Page 16 of Nailed

The margins were filled with notes in Jamie’s long, leaning handwriting. Before I realized what I was doing, I traced my finger over them. I groaned, clapping the book shut. Even the man’s handwriting was sexy.

I was about to set the book down—and was considering walking out altogether—when I noticed a piece of paper sticking out from under the back cover. It was a photograph, dog-eared almost to a cloth-like texture.

The photo was of two young boys, maybe twelve and fifteen. I recognized the younger one right away as Seamus. He had the same dark hair and deep brown eyes. It was the boy next to him, older, with his arm slung around Seamus, that I’d never seen before. He had Jamie’s blue eyes, square jaw, and that rare grin I hadn’t seen since my early days at Reilly.

My chest tightened. This was Kevin, Jamie’s son who’d died when he was… about this age.

“It’s the last photo I took of him.”

I startled so hard I dropped the photo onto the floor. “Oh God.”

Jamie was leaning against the wall next to the bathroom, his towel around his neck like he’d worn it downstairs. He wore a worn blue T-shirt and dark pants.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, picking it up. “I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s fine. I forgot I’d stuck the photo in that one this time.”

My throat felt thick, my eyes close to watering like they did every time I thought of the unfathomable loss Jamie had experienced. He kept this photo with him everywhere he went.

“Do you miss him?” I blurted. Then I cringed. I couldn’t believe I’d just said that. “I mean… oh God. I just mean, my dad, he died when I was seven, and I used toactivelymiss him back then. So now when I don’t think about him, I wonder if… Fuck, it’s nothing like that. Jamie, I’m so sorry.”

I thrust the photo back in the book, then wondered if maybe he’d want to hold it. I felt like a complete imbecile.

Jamie came over and took the book from me. “It’s okay, Sarah. I know what you mean.” He laid the book back on the table, then sat on the edge of the bed across from my chair. Our knees were only a couple of feet apart.

“In the beginning, I used to wake up, and for a split second, I’d forget what had happened. But each time, it would come back to me like a hammer to my heart. I’d crumple. A few times, I even fell to the floor. My wife—ex-wife—she never recovered.”

A tear rolled down my cheek, and without hesitation, Jamie leaned over and thumbed it away.

My chest tightened. He shouldn’t be comforting me.

He rested his elbows on his knees, his head low. “But I had to keep going. For Seamus, and then for the company. I had to show him there was life even after a hole had been cut inside of us. Now it’s not so…active, like you say.”

I nodded. Another tear spilled, and I wiped it away, not wanting him to think I was somehow making this about me.

A beat passed, then Jamie said, “Do you miss carpentry, Sarah?”

I was thrown by him calling me by my first name. He never did that. He called me Cooper, or Ms. Cooper if he was being particularly dickish.

Or sweetheart, like in the car.

A tingle ran over me at that memory.

“It’s how I started, too. Kevin and I… we used to build things together when he was little. Birdhouses. Bookshelves. I moved away from it when I was growing the business, but I miss it. Do you?”

I did miss it. A lot.

“Richard—my ex—he didn’t like me doing it,” I said. “He was intimidated by me. It was one of the reasons I switched into project management.”

That and the constant harassment I used to get on jobs with poor management as a young woman. If management didn’t care about protecting their female employees, things went south fast.

It would have never been like that with Jamie.

“I mean, I love project management, too,” I said quickly. Project Management was what Reilly Contracting had hired me for.

Jamie put up a hand. “I’m not taking notes.”

I let out a soft laugh.

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