Page 98 of The Misfits of Copper County
“Well, yeah, but I don’t think he’d wanna give up spending time with you either, so.” Kel gave a good-natured shrug.
“We’ll see. That’s one of the things we were starting to discuss this morning—” I clamped my mouth shut.
“Ah, shit, bro.” Kel made a face. “And then I interrupted? My bad. Tell Hot Delaney I’m sorry, and I’ll bring you guys some chocolate cake later. My treat.”
“It’s okay, Kel.” I patted his shoulder. “Everything will work out.”
“Risk and reward,” Kel said sagely. “You’re walking the walk, and I dig that, Brew. It’s, like, inspiring.”
I laughed. I wasn’t sure I was walking the walk, but I was trying. And I’d feel a fuck of a lot better once Delaney and I could talk.
Sure enough, after Teeny greeted me at the door with a tail wag so hard her whole body wiggled, I found my phone on Delaney’s floor and saw a missed callanda text message from him.
Delaney
Hey! Hope things are okay with Kel. Got a lead on my story. I’ll tell you all about it later. Be back by dinner.
I blew out a breath. It was ridiculous to feel this disappointed about a short delay. Delaney had a job to do… and so did I.
Teeny had trailed me upstairs and laid herself out on the floor in front of me like a large, fluffy rug. Some of the tension left my shoulders as I knelt to rub her belly.
“Delaney left you loose in the house, huh? Your detente has turned into a full-on love affair?” She panted excitedly. “Same, girl. Same.”
I spent the rest of the day distracting myself with work, putting the finishing touches on Delaney’s kitchen cabinets. They looked amazing. Next week, I’d install the countertop, paint the walls, and declare this room done.
But there were other projects I could imagine taking on around here. Delaney needed more bookshelves in his office and maybe a deck overlooking the lake for summer evenings. Some finials for the jam cupboard that Delaney could hold on to when I fucked him in there.
I caught myself mid-thought and smiled. I was planning a future here, with him. Setting down roots.
When the sun began to dip lower in the sky, I cleaned up my workspace and sent Delaney a text:
Did the lead pan out? Where did you have to go? Ordering dinner to be delivered in an hour.
I scheduled the food and began cleaning up my tools.
When the food arrived and Delaney still hadn’t texted, I felt the first stirring of nerves. We usually ate dinner by seven since most restaurants around here closed early. Had his car broken down? Had he gotten a flat tire?
But I put the food in the oven to keep warm and told myself Delaney hated when people were overprotective.
Still, I couldn’t resist calling him. His phone clicked to voicemail immediately, so I sent another text.
Dinner’s here. ETA?
I decided maybe Kel had the right idea about making things “perfect” for when I dropped my “feelings bomb.” I found a clean drop cloth I could use as a table covering, liberated some candles from the drawer in the laundry room, and after pacing in front of the windows—no sign of headlights—with Teeny tracing my steps, I took my supplies to Delaney’s office to set them up.
He’d set up picnics on his desk often in the past couple of weeks since it was the only flat surface in the house, and I knew how he cleaned off his desk. Since he seemed to have taken his laptop, the only thing that needed to be moved was his notebook.
But before I could spread out my drop-cloth table cover, I noticed a business card on his desk where his notebook had been.
Without thinking, I picked it up.
B. Anthony Harmon, Harmon Construction
The world seemed to tilt sideways for a second.
“What the fuck?” I asked the empty room. Why did Delaney have my father’s card?
My first thought was that he’d come here. That Hayes had refused to act as the go-between any longer, and my father, never one to take no for an answer, had decided to track me down and have his say… which was enraging.
