“What?” I pulled the safety mask off my face and forced myself to ask the question in a level tone instead of barking it out like I wanted to. I flicked my throbbing digit with my index finger and swore as it burned like it was on fire. I nailed the sucker good. It was going to be a lovely shade of black and blue when I took my work gloves off and I would be lucky if the fingernail didn’t fall off.
“There’s a lady out front looking for you.” Julio’s heavily accented words took me a second to process. I lifted my eyebrow and put my hammer in the slot that was made for it on the leather tool belt that hung low on my waist.
“Looking for me for what? Is she with the city? Or one of the neighbors?”
Permit people were always dropping by to make sure everything was in order when I started tearing apart historic homes in order to return them to their original glory. I was also pretty good at turning them into something completely new and fantastic, but I still had to have the right licenses and permits in place in order to do so.
Julio scratched the back of his neck and flushed a little. “I didn’t ask. She’s real cute, though.” The kid was young, not even out of his teens yet, but he was a hell of a hard worker and really good with his hands, so even if he wasn’t always the brightest member of the team, I knew he had plenty of time to learn and grow. He just needed a shot and someone not to give up on him.
I shoved my hands through my hair and snorted when a cloud of centuries-old plaster dust floated up from the motion. I was covered in all kinds of construction debris … I always was.
“Inspectors can be both female and attractive, Julio.”
The kid shuffled his feet and looked down at the bare flooring we had spent all day yesterday putting into the vernacular 1870s cottage-style home that was my latest renovation project.
“I know. She just asked if Zebulon Fuller was on-site and I told her you were. She started for the front door without a hard hat or a mask or anything, so I told her the house wasn’t safe. I don’t think she’s a pro or anything. She seems a little …” He twirled his finger next to his temple indicating he thought the woman might be a little bit off.
I sighed. If she wasn’t a pro she was probably an angry neighbor wanting to complain about the construction noise or the mess. It happened all the time, but over the years I had gotten pretty good at keeping the peace as my business grew and expanded, taking my reputation and name along with it.
“All right, I’ll handle it. Can you finish stripping the wall and pulling the plaster off so we can get drywall up tomorrow? Wear a mask. That old paint is no good and dangerous.”
I dealt with lead paint removal so much in these old homes that I’d had to get certified in order to be a lead-removal-certified contractor. What I did was never easy and there were always lots of hoops to jump through, but I lived for the sense of accomplishment I got by saving rotten and falling-apart buildings from ending up condemned or bulldozed. I loved to give something no one else wanted or believed in a second chance.
I shook the rest of the dust out of my hair and ran my hands over my beard to shake whatever was stuck there loose, too. I’m sure I looked like I had been rolling around in baby powder but there wasn’t much that could be done about it. I was in the middle of a workday, and didn’t have time for uninvited guests—in person or the one that wouldn’t leave my mind. I already had enough of a distraction hounding me in the form of a lovely lady lawyer. My still-aching thumb was proof of that.
I stepped out of the hole in the front of the house where the original door had long since been kicked in and rendered useless by squatters or trespassers, and immediately caught sight of a young brunette woman who was indeed very easy on the eyes and who was pacing back and forth on the dead lawn. Her arms were crossed over her chest and she was moving in such an obviously agitated way that I knew whatever she was here to talk to me about wasn’t going to be any fun. I cast a baleful look at the sign that was in the yard that had FULLER CONSTRUCTION on it along with my name and number. It wouldn’t have been too hard for her to figure out who was in charge of the project. I told myself that I needed to rein in my sour mood and forced what I hoped passed for a pleasant and professional smile on my face as I approached the woman.
“I heard you might be looking for me. I’m Zeb Fuller, how can I help you today?”
The woman paused in her tense pacing and I watched her eyes go wide when they landed on me. I got that reaction a lot from both men and woman, so it didn’t surprise me. I was a big dude—really big—and the fact I had ink scrolling up both sides of my neck and across the backs of both of my hands often gave people the impression that I was a much bigger and much badder threat than I really was. The beard and the fact that I looked like I could level the house behind me with my bare hands obviously unnerved her.
She uncrossed her arms and lifted a shaky hand to her mouth. It was my eyes’ turn to widen as the woman suddenly started to cry. Not silent trickling tears either, but big, full-bodied sobs that shook her tiny frame from head to toe. I took an instinctive step forward, which caused her to immediately take a step back. I held my hands up in front of me to show I meant her no harm and also took a step back, giving her some space.
“Hey, you were looking for me. You’re on my jobsite. I just came to see what I could do for you.” I hated to see a woman cry. It killed me. Growing up, it had been me and my older sister and my mom. My dad took off when I was too young to remember what he looked like, so that meant I was always the man of the house. I didn’t let anyone make the woman I loved cry, so when this one went all weepy on me it immediately sent me into protector mode. “I’m really sorry if I scared you.”
She bent over and put her hands on her knees while sucking in audible breaths. Her curly hair fell forward to cover her face, and I could see her shoulders were still shaking. I was getting really concerned when she held up a hand and choked out:
“Just give me a minute. You look just like him and it threw me for a second.” She was still breathing heavily and making no sense. It was my turn to cross my arms over my chest as I watched her physically pull herself together. It took a long time.
“I’m not following. I look just like who?”
She pulled herself back upright and shoved her hands through her wildly curly hair. Her gaze raked over me from the top of my head to the tips of my worn work boots, and when she was done she was shaking her head. Not typically the reaction I got when a woman checked me out but I would take it if it meant the tears stopped.
“I know I’m coming across like a lunatic, but I swear I’m not. It took me a couple of days to track you down since I didn’t have a name or anything to go off of. You took me by surprise. I’m sorry for losing it on you like that. It wasn’t the first impression I was hoping to make.”
I was already grouchy and impatient. I didn’t have the time or the patience to deal with the maze of words this woman was winding around me.
“Lady, I don’t know what you’re talking about and I have to get back to work sometime in the near future. This house isn’t going to renovate itself. I need you to tell me what I can help you with or I’m walking away.”
She cleared her throat and took a step closer to me. I could see her choosing the words she wanted to use very carefully as she told me, “My name is Echo Hemsley. My best friend in the entire world was a woman named Halloran Bishop.” She paused like either of those names or the women attached to them should mean anything to me. When I didn’t reply she kept going and I could see her lip quiver and her hands shake as she did so.
“Halloran had a rough life. She made a lot of bad choices, had terrible taste in men, and used a lot of really awful things to help her deal with her issues.” The woman took a deep breath and I could see the tears well up. “She was also the kindest, gentlest person I had ever met and I never gave up hope that one day she would be able to get control of her life.”