Chapter 1

Mistakes had been made, and Tiffany Wright was going to have to unmake them.

It was the anthem of her life, and most of the time, she didn"t particularly mind. She was extremely good at unmaking mistakes. She preferred to unmake them with a bulldozer.

Lucky for her, working in the construction industry meant that was usually exactly how she got to unmake them.

Today, unfortunately, a bulldozer seemed unlikely to solve the problem. Or rather, it absolutely would, but Tiffany was almost certain that bulldozing somebody"s wedding would not go over well.

She stood on the edge of what had to be the largest town square in the country, gazing in dismay at the preparations going on at what also had to be the largest gazebo in the country. The square was the size of actual football fields. Many of them, all right next to each other. She would get her steps in for the day by taking one walk around its perimeter. Of course, she had short legs, but that wasn"t the point. Both ends of the square had young saplings, no more than knee height, scattered around handsful of older, taller trees that offered shade to the benches beneath them.

Most of the rest of the square was empty, or at least, just lawn. So much lawn. Literal acres of lawn.

And Tiffany was supposed to dig a bunch of it up, but she couldn"t do that with a wedding going on.

There were a surprising number of people at the gazebo, adding ribbons, flowers, lace curtains, balloons, garlands… It should have looked overdone already, but the gazebo really was absurdly large, big enough for an entire marching band, so the work being put in only softened it, rather than weighing it down with kitschiness.

Tiffany sort of envied the people getting married there. It was going to be gorgeous, and she loved a wedding. Her second favorite thing in the world, after bulldozing stuff, was an excuse to dress beautifully and have a nice cry into a corsage. Or go out dancing, or have a walk down a river. She wasn"t particular about what happened after the "dress beautifully" part; she just liked to dress up.

However, regardless of how much she liked to dress up, she was one, not invited to the wedding, and two, supposed to be digging up a half acre of land behind the gazebo, starting, like…now.

Somebody had messed up. Either she wasn"t meant to be scheduled to start today, or they weren"t supposed to be having a wedding this week, and since she had a contract, Tiffany was pretty sure the wedding party was in the wrong.

One good thing about being a woman working in construction was that it had absolutely taught her to face down unpleasant things head-on. Her construction equipment was going to be here in half an hour, so she had about twenty-eight minutes to sort this out. Shoulders squared, Tiffany marched her steel-toed boots across the lawn to the gazebo, shouting, "Hey! Hi! Hello?" as she got closer.

First one person, then another, then several, put their decorations down and turned to face her, all in a sort of slow-motion wave of dismay. Tiff knew why: the steel-toed boots were the least obvious of her construction attire. The hardhat, the bright orange safety vest, the heavy-wear jeans (which were horrifyingly hot to wear at two in the afternoon on a glorious summer day), all clearly said that she had a very different agenda than the party they were preparing for.

"Hi," she said again from the bottom of the gazebo steps. "Tiffany Wright. I"m the head of the construction team for the new playground, and we seem to have something of a conflict on our hands here."

Eight or ten heads turned away from her, looking toward the section of the square that had already been cordoned off for the construction site. Eight or ten heads looked back toward her, too, all with faces bearing expressions of dismay and confusion. "That"s next week," someone said. "We were trying to get them to take the cordons down for the aesthetics, but the photographer said she could erase them afterward."

"I still think it"d be better to take them down," somebody else said. "It"s not like anybody"s going to care."

"Apparently this lady is going to care," a third person pointed out in a soft voice marked by a strong Australian accent. "G"wan, there"s heaps to do. I"ll sort it out." He separated from the group in the gazebo and jogged down the steps toward Tiffany.

He wore flip-flops and shorts, which let Tiffany start from the toes and work her way up, visually speaking. He was white but tanned, with strong, well-shaped calves, long legs, solid thighs, and the most deliciously narrow hips and waist that his t-shirt fit against nicely before following the contours of a broad chest and wide shoulders. He had a sweet, shy smile, light green eyes behind round glasses, and thick, thick black hair that Tiffany abruptly envisioned knotting her hands in.

Her breath left her in a giggle. A tiny, girlish giggle, exactly the kind of sound she put effort into not making, because it was hard enough being a five foot two blonde in construction. Sounding like a stereotypical girl in that situation did her no favors, so she tried really hard not to let those kinds of noises escape.

Lucky for her she wasn"t entirely on the job right now, because the next breath she took wasn"t much better. She kind of wanted to lick him, which would not be a great first impression, and definitely wouldn"t put her in a strong position to negotiate. Not that she was negotiating at all, she reminded herself. She had a contract. If digging up the green messed up somebody"s wedding plan, that wasn"t her problem.

Her heart contracted at the perfectly awful thought that it might be his wedding. Tiffany actually couldn"t breathe around the idea. It felt like her entire world was crashing down around her, and every heartbeat was a horrid squeezing bolt of agony through her whole body.

She dragged in a deep breath, trying to get ahold of herself. She"d never in her life seen a guy who immediately sent her into spasms of woe over the idea that he might not be immediately and entirely hers. It was ridiculous. She didn"t get twitterpated like that. Nobody did, not really.

He said, "Hey," in the most gentle, non-assertive voice she"d ever heard, and Tiffany, with a breath of proper laughter this time, did get hold of herself. He was absolutely gorgeous, no doubt about it, but he had a tentative, shy air about him, like he didn"t want to intrude, and Tiffany, frankly, wanted a guy who could throw down.

On the positive side, she should be able to steamroll him pretty easily and get this all dealt with, and that was what she needed. "Hi. Tiffany Wright," she said again. "Look, I"m really sorry about whatever miscommunication there"s been, but in about an hour my team is going to be here with a huge amount of heavy equipment, so, like…I don"t guess your wedding"s happening in fifteen minutes?"

"Ollie Campbell. Oliver, but who wants to be formal?" He offered a hand. Big hand, square, with kind of blunt fingers. Unexpectedly soft, with an unexpectedly delicate grip when Tiffany took it to shake. She could think of some pretty good things to do with those blunt strong fingers and that delicate touch, which was absolutely not the kind of thought that usually leaped to her mind at all, much less when she had work to do. He didn"t let go of her hand while he said, "It"s my cousin"s wedding, not mine, and no, it"s not until Saturday."

"Wow. Boy, that"s bad timing, because right now it"d be really pretty, but there"s gonna be heavy equipment, safety fencing, and huge piles of dirt all over the place by tomorrow. Who gave you permission to get married here this week?"

Ollie"s thick dark eyebrows flicked up above the rims of his glasses, then down again, his soft smile still in place as he repeated, "My cousin"s wedding, not mine. And I guess I don"t know, Ms. Wright. I just flew in yesterday."

"From Australia," she said like an idiot. Idiot for two reasons: one, she didn"t need to be having a conversation besides "get off my lawn" with this devastatingly gorgeous man, and…

It took her a moment to remember where she"d been going with her own thought. Oliver Campbell was derailingly attractive, and that was an all-new experience for Tiffany.

"Yes," he said with that gentle small smile. "From Australia."

Right. Right! That had been two. Two, he was obviously from Australia, with that accent, so it was dumb to have even said that. Tiffany berated herself silently, straightened her shoulders, and plastered on a professionally apologetic smile. "Well, I"m afraid they"re going to have to talk to the city about rescheduling, because we"re on a tight schedule ourselves here and we"ll be working from dawn until dusk for the next eighteen days to get this done. I have a contract."

"And time is money." That smile just stayed on his face. His voice was so low and so inviting that Tiffany took half a step closer, like she was going to…

She had no idea, honestly. Maybe just listen more closely, since he was so soft-spoken. Which was not a thing she was into. Loud, brash, bold. Those were her favored traits in guys. Weren"t Australians supposed to be all those things? Or maybe she just thought so because they came from a continent where everything wanted to kill you.

"I"m sure we can come to some kind of arrangement," Ollie went on softly.

If that arrangement involved wrapping her thighs around his head, Tiffany thought she could be convinced.

For a horrifying moment she thought she"d actually said that out loud. Given that his soft expression didn"t change, though, she decided she probably hadn"t. She wondered if it was physically possible to give herself a swift kick in the ass, or better yet, in the teeth, to keep herself from thinking or saying any such things, and blurted, "Probably not this is a very time-sensitive project that I have to keep on schedule" at a nearly-deafening volume.

A little wave of silence rode out on that shout. It swept over Ollie, leaving him blinking those gorgeously pale eyes, and reached the seven or eight people decorating the gazebo, who all turned toward her in slow, displeased astonishment. One of them, a Black woman in a retro-y jumpsuit sort of thing, put down her garlands and came toward the gazebo steps with a dangerous look in her eye. To her obvious surprise, and to Tiffany"s as well, Ollie raised a graceful hand, indicating he didn"t need anybody"s support, and smiled graciously down at Tiffany. "Why don"t we go have a cool drink and talk about this?"