Page 20 of Almost Always

“Depends.”

Cal frowned at Mack. “On what?”

Mack smirked. “Will you behave and listen to everything we tell you to do?”

At their firm nods, Rafferty added, “Will you be respectful and kind when you’re away from home?”

Another round of nods, this time even more enthusiastic. “We promise.”

“I guess we can make it happen.”

The kids cheered loudly until their teacher came out with a frown and guided them inside. Together, they walked back to the parking lot with Boots between them.

“What’s your volunteer schedule look like?” Mack asked.

“It’s about thirty hours a week, some of it in training which happens during school hours. Sometimes I do happen to be at the firehouse when a call comes in, so Cal’s already with someone else.”

“I get that. You said something about the community center?”

“Oh yeah, signed him up for some after school activities to find hobbies that don’t include staring at a screen for hours.”

They shared a laugh. “I think I’ll set my kid up there too. It would be better than watching me stare at an empty easel.”

Rafferty frowned. “So the struggling is serious.”

“Never had a creative block before, so it’s been a learning process.”

“I know your schedule is a little more flexible than mine, but if you need some peace and quiet to create, let me know. Happy to take the kids for the day.”

“I won’t hold you to that, but I appreciate the offer.”

They laughed, because it was clear that Rafferty’s unpredictable schedule would get in the way of him ever hosting Indigo at the Ames house.

Daisy was back on his mind when he got home after drop-off. Going through his contact list, he was confused as to why her number wasn’t there. Frowning, he stood in the middle of his office and mentally retraced his steps. He’d slid the napkin with her number into the pocket of his jeans, then he’d come home and taken Boots for his walk. After that he helped Cal with homework before dinner. They’d cleaned up and gone for another walk before a shower and collapsed into bed. The next morning, he’d done laundry and…shit, laundry. Groaning, he went through his freshly washed clothes to find the offending jeans. Lo and behold, in the pocket was the remnants of a napkin.

“You’re a moron,” he muttered and returned to his office—which he had finally set up in an effort to actually catch up on things. He googled her full name and clicked the first link for a place called Daisy’s Patch. There she was, smiling brightly with her dark hair fluttering behind her as she stood in front of a flower shop.

She really did it.

He punched in the number listed on the website, but before he could dial, his phone started ringing. Followed by a series of texts and reminders about the meetings he had that morning. He took a minute to calm himself down then turned to his computer and loaded up the video conferencing software they used.

“Hey everyone, sorry I’m late,” he said as his face popped up on the screen. “All right, take me through what’s on our list for this week.”

When he took over Ames Landscaping, the one thing he didn’t want to do was the meeting clients part of it. He was the kind of guy who liked to get his hands dirty and be on the ground from start to finish. He might have studied to be a landscape architect, but digging his fingers into the dirt, getting close to Mother Nature was more his speed. That had been easy when his father was in charge. Now he not only needed to plan everything, he also needed to smile politely when looking into the faces of rich assholes that made ridiculous demands.

His team in New York were capable and didn’t need him to babysit, but now they were redrawing the design for a client and revisiting every single detail of their original plan. He’d been making notes on his iPad while also working on the new layout as per the client’s request. In short, he was ready to punch a hole in someone’s face.

Over the last year, Ames Landscaping had been doing a lot of community garden work. It was the good kind of stuff that he enjoyed and one successful client referred them to another one. It brought in a lot of money because Upper East Side folks liked ‘giving back’, but they also liked spending tons before that final step. The only downside was that rich people thought that because they were spending large sums, they could boss everyone around.

He’d designed the garden a year ago and gotten it approved. His team had already started prepping the space with the intention of work starting that week. Now, one of the board members wanted it changed—apparently he hadn’t seen or approved the original design. And if redesigning the whole thing wasn’t enough, the board still expected them to complete the garden within the previously approved timeline.

Because this was a special case of stress for everyone, the conference call was still connected while everyone went about doing their work. He was bent over the original design while making changes to the new one he’d started working on a few days ago. Every now and then someone would pop in with a question or suggestion, and Rafferty would do his best to guide them in the right direction.

“Hey boss. I spoke to the original supplier and they’ve hit a snag in sourcing some of the materials,” one of his project managers said.

He sighed and leaned back in his chair, stretching his muscles. “Get in touch with our usual guys and see if they can help with the rest.”

“Within this timeline? I doubt it.”

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