She’d start with the history of the owner.
When he came back, she scooted over to make room for him. “Tell me about your family.”
He practically choked. “What does that have to do with buying bunk beds and shower curtains?”
She gave him a very light elbow. “Humor me.”
“Okay, okay. My family.” He thought for a second, then said, “My grandpa Max Tucker was one of the founders of this town, and like I said, he built this place. He also built the house that’s now the watersports business, and a restaurant on the west side that’s now on the bridge.”
She jotted a few notes. “Oh, so you must come from a wealthy family.”
He looked skyward. “So not. Some of the founders, one in particular, was rich, but Grandpa barely made ends meet. The rest of my family’s just chugging along.”
“Are they all here?” she asked.
“My dad owns No Man’s Land, and my sister just moved back from New York. She’s starting her own restaurant here. You met my brother, Zane, who started A To Z and let me buy in as a partner when I left the Coast Guard. And that’s the whole family.”
She frowned, not sure if she should ask, but it seemed like such an obvious question. “Where’s your mother?”
“Somewhere in LA, far as I know. My parents are divorced.”
Something nearly imperceptible tightened in his voice, making her immediately suspect this subject was a sore one. Which meant it was probably the portal to understand what made him tick, which was how she would come up with a design theme for his boathouse.
“I see,” she said, adding the word mother to her notes.
“You see?” The edge in his voice sharpened, but he tried to hide it with a laugh. “Do I have Martha Stewart or Sigmund Freud on the job?”
“Neither, but knowing about you will help me create something that reflects your personality.”
“My personality? Simple. If it can be climbed, rafted, camped on, or enjoyed outside, I like it.” He gave her a long look that sent an unexpected flutter through her. A look that made her think he’d like to enjoy her outside. “And what I’d really like is if kids can sleep and live here in three weeks,” he added.
“All right, but will you answer personal questions?”
“Only if I get to ask one.”
“It’s not my building,” she answered quickly. “And that would be breaking the rules.”
He searched her face for a moment, the scrutiny intense and hot. “I can’t do that unless you share back. Information this personal is a give-and-take, don’t you think?”
“No. You’re the client, I’m the designer.”
“But I need to trust you, and I have trust issues.”
“Who doesn’t?” she shot back, getting warmer under his direct gaze. “So tell me about your mother.”
“When you tell me about your childhood.”
She gave a mirthless laugh. “You show me yours, I’ll show you mine. You really want to play stupid kid games?”
He leaned closer, putting one hand on the bench between them, so close his fingertips grazed her jeans. “I don’t want to play games at all. I have a job to do. Either you do it or don’t, but I do not want to sit here and talk about mommy issues.”
“So you have them?” she replied.
“You want to know about my mother?” he asked. “Is that going to get you into action and doing the job?”
“Maybe.”
He didn’t answer, but inched back, crossing his arms in a classic pose of self-protection.
“She left when I was fifteen,” he said, his voice completely emotionless. “My little sister was eleven. My twin brother had just gotten over a lifetime of fighting asthma and finally started sports. My dad gave up his dream of being a guitarist and accepted that he would be a short-order cook and diner owner his whole life. But my mom? She couldn’t give up her dreams.”
There was something dead about his tone. Like he’d recited the story. Or hated it.
“What were her dreams?”
“She wanted to be an actress. No, no,” he corrected quickly. “She wanted to be a star. She didn’t want to be Vicky Tucker, so she became Tori Remington.”
“Tori Remington?” The name instantly conjured a perky smile, shiny blond hair, and the beautiful maternal face of America’s favorite TV sitcom family. “The mom on Mother May I? I remember that show. It was hilarious how perfect she was in the face of all that boy chaos.”
He closed his eyes. “Exactly.”
Then what he was telling her started to make sense. “That’s why your parents got divorced? Because she got so famous on TV?”
“It wasn’t quite like that, more because she got the part and wanted to go to LA. Then she became a star by pretending to be the mother of a fake family instead of the one she, you know, had in her own home.” Bitterness slipped through every word. Bitterness and anger.
“Why didn’t you all go with her? I mean, that’s a pretty big job, being a TV star.”
“Good damn question.”
She leaned forward, sensing a breakthrough. Was this why he wanted to help kids? If so, she’d turn the place into the most comforting cave of warmth she could. “Then answer it.”
“My parents didn’t want to raise us in LA,” he said, looking away. “My dad didn’t want to leave Eagle’s Ridge. We visited her, but she was always on the set or doing interviews and surrounded by a bunch of hangers-on. I’m not sure she wanted us there, to be honest. In any case, she left, and we survived.”
But that lifelessness in his voice made her wonder just how well they’d survived. “So you don’t trust people because of that.”
“Would you if your mother had done that?”
Her mother had done so much worse, it was laughable. “And this is why you want to help troubled kids? To make up for that pain?”
He frowned at her, shaking his head again. “I don’t want to do this,” he said. “I just want to buy some freaking furniture.”
“Okay, if you answer the question. Why is this project so important to you?”
He just stared at her, silent.
“Adam, if you can’t answer that, then I can’t even begin to design the kind of place that you can be proud of or happy to walk into. I have to have some insights, because that’s how I work. Didn’t you say you were a rescue swimmer?”
He nodded, nothing but skepticism and maybe a little wariness in his eyes.
“Well, didn’t you have to know certain things before you could do your job well? Things about the tide, the weather, the…I don’t know, the speed to go down a rope to grab someone. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes.” He still had that detached tone she didn’t understand.
“So help me out here. Why is this project so important? What are you trying to do with it? Does it have to do with your work in rescue? Are you rescuing these kids?”
For a long time, several heartbeats or more, he stared at her. “You know what?” he finally said, standing up. “This was a bad idea.”
She blinked up at him. “Why?”
“Because it was. I can pay you for today and your, um, ideas.”
She laughed softly. “I didn’t give you any.”
“I mean, I know you obviously need a job and are hiding out and afraid someone will find out who you are, which is why I can’t ask questions and you want cash, and for all I know, Jadyn McAllister isn’t even your name.”
She felt the blood drain from her face and prayed he didn’t notice.
“I’m right, aren’t I?”
She answered with a noisy swallow.
After a second, he blew out a breath. “Yeah, you better go. What’s your hourly rate? I can pay you for a day.”
The statement made the blood rush back into her cheeks with an embarrassed vengeance.
“No need,” she said, standing up, mustering every ounce of professionalism she’d ever developed over the years. “I had fun walking through this pla
ce, and I’ll be thinking about your design if you change your mind.”
“Do you have a card?” he asked, probably just to be polite. Or maybe to put her even more on the spot.
“Actually, no. I’m not sure how long I’ll be in town.” With a tight smile, she scooped up her bag and walked across the empty boathouse to the door, hating how much she hoped he’d stop her.
But of course he didn’t.
* * *
Adam was still seething as darkness fell. Not that he’d know it was dark, because he still had the shutters that she wanted taken off…but not until she knew every deep, dark emotion of his life and refused to share anything about herself.
He hoisted the door he’d been sanding off the worktable and carried it to the bathroom, which was sorely in need of a door. He’d spent all day on the frame, fuming mostly, taking his frustrations out on nails and wood, wishing he could hike and escape to the mountains for some peace.
“You in here?” a woman’s voice called into the boathouse, and Adam hesitated for one split second, thinking it was Jadyn.
But it was his sister, of course. “I’m behind this door, Bailey.” He poked his head around the wood. “Follow me to the bathroom.”
“Who could resist an offer like that?” She tossed a bag on the floor, and he heard her booted steps cross the wood. “Wow, you are behind.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” He turned to lean the door on the wall and grab the hardware.
“Mmm.” The noncommittal response was out of character for his feisty, opinionated sister, making him glance at her to get a read. But she just looked happy, as she had been since Ryder Westbrook came into her life and she put her troubles in New York behind her.
“I can do it,” he assured her.
“I heard you hired help.”
“Ford’s coming this weekend to work on the stairs.”
“Ford Garrison? Oh, I’ll have to tell Ryder.”
He narrowed his eyes. “If Ryder needs help expanding the airport, tell him to get his own construction workers. Ford’s coming here for me. Oh, and he doesn’t want anyone to know he’s in town.”
“So you tell me the minute I walk in,” she said on a laugh.
“I trust you.” He managed to slide the door into the hinge. “Can’t say that about everyone I’ve met lately, that’s for sure,” he muttered under his breath.
“Oooh. That sounds intriguing.” She reached for the mallet on the floor, anticipating his need. But that was Bailey, unafraid to jump in and get her hands dirty. Unlike some women, who just wanted to ask questions and take notes.
He tapped the pin into place. “How’d you manage to tear yourself away from the great and powerful Ryder Westbrook?”
She helped steady the door. “Haven’t you figured out by now that the Ryder you thought you knew in high school isn’t the real guy?”
“He wasn’t valedictorian, captain of the football team, and loaded?”
“He’s so much more than what you see on the surface. He told you about the search-and-rescue team he’s going to start at the airport, right? He asked you to consider helping him as a reserve rescuer.”
Adam closed his eyes. Ryder had asked, and Adam hadn’t answered. He still wasn’t sure about that. “Yeah, he did.”
“We’re happy, Adam,” she said softly. “I’ve never been happier, as a matter of fact.”
“I’m glad,” he said honestly, ceasing his search for the other pin to look into his sister’s blue eyes. They were more like Dad’s than Mom’s, he mused. And they were sparking with an inner joy that he’d rarely seen before. “He’s been really good for you.”
“Yeah, he has.” She got the pin and handed it to him. “Anyway, I came over to help Dad with the dinner rush because Mandy has the night off and Brenda couldn’t come in.”
“That was nice of you.” She’d worked briefly at the restaurant when she returned to Eagle’s Ridge, but now she had her own place and was as involved with the renovation of it as he was with this. “Why couldn’t Brenda come in?” he asked.
“She went up into the mountains with some friends to take sunset pictures.”
“Oh…okay.” He screwed up his face. “Brenda went on a hike on a Monday night instead of work? What the hell?”
She laughed. “The woman can have a life, Adam. She isn’t chained to the diner. Although…”
“Although what?” Adam asked, finally finishing the bottom hinge. “If you’re going to start that lunacy about Dad and Brenda again, I’m going to—”
“I think she’s on to something.” Zane’s voice preceded him by two steps, and then even the boathouse seemed a little smaller when his sizable brother walked in.
To this day, Adam marveled a bit at how Zane had gone from a sickly kid who couldn’t go outside or climb mountains or jump in the river without an asthma attack, to a dude who was, as Jadyn had pointed out within minutes of meeting him, bigger than Adam. And nicer.
“What makes you say that?” Bailey asked.
“I had dinner with Dad last night,” Zane said, crossing the room to inspect the door. “He talked about Brenda…a lot.”
“Well, they’re friends,” Adam said. “They’ve worked together forever.”
“And she was Mom’s closest friend,” Bailey added, her voice indicating that she was making a point. Both men looked at her, and she shrugged. “Brenda’s staring down the barrel of fifty-five years old, and I think she wants more in life than just serving up HALOs and Master Guns.” She looked skyward. “God, I hate those stupid military names.”
“Hey,” Adam said. “Don’t mess with tradition. It’s what put Eagle’s Ridge on the map.”
“And tourism is keeping us there,” Zane added, crossing his arms over his mighty chest. “Which is what brings me here.”
Adam stepped away from the door, checking it out. “I don’t think bare wood has to be painted, does it?”
Bailey snorted. “Uh, yeah, it does.”
Zane was looking around, his focus landing on the empty kitchen. “You’re really behind.”
“So I’ve been told.” Irritation danced up his spine. “I’ll get it done.”
“How are things working out with the designer?” Zane asked.
“They’re not.” Adam marched across the room to replace tools in the box and start cleaning up.
“Is that who you can’t trust?” Bailey asked.
He closed his eyes and swore softly.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” she added, nothing but smug satisfaction in her voice. “Details, please.”
Not a chance. “Zane, what’s the problem?”
“How do you know there is one?” Bailey asked, the tiniest bit of disbelief in her voice. “How is it that you two can silently communicate? You’ve done it your whole lives, you know, and it ticks me off.”
They both ignored her, probably more out of habit than not caring about their little sister, because they did.
“You figure out the schedule for this weekend’s tours?” Zane asked.
Of course not. He hadn’t walked into the office all day. “I’ll get to them in the morning,” he promised. “There’s three, if I recall.”
“You’re going to have to take a run or two?”
“I can’t,” he said. “Ford’s coming in from Virginia to help me build stairs. I won’t let him do that alone.”
“He prefers alone,” Zane said.
“True, but I need him to be here,” Adam replied.
“So, what happened with the designer?” Bailey interjected, obviously refusing to let the subject die. “Brenda mentioned someone really pretty had you tied in knots.”
He tamped down a grunt of frustration, which would have just made his sister more curious. “She didn’t work out, Bailey. She’s…not what I’m looking for.”
“Yeah, I heard she wore makeup, so not your type.”
He glared at her. “Do you mind?”
“What I mind is that we have
three tours this weekend and no guide,” Zane said, on a completely different wavelength.
“She told Brenda she’s ditching a guy back in Miami and hiding out here.” Bailey looked a little smug with all her information.
“Which is amazing that Brenda found that out since Jadyn has a no-personal-questions rule, but that doesn’t stop her from asking them.” Adam heard the disgust in his own voice.
“What about the tour this weekend?” Zane insisted.
“But you did ask her?” Bailey continued.
Adam looked from one sibling to the other, not liking either of these parallel conversations. “I hired Holly, and if she can start this weekend, I’m giving her at least one of the tours. You can do one, Zane. That leaves one white water tour on Sunday, and it’s small, only four people.”
“I can’t do Sunday,” Zane said.
“Convenient,” Adam replied, only half teasing.
“It’s not about the bet, Adam,” Zane shot back. “You think I would have sent you a designer if I cared that much about winning?”
“But he doesn’t like the designer,” Bailey added. “Too inquisitive. And makeup-y.”
He dropped his head back and closed his eyes. “You two are killing me.”
“A sibling’s job,” Bailey said, but she came closer and slipped her arm around him. “I can take the Sunday tour. If I can bring Ryder and you pay me double time.”
“Done,” he agreed, pointing at Zane. “You happy now?”
“I just have one more issue.”
Oh boy. He really didn’t like the way Zane said that.
“It’s good news and bad news. Which do you want first?”
“Just tell me what the hell it is, Zane, and don’t make me wager a guess.”
Zane exhaled, running a hand through his thick dark hair. “I had to say yes, Bro. It was too much money. It could make our entire month. I booked a big tour. Big. Like forty people on a corporate retreat. I’m bringing in some freelance guides, but it’ll be all hands on deck for a week.”
“That’s great, Zane.” Those kinds of events came in once, maybe twice, a season, and the profit was insane. “What’s the bad news?”