Page 71 of Sandbar Sunrise
“Yeah, I do.”
She explained the situation and that Greg McQueen was on the way.
“Okay, I’m on the way too. I’ll be there in less than five minutes. Anyone else shows up before me, you two keep your mouths shut.”
“Sure.” She had no idea what D.J.’s capacity for conversation or instruction would be by the time this hit the fan.
* * *
She was still standing next to the car several minutes later when headlights hit her face.
“D.J., get up. Can you?”
“Yep, yep. Sure can.”
Patrick Tate stepped out of his car. She was low key relieved that he hadn’t brought Emma with him. The two were joined at the hip.
“Saw the truck, busted up good. I’ll take care of that. And this one. You get on home.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yep. D.J., get in my car.”
D.J. looked at her.
“Deej, just do what Patrick says.” She put a hand on his shoulder and patted it.
“I’ll touch base tomorrow.”
“Good. I’m going to have some other legal-type questions by then, I expect.”
ChapterTwenty-Three
J.J. drove back home to Treach’s cottage.
She still had D.J.’s phone, and that was on purpose.
She felt a little strange, opening it. But it was too late to turn back now. She was cleaning up this mess. This didn’t mean picking up crumbs with tweezers; it meant getting out the push broom and taking a bath.
She opened the phone, and she could see tons of personal calls. Of course, D.J.’s books were a mess; no surprise that he’d muddied the use of a personal phone and a business phone.
She sorted through messages, missed calls, and emails from Libby. There were alotof emails from Libby. The trail of correspondence from Libby painted a picture of a woman getting increasingly frustrated and desperate. Libby was trying to keep D.J. in business, but D.J. kept dropping the ball. Over and over again. J.J. felt overwhelming shame that she’d doubted Libby. Libby had been right. Libby was mothering D.J., too.
The work he’d done was good, but getting him to do the work, getting him to respond, getting him sober, that was the challenge. A major town project had hinged on Dean Tucker Construction and was falling apart without him.
J.J. had been angry at Libby, thinking her friend had been too hard on her son. But she was wrong. Libby had been doing all she could to keep D.J. on the job. To keep the Tucker family business alive. She had amends to make with Libby.
She would. But first, she had to save Tucker Construction. D.J. had tangled it into knots. She was going to have to spend all her time smoothing it back out.
J.J. didn’t go back to bed. She showered, though, and brewed coffee. There was a lot of work to do. She needed to get to the trailer and talk to the electrical contractor, and there was an order of tile—that darn tile!There were loose ends everywhere.
She poured the coffee into a traveling mug.
She’d have to have several important conversations soon. Maybe even today. But the sunrise over the lake called her out.
Every day on the lake, the sunrise was a different color. This morning, it was purple on the horizon with a few dappled clouds. They were dark but not threatening.
A swish alerted her to her neighbor, Mama Swan.
