Chapter One
Stereotypes were a bitch.
I knew it. I’d lived it with it my whole damn life. As a child, it’d been, “Aw, it’s so lovely that Keith brings his daughter to work. So nice that she’s interested in helping him, too, even in that pretty dress!” As an adult, it was, “Huh. She’s a builder. How strange. Doesn’t she worry about breaking a nail or ruining her make-up?”
Well, screw stereotypes and your preconceived notions, you dick.
And for the record: I wasn’t so worried about the make-up, but the nail thing? Yeah. I totally worried about breaking a nail now and then. Chipping polish was just the worst.
There was a damn good reason all the advertising for Hancock Handyman Co. eliminated the fact I was a woman. When my dad semi-retired, I’d learned pretty quickly that people were willing to overlook our company just because I was a woman.
Several surprises later, word had gotten around our small, coastal town of Rock Bay, and most of the residents were no longer surprised when Kali, not Keith, showed up on their doorstep.
The people just outside of town? Still surprised. Still fun for me. Especially when wives and girlfriends and moms convinced the skeptical man of the house to give me a chance and I got to blow them away.
That would never get old.
“I got a call from the mayor today,” Dad said, absently flicking through the TV channels.
“Mhmm,” I replied, focused more on the cat article on Buzzfeed than another one of the mayor’s complaints.
“He thinks you need to make it known on The Facebook that you’re the ‘K’ in K. Hancock.”
“So he’s been saying for eighteen months. And it’s just Facebook, not The Facebook.”
“Kali, you should consider it.”
I glanced up with a, “No.”
He snorted. “Can I have him call you next time he wants to complain?”
“You can have him call me,” I said, closing the app on my phone. “But that doesn’t mean I’ll answer it. I have other things to do than listen to Mayor Bennet’s complaints.”
“Kali—”
“Dad, when he fixes the five-inch wide pothole on Main Street, then I’ll listen to him. He should be doing that instead of scrutinizing my Facebook page.”
Dad sighed, muting the television. “I should have known you’d get your mother’s stubborn streak.”
Right. Because he was the most agreeable person in town. “She obviously left it behind when she died. You got the money and the house, and I got the attitude. I need a good, strong stubborn streak to deal with yours.”
His lips twitched. “Mine is necessary. I have to field Mayor Bennet’s calls.”
“Like I said. He can fix the pothole, then we’ll talk.” I paused, tucking hair behind my ear. “Plus, everyone in town knows you’re semi-retired. The only person who forgets is old Mr. Jenkins and that’s because of his dementia. Hell, I saw him in the grocery store this morning and he called me Coral and asked me how my pet clownfish were.”
Dad opened his mouth, then obviously decided against what he was going to say. A thoughtful look crossed his mind. “At least he made the connection between coral and clownfish. That’s better than last week when he told Irma Darling that Mr. Pickles needed to be in a zoo all because the cat brushed up against his ankle.”
“Stupid name for a cat,” I muttered. “And that thing does belong in a zoo. She should have called him Mr. Prickles. Damn thing hisses at me whenever I come within fifty feet of the register.”
Irma Darling—no, really, it was her name, and she insisted all gentlemen over the age of twenty-five refer to her as such. Except she wanted to be Irma, darling. She was also as mad a box of frogs on a trampoline…and utterly delusional if she believed Mr. Pickles was as sweet, cushy, cuddly cat.
“That’s because you almost ran him over when she got him last month, sweetheart.”
I held up my hands. “I was under the limit. Don’t blame me if the dumb creature jumped in front of my truck.”
Dad offered me a withering look. “You just hate cats.”
“No, I hate that cat. There’s a difference.”
“Are we talking about Mr. Pickles again?” My step-mother wandered into the room, pasta sauce decorating the front of her white shirt. Her blue eyes scanned the pair of us from beneath thick, dark eyelashes, and her pale, pink lips curved, wrinkling at the edges. “That demon cat scratched my leg when I went to the store this morning. Irma told me not to stand on his tail, and I told her that if her cat attacked me again, I’d relieve him of the damn tail.”
Dad brought his hand up to his face, closing his eyes before he pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Thank you,” I said looking at her. “The thing sold its soul to Satan, no doubt about it. Along with Mayor Bennet.”