It took her twelve to drive across Whitford because she had to stop for gas, so Gary Demarest, insurance agent extraordinaire, was already in when she arrived. She’d worked for him since her divorce eight years before, when she’d been looking for a job in town with mother’s hours. Demarest Insurance had mostly fit the bill, though Nick got out of school a couple of hours before she left work. When he was younger, the neighbor had kept an eye on him. Now he was mostly on his own, though in a town like Whitford, somebody was always watching.
“I left some notes on your desk,” Gary said. He was in great shape for a man in his mid-sixties and prided himself on being a smart dresser, despite the fact that the majority of his clientele wore jeans and T-shirts. “Paige Sullivan’s going to be renting out her mobile home, so she needs a price on adjusting the property insurance accordingly. I’ll let you know when I get the numbers together, but you can get started on the paperwork if you get a chance.”
“No problem.” When Gary disappeared into his office, closing the door behind him, Lauren leaned back in her very nice office chair and sighed.
Paige Sullivan was going to rent out her mobile home because she was marrying Mitch Kowalski and they were going to buy a house together. And, of course, thinking of Mitch naturally led her to think of his brother.
Ryan Kowalski. Her what-if guy when she let herself indulge in ridiculous fantasy. What if she’d said yes?
He’d been in town a few times lately, she knew, helping his brothers straighten out the Northern Star, their family-owned snowmobile lodge. But, as in the past when he’d visited, he stayed close to home and they never got close enough to speak. She wasn’t sure whether it was deliberate, but he’d managed not to run into her since he’d graduated from college.
The phone rang before Lauren could give in to the what-if fantasy, which was a good thing. With Nick needing an attitude adjustment and Dean to deal with, the last thing she needed was another guy with issues. Her ex-husband’s ex-best friend could stay out of sight and out of mind where he belonged.
*
Ryan Kowalski made very few mistakes when it came to running his business, but trapping himself in a pickup with an idiot definitely counted as one. “Put the phone on vibrate.”
Dill Brophy snorted, just as the phone in his hand sounded another incoming text with the grating, electronic sound of a duck call. For almost five freaking hours he’d been listening to Dill’s phone quack, and if he had a shotgun he’d pull over and play an impromptu round of Duck Hunt. Not even a minute later, it quacked again.
Ryan jerked the wheel hard to the left and had the satisfaction of hearing Dill’s head thump against the passenger window.
“Ow! What the hell, man?”
“Pothole.”
“Matt wants to know if we’re almost there yet.” Quack. “Or if not, can we stop for lunch, because it’s after lunchtime.”
Ryan put on his blinker and pulled over onto the shoulder. Once Matt Russell had pulled in behind him, he turned to Dill. “Let me see your phone.”
Rather than throw it out the window and run over it repeatedly, as he wanted to do, Ryan took it and powered it down. Then he got out of the truck, slamming the door with Kowalski Custom Builders painted down the side, and walked back to the identical vehicle Matt was driving. Well, not totally identical. Ryan’s had heated leather seats and a custom sound system. It was nice to be the boss.
Matt lowered the window. “What’s up?”
“Give me your phone.” Since both guys carried company-provided cell phones, refusing wasn’t an option. When he had it, Ryan gave the young carpenter a stern look. “You text while driving one of my trucks again, you’re fired.”
After he tossed both phones into his door pocket, they got back on the road and Ryan took a deep breath when, not long after, they passed the Welcome to Whitford, Maine sign. Home again. Dammit.
A while back, when his youngest brother, Josh, had busted his leg and the oldest, Mitch, had gone home to give him a hand, the shit had really hit the fan. The Northern Star Lodge—which had gone from gentleman’s hunting lodge to snowmobiling lodge under the ownership of several generations of Kowalskis—was in bad shape, both financially and physically. Some rehab needed doing and, since Ryan was a builder, it was his turn to spend a little time in Whitford.
Because he’d be away from his business for who knew how long, he’d left his top guys and most experienced builders down in Massachusetts to keep the jobs going, which was how he’d ended up stuck with two young, less-experienced pinheads to work with.
That wasn’t quite fair. They were good kids and they worked hard. If they weren’t he wouldn’t have them on his jobs. But his current feelings toward them were colored a bit by four and a half hours of the quacking duck and the twinkly chime that sounded when Dill’s pregnant wife texted. And she texted a lot.
For a second, he regretted shutting Dill’s phone off, but then he told himself that if there was an emergency, she’d call him or the office, looking for her husband. And when they got to the lodge, he’d give the phones back.