But the question that plagued him late at night revolved around whether or not he’d ever get another chance to feel her, smell her, taste her, experience her consuming passion again. Because she wasn’t answering his calls or his texts. And since their talk at her bar and their almost-up-against-the-wall episode that haunted Ethan’s dreams, waking him in the night sweating and hard, she’d been conspicuously absent from the bar when he was at the warehouse brewing after work.
Almost a week had passed without his seeing or talking to her, and while he told himself that was a good thing, he was still going a little crazy. And that was a really bad sign. Add in his daily work routine filled with complaints and arguments and demands, like the ones Boyd was issuing now, and Ethan was downright volatile.
“I imagine that girl brings up bad blood between you two,” Sam said.
“It’s ancient history to everyone except those who don’t have anything more important to talk about.”
He pulled the measuring tape from his belt and jotted down the measurements of the island, the cabinets, and the distance between each appliance as he went.
“You’re either lying or in denial, kid. Have you seen your daddy, your mama, or your aunt Ellen in the last few days?”
Ethan’s hand froze as he reached for the tap to check the water pressure.
“’Cause Ellen was at the grocery store last night when I was picking up milk, and that Hart girl was—”
“Delaney,” Ethan corrected with a sharp look at Boyd, annoyed beyond reason. “Her name is Delaney.”
Sam paused, studying Ethan. A little grin lifted one side of his mouth. “And Delaney was there chatting up Vince Riley. You know him, right? Just out of law school. Hung a shingle down on Main Street. Doing so well for himself, he’s not taking on any new clients. But he’s evidently got time to date, because I heard him ask her out.”
Ethan’s gut tightened.
“And when I reached the checkout stand,” Boyd continued, “Ellen was in front of me, white as one of Doc Newton’s newborn lambs. Her hands were shaking so bad the checker had to get the money out of her wallet to pay.”
Ethan’s chest caved with guilt. What the hell could he say to that? He just shook his head and went back to work, checking pilot lights on the stove.
“You know that’s gonna worry your mama.” Sam dug deeper. “And anything that worries your mama pisses off your daddy. And if your aunt goes off the deep end again, your uncle Wayne—”
“I don’t need a lesson in my family dynamics.” He set his clipboard on the island and started working on the final clearance. “If you wouldn’t mind cutting back on the chatter so I could finish this paperwork. I’ve got a really full schedule that I couldn’t fit you into in the first place . . .”
“Sure. Fine.” He paused only a moment before he chuckled and murmured, “That Hart—Delaney sure is one sweet piece of—”
“Don’t.” Every muscle in Ethan’s body tensed. She was most definitely a sweet piece of ass—like sugarcane-straight-to-the-bloodstream sweet—but no one was going to talk about her like that in front of him.
“Don’t what?”
Ethan met Boyd’s eyes with a clear warning. “Just shut up so I can get this done.”
He refocused on the form before Boyd reacted, because Ethan didn’t want to see it. He’d stepped over the line with shut up. Normally he prided himself on his professionalism. Doing his job right, following the clear-cut rules set out in the building code, gave him a sense of purpose and accomplishment and pride. Other than brewing good beer, it was all he had to be proud of. All he had to call his own. At least for now.
And he’d just gone and blown it by letting Boyd get under his skin.
Or maybe it all stemmed from letting Delaney get under his skin.
“You’d better watch your mouth, boy.” Boyd’s voice rasped with anger. “You can bet your daddy’s gonna hear—”
“I don’t care what you tell my father.” Ethan stretched his neck side to side, cracking it both directions, then let his head fall back and rolled his eyes to the ceiling, searching for patience he didn’t have. “He’s not my . . .”
Ethan’s words trailed off when he spotted the three sleek new light fixtures hanging from the twelve-foot ceiling over the granite island.
“What the hell?” He slapped his pen against the clipboard on the counter and turned his glare on Boyd. “You took out those sprinkler heads and put in lights?”
Boyd’s expression instantly shifted from condescending to ignorant as he glanced at the ceiling. “There weren’t any sprinkler heads there.”
“Oh, yes there were.” Ethan pulled folded plans from the aluminum box beneath the clipboard and slapped them on the granite in front of Boyd. With a rigid finger pinpointing the sprinkler head locations, he said, “These sprinklers. The ones you argued over for weeks.”
“Come on, Ethan. We both know those things were eyesores. They killed the style in this kitchen.” He opened his arms and gestured around the space. “This is a showplace, for God’s sake. Even your daddy thinks so. He and your mama were here for a wine tasting just last week, and . . .”
The situation crystallized in his mind, and Ethan hit his breaking point.