Page 10 of The Contractor's Rose
She was quiet because she knew that the woman didn'treallythink that I was her dad.
I was quiet for the same damn reason. I was pissed.
Because that girl saw something between us. Something real. Somethingwrong.
And Rose—my Rose—didn’t flinch. Didn’t laugh it off.
She wasthinking.Measuring it. Running her fingers along the edge of what we were stepping into and probably asking herself:Can I live with this?
And if itdidbother her that someone could mistake us for something we weren't … it meant her thoughts weren’t innocent, either.
I looked down at her again—noticing the heat in her cheeks and the way her fingers fidgeted with the strap of her purse like she didn’t know what to do with them—and realized something deep and undeniable.
This girl wasn’t a delicate flower.
She was a wildfire waiting for a match.
Andfuck me—I wanted us to burn.
SIX
ROSEMARIE
She thoughtI was his daughter?
My throat felt too tight, my chest too full of heat. Not just anger—though there was that. No, this was something deeper. Embarrassment, shame, desire—all tangled together and pressing heavy against my ribs.
I mean … seriously?
We didn’t evenlookalike.
I’m fair—pale enough that the sun treated me like a chew toy every summer. A tiny splash of freckles. Wide brown eyes that give everything away before I even speak. Long, loose blonde curls that were always either laying perfectly or looking like I’d gotten into a fight with my hairbrush that morning.
There was this girl-next-door thing I couldn’t seem to shake. Sweet. Quiet. Well-behaved. The kind of girl who read romance novels behind the register and got flustered when a contractor showed up with a tool belt and too much forearm on display.
Gavin was …Gavin.
Tall. Broad. Built like he’d been lifting things heavier than a half dozen of me since before I was born. His arms were thick with strength that wasn’t for show—strength that wasearned.
He had tanned skin that held onto the sun like a second layer. Calloused hands that probably could have snapped a wrench in half, but that still moved gently when needed. Storm-cloud grey-blue eyes that always seemed to show more than he said. And that beard …
Scruffy but trimmed, kissed with silver, the kind of beard that made him look dangerous and safe all at once.
He wasn’t cute. He wasn’t “handsome” in a suit-and-tie way. He wasundeniablymasculine. And he smelled like cedar and clean sweat and a little bit of sawdust.
We didn’t look alike. We didn’t act alike.
We weren’talike.
And the worst part? I knew his daughter.
Teagan.
Since we were the same age, we’d grown up alongside one another. We were never super close like her and Elodie. Just close by association. She was … sharp. Pretty in that effortless, intimidating kind of way. She didn’t try to fit in; people fit themselves around her.
She’d always had a bit of an edge to her. The kind of girl who knew how to flirt with teachers and break curfews and always got away with both.
I thought she was a little mean. Cold, sometimes. But even then, I knew where her bite came from.
