He thought of Beckett, married to Clare the Fair, instant father of three, and now the expectant father of twins.

Jesus, twins.

But maybe the thrill of upcoming twins would distract their mother from thinking up a new project.

Probably not.

He went through the open doors on St. Paul, smelled the coffee.

Yeah, you could count on Owen.

He plucked out the single go-cup left, the one with an R written with a Sharpie by his anal brother. Glugged even as he flipped up the lid on the donuts.

His dog’s tail immediately sent out a tattoo on the floor.

He heard his brothers’ voices, somewhere in the rabbit warren, but took his coffee and, after tossing D.A. a chunk of his jelly-filled donut, walked over to the plans spread out on the plywood and sawhorses.

He’d seen them before, of course, but they knocked him out. Beckett’s concept gave their mother everything she wanted, and more. Yeah, he thought, better than bulldozing it. Better to gut what needed gutting and build on what could be built on.

It didn’t look like a gym to Ryder—at least not the speed-bag, sweat-soaked locker room–type he might frequent, but it was a beauty.

And enough work, enough complications to make him curse Beckett’s name for weeks, months. Possibly years.

And still …

Lifting and pitching the roof was practical as well as aesthetically pleasing. Taking the flat-roofed jut off the parking lot side and making it into a deck, also smart. Plenty of glass for plenty of light with new windows and doors. God knew the place needed them, even if it meant cutting into the cinder-block walls.

Fancy locker rooms with steam rooms and saunas. His keep-it-basic mind balked at that, but he had to admit, he liked a good, long steam.

He ate his donut, tossing bits to the tail-thumping D.A., while he studied the first floor, the second floor, the mechanicals.

Beautiful work, he thought. Beckett had the talent and the vision, even if invariably some of the vision was a pain in the ass on a practical work level.

He washed down the donut with coffee as his brothers walked out of the maze.

“Demo permit.”

“Check,” Owen said. “Good morning to you, too.” His sunglasses hung from the neck of his spotless white T-shirt. Since Beckett intended for him to join in the demo, the spotless wouldn’t last long.

“You press those jeans, Sally?”

“No.” Owen’s quiet blue eyes flicked toward the donuts before he broke a cruller in half. “They’re just clean. I have a couple meetings later.”

“Uh-huh. Hey, Big Daddy.”

Beckett grinned, raked fingers through his mop of chestnut brown hair. “The boys want to name them Logan and Luke.”

“Wolverine and Skywalker.” Amused, Ryder considered. “Melding X-Men and Star Wars. Interesting choice.”

“I like it. Clare laughed it off at first, then the idea got a hook in. They’re good names.”

“Good enough for Wolverine and Skywalker.”

“I think we’re going with them, which is cool. My ears keep ringing though. You know, like they do after an explosion.”

“Two’s just one more than one,” Owen pointed out. “It’s about planning and scheduling.”

“Because you have so much experience with rug rats,” Ryder said with a snort.

“Everything’s about planning and scheduling,” Owen countered. “Speaking of which, let’s check the plans and schedules.” He pulled his phone off his belt.

Ryder decided on another donut, let the sugar and fat soothe him through the volley of details. Inspections, permits, material orders and deliveries, rough-ins, finals, shop work, site work.

Ryder kept it all in his head as well, just maybe not as precisely columned and tallied as Owen. But he knew what had to be done and when, which men to assign to which job, and how long the steps should take. On the inside, and—given the vagaries of construction—the outside.

“Mom’s looking at equipment,” Beckett put in when Owen paused. “You know, treadmills and cross-trainers and all that happy shit.”

“I’m not going to think about that.” Ryder looked around. Crap walls, he thought, crap floors. Just crap. Cross-trainers and dumbbells and freaking yoga mats were a hell of a long way off.

“We may want to think about the parking lot.”

Now Ryder’s eyes narrowed on Owen. “What about the parking lot?”

“Now that we’ve got it all, instead of patching we should tear the bitch up, level it, add drains, resurface.”

“Hell.” He wanted to object, just on general principles, but they needed the damn drainage. “Fine. But I’m not thinking about that now either.”

“What are you thinking about?”

Rather than answer, Ryder just walked out.

“Is he bitchier than usual?” Owen wondered.

“Hard to tell.” Beckett looked down at the drawings again. “It’s going to be a pain in the ass—and mostly in his—but it’s going to work.”

“Ugliest building in town.”

“Yeah, it wins that prize. The good news is anything we do’s an improvement. As soon as the Dumpster gets here, we can—”

He broke off as Ryder came in with a sledgehammer and a crowbar.

“Get your own,” Ryder told them and, setting the crowbar aside, chose a wall at random. Swung away. The hard, undeniably satisfying thwack send drywall chips flying.

“The Dumpster …” Owen began.

“It’s on its way isn’t it?” Putting his back into it, Ryder swung again. “According to the holy word of your sacred schedule.”

“We should bring in some of the crew,” Beckett considered.

“Why should they have all the fun?” When the sledgehammer arced again, D.A. crawled under the sawhorses for a nap.

“He’s got a point.” Beckett glanced at Owen, got a shrug and grin. “We ought to start on the second floor.”

“This one’s not load-bearing.” Another couple swings and Ryder had the flimsy interior wall in rubble. “But yeah.” He leaned on the hammer, grinned back at his brothers. “Let’s gut this bitch.”


AFTER A FEW days of listening to bangs and crashes, Hope’s curiosity won. With Carolee on duty—the honeymooners were now into their fourth day of their wedding-night stay—she crossed the lot toward the newest Montgomery family project. She had a legitimate reason for seeking them out, but could admit her primary motive was curiosity.

She’d heard plenty of banging throughout the day, and every glance out the window showed her some grubby guy hauling debris out, and into a huge green Dumpster.

A text from Avery netted her the intel that demolition had begun on the projected fitness center.

She wanted to see for herself.

The banging booms increased as she approached, and she heard a burst of manic male laughter through the open windows. Grinding, guitar-heavy rock rolled out with it.

She walked up to the side entrance—what was left of it—peeked in.

Her eyes widened.

She’d never been in the building, but she’d looked in the windows, and she was pretty sure there’d been walls, and ceilings.

Now barely a skeleton remained, along with the tangled wire intestines and massive amounts of gray dust.

Cautious now as the thuds, thumps, and bangs seemed to shake the entire structure, she went around to the front.

The door stood open. To air it out? she wondered. Who knew?

Another door, one that led up to what had been second-level apartments, stood open as well. Music, men, bangs echoed down.

She considered the narrow stairs, the grimy stairwell, the noise. Not that curious, she decided, and backed away.

As she circled back around, two men—coated with gray dust, all but anonymous in their safety goggles, work gloves, and grimy faces, hauled out another load of what must have once been a wall. It landed in the Dumpster with a muffled thump.

“Excuse me,” she began.

She recognized Ryder by the way he turned his head, angled his body.

He shoved up his goggles, aimed one of his mildly annoyed stares with those impatient green eyes. “You’re going to want to stay back.”

“I can see that. It looks like you’re taking the building down to the shell.”

“That’s about it. You need to stay clear.”

“Yes, so you said.”

“Need something?”

“Actually, yes. I’m having a problem with some of the lights—the wall sconces. I thought if your electrician was here, he could—”

“He left.” Ryder gave his helper a head jerk to send him back inside, then dragged off his safety goggles.

Now he looked a little like a reverse raccoon, Hope thought, and couldn’t quite hold back the smile. “It’s dirty work.”

“And a lot of it,” Ryder replied. “What kind of problem?”

“They won’t stay on. They—”

“Have you changed the bulbs?”

She just stared at him. “Gee, why didn’t I think of that?”

“Okay. Somebody will come check it out. Is that it?”

“For the moment.”

He gave her a nod, boosted himself back through the opening, and disappeared.

“Thanks so much,” Hope muttered to empty air, and walked back to the inn.

It usually lifted her mood, just walking inside. The way it looked, the way it smelled—especially now as Carolee’s chocolate chip cookies sweetened the air. But she strode straight into the kitchen, irked everywhere.

“What is that man’s problem?”

Carolee, face flushed from baking, slid a batch of cookies in the wall oven. “Which man, honey?”

“Ryder Montgomery. Is rudeness his religion?”

“He can be a little abrupt, especially when he’s working. Which is, I guess, almost always. What did he do?”

“Nothing. He was just himself. You know how we’ve had those sconces keep burning out, or not coming on? I went over to tell him—or one of them, and drew him. He actually asked if I’d changed the bulbs. Do I look like a moron?”

With a smile, Carolee held out a cookie. “No, but they did actually have a tenant once that reported a problem, and Ry went all the way over to find out the problem with the light was a burned-out bulb. The woman, and I guess she was a moron, was stunned to realize she had to change the lightbulb.”