Emergency Attraction (Love Emergency 3)

“Despite getting soundly convicted in the court of public opinion for bullying Miss Smith, and basically asking for the beatdown you dished out, Pinkerton’s still got some clout around town. He convinced the planning commission to fast-track the golf course approval based on the plan and report he submitted.”

His heart sank into his boots. “They approved it?”

“Less than twenty-four hours after you left.”

Perfect. The one thing he thought he could count as an accomplishment evaporated like mist. Failure landed on him like the proverbial ton of bricks—one heavy blow at a time. Successfully completing the project? Fail. Proving to his hometown a Maguire boy could make something of himself? Fail. Protecting Sinclair’s home? Fail. Winning back the woman he loved? That was shaping up as the most spectacular fail of them all.

“From what I learned this morning,” Haggerty continued, unaware he’d thrown Shane into a tailspin, “Pinkerton and his cronies wasted no time getting a crew up there to start building up the banks.”

Shit. Shit. Shit. Apparently, he said one—or three—of those shits out loud, because Haggerty made a sound of agreement. “Not our shit, at least, because our fingerprints aren’t on Pinkerton’s report. When ours comes in later this week, I’m confident it’s going to reflect everything you spelled out for them. Of course, by then they’ll have seen for themselves.”

“What do you mean?”

“April in Georgia, son. How long do you think it will be before they get a soaker?”

He did a search on his tablet. About twelve hours, according to the latest weather reports. Being right offered little comfort if it came at the expense of Sinclair’s home. As if he weren’t feeling impotent enough, fate tossed one more thing out there over which he had absolutely no control and made a mockery of his big talk about fixing everything. By the time Sinclair got home from New York, the barn would be flooded, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

Or was there? He stared down the crowded terminal, to where TSA had stacked a low wall of checked luggage waiting to go through a security screening. He blinked and pulled his vision into focus. Ideas clicked into place in his mind and energized his tired system. Fuck that. You told her you’d fix this. Fix it.

“Change of plans, Haggerty. I can’t go to Seattle yet.”

He scanned the departing flights board and started calculating. He had calls to make, planes to catch. Over the line, his boss sounded surprisingly calm.

“You don’t say?”

“Personal emergency.”

“I wondered when this was coming. All right. Do what you gotta to do. Truth is, the client isn’t expecting you until next week anyway.”

The information put a pause in Shane’s planning. “How’d you know I was going to need personal time?”

“I remember the one that got away. I didn’t figure you for the type to let her slip through your fingers twice. Go get her, Maguire.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Then get your ass to Seattle. After Seattle, we’ll discuss training some of the project managers to take on more client-facing legwork, but in the meantime, our contract flies you home every weekend. I trust this time you’ll be wanting to take advantage of that perk?”

Shane grabbed his bag and shouldered his way to the ticket line. “That’s the plan.”

Chapter Eighteen

“Where are you?”

Sinclair adjusted the earpiece of her cell-phone headset. “My flight just landed. I’m at the airport.” She unlocked a luggage cart from the kiosk while on the other end of the line her sister relayed information to someone—presumably her husband.

“Beau says the roads are ugly thanks to this rain we’re having. Want to come over for dinner and spend the night? We finished setting up the second bedroom.”

Second bedroom, aka “nursery,” Sinclair thought and wondered if she’d be needing one of those in about nine months…and if so, where the hell she was going to put it? “Thanks, but no. I’ve got to get home.” While she still had one. She appreciated her sister’s offer. Savannah had been nothing but supportive since Sinclair had called her Thursday after her confrontation with Shane and dumped the disaster of her life all over her poor sister. She’d cried long-distance tears of joy when Sinclair had phoned from the middle of a Manhattan jewelry show yesterday morning to relay the news she’d received from her gynecologist—the pregnancy test was positive, and initial hormone levels suggested the baby was exactly where it should be.

“How are you feeling?”

Elated, sick, terrified, sick, hopeful, sick. “Fine.” She snagged the first of her two checked bags and loaded it on the cart.

“Have you talked to Shane yet?”

“No.” Savannah already knew she’d opted to inform Shane of the test result via text, and had made no secret of the fact she disagreed with that decision.

“He didn’t respond at all? Not a word?”