Page 170 of Wildest Dreams

She shakes her head.

“You can’t,” she whispers. “There’s a hole in the wall. Now I’m screwed.”

I squeeze her cheeks gently, silently asking her to meet my eyes.

“I’m going to fix it,” I tell her. “I know someone who works in construction. By the time that your mom comes here, you’ll never know that I just…” I glance at the hole in the wall and clear my throat. “…did that.”

Aisling’s gentle hands stroke up my pecs, nervousness creasing her brow.

This is one thing that she’s been unsure about this whole summer – disappointing her parents, and therefore not getting the role that she’s after in their business – and I’ve just goddamn added to that.

“Aisling.” I drop my forehead to hers. “I love you. And I’m going to fix this.”

She waits a moment before finally nodding her head.

I wrap her waist up with my arms and pick her up, carrying her to the bed.

After I drop her down on the sheets, I move over to the small pile of her fancy luggage bags and start stacking them in front of the hole.

She giggles from the bed, shaking her head at me as I look over my shoulder at her.

Once I’ve covered up the little incident I heave myself down beside her on the sheets. The mattress groans loudly as I settle down, which only makes Aisling cover her face with her palms and laugh even louder.

I wrap my fists around her wrists, tugging them away from her face so that I can watch her giggle.

“Caveman,” she whispers, making me flush as I smile, embarrassed.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur back to her. “And I’ll fix this, baby. I promise.”

Chapter 38

Tanner

Present day

My eyes flick across to the other side of the lake, to where our friends are currently on their second haul-down from the campsite that we made part way up the mountain. We’re all going to be disbanding tomorrow – with the guys who have graduated starting up training with their respective sports teams, and the guys who will be back to college in the fall heading home before school starts again – so we’re having one final day soaking up the Larch Peak lakeside summer.

I keep my gaze on Aisling as her brother drops his camping gear and scoops her up, giving her a big brotherly bear hug as she laughs and shoves him off of her.

My heart swells in my chest.

My beautiful girlfriend.

I would be over there right now if I didn’t have something damn important to do here at the lake house, but I’ll join them later in the afternoon, or as soon as Jace and I can get the drywall fixed.

I turn my attention back to the black truck that’s just pulled up beside the porch railing, and I give Jason Coleson a jerk of my chin as he heaves himself out of the driver’s side, shaking his head at me in amusement.

He’s one of my dad’s closest friends from the start of his military career, and even though Jace is no longer in the army he still stops by when my dad returns home from deployment.

Now he runs his own company, Coleson Construction, and seeing as he was heading to Carter Ridge today, I asked him if he could lend a hand.

“What the hell did you do, Mason?” he says as he starts making his way up the porch steps. He’s got a toolbox in one hand and a decent sized piece of drywall in the other. The smirk tugging at his mouth makes me grin back at him, feeling like a kid again.

I rub my palm over the back of my head, neck burning red as I lead him inside.

“Uh, nothing,” I rumble, sharing a grin with him as he chuckles. “Could use a little of your expertise though.”

He huffs out a laugh and squints at me as we mount the stairs.

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