Rich Soldier (The Dirty Thirty Pledge 2)

Some people say it shouldn’t be for me since I’m a woman and it’s not lady-like, but those people can go fuck themselves. I like building things. It’s like a puzzle, piecing it together to make it exactly how you want it. And there’s nothing more satisfying than a project completed to perfection.

Wallace Monroe and I used to talk about building things together. Sat on my parents’ roof and dreamed of all the things we would design and build, until we were whispering, half asleep. He used to work construction during the summer in high school and I dreamed about becoming a big-city architect. But then he joined the army and didn’t come back and I found out that the big city life wasn’t for me. Ugh, he needs to get out of my head!

But even though I didn’t end up where I thought I would, I like the satisfaction of knowing that something was put together with my own hands, and I also like knowing that I’m stronger than most of the guys that try to hit on me. The looks on their faces when I show them up are the best.

My mother would much rather I flirt back, but it’s just not that easy. I need someone who’s going to match me, not assume that they’re better than me because they were born a man.

My father’s not in his office when I check, and he’s not on the loading dock either. Only people there are the temps and Bryan, a regular, unloading palates of bricks off a truck. “Bryan, you seen my dad?”

He shrugs, and I try not to show any frustration. Lately Dad has been nowhere I need him. But he’s still in charge, which means I need him a lot, to sign and approve things. I want him to hand over more responsibility to me, but he keeps saying that I’m not ready. It might be easier to see that I’m ready if I didn’t have to track him down every second of every day. Or arrange schedules that are nearly impossible.

I step to the side as one of the temps roll by with a forklift and a brick pallet, and I think that my eyes are tricking me. Because Wallace Monroe is here, standing on the other side of the warehouse, like I summoned him out of my mind. I shake my head, seeing if my mind is really that deep down the rabbit hole, but his image doesn’t go away. So he’s really here. Why?

He looks around and when he sees me walking toward him, he smiles. I’d forgotten what that smile does to him, and what it does to me. It transforms his entire face into something beautiful—even more than it already is—and it gives me butterflies. There’s something about it that reaches down into my gut and sings a song of possibility and longing. More than longing. A sweet ache and desire that’s been missing for a long damn time.

I can’t think about that. I can’t even allow it as a possibility. Not after everything. After all this time, I still don’t know why he left, and that’s a hole that I don’t think can be patched. Even by a smile as brilliant as that one. “Wallace?”

“Hi, Tia.”

We stop a few feet away from each other, and both step to the side as the forklift passes and starts to rise up from the floor. Wallace seems suddenly awkward, like he doesn’t know what to do. I don’t really either, and I need to find my Dad. I wait a few more seconds before I ask him, “Can I help you with something?”

“I just…I came to talk to you.”

That takes me a little by surprise. Why now? “About what?”

“Anything, really.” He laughs, “Some stuff has happened and you’ve been on my mind. So I came to talk to you, to explain—”

There’s a huge cracking sound and I see the pallet of bricks crack on the forklift right behind him. I lunge forward and pull him past me, jumping too as bricks cascade to the floor in a shattering crash, spilling over onto where we were just standing. I stumble as I jump out of the way and fall, landing on something that’s definitely not the floor. It’s Wallace.

We’re face to face now, and my mind is racing with what just happened, that either of us could have been crushed by that avalanche. My body is racing for an entirely different, and inappropriate, reason. I can’t believe I’m even noticing this when I just escaped death, but Wallace’s body is everything that I thought it might be under those clothes—hard and defined—I can feel it. I feel myself blush, and God the need that surges through me takes my breath away. The way he’s looking at me, I’ve seen that look on his face before, a long time ago. He wants to kiss me, and right now, for whatever reason on God’s green earth, I might let him.