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She gripped the front of his shirt and dragged him closer. “Oh, would you?”
He gave her a quick kiss. “No.”
“Spoilsport.” Macy pushed him back and hopped down. “I’ll let you work. Missed you this morning, Tish.”
I picked up my helmet by the strap. “Family stuff.”
“Oh, I know how that is. My house is chaos.”
“Your house?” Gideon
leaned his hip on the counter and crossed his arms.
“Ours. Jeez, so touchy.” She came around the counter and passed me. “It’s mine during fall. He’s just grumpy because I had an awesome new noisy delivery at the house and the Haunt.” Macy sailed out the door with a cackle as the bat screamed again.
Gideon shook his head. “Good thing I love her.”
I rolled my eyes. “Gross.”
He grinned. “Wait until it happens to you.”
“Dear God, no.” I set my ruby red helmet on the counter. “I’m looking for a man to do only one thing for me.”
“Father a baby?”
I would not even dignify that with a response.
“C’mon, it’s Crescent Cove. Gotta wonder.” He plucked the pencil behind his ear out of his dark curls. “What can I do you for, Tish?”
“Tell me where to find Lucky.”
He tucked his pencil back in its perpetual spot and smiled wider. “I thought you weren’t looking for love.”
“Hell no. He owes me a bet, and I’m ready to collect. It’s a sizable job, so I may need to hire a few of your guys to help out if that’s possible.”
“We get pretty booked out. How fast are you looking for?”
“ASAP.”
He whistled. “Fall is a slower season, but it’s still not easy to shuffle things in a hurry.”
I bit my lip. I didn’t like using emotional blackmail, but I was desperate. “Look, my brother was in an accident.”
Worry instantly furrowed his brow.
I held up a hand. “Not too terrible, but it jacked up my timetable for the renovation I had in mind.” Sure, we’d go with that. I’d definitely had no plan. “He’s in rehab right now for the injury, but he’ll be dropping in on me for Christmas and staying indefinitely. My house isn’t ready, and he probably can’t do stairs anyway.” I sucked in a breath. I was pretty sure this was more words than I’d ever spoken at once since I’d lived in this town. “I bought the old Slide house.”
“Oh, right. On the lake.” He whistled. “That’s a nice property. We’re nearly neighbors.”
I patted my helmet and resisted the urge to twitch. Neighbors wasn’t a word I threw around. I rather liked that my house was secluded, and I didn’t want to start doing cookouts or some shit. “Yeah. I can’t believe I own property, to be honest. But the old barn would be a good rec room-slash-guest house for my family.”
“A great idea. But if I remember right, that place is…” He rubbed the back of his neck, clearly searching for a nice word for my new home.
“Hellish? Yeah, it needs to be gutted. I already made some calls and have a dumpster coming tomorrow accompanied by some burly football players from the high school who wanted to make some quick money destroying shit.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Wasting no time.”
“Nope. I have a small window of opportunity. Lucky owes me, so I’m collecting.”
