Page 9 of Last Chance Seduction
Dash was my age but sometimes acted like he was a decade younger than me.Mostly because it made him stand out amongst the rest of us.He liked being the easy, happy-go-lucky guy, and while that was usually my thing to do, recently, I wasn’t in the mood to keep up with that appearance.
“I’m headed out back to the office, I know Jamie and Brooklyn need to have a meeting.Are you going to head that way soon?”
“No I have to work here, sign a few things, and then I have that house up in Aurora.”
I nodded as we pulled out our phones and went through our schedule.
We weren’t the first, nor were we the second, construction and contracting company within the Montgomery family.My cousins’ grandparents had actually begun the first construction company.Montgomery Inc.They had made a name for themselves, and then the next generation, my aunts and uncles had come along and expanded the business to the point that people sought them out even in other states.In fact, a family in England had a Montgomery Inc.home thanks to a friend of a friend, so now it was an internationally known company.My aunts and uncles, as well as my grandparents had started another company, Montgomery Builders.Apparently, there had been beef between the two sets of grandparents, and though the companies had never been one, they had been trying to outdo each other.Or at least, they had been on the Builders’ side.
My mother had done some of the art for the family, but it was my father who was a Montgomery Builder.Dash did what my father, Beckett Montgomery did, while I took my Aunt Annabelle’s place as architect and lead.While we could have continued on in the Montgomery Builders name, I had wanted to start fresh.Because it wasn’t as if my parents had retired yet.They were still young enough that they had plenty of time.In twenty years, if we all decided to combine companies, we could, but for now, we were a subset, our own group that instead of building from the ground up, did more of restoration and updating.We liked to keep a little bit of the historical parts but use what we had.
Hence my home.
In other words, the original Denver branch, Montgomery Inc., was still working full-time, and had expanded beyond just the Montgomerys.They had even pulled in one of the other cousins’ branch the Gallaghers, and somehow, they were this mega company that worked well.We worked alongside them on some projects, but we have our own LLC.And the Montgomery Builders, based in Fort Collins, worked with building new environmentally focused buildings and projects.
Montgomery Construction worked between the four major cities.Therefore we were a little overstretched at this point.
However, there was a bid coming up that I knew my cousin Brooklyn desperately wanted, and I was on the same path as her.
I said goodbye to the crew and did my best not to look over at Mercy’s two-story home with the black shutters and white framing.It was a fantastic house that had been upgraded in the past few years.In fact, many of the homes had been, but my home hadn’t.So I was going to play catch-up, and make it my own, while letting it blend.That was my job as architect.
I drove the forty minutes to my office, grateful that I hadn’t dealt with too much traffic, and pulled into the parking lot.I knew I lived probably a little too far from the office, but I loved my new house and didn’t want to change the office location as of yet.If my family began to move like the cousins were warning, then we’d figure it out.I let out a breath, knowing we had far too many things on our plate to worry about an office some of us were rarely at.Jamie, another cousin, and our admin who kept us on the straight and narrow, parked right next to me.
She got out of the car, her pink-tipped white-blonde hair flowing in the wind.“I picked up a bunch of coffee from Latte on the Rocks after I had lunch with Riley.Sound good?”
“Did you bring me a sandwich?”I asked in answer.
“Of course I did.I brought everybody sandwiches.But I got the best one.”
“Thank you,” I said dryly.I rolled my eyes, and took the coffee tray from her, as we made our way into the small office that we called home.
Dash was rarely here.He and most of the crew were out on projects more often than not.I tended to need the office more seeing as I was the architect, but I did spend as many hours onsite as possible.Brooklyn was the same, considering she was the lead landscape artist and architect.And Jamie was the one who glued us all together.Because without her, I was pretty sure we would all be at the wrong project site half of the time.
“There you are,” Brooklyn said as she came down the hall, her hair pulled back from her face, dirt on the cuff of her pants, and with actual dirt handprints on the front of her jeans.
“I’m so glad that you showered for this occasion,” I said dryly.
“I would flip you off, but there are cameras in here, and well you know one of the parents would see.”
“As if our parents don’t curse more than us,” I said dryly.
“This is true,” she said with a laugh.
“Ooh, coffee and sandwiches?Why does that sound disgusting and amazing at the same time?”
“We don’t ask these things,” Jamie answered, and we headed into one of the main meeting rooms.Other people were working around the building, but most everybody was out on the project sites.We weren’t as big as the two original companies, and this is where we liked it.We would grow eventually, because I knew we wouldn’t only hire Montgomerys as our main crew.
“So, how’s the house coming along?”Brooklyn asked before she took a huge bite of her sandwich.
In answer, I took a bite of my own, groaning at the spiciness.
“First, I’m so glad that the Montgomerys married into the sandwich-making people.”
“You do realize that we’re allowed to go to places that the Montgomerys don’t actually own or are a part of, right?”Jamie asked dryly.
“True, but I love Raven and Greer.Because now that they’ve added more sandwiches and soups to the menu, I don’t need to go anywhere else.”
“True, we just need someone to open a restaurant.Maybe Italian.Do we know anyone that we could marry into our Montgomery mafia?”Brooklyn asked, blinking those light blue eyes of hers.
