“Ethan, it’s Michael.”Before I can respond, he barrels on, his words coming out clipped and urgent.“I know you’re off, but I’ve got a fucking monster of a problem with the Riverwalk North site.”
My gut plummets, my mind shooting straight to the accident with Leo.“What problem?”
“That prick I got in to run the site just walked off the job.Where the hell are you?”
I’m relieved no one is hurt, but how is any of this my problem?An icy stab of dread hits my stomach.“I’m in North Carolina.”
“Well, that plan just changed.”
“Excuse me?”
A huff slides out of him.“Come on; don’t do this to me.Don’t leave me hanging, like that fucking idiot who just left me high and dry.We’ve got a multi-million-dollar build sitting underway, and my budget’s tight.No one’s here calling the shots.”
“I’m on vacation,” I clip.He shouldn’t even be calling me.I don’t phone him when he’s living his best life at some fancy resort down in Mexico every other month.
“I’ll make it up to you later.As soon as this job is over, you can head back to South Carolina.”
“NorthCarolina,” I correct, a breath cutting through my lips as I tip my gaze to the ceiling.
I can’t believe this.I had to fight for this vacation, and I’d more than earned the time off.Now this asshole is trying to take that away from me.
Plus, Riverwalk North is a forty-story building with a giant parking lot underneath.It’ll take years to finish.“Why’d the foreman walk out?”I ask, suspicious.
“Hell if I know.Some people don’t have the backbone for this job,” he gripes flatly.“Or maybe he realized he was in over his head.Either way, he’s gone.And he’s not coming back.”
God knows what pushed the guy to throw in the towel.
And right now, that’s what worries me.What corners has Michael been trying to cut that set the other foreman off?What could go wrong if someone who knows what they’re doing isn’t watching over things?
I lean a hand on the counter, shifting my ankle away from Kat’s playful paws.“You’ve got other supervisors.”
“None I trust to runa build like this,”he argues.“That site is under a microscope.Investors are already breathing down my neck.Safety inspectors are popping in every other day.If something else goes sideways out there, it makes me look bad to the higher-ups.You get me?”
I scrape a hand through my unruly hair.“I get you.”
“So I need you back, all right?As soon as you can get here.”
I grit my teeth.“I can’t just drop everything.”Mom and Dad’s place is basically done, but there’s clean-up I haven’t finished.There’s Kat to sort out.And there’s…
Chloe.
Something sharp slices through my chest wall.
I had to leave sometime, didn’t I?
What’s the point in dragging out a goodbye?
“I can run things today and tomorrow, then it’s the weekend.Will that be enough time?”Michael presses, his voice tense.“Can I expect you on Monday?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose.For fuck’s sake.It’ll take me a day to drive home, which means...
Two days.
That’s all I have left in Inner Shores.
CHAPTERTWENTY-EIGHT
CHLOE
