She figured she was going to have to eat her words as she helped Knox put together the last four trusses for the roof. She bit back a groan when she thought about all those weeks without Knox. If she was honest, she would even miss Cheeto’s crowing in the mornings.
* * *
Having grown up with only brothers, Knox was not an expert on women. He had learned a little about sisters when he moved to Spanish Fort with Brodie and Tripp, but even that much wouldn’t fill up a small coffee cup. He was wise enough to read Lottie’s expression and know that the best thing to do that morning was to let her work out her anger on her own.
Legally, he had been hired to help frame out six cabins, so if he wanted, he could load up his kitten and chicken and go home at noon that day. But Jack had been good to him in the past, and he couldn’t treat him that shabbily. Besides, even if she was moody, he wanted to spend the next couple of weeks with Lottie. When all six cabins were completed, he might not see her until fall—and that seemed like an eternity.
They finished at noon with hardly any words between them except for the few times someone needed a nail gun passed to them. They took their equipment back to the rechall and went to their own trailers for a noon break. Knox was in the process of making two thick sandwiches when Lottie opened the door just a crack and peeked inside.
“Am I welcome?” she asked.
“Of course. I made lunch for both of us in hopes you would be over your snit,” Knox replied, and motioned for her to take a seat.
“I owe you an apology,” she said. “After that amazing weekend, and last night in my trailer, you don’t deserve the cold treatment I’ve given you all day, so I’m sorry. There’s no excuse, but I was hoping we would be done today and could spend a few days at your place before I had to head to El Paso. But evidently, we’ll be helping out all the way until Mother’s Day weekend.”
He set the plate of sandwiches on the table and got two bottles of sweet tea from the refrigerator. “That will give you time to spend with your folks in the evenings before they go on their cruise.”
She took a bag of potato chips from the cabinet on the way across the floor. “Yes, it will, and I should not have been such a whiny baby this morning. Mama called when I got to my trailer. She was so excited that she and Daddy would have some time here before they leave. That way, they won’t have to put everything in storage. I felt super guilty for only thinking about what I wanted.”
He sat down beside her. “We do have the weekend in Louisiana to look forward to all week when we are putting in door facings and baseboards.”
“And laying floor tile and doing the finish work on the cabinets. The place where Uncle Jack gets them custom made does not do stain and varnish. Are you any good with a spray gun?”
“I’m not too shabby,” he answered.
“Do you like that kind of work?”
He wiggled his eyebrows. “I love anything that means I get to work with my hands.”
She giggled for the first time that day. “I’ll remember that treatment in the bathtub when I’m helping get Uncle Jack’s cabin ready for them to move into in a week.”
“Oh, really?” Knox asked. “Will the visions in your head make you breathless?”
“Probably so, but the thoughts of my reward at the end of each day in one of our trailers will really make me pant,” she answered.
“Save some of that for the afterglow,” he teased.
She slid over closer to him and nibbled on his earlobe. “There’s always plenty in storage for that. Want a sample before we go back to work?”
“I would never turn that down,” he said, “but first we better finish our lunch, or we’ll run out of energy before five o’clock.”
“Then eat fast,” she said.
After lunch, when they all met in front of the first cabin, Eddie grinned and asked, “What happened to you over the past hour?”
“What makes you think anything happened to me?” Lottie fired back.
“You don’t look like you could chew up two-by-fours and spit out toothpicks,” Gabe answered.
“I had lunch, played with a couple of cats, and worked out my frustrations. Are y’all ready to go to work, or do you want to stand out here and analyze me all afternoon? If you want to play like therapists instead of carpenters, then we’ll have a go at it. But remember, what’s good for the goose is also good for the gander. If you pick my brain, then I get to do the same with each of you.”
“Including Knox?” Thomas grinned.
Knox threw up both hands in a defensive gesture. “Not me. There’s no way I’d attempt to try to figure out what’s in a woman’s mind. I’d rather try to outswim a hungry alligator.”
Chapter 22
“Hello!” Lester waved from the steps of the plane and stood up. “Y’all are right on time.”
