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“Yeah?”
“Miss Burns is here. Go grab Stone and get the trash off the driveway.”
“On it.” The kid let the last pallet slam onto the rocks and ran off to the barn.
I was hoping to stall for a second, but damn, her long legs wouldn’t give me a break. She hopped off the bike and stalked my way, already pulling off her helmet. All that gem-toned hair haloed around her head for a moment before swinging behind her in the ponytail she always wore.
I had to have some deviant gene that got off on her anger.
“I told you we were doing fine here, Ruby.”
“Fine? Is this how you run a work site?” She twirled around, the helmet practically a weapon as she took in the piles of wood I had to go through. Some could be salvaged—and should be, based on the age of the barn. Once she had half a second to think, she’d realize I was taking good care of her space.
She’d want to use some of the old wood to make benches or a table for the rec room. Or at least that was the plan I had for it. But I was only one man and wrangling a bunch of teen males. We were still in the destructive phase. Personally, my favorite time.
But to someone not in the know, it looked like hell.
“Now Ruby—”
“Don’t ‘Ruby’ me. God, I made a huge mistake.” She dropped the helmet and clutched her head as if she was in physical distress.
I’d never realized just how much of a flair for the dramatic my future wife possessed.
“Hey, this is just the start.”
She kept right on talking. Her big brown eyes blazed, and anger bled in to flush her cheeks. “I figured with Gideon involved—”
“All right, stop right there.” I turned her around and shuffled her around the front of the house. “I get that you’re a little wound up, but this is demo day, Tish.”
She did not deserve the Ruby nickname right now. That was reserved for when she was attractively pissy, not for when she was having a Miss Piggy-style meltdown.
She yanked her arm away from me and frowned, and then whatever was going on in her brain clicked back into shriek mode.
At the moment, I didn’t care. I just kept moving her along. The nosy teens were already craning their necks to hear our conversation. Number one, I didn’t need them to question my authority, and number two, I needed to cool her down—even if she was frighteningly sexy in her anger.
Perhaps I’d fallen off too many ladders in my day. Surely there was an explanation for my dick’s bad choices.
I walked forward and she backed up with each step. Finally, we got to her front lawn. She put her hands on her hips and threw back her shoulders. A black shirt was like her second skin under her usual motorcycle jacket. “Demo? What, with the Incredible Hulk?”
“Well, I do call Stone Hulk, but that’s beside the point. I’m sure your garage looks a little crazy before you—”
“No. No, it does not. My garage is neat and organized. It doesn’t look like that.” She flung her arm out again, pointing toward the back where my truck was still blasting music. This time, a funky, beachy version of Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” pumped toward the sky.
“Yeah, well, I guess we just work differently.”
Her chest heaved.
I rushed on before she ripped into me again. “I have it handled. There was a lot of crap in that barn that needs to be gone through. I figured since you love this place so much, you’d want to salvage some of the lumber. Not to mention the cost of tossing out perfectly good wood and replacing it with lesser quality materials.”
She shut her mouth and crossed her arms. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Sensible. And I appreciate the money angle since it looks as if I’m going to be carving out a crater in my savings.”
“Not necessarily. I’d do more myself if we had time, but with the deadline, I’ll need to purchase furniture and all that.”
She sucked in a slow breath. “Makes sense.”
