Page 41 of Astrid
“Telling our men that we’re going on a date tomorrow night without them, and that we’ll be hooking up with other men on said date.”
“And on that note, I’m out of here,” Morgan said as she laughed. “Like I said last night, I’m not taking sides with you or my brothers, you’re on your own.” She gathered her things and left in minutes, leaving the three women with their own thoughts on how they were going to approach the subject with their men.
CHAPTER18
After cleaning up after dinner,instead of settling before the TV, Astrid walked over to John, and said, “We need to talk.” She wasn’t going to pussyfoot around, and ask permission to talk to any man about her job, let alone the one she might be dating. She watched as John quickly pushed his papers aside, and looked at her, giving her his undivided attention.
“Where?”
“Firepit?” Astrid asked and when she received a nod from him, she turned on her heel and started toward the side door. The others must have known something was up, because no one followed her, but she did notice that Joyce had Alex by the hand, leading him down the hall where the offices were, while at the same time, Ava had Justin by the hand, and they were heading upstairs. Astrid didn’t have time to worry about what Joyce and Ava were going to talk to their men about, though she knew it was about going out with Griff, Paul, and Harry the next night. Her main concern was the problems she was having with John, and if he went off on her about her job, then she knew she would have to tell them they couldn’t be together. There was no way she would be in a relationship with a man who couldn’t respect her enough to know that her job was completely separate from whatever they had going.
By the time John had joined her, with a glass of wine for her, and a bottle of beer for himself, she had a small fire started, and as it grew, she threw on two larger chunks of wood. She settled down and thanked him for the wine. Taking a sip to fortify herself, she looked at him, but he held up his hand to stop her.
“I don’t know what you want to say to me, but it looks important. Before we get to that, I’m want to say that I’m sorry for the way I treated you a couple of nights ago. I know it’s only an excuse, but I wanted you to know that I was jealous of what I saw at the diner.”
“And I couldn’t be?” Astrid demanded as she looked at him like he’d grown three more heads. “I’m being honest here, John. When I looked up and saw you enter that diner with another woman, it took all my military training not to pull the gun I had strapped to my ankle and shoot you, before I went over and ripped that woman’s hair from her head.” She paused and studied him. When he went to talk, she shook her head and held up her hand. “Then you wouldn’t even sit next to me at dinner that night. That was wrong, so fucking wrong.”
“I know and I’m sorry. I can’t tell you that enough. I fucked up.” He reached out to take her hand in his, and when she didn’t pull away, he held on tight, and looked her directly in the eye, and confessed, “When I walked in and saw you talking to those men, I’ll admit, I was jealous, then I thought you might be on the job, so against my better judgement, I ignored my jealousy, until I overheard you setting up a possible date with that one man, and he gave you his number. That’s when I allowed my jealousy to get the better of me, and I was pissed. That’s why I treated you like I did at dinner that same night.” He shook his head, and looked into the flames of the fire, before he continued, “I like you Astrid, a lot, and I know I fucked up, and I want a relationship with you.” He looked up and directly in her eyes. “That’s why I’m going to be perfectly honest here. As I said, my jealousy got the better of me, and that woman I was in the diner with was a potential new client. I won’t get into details, but she wants to hire Stuart Construction to expand her kitchen and put a new deck on the back of her house. She has my number, and after you left the diner without even acknowledging me, I might have encouraged her.”
“Encouraged her how?” Astrid didn’t get any satisfaction when her hand tightened on his, and he winced at the pressure she put on his hand.
“She was pushy, and I might have told her I’d go out and have a drink with her. I’m saying might here, because I was so pissed and jealous after seeing you talking with those men, I don’t really remember what I said, not until last night.”
“What happened last night?”
“After you took me out down on the mat, and walked away,” he said as he pointed to his face, and that’s when Astrid’s eyes flared in shock.
“I gave you that black eye?”
“You did, but I’m not complaining. I deserved it, but after you stormed off, my client called and asked me to meet her for drinks. I told her flat out that I was already in a relationship, and the only thing the two of us would have would be a contractor to client deal. If you don’t believe me, ask Josh, he heard the entire conversation.”
Astrid sat there and studied him for several minutes before she nodded once. “I believe you.” Her words seemed to lift a weight from John’s shoulders, because he grinned, and his whole demeaner changed to one who was happy. “But...” she said, and watched as he frowned at her, with his bottle of beer paused halfway to his mouth.
“But?” he asked as he frowned at her.
“But, I was doing my job. Those three men you saw me talking to were the three men that Alan and I encountered on my first day here and, they were the ones holding the regular rifles, and took our phones.”
“Holy shit.” John looked at her in shock.
“Yeah, imagine my surprise when Morgan had sent me to scout out an address and it turned out bogus. I drove around for hours to see if I could find any other locations with signs indicating it might be what we’re looking for. I became hungry and stopped at the first restaurant I found.”
“Your being there wasn’t planned?”
“No, and before you ask, that diner is at least thirty miles away from where Alan and I went to talk with Neil Mason about the kitchen cabinets.”
“Wow,” John said as he settled back in his chair and studied her. “It’s almost like they, I mean by that those three men, were there to get away from where they work. Like they didn’t want anyone to see them enjoying a meal away from Mason’s place.” He shook his head in wonder.
“Correct, after I left the diner, I drove directly back here, but I stopped off and talked with Tom first.”
“Tom?”
“Erwin, the sheriff.”
“Why?”
“Because, when I showed Carl the video I took when I was with Alan, he said there were warrants out for their arrests. Those guys’ names are Griff, he’s the one who gave me his phone number, then there were Paul and Harry. Paul was the one at the diner who sat next to the window.”
John nodded, and encouraged her to go on.
