Beth Andrews - Caught Up in You

Be careful, cautious, and you were less likely to make a mistake.

Behind him, the door opened. “If you’re not going to keep your phone on,” a familiar voice said as Eddie wrote down the last of the measurements, “why do you bother to have one?”

Straightening, Eddie stuck the carpenter pencil in his back pocket and laid the paper on top of the cherry cabinet he’d built for the sink base. “Who says it’s not on?”

“Me.” James Montesano, Eddie’s older brother, waved his own phone in the air. “And the fact that I’ve been calling you for the past hour.”

Eddie pulled out his phone and turned it on, then slid it into his pocket. “I had a meeting.”

He’d rather keep it off. He hated the damn thing. Had no desire to talk to most people face-to-face, why would he want the torture of trying to keep up a conversation over the phone? Or worse, send and receive text messages like some teenager? The only reason he even had one was in case of an emergency.

And if something had happened to his son, if he’d gotten hurt or sick at hockey practice, James would have told Eddie that immediately instead of laying into him about his lack of cell-phone manners. Besides, their mother was the secondary emergency contact for Max and she would have simply picked Max up if he’d needed her.

“Hand me the hole saw,” Eddie said, marking the measurements on the back of the sink base.

James sighed. “Aren’t you going to ask why I’ve been calling you for the past hour?”

“I figure you’ll tell me when you’re ready.” No sense rushing a man when he had something on his mind. Eddie hated being pushed to speak before he was ready. “You going to give me the saw or not?”

“I’ve been calling,” James said as his phone buzzed, “because I’m tired of acting as your message service.”

“Customers wouldn’t bug you so often if you didn’t answer each call and respond to every text message.”

As if to prove him right, James checked the number of the incoming call. “Shit,” he muttered before answering it with a cheerful, “Meg, hi. How are you?”

Though their father, Frank, was the head of Montesano Construction, had built the business from the ground up thirty-five years ago, James was the one who kept the company running smoothly today. His anal tendencies, love for organization and rules and unnatural fondness for his smartphone made him the perfect man for the job.

Thank God. Eddie could handle coming up with the work schedules, and both he and Maddie wrote up estimates for potential jobs. But Eddie would rather shoot himself in the bare foot with a nail gun than have to deal with customers changing their minds, whining about costs and bitching about jobs taking too long.

And if Maddie, with her sharp tongue and take-no-prisoners attitude, was in charge of customer service?

Montesano Construction would be out of business in two months. Three, tops.

Better to keep things the way they were. Even if that meant putting up with James’s nagging, bossiness and him ceasing all conversation to stroke his phone.

Not that Eddie actually minded that last one. At least it got James to shut up for a few minutes.

Saving himself the time and trouble of asking for the hole saw again—no sense when James was absorbed in conversation—Eddie crossed to the corner cabinet and got the damn thing himself.

While he’d been at the parent/teacher thing, Heath had finished installing the two lower cabinets to the left of the sink base. Eddie could let the sink wait until tomorrow, but with Max at hockey practice, he had two hours on his hands. A good opportunity to make up for the time he’d missed.

Time he never should have missed, he thought, his irritation once again spiking when he remembered his conversation with Harper. He should have been working instead of listening to her try to convince him to go against his instincts.

The ones screaming at him to protect his son.

He cut through the back of the sink base, the loud whine of the saw and scent of sawdust filling the air. When he had three perfect circles, he tossed the scraps aside, set the tool on the floor out of the way and went to the front of the cabinet. Grabbing the corners, he wiggled the base into position then stepped back.

They still had a long way to go—three more lower cabinets along this wall needed installing as did a dozen upper cabinets, and he was putting the finishing touches on the large center island at the workshop. But the floor had been laid, the walls prepped and painted, the appliances were on order and the lighting fixtures were being delivered in two days.

“That woman is one hundred pages of crazy in a fifty-page book,” James grumbled, putting away his phone.

“That’s why God invented voice mail.”

“You should know, seeing as how most calls I make to you go straight to it. Mine and everyone else who dials that number.” James crossed his arms, braced his legs wide. Eddie knew that stance. It was the one James adopted when he was getting ready to do battle. “Including, apparently, your ex-wife.”

And there was the reason for it.

Eddie stilled. “What?”

“Lena phoned me. Told me she’s been trying to get ahold of you for the past five days but you haven’t answered any of her calls or returned them. I told her you and Max were both fine and that I’d relay her message.”

“What message?”

“To call her. What do you think she wants?”

He didn’t know. And that was the problem. The reason he’d been avoiding her calls.

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll tell her not to bug you.”

“She didn’t bug me and I don’t mind that she called. Especially when she was obviously upset and worried something had happened to Max.”

“You told her Max was fine.”

She had no reason to worry. No right to. Not when she was the one who walked away from their son.

“She seemed relieved,” James said. “What’s going on? She still bugging you about more time with Max?”

“Nothing’s going on.” Nothing except his ex-wife changing the rules they’d lived by for the past five years. “I’ve got it handled.”

About four months ago, Lena had started calling several times a week instead of every other weekend. At first, Eddie hadn’t thought much of it, but then she’d started talking about spending more time with Max, how she wanted to be a bigger part of his life.

That was when the fear had set in. Ever since their divorce, ever since she’d willingly granted Eddie full custody, she’d never wanted to be more than a partial influence in their child’s life. Twice-yearly visits—always in Shady Grove—had been enough for her all this time. It should continue to be enough.

Or at least that’s what he’d thought until she’d admitted the reason for her change of heart.

Cancer.

Lena had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer in January. Per her wishes, Eddie hadn’t told anyone, not even his family. Not Max. Lena was fine now, her prognosis excellent after a hysterectomy and chemo treatments.

No sense worrying Max needlessly. No point in letting him know it’d taken a near-death experience to make his mother want back in his life.

Eddie had agreed to let Lena see Max anytime she wanted. It was the right thing to do.

But that didn’t mean Eddie had to like being the good guy. Or that he had to answer every one of her phone calls.

Kneeling in front of the cabinet, Eddie inserted shims under the bottom to make the base level. As he worked, though, he felt James’s gaze on him, like an unreachable itch between his shoulder blades. Nagging. Irritating as hell.

“Everything okay with you?” James asked.

“Yep.”

But James remained rooted to his spot. “Let’s go to O’Riley’s. Grab a beer.” From the tapping going on behind him, James had his phone out again. “But it’s your turn to buy.”