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“We’ll meet you there.” Setting Murphy down, Beckett crossed to her. He brushed a hand over her cheek, then his lips over hers. “Around noon?”
“That’s fine. Call if you need reinforcements. Boys.” Maternal warning vibrated in the single word. “Do what you’re told. I’ll know if you misbehave—even if they don’t tell me. I’m right down the street,” she said to Beckett.
“How come she knows even when she’s not there?” Murphy demanded when Clare left. “’Cause she does.”
“The mysterious power of mother,” Beckett told him.
“Anyway, if you screw around we’ll just drill you to the wall by your shoes. Upside down,” Ryder added. “You got the runt?”
“Yeah.” Beckett laid a hand on Murphy’s head.
“I’ll take pb and j over to the apartments. He can help with lock set.”
“How come I’m pb and j?” Liam demanded.
“Because you’re the middle.”
“I won’t be the middle when the babies come. Murphy will.”
“He did the math,” Beckett said, stupidly proud.
“Another math geek? We’ll set Owen up as his keeper when he gets here. I’ll take this one.” He put Harry in a headlock that thrilled the boy to his toes. “He’s not as short as the others. We’ll head over to the gym. I’ll dump the temporary middle over the bakery on the way.”
“Great. Thanks.” As Ryder left with two boys in tow, Beckett turned to Murphy. “We’d better get our tools.”
Murphy smiled, angel sweet. “Our tools.”
Since both men working in the apartment had kids, Ryder figured they wouldn’t let Liam do anything overly stupid. Still, he hung around several minutes, setting the boy up with light switch covers, a small screwdriver.
The kid was about eight, he thought, and had good hands. He also—maybe that middle child thing—had the most devious mind of the three, and the quickest temper.
“You get a buck an hour if you don’t screw up. Screw up,” Ryder told him, “you get zilch.”
“How much is zilch?”
“Nothing.”
“I don’t want zilch,” Liam protested.
“Nobody does, so don’t screw up. He gives you grief,” Ryder told his men, “take him to Beck. Let’s go, Harry Caray.”
“I should get more than Liam, because I’m older.”
“A buck an hour,” Ryder repeated as they went down the outside steps. “That’s the deal across the board.”
“I could get a bonus.”
Amused, and a little fascinated, Ryder studied Harry as they walked. “What the hell do you know?”
“Mom gives people bonuses at Christmas because they work hard.”
“Okay, talk to me at Christmas.”
“Am I going to get to use one of those guns that shoots nails?”
“Sure. In about five years.”
“Gran says you’re making a place where people come to exercise and have fun getting healthy.”
“That’s the plan.”
“We have to eat broccoli ’cause it’s healthy, except when we have Man Night, and we don’t.”
“The beauty of Man Night is broccoli is never on the menu.”
“Am I going to measure stuff? I have a tape measure at home Beckett gave me, but I didn’t bring it.”
“We’ve got some spares.”
When they stepped in, Harry stood, all eyes.
With demo complete, they had exterior walls, a crap roof, and a space big as a barn. Saws buzzed, hammers banged, nail guns thwacked as the crew worked.
“It’s big,” Harry said. “I didn’t think it was big, but it is. How come there’s nothing in it?”
Ryder answered simply. “Because what was here was no good. We’ll build what is.”
“You just build it? The whole thing? How do you know?”
Realizing the kid meant it literally, Ryder walked him over to the plans.
“Beckett made them. I saw him. The roof part doesn’t look like that.”
Okay, Ryder thought, the kid not only had a lot of questions—which struck him as sensible—but he paid attention. Maybe they were making the next generation of contractors.
“It will. We’re going to take the old roof off.”
“What if it rains?”
“We’ll get wet.”
Harry grinned up at him. “Can I build something?”
“Yeah. Let’s get you a hammer.”
HE ENJOYED HIMSELF. The kid was bright and eager, with that willingness to do anything that came from never doing it before. And funny, often deliberately. Ryder had helped wrangle the kids and tools a few times when they’d finished Beckett’s house, so he knew Harry was reasonably careful. He liked to learn; he liked to build.
And teaching the boy a few basics took Ryder back to his own childhood where he’d learned his craft from his father.
There would be no Montgomery Family Contractors if Tom Montgomery hadn’t had the skills, the drive, and the patience to build—and hadn’t married a woman with vision and energy.
Ryder found he missed his father more at the beginning of a job, like this one, where the potential rolled out like an endless carpet.
He’d have gotten a kick out of this, Ryder thought as he guided Harry into measuring and marking the next stud. The big, empty space echoing with noise, the smell of sweat and sawdust.
And he’d have loved the boy, have loved the potential of the boy, too. Nine, closing in on ten, Ryder remembered. Gangling frame and sharp elbows and feet too big for the rest of him.
And now two more on the way. Yeah, his father would’ve gotten one hell of a large charge out of the Brewster/Montgomery brood.
The kid engaged the crew. He fetched and carried tirelessly. That wouldn’t last, Ryder calculated, but the novelty of the day equaled that slave labor—and made the boy feel like a man. Like part of the team.
He stepped back, took a swig of Gatorade from the bottle. Harry mimicked him, and stood, as Ryder did, studying the work.
“Well, kid, you built your first wall. Here.” He pulled a carpenter’s pencil from his belt. “Write your name on it.”
“Really?”
“Sure. It’ll be covered up with insulation, drywall, and paint, but you’ll know it’s there.”
Delighted, Harry took the pencil, and on the raw stud wrote his name in careful cursive.
He glanced over at the sound of whoops, watched Liam scramble in.
“They kick you out?” Ryder called.
“Nuh-uh! I did a million switch plates, and I did a doorknob, too. Chad showed me how. Then Beckett came to get me so we can have pizza.”
As he spoke, Beckett came in with Murphy.
“I built a wall! Look. Me and Ryder built a wall.”
Liam frowned at it. “How’s it a wall when you can walk through. See.” He demonstrated.
“It’s a stud wall,” Harry said importantly.
Instantly, Liam’s face shifted into mutinous lines. “I wanna build a stud wall.”
“Next ti
me.” Beckett collared him. “Watch yourself. Construction site rules.”
“I builded a platform. You can stand on it,” Murphy explained. “Now it’s lunch break, and we get pizza.”
He’d lost track of time, Ryder realized.
“I’m going to get them cleaned up,” Beckett said.
“And we get to play video games first. I got three dollars.” Liam waved the bills in the air.
“Yeah, yeah.” Ryder reached for his wallet at Harry’s quiet look. “You earned it.”
“Thanks! Are you going to have lunch with us?”
“I’ll be over in a while. I’ve got a couple things to finish up.”
“Owen’s over at the new restaurant, running some things with Avery. He said twenty.”
“That works.”
“Okay, troops, let’s go clean up.”
Hope caught sight of them from the kitchen window, Beckett and his little men. Sweet, she thought. Heading to Vesta for lunch, she imagined.
She should probably grab something soon herself, she decided, before her guests came back and she didn’t have a chance. She’d already done her room
