99 Percent Mine

“Yes please. While Daddy stays serious, we’ll have fun, won’t we, Patty?” I bounce her gently like a baby. Her eyes have a milky blue tinge. “I can’t believe how much she’s aged.”

“Time passing generally does have that effect,” Tom says dryly, but he softens when I look up. “She’s thirteen now. Seems like only yesterday that you named her for me.” He folds down to sit on the top step, his eyes on the street. “Why’d you drive past just now?”

I’ve still got one eye on the dark space behind him. Surely Megan’s about to step out. This is the longest uninterrupted conversation Tom and I have ever had. I need Jamie to slap through the front gate.

I can never decide if Tom’s hair is the color of caramel fudge or chocolate. Either way, yum. The texture is like a romance novel that’s fallen into the bath, then dried: vaguely sexual crinkle waves with the occasional curled edge and dog-ear. I want to jam my hand in it and make a gentle fist.

Those muscles. I think I’m starting to sweat.

“You scared the shit out of me. I thought you were—” I shut my mouth and dance Patty on my folded knee. “Honestly, she’s so cute.”

“Who’d you think I was?” His husky voice gets more bass to it and a scared-twist feeling in my gut tightens. Big men are so casually brutal. Look at the size of those boots. Those fists. He could kill. But then I overlay the memory of an eight-year-old boy over the top of his adult shape, and I remember Valeska, and I exhale.

“Just some dude I threw out of the bar. Seriously, Tom, you nearly gave me a heart—” Goddamn it. His eyes snap to my chest. “Don’t,” I order firmly, and he slouches, picking at the side of his boot. He knows the rules. Fussing is forbidden.

“I can worry if I want, Princess,” he grumbles to the ground. “You can’t stop me.”

“No one calls me Princess anymore. Do I look like a princess?” I put Patty on the grass. He gives me a one-second glance, top to bottom, and looks away, the answer locked in his head and a lift to the corner of his mouth.

Oh man, the urge to get that answer out of him is intense. It’d probably require putting my hands on him and squeezing.

I get to my feet slowly to avoid a heart scramble, then look back at the decal on the side of the black truck. The penny drops. I spin around to him. “Valeska Building Services. Holy shit. You’re free.”

“Yeah,” he says like he’s admitting something, one eye narrowed as he looks up at my face.

“You did it.” I can’t stop the smile spreading across my face. “You got away from Aldo. Tom, I am so fucking proud of you.”

“Don’t get too proud,” he warns, ducking his head so I can’t see that he’s pleased. “I haven’t done anything yet.”

When Aldo came through town to assess the cottage, he suggested a place where we could hire a bulldozer. That’s his level of tact, discussing our deceased grandmother’s estate. Jamie laughed at the joke, so there’s his tact level, too.

I reminded them that it was literally in Loretta’s last will and testament that the cottage be restored, and she’d stipulated a budget be set aside for it. The laughing stopped. Aldo heaved a sigh

and filled out the council approval paperwork, saying several times that his pen didn’t work. I slapped another one in his hand, and he narrowed his bloodshot eyes at me.

This will be a labor of love, Aldo said. A huge expensive risky mistake.

I told him, No shit, Sherlock. Keep writing. Why did Loretta make the final condition that Jamie and I sell? Did she never stop to consider that I might want to live here forever, wallowing in my loneliness? With twins, everything has to be split and fair.

“I guess Aldo taught you the most important lesson of your career.” I wait a beat as Tom mulls it over. “What not to do.”

“True,” Tom says with a faint smile, his eyes on the decal on his truck. “When in doubt, I’ll ask myself, what would Aldo do?”

“And you’ll just do the exact opposite. You know he grabbed my butt? Like, when Jamie and I visited you on your very first job site? What a piece of shit. I was barely eighteen. Just a kid.”

“I didn’t know that.” Tom’s mouth flattens. “Did you break his hand?”

“You’re lucky I didn’t call you to bury a body for me. You would, right?” I can’t help it; I want to know if I can still summon Valeska, as much as I shouldn’t. He belongs to Megan now.

“I’ve got a shovel in the back,” he says, nodding at the truck. It’s a disturbing thrill to know he’s not kidding. If I needed him to, he’d dig a hole with his bare hands. “I know he was an unprofessional asshole, but he gave me my first chance. I didn’t have a lot of options, put it that way. Not like you and Jamie.” He sits himself up straight and puts his boots together like a good boy. “There will be no ass-grabbing on my site.”

“Depends on who’s doing the grabbing,” I say in a thoughtful tone, but crack up when Tom’s eyes get scary. “I know, I know. No one is more professional than you. My butt is safe.”

“I’m going to do everything perfectly.” Tom won coloring-in competitions as a kid. This house is going to be his big-boy equivalent.

“I know you will.” I look down at Tom’s shoulders. His T-shirt is trying its hardest. He’s gotten so big since I saw him last. He’s always been tall and muscly, but this is next level. He’s been working himself into the ground. “Well, what are you waiting for? I bet you have a key. Let the renovations commence.”

“I might start in the morning, if you don’t mind.” He laughs, groans, and stretches in one movement. Like he’s flat in a bed instead of on some rickety old stairs. “I do have a key. But I know how you feel about . . . privacy.”