“We…ell…” He drew out the word. “I thought she was an answer to a prayer.”
Lottie whipped her head around to look at him.
He said, “I told Tripp that I was going to get a pretend girlfriend to keep Aunt Bernie from setting me up with blind dates.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “You rat! Why didn’t you tell me in the beginning?”
He raised one shoulder in a half shrug. “You only asked me to be your boyfriend. You didn’t ask me if I wanted a fake girlfriend. So, tell me the truth. Did you get baby fever when Bo said she was pregnant with twins?”
“Maybe a little,” Lottie admitted. “How about you?”
“Nope, not a little, but a lot,” Knox said.
Chapter 21
“Okay, y’all listen up,” Jack said on Monday morning when everyone had gathered in the rec hall.
Lottie let out a long sigh. She had been ready for what was coming next for more than a week, and she didn’t like it.
“Thomas tells me the framing crew will finish the last cabin by noon today,” Jack said. “When that’s done, I want all five of you to move down to number one this afternoon and help get all the finish work done this week, so Mandy and I can move into it the middle of next week.”
“Sure thing, Jack,” Eddie agreed with a nod.
“I appreciate all of you working so hard, from framers to you finish carpenters who only arrived today. If everyone can keep at it until Mother’s Day weekend, I believe all six of the cabins will be ready to move in. That’s all. Have some doughnuts and coffee, and if this project is done a week early like I think it will be, everyone will get a nice bonus,” Jack said.
“So much for being ahead of schedule,” Lottie grumbled under her breath. If it wasn’t for leaving Knox, she would have much rather hooked up her trailer and been on her way to El Paso.
“Don’t mind her,” Gabe told Knox. “Jack saw to it that she learned to do everything from holding a nail gun to staining cabinets, but…”
“I’m standing right here,” she barked, “and I don’t hide the fact that I don’t like any of the business except but framing work.”
“Why?” Knox asked.
“Framing is fast, and I can see results on a daily basis. Finish work is tedious and slow and tests my patience,” she admitted. “But if it will help Aunt Mandy and my folks get moved in quicker, I’ll do it.”
“Without complaining?” Gabe asked.
“Nope. I’ll be grumpy until the last cabinet is installed and the final door is hung.” She turned her focus toward Knox. “Think you can live with that?”
“We’ll have to wait and see,” he answered. “We still have separate trailers that we can escape to each evening. Hopefully, the trip to New Iberia next weekend will sweeten your mood.”
“What is New Iberia?” Thomas asked.
“It’s a town in southern Louisiana. I’ve bought some land between Spanish Fort and Nocona, and I need to go to where the owner lives now to finalize the deal,” Knox answered. “Lottie and I are flying down there for the weekend, but we’ll be back Sunday night to help finish up this project. I would really like to be back at home for good on Mother’s Day.”
“If we can get it done, that will give us a week to spendwith our families before we head to El Paso. Has anyone heard from Walter?” Thomas headed back toward the equipment room with the other four of their team behind him.
“Not me,” Lottie answered.
Usually, the framers finished their job and left the site the next day for the next job. They barely had time to drive from one place to another. Forget about having a day or two for anything like visiting parents or a short vacation. Only twice in the years she had worked for Jack had she been asked to help by doing the finish work, and she’d hoped it would never happen again.
“I’ll call him tonight,” Eddie said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he wants our team there as soon as we can make it.”
“We are the first responders, so to speak,” Gabe said. “Nobody works until we get the framing done. And this job is a big one even for us. Ten two-story houses in an exclusive community with all kinds of rules. I understand that there will be monthly inspections to be sure they are up to code. It’s going to look like the Hamptons from the pictures I saw, and it will take at least a year to get everything ready.”
“They better hire gardeners,” Thomas said as he headed across the lawns toward the last cabin, “and have sprinkling systems. El Paso’s temperature is definitely not like the Hamptons’.”
Lottie remembered how sweltering hot the weather had been when she visited her brother in that part of Texas the summer before. Forget about sitting outside in the evenings. The sunsets might have been beautiful and peaceful if aperson could withstand the swarms of mosquitoes. Add that to sweating gallons of water in the sweltering heat, and she swore she would only come back to that place in the winter.
