In Too Deep

Ronan was quickly remindedwhy he both loved and hated being the boss. Running a crew wasn’t so bad, but the bullshit business part, he hated. The paperwork was killing him.

One perk, however, was that he got first pick on all leftover materials. He’d gotten his first off-the-books job this week, which entailed pouring a patio for some guy who Cahill owed a favor or who would owe him. The leftover concrete would be enough to repour his mother’s front porch, so he planned to give up what free time he had to work on her house.

And with it being the weekend, he could get the whole thing demoed and repoured without pulling a permit. He could’ve asked Cahill to get him a permit (or grease the right palms to ignore the project), but he was the last man Ronan wanted to owe. Of course, that also meant he had to oversee both jobs. He left a couple guys at his mom’s house to demo the porch and haul away the mess while he got the other customer’s patio started.

Concrete wasn’t his expertise. He preferred demolition, but he’d worked on every crew possible over the years, so he was a jack of all trades, master of none. Doing so had given him an advantage here. He caught Cahill’s attention, but he didn’t know how to poke around to get information without drawing the wrong kind of attention or getting fired.

He needed a plan and that might require him to ask the one person he didn’t want to talk to: Brendan. Maybe he’d ask Mom about Brendan. He rarely saw his older brother. They parted ways when Brendan became the perfect son. He’d decided on law enforcement for his career and used the military to get him there while Ronan was still busy stealing cars and getting in fights. Even after Ronan had straightened out, Brendan had kept his distance.

The patio pour went off without a hitch and Ronan paid the guys out while they were still finishing. That way, he could follow the truck to his mom’s house to make sure they didn’t have any problems. Unfortunately, things were not going his way this time. Leroy and Tanner were still busting out the old porch when he got there. Which meant the truck was going to have to wait on them. Which was going to cost more money.

Fuck. He slammed his truck into park and jumped out. “What the hell is going on? This should’ve been done.”

Leroy wiped the sweat from his forehead. “You’re thirty minutes early.”

Ronan checked his phone. Damn. Leroy was right.

“Fuck. Sorry. Let’s see how fast we can get the rest of this out of the way.” He moved next to Tanner and began tossing chunks of concrete in the wheelbarrow. Then, when Leroy moved to the dump truck, Ronan helped empty the wheelbarrow while Tanner began filling the next one.

He should’ve had a couple more guys to make sure things moved fast enough. He considered having the guys from the patio come here, but by the time they arrived, the job would be mostly done. He’d just have to suck it up and move the rocks. He offered the truck driver some extra cash to sit and wait, which he did easily so he wouldn’t have to worry about being sent to another job after this one.

It only took twenty minutes of busting his hump alongside his guys to clear the debris and another ten minutes to ready the frame. The sun beat down on them and his shirt stuck to his back. Sweat rolled down from his forehead and he questioned allowing so much hair to grow on his face.

As the concrete poured into the form, he yanked off his sweaty t-shirt and wiped his face. Leroy sent out a long, high-pitched whistle. Ronan opened his mouth with a retort, but another voice responded.

“Thank you,” a low, husky voice answered.

Damn. Why couldn’t he escape this woman?

“Hey, baby,” Leroy continued.

Ronan smacked his arm. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Hey, Ronan. What are you doing here?”

He turned and looked at Chloe. She wore tight blue jeans and a tank top with a deep scoop in the front. It was the color of dark wine and reminded him of her hair. He pointed to the porch. “I’m working.”

“Uh, yeah. I’m not that dumb. I’m just wondering why you’re doing this on a Saturday instead of enjoying your weekend.”

“It needed to be done. I had time today.”

Leroy tapped Ronan’s chest with the back of his hand. “Gonna introduce me?”

“No.” Turning back to Chloe, he asked, “What are you doing here?”

“Your mom’s going to cut my hair.”

He looked at the long reddish-brown ponytail swinging behind her head. He almost told her not to cut it too short because she looked good with long hair, but it wasn’t his place.

Wiggling her fingers, she said to Leroy, “Hi, I’m Chloe.”

“Hey, Chloe. I’m Leroy.”

“Leroy needs to get back to work.” He wasn’t quite sure why he needed her to leave, but he did. He glanced over his shoulder where Tanner continued to work, ignoring what was happening with them. Why couldn’t Leroy be more like Tanner? To Chloe, he said, “You can go around back to get to the basement.”

“I know the way,” she said sweetly. “Always so pushy, Ronan. Don’t you ever relax?”

Not often enough. And not in any way I’ll admit to you.“We need to get this done before the concrete sets up. And you probably don’t want to be late for your appointment. My mom is usually pretty booked on Saturdays.”

“I’m early. I saw the truck and heard the noise, so I wanted to check out what was going on.” Her left eyebrow shot up in challenge. “Is that a problem?”

“When you’re distracting my employees, yeah.”

She looked him up and down, letting her gaze roam his bare chest and torso. “I’m a distraction?”

In ways you’ll never know. He pointed to Leroy, who was still grinning at her. “Obviously, to Leroy here, you’re a distraction.”

She winked. “See you later.”

Not if I see you first. He poked Leroy and pointed to the porch to get him moving. He couldn’t let Chloe be a distraction to him either. He hadn’t seen her more than a handful of times in years, and that was usually in passing from opposite sides of the street. Now, it seemed like he couldn’t shake her. He’d taken her parents’ warning to heart. While they’d been fine with their daughter dating Brendan as a teen, Ronan would never be welcome. Even though they were grown, she was still hands-off. She wouldn’t fit into his life. Not like she would expect to.

Maybe if he’d found the answers he’d been searching for about his dad...but that hadn’t happened. So Chloe was off the table.

He watched Leroy and Tanner smooth the concrete. He was no longer needed here, but he wanted to talk to his mom when they were finished. He had to give her instructions on how to care for the fresh concrete.

And then there was asking about Brendan. His stomach churned at the thought of that conversation. He didn’t want to owe Brendan any more than he wanted to owe Cahill. He’d hoped with this job he might be able to get information on his own.

Just the other day, Old Man Mulroney had talked about his dad. They called him Old Man Mulroney because he was one of four guys named John that Ronan knew of and he’d been around longer than most. The guy was only about ten years older than Ronan, but compared to most guys who worked construction, Mulroney was old.

It started as an offhand comment about how much Ronan looked like his father. Mulroney said he’d been on the same crew as Michael and that he talked about his boys all the time. It was a he’d-be-proud-of-you kind of comment that Ronan wasn’t interested in, but Ronan figured he could pump the man for insight.

Mulroney said he’d share a couple stories with Ronan over a beer next week. While part of him wanted to hear stories to better understand his father, he really wanted to get to the relationship between Cahill and his father. One of them had lied twenty years ago and he bet it was Cahill.

He needed to find out why.