“Maybe you need to worry more about them and less about impressing moms and dads.”
“True. But I bet I could romance the hardware store–guy’s daughter without getting buried in the woods.”
Rather than let on he had his own eye on Lauren—not that it meant anything—Ryan let the conversation die and turned up the radio.
Not only was Lauren being at the hardware store a kink in his plan to stay out of her way, but now the whole thing was twisted up. If he kept doing the hardware store runs, there was a good chance he’d keep running into Lauren. But if he sent one of the guys, which made more sense, it would be Matt, since Dill was temporarily unable to drive thanks to a combination of driving too fast and forgetting he hadn’t renewed his license. While he didn’t see why women found Matt irresistible, he’d seen and heard enough to know they did and he didn’t want the man around Lauren.
He was just going to have to make damn sure they planned ahead for the work they were doing and could keep supply runs to a minimum. Considering the way both his brain and body seemed to short-circuit when he was around her, it would only be a matter of time before he said or did something stupid.
Asking a woman he’d been in love with once upon a time out on a date when he was only in town for a month or so would definitely be stupid. Not only would he be starting something he couldn’t finish, but she had a teenage son. Things could get messy when kids were involved.
When they got back to the lodge, he left the supplies for Matt to deal with and went into the house. He had an email from an architect he needed to deal with and the PDF sheet with the specs was too small to read on his phone. He fired up the desktop in the office and waited for it to boot up.
And waited, and waited. When Josh stuck his head in, Ryan growled and gestured at the PC. “How old is this damn thing?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s antique in computer years.”
“How am I supposed to work with this? And how are you supposed to keep up with a website and a Facebook page when it takes this long just to turn on. I’m afraid if I try to check my email, it’ll start smoking and spew computer parts all over the place.”
“Mitch has somebody from his company working on the computer crap.”
“Finally.” Ryan started on the process of signing into his email account. “Were you looking for me or just being nosy?”
“I wanted to tell you something.”
“Okay.” Maybe he should go fix a snack while the piece of crap took its sweet time opening the attachment.
“Ry.”
He realized he was multitasking badly and gave all his attention to his brother. “Sorry. What’s up?”
“I just wanted to tell you I appreciate you coming up here. I know you’re busy with your business and all. And I’m sorry I couldn’t swallow my pride and ask for help before it got so bad.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t get up here more often. I should have seen what was going on and we all should have realized we’d left you holding the bag.” He’d stayed away because of Lauren and wounded pride, and his family had suffered for it. “We’ll have the place fixed up in no time and then we’ll figure out where to go from there.”
When his brother nodded and left, Ryan tried to focus on the spec sheet the computer had finally displayed for him. There was some argument about how far the generator would be placed from the electrical panel and what gauge wire had to be run, and he wanted to know exactly what he was dealing with before calling the electrical inspector.
But he kept picturing Lauren sitting on the stool in her father’s hardware store just as she’d been doing for as long as he could remember. When it was his turn to go to town with his dad as a little kid, she’d often be sitting there during the summer, and she’d offer to share the penny candy she’d gotten at the variety store, which had been gone for years now.
Even then he’d been aware of how pretty she was and that her smile made his belly feel kind of funny. As he got older and realized what that funny feeling was, he’d never worked up the courage to ask her to go steady. And then, one day, Dean had.
Ryan was a grown man now, but that smile still made him feel kind of funny. And he suspected if he ran into her too often, he might have to resort to his younger self’s way of dealing with it, which involved a lot of time in the shower with plenty of lathery soap.
With a growl, he forced his focus back to the computer screen. Just like Matt, he was there to work, not socialize. But, unlike Matt, he would work all the time if it kept his thoughts off Lauren Carpenter.
Chapter Three
“I can’t make it this weekend.”