order more lumber, and double-check the permitted plans for the screened-in porch. Pip will be here right at sunrise to finish up the floors. She does well with a brush, despite her brute strength, so I'm going to have her start painting the walls too. That'll give me the day to work on the porch. It's going to be extremely close, but I think we can get it all?—"

"Em," Warrick interrupted.

I snapped my mouth shut. I'd been babbling, something I rarely did. Then again, I rarely ran into gorgeous, half-naked men just seconds after I woke up.

"I'll take Georgia to preschool so you can get started on all that. And I've got all the stuff for pancakes, so you just do what you need to do and I'll get Georgia ready for the day."

Guilt, the kind all mothers carried on their shoulders, but especially single moms trying to get everything done all by themselves, weighed heavy this morning. I bristled .

"I can take her."

Warrick eyed me for a moment, his smirk sliding off his face. "I know you can, but why should you when I'm here to help?"

Such an easy, kind statement and yet so puzzling. "Why are you helping, Warrick?"

His eyes positively sparkled. "Not Dick today?"

"Not yet," I snapped.

He bit back a smile. "Why would I not help? Helping you means getting this project done. Plus it helps Georgia." He shifted on his feet, moving closer to the bathroom. "And it gives me something to do."

Then he turned into the bathroom, giving me a front-row seat to his muscled ass in those pajama pants and shut the door. I sagged against the wall, back in the dim light of the hallway, and then sprang back upright, not wanting to be caught lingering outside the bathroom like some love-addled teenager. I had serious shit going on in my life and lusting after my client was not anywhere on that priority list.

I managed to leave two more voicemails for lawyers, scheduled the dumpster to be picked up this afternoon, and still had time to swing Georgia up into my arms and press a dozen kisses to her face as she raced into the kitchen. She squealed and kicked and giggled until I put her down. Then she tilted her head left and right, showing off the two lopsided pigtails Warrick must have added to her hair.

"Look what Wa-wy did! Up high and down low. Like a seesaw!"

Warrick, thankfully clad in a shirt and jeans now, slid pancakes on a plate and handed it to me, an embarrassed grin on his face. I took the plate, knowing I would have paid good money I didn't have to see the giant of a man wrestle her blonde curls into submission.

"They look amazing! Now come eat your pancakes so you and Aster can swing from the monkey bars today."

"I ate alweady, Mama. "

"Those are for you," Warrick said gruffly, turning from the new stove top and clapping his hands. "Shall we go, Peaches?"

Georgia saluted him, something I'd never seen her do before and began to march for the front door, forgetting to say goodbye to her mother. I shook my head as Warrick marched after her, calling out silly marching orders that I was certain the military had never used, for good reason. Left, right, left. I know a soldier in Georgia. She feeds the goat-dogs corn dogs.

Georgia's giggle trailed behind her as they went out the door. I stood there with a hot plate of pancakes staring after them. Pip scared the shit out of me when she stuck her head into the kitchen. I hadn't realized she'd arrived already.

"Hot bratwurst you have there, Mrs. Wolfe. Kind too." She shot me a lusty wink and began to sing a bawdy song as she got her supplies ready to keep staining the wood floors.

I wanted to tell her that he was not mine in any way, nor was she to call me Mrs. Wolfe, but the smell of the pancakes had made my stomach perk up and emit some terrible noises. Instead of arguing something Pip probably wouldn't listen to anyway, I sat down at the dining room table and shoved the pancakes in my face until I was groaning at the tight fit of my jeans. With a full stomach, I got to work on the screened-in porch.

The two side walls and the front wall were framed, a true miracle that they'd gone up without a single hiccup. Next would be the ceiling joists, a heavy job of bracing two-by-sixes in the joist hangers. I took a small break to gulp down a full water bottle and was just about to get up on my ladder to start installing the hangers when my cell phone rang. Hoping it was a lawyer finally calling me back, I grabbed the phone and answered.

"Emmy!" my oldest brother called out.

"Anton, hey." Disappointment flared that it wasn't a lawyer, but I always loved to hear from one of my brothers.

"What project are you working on now, little sis? "

"Just framing out a screened-in porch. How about you?" I could hear machines whirling in the background. He had to shout to be heard over the racket.

"Just building a custom Corvette that had a bit of rust but a lot of promise."

I shook my head. My oldest brother got paid an ungodly amount to restore old cars for rich guys who had nothing better to spend their money on. For my brother's sake, I was happy about it.

Before I could answer, I heard a door close on the other end and the machine noise got a lot quieter. "Hey, I wanted to give you a heads-up."

My stomach knotted. Given my bad luck streak, this serious tone from my happy-go-lucky brother didn't bode well. "I saw Cayden in town over the weekend and he's dating a woman. Looked serious."

It was refreshing how much I found I didn't care. "Is that all? I would assume he'd move on at some point."

"I wanted you to hear it from me before any gossip got to you."

Anton was a sweetheart for calling me with such uneventful news. He and my other brothers had been there for me when Cayden broke my heart. I couldn't blame them for still worrying about me. I'd fallen apart spectacularly back then, but I had a feeling the pregnancy hormones had a lot to do with the intensity of my grief.

"He, uh…" I paced the porch floor. "He served me with papers last week, wanting custody."

"He WHAT?" Anton exploded, breathing hard.

I had to pull the phone away from my ear. "Calm down, please. I can't talk to you when you're like this."

"Why didn't you tell me right away?"

I threw out my hand, though I knew he couldn't see me. "Because I knew you'd act like this! Listen, I have it under control. I've called a lawyer and Cayden won't get his hands on Georgia. He abandoned us for five years. I trust a judge won't forget that."

"I'm going to have words with that fucker," Anton muttered, his tone quieter, but deadlier in its calmness.

"Don't. Anton, promise me. Last time you ‘had words' with him, you all ended up in jail overnight."

There was silence for so long, I pulled the phone away from my ear again to see if he'd hung up on me.

"Anton?"

"I'm here," he growled, the happy brother I'd known my whole life nowhere to be found. "You go ahead with that lawyer, but if things start looking like they're going south, you tell me. Swear to me you'll tell me, Emmy."

I sighed. "Fine, I'll tell you, but they won't. And if you find out anything further about him and this woman he's dating, let me know. If I can figure out why he's so interested in Georgia all of a sudden, I can come up with a better defense."

"Oh, you bet your ass I'll find out."

"Anton," I sighed.

"I won't touch him, Emmy. Yet."

I squeezed my eyes shut. The fact was, I knew my brothers would protect me, even if it meant one of them went to jail for it. They were just those kind of brothers. It's why I'd moved to Blueball. I needed to start over in a town that didn't have Cayden or my brothers or any of the bad memories from my prior life.

"Love you," I finally said.

"Love you too."

I shoved the phone back in my pocket and distracted myself by installing the hangers quicker than I ever had before. The two-by-sixes were longer and heavier than I normally attempted on my own, but I didn't want to interrupt Pip. I had a deadline and a potential ten-thousand-dollar bonus on the line that would pay for the lawyer I needed. With a little ingenuity, I could do this on my own .

Ten minutes later, I had one end of the beam resting on the top rung of a six-foot ladder. I was on another ladder on the other end, beam in hand. The damn thing wobbled, but I muscled it into place, getting the end of the beam into the slot of the hanger. I just needed to drill a screw into it to keep it in place and then I could run to the other side and slide that side into place. I had the screw clamped between my lips and the drill in hand. Positioning the screw through one of the predrilled holes in the hanger, I lifted the drill and pressed the button. The screw immediately hit a knot in the wood and pinged off to the side, landing on the ground.

"Fuck," I muttered, wondering if I dared climb down this ladder to get the screw when this two-by-six beam wasn't secure. Sweat no longer dotted my brow, it was full-on dripping into my eyes. I tilted my head to wipe the sweat on my shoulder, and that's when I spotted another screw on the sawhorse. If I just leaned a little behind me, I could maybe grab it without letting go of the beam. My quads burned and my shoulders protested the stretch, but I just about had my fingers on the screw when I felt the ladder give.

Out of nowhere, Warrick grabbed my arm with one hand and the ladder with the other, a thunderous look on his face. My heart, the stupid organ that had stopped beating when I needed it most in this emergency, began again, galloping away.

With a grunt for the effort, Warrick pulled me upright again, screw in hand. I clung to the ladder, sucking in deep breaths to still my heart.

"What the fuck, Slaywright? You trying to kill yourself on my property just to have the last word?" His words slashed against my back, each one a deadly weapon.

"I've got it under control!" I snapped, instantly combative with a male know-it-all. In the back of my mind, I knew my first words should have been thank you, but his arrogance pissed me off. Yes, I was trying to off myself just to win an argument. Jesus. What a bloated head this man had .

"Could have fooled me," he shot right back, letting me go to stomp over to the other ladder and grab the beam.

"I said I've got it! I was just getting a screw when you scared me and the ladder tipped."

The look he shot me from the other ladder almost singed my eyebrows off. "Oh, you're going to blame me for your dumb decision to do this on your own? Real mature."

"I had it under control," I said through clenched teeth.

"The only thing you have under control is your hardheadedness. Now screw in the fucking beam."

I narrowed my eyes at him, wanting to yell and scream not to tell me what to do, but another bead of sweat dripped into my eye. It stung but I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of knowing I was struggling. Instead, I finished the job, drilling in the screw and climbing down.

"I've got it from here," I said up to him on the other ladder, waving him down with my drill.

Warrick climbed down, but he didn't move out of my space. "You've got a serious problem, Slaywright."

Then he turned and stomped away.

"Yeah!" I called after him. "It's you!"

I rolled my eyes when Pip appeared a few minutes later, saying she needed a break from painting and would help me with the other two-by-sixes. Clearly Warrick had summoned help for me, even after I said I could handle it.