The smell turns my stomach, even though I had four cups and a plate of eggs and bacon in an attempt to cure my hangover. It didn’t work. After last night, I’m never drinking again.
Had I actually cried? The details are fuzzy, but I remember being naked in the creek. The lights were off in the river house; whoever Dad has living there was sound asleep while I stared and imagined the future my mom had planned to build in it. It was too much. The cold water sobered me up enough that a wave of pain and anger crashed over me.
But I don’t cry.
Not since she died.
So what the hell was that?
I swear this town is fucking with my head. I pinch the bridge of my nose and pray for the ache between my ears to fade. “If you wanna be all technical about it, then . . . yeah.”
I hate this, I hate this, I hate this.
The fact is, I have no choice. I need money now, and the job is available now. Necessity shoves aside my pride. Sooner I make some money, sooner I’ll be gone.
“Fine.” He folds up his newspaper and smacks it down on his desk, kicking up a flurry of dust that lights up in the sunlight through the window. “But things have changed since you worked here in high school. Job now includes pickin’ up supplies from town when we need ’em. Didn’t want you driving to the city back then, but figure you’re a big-shot career woman now; you can handle it.”
“Okay, but—”
“Also might need you on job sites. Been spreading myself thin and we’ve been busier than ever.”
My head throbs. Is he yelling?
“And the pay, you’ll get twenty an hour to start. If you prove your salt, I’ll raise that.” His eyes go over my shoulder at the sound of the office door opening and he waves in whoever is behind me.
“Whoa, Native American Barbie.” My brother plucks the shoulder hem of my blouse. “Nice threads.”
I smack his hand. “Shut up.”
He chuckles and drops into the seat next to me, propping his work-boot-covered feet on my dad’s desk and dropping a decent amount of dirt off the tread in the process.
My dad stands and grabs his tool belt from a nearby table that’s in no better shape than his desk. “Get started out there, then in here. Cody and I’ll be out most of the day.”
“Aw, shit . . .” Cody’s voice is laced with laughter. “She caved.” He pushes his black hair off his forehead. “Less than twenty-four hours. That’s gotta be a record.”
“Cody, up.” My dad’s growl erases my brother’s cocky grin. “Got work to do, so does your sister.”
My brother pushes up to stand. “Hell yeah she does.” He whistles low and his gaze moves around the room. “Dad, I don’t know how to tell you this, so I’m just going to come out and say it.”
My dad drops a stack of overstuffed file folders into my lap, spilling their guts to the floor at my feet. “What’s that?” How he’s managed to run a successful company and not know the first thing about organizing paperwork is a damn mystery.
“You’re a whore.”
My dad freezes and glares at my brother. “Fuck does that mean?”
“This.” Cody holds his arms out, motioning to the entire room. “You’re hoarding.”
“Code, someone who hoards is not a whore.” The rumble of irritation is heavy in my dad’s voice, either from impatience or from my brother’s idiocy.
“Of course they are.” Cody laughs.
“No. They’re not, dumbass.” I wrangle the file folders back into my arms and carry them to the reception desk.
Cody ruffles my hair, pushing it into my eyes, and I’m stuck unable to clear it.
“You dick!”
“What the hell is wrong with you two?” Dad snags his keys and pops on a faded baseball hat with the Jennings Contractors logo on it. “Both of you talk like you were raised by bikers.”
My brother grins. “Crabby ole mountain man’ll give a biker’s mouth a run for its money.”
Dad mumbles something that makes Cody laugh and they leave without saying goodbye.
I finally blow the hair out of my eyes and study what is supposed to be a lobby, or it was when I worked here years ago, but now resembles a storage unit. Blueprints scatter every available tabletop, both rolled up and spread open, held down by wrenches, screwdrivers, even a can of WD-40. I plop down at my desk and groan. It’ll take me forever to get this all straightened out.
Only days ago I was at the jumping point of a career-changing event. I chose to drop-kick my own ass right off a cliff rather than do what had to be done and this is my penance. Cleaning up a half decade of crappy bookkeeping and housekeeping for a man who always made me feel like my dreams were too big and my place was in a small pond.
Nash Jennings might be right about a lot of things, but not that. This is a temporary setback that I will rectify as soon as I figure out how. I’m not giving up. Not without a fight.