Summer Kisses

Power tools ground to a halt as word of an inspection spread. Workmen drifted through the red barn doors. The crew turned to watch the inspector approach.

The ominous sound of timbers snapping had them all spinning back to the barn. The southern wing undulated, wheezing and groaning as if straining for breath. And then it broke away from the middle of the barn, lurching to the ground in a drunken stadium wave, kicking up rolling plumes of dust.

Flynn felt the force of the collapse from fifty feet away. It eddied about his ankles, tugged at his determination, laughed at timelines and plans and mocked promises made in good faith.

In the seconds after the barn’s partial collapse, no one moved. Even the building inspector had stopped his car at the fork in the driveway, a safe distance away.

“Everyone back!” Dane leaped forward, gesturing for his crew to retreat. “She’s not done.”

The barn shuddered up to its hay loft and tilted precariously toward the collapsed south wing.

Flynn and Slade ran with the rest of the crew to the inspector’s vehicle.

The wiry construction worker with the goatee and ponytail jumped into a dented white pickup parked in front of the barn. He sped past those running to safety.

“Head count. Now!” Dane focused on the man who’d saved his truck. “Idiot! Is a truck worth your life?”

“Can’t make a living without my tools.” Unfazed by the reprimand, the wiry, gray-haired idiot strode purposefully past Dane to the cluster of workers wearing similar mud-brown Utley Construction T-shirts.

Flynn couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d seen the man before.

“If you weren’t such a good worker, I’d wring your neck, then fire you,” Dane called after him, receiving a shrug in answer.

“I can’t see a thing. And I don’t hear anyone inside.” Slade squinted toward the still-dissipating dust clouds. “Do you?”

“No,” Flynn rasped, listening for any calls for help from the barn.

What if someone had been killed? What if their decision to salvage what they could from the barn instead of razing it meant someone wasn’t coming home tonight? A dust cloud enveloped him. He pulled his T-shirt over his mouth, hoping that would help him breathe easier.

The world hadn’t totally screwed him. The barn held. The sun continued to shine. Beyond that, Flynn was having a hard time finding a silver lining.

“Everyone’s accounted for,” Dane announced moments later.

“Thank God,” Flynn murmured into his shirt. As favors went, that was huge. Unfortunately, his timeline had undoubtedly ballooned.

The balding inspector faced Dane looking like Christmas had come early and Santa hadn’t fulfilled any of his requests. “What happened?”

“We were shoring up the beams on the north side,” Dane said. “It must have caused instability on the south.”

Slade tugged Flynn away from the others. “Let’s tear the barn down and rebuild. It’s safer and cheaper.”

“I know you’re worried about the budget, but this is a piece of Harmony Valley history. We promised to preserve it.”

“Some promises aren’t meant to be kept.” Slade gestured toward the barn. “If someone had been hurt or killed trying to preserve the barn, we’d be ruined.”

The inspector was shaking his head at Dane. “This got away from you. I’m shutting everything down on both structures until you can reassure me that any work—be it demolition or rework—is safe.”

“Which is when?” Flynn quit pretending he wasn’t listening.

“Until it’s safe,” the inspector repeated coldly.

Word quickly spread through the men that work was over for the day, sending them streaming like large ants toward the rows of parked trucks, until only a few of Dane’s crew remained.

“It’s going to be hell proving to County this is a safe construction site unless we take her completely down.” Dane turned to Flynn. “I suggest we demolish the whole thing, salvage what boards, posts and beams we can, and resell the rest. There’s a good market for old, weathered barn wood.”

The promise they’d made to the community warred with the pressing need to speed things up. “How long?”

Dane looked toward the trees lining the river. “We’ll lose three to five days from the collapse and a day or two in salvage. We’re out in the boonies. County inspectors can’t just stop by on their way to another job. We’re at the mercy of their schedule.”

Flynn hated when things were out of his control. A programmer by trade, he liked plugging in commands and seeing them work in predictable, stable order.

“I’d like to see the estimate for a complete demo before we decide how to proceed,” Slade said.

Flynn nodded in defeat. “And we’ll need to confer with Will.”

The construction worker who’d rescued his truck appeared at Dane’s shoulder. His gaze pierced Flynn’s, distracting him for a moment from the outline of familiar cheekbones and sharp chin Flynn suspected was hidden beneath the man’s gray goatee.

“Before you go, I’d like you to meet my job foreman, Joey Harris.” Dane’s voice sounded like it was coming from far away.

Flynn’s vision dropped from those unapologetic eyes to the hourglass prison tattoo on his forearm.

It couldn’t be...

He would never...

But it was. And he had.

Dane’s foreman was Flynn’s father.

CHAPTER THREE

ROSE AIMED HER antique ladies birding binoculars out the window at Agnes hurrying back to the car. “Where did you get that ring?”

Drat. Agnes was hoping that her two friends wouldn’t notice the ruby ring. And Rose hadn’t until she’d retrieved her binoculars, a pair Agnes assumed would only magnify the appearance of a bird if she was standing beneath the tree it was in. And only if it was a small tree.

Agnes slid behind the wheel of her beloved Buick, a pair of binoculars draped around her neck. “I got a call from Mayor Larry. Part of the Henderson barn just collapsed.”

From the backseat, Rose gasped.

“Was anyone hurt?” Mildred lowered her own binoculars.

“No.” Agnes started the car and headed toward Jefferson Street and the Harmony River bridge. The morning sun had yet to chase away the briskness in the air. It reached through the windows and chilled Agnes to the bone.

“Agnes, about the ring?” Rose was doggedly annoying sometimes.

“Which ring?” Agnes tried to play dumb.

“The red ring as big as a stapler on your finger,” Rose said sarcastically. “Do you think I’m as blind as Mildred?”