Yuletide Hearts

“Makes sense,” Hank replied as he gathered their tool belts and supplies. “Why pay rent when you’ve got a nearly finished house?”

“Because Finch McGee will be all over that if he finds out,” Callie replied. She wiped her hands, waved goodbye to Jake as the bus approached, then headed to the table.

“Finch is a little power-hungry,” Hank admitted.

“A little?”

Hank shrugged. “He’s got a job to do, Cal. You know that. He just does it with more zeal than most.”

“Maybe Matt will be lucky and Colby will be his inspector.” Colby Dennis had taken the job as Finch’s assistant two years before, and he was a decent guy on all levels. Finch?

Callie’d been privy to more than one run-in with the divorced building inspector, and she knew a jerk when she saw one. She’d kept him at arm’s length, but he’d taken to coming into the diner at lunchtime lately, when he’d always eaten at the Texas Hot before. And it wasn’t a fluke that put him in her section, day after day, any more than it was coincidence that she traded tables with the other servers, keeping him at bay.

“Finch won’t let the new kid on the block oversee this.” Hank shifted his gaze to Cobbled Creek as they headed down the stone drive. “And while his inspections are all right, he doesn’t have a lick of common sense when it comes to balancing economics.”

“Ready, guys?” Buck grinned at them, crumpled his coffee cup and set it inside his truck cab.

“I am,” declared Tommy, a knit hat drawn over his bald head, a thick flannel layered over a turtleneck.

“You expectin’ a blizzard, Tom?” Hank teased.

“I’m expecting it’s cold now and warmin’ up later,” shot back the older man, “and I’ve crewed with you often enough to know that cold and number of hours don’t mean all that much.”

“I knew I liked you.” Matt smiled as he approached the group. “Supplies are due to arrive in three hours and Jim Slaughter should be here anytime with his equipment. Hank, can you get these guys together on inspecting the roofs, marking any part that needs to be redone while I finish a few phone calls?”

“I’m on it.”

They spent the first hour setting up ladders and scaffolding, then split into two groups, checking for damage.

“We’ve got a problem here,” Callie called out mid-morning as Matt passed by below. He clambered up the ladder, saw what she’d uncovered, and grimaced. “We’ll have to take this section back down to the rafters.”

“I’m on it.”

She’d been amazing and quick, working hard and long beside the men without a break, and in her hooded sweatshirt and loose-fit blue jeans, no one would even know she was a girl.

So why couldn’t Matt get it off his mind? Focus, dude. “You really have to go to the restaurant tomorrow? No chance of getting someone to cover you?”

Callie looked up. Had he tempted her? Heaven knows he tried. She shook her head. “Sorry, can’t be helped. But I’ll see if one of the girls wants to pick up my shifts next week because working here pays better than waiting on the lunch crowd at the Olympus.”

“If you can do that, lunch is on me every day next week.”

“For all of us or just the pretty girl?” Tommy wondered out loud.

“Everyone.” Matt shot Tommy a quick grin of appreciation as he jerked a thumb in Callie’s direction. “Although she’s easier on the eyes than the rest of you lugs.” He headed back toward the ladder, the crew’s work ethic easing his concerns. “I’ve got a friend who works at the Tops deli in Wellsville. She can hook us up with some pretty good eats.”

Tommy exchanged a grin with Buck. “I had a few of those friends back in the day.”

Matt laughed and discovered it felt good to laugh with a crew like this, as unlikely as they appeared. A gray truck turned into Cobbled Creek Lane, the town emblem emblazoned on the cab doors. Matt swung onto the ladder, his features relaxed.

Callie stepped toward the roof’s edge, then squatted alongside him as though checking something. “It’s Finch, the building inspector.”

Matt paused his descent and nodded, wondering how the scent of fresh-sawn wood could smell so agreeably new and different to a longtime contractor like himself. Or was it her strawberry-scented shampoo?

“You’re not from around here, but he’s a little high on himself.”

Relief tweaked Matt. She obviously didn’t know he’d grown up here a long time ago. He chalked it up to their four or five year age difference. The old Matt Cavanaugh was best left forgotten, although that wouldn’t be completely possible. He’d messed up big time back then. Now?

Now it was his turn to make things right. Make Grandpa proud. His newfound peace with his half brother and half sister, Jeff and Meredith Brennan, was a good start. Glancing down, he swept the gray truck a quick look. “Overzealous?”

“Bingo. And you can’t let him see you have stuff in the model, that you’re staying here.”

“How did you…? Never mind,” Matt continued.

Of course she’d notice, she lived across the street. His truck had been there all night and his lights were on before 5:00 a.m. “I’ll steer him clear.”

“Five-hundred-dollar fine,” she muttered under her breath. “No contractor wants to waste a cool five hundred.”

She was right. He’d traded off the apartment to save money, not throw it away. He climbed down the ladder, nodded his approval at the scaffolding Matt rigged in front of house number seventeen and stuck out a hand to the inspector. “Matt Cavanaugh. Nice to meet you.”

“Finch McGee.” The guy looked around amiably enough, but Matt hadn’t tap-danced his way through the marines. Friendly snakes were still snakes, and Hank’s daughter had this one nailed. That only made him wonder why, but he’d ferret that out later.

“I examined the initial plan when it came before the zoning commission.” Finch surveyed the half-done houses with a thin-eyed gaze, then rocked back on his heels. “I wanted to give myself an up-to-date visual. You’ve got the copy of town code my assistant gave you?”

The demeaning way he said “assistant” tightened Matt’s skin, but he tamped that down and sent McGee a comfortable look of assent. “Yes. How much leeway do I need with your office to set up inspections?”

“Forty-eight hours should do it. We’re not slammed right now.”

Not slammed? Talk about an understatement. The town had been literally asleep for the past eighteen months. But Matt heeded Callie’s warning and gave in easily. “Forty-eight hours it is.”

“You’ve got Hank Marek helping you?” Finch turned Matt’s way. His approving expression insinuated that having Hank working on this project was some kind of power-hungry badge of glory. “Gutsy.”

“Necessary.” Matt clipped the word, needing to get back to work. “Hank knows this project inside and out. Who better to have on board?”

Finch shrugged. “Just seems funny, but no worse than hanging out in that farmhouse watching this place get ruined.”

“Well, it’s in good hands now,” Matt told him, ready to cut this conversation short. “Mine and Hank’s.” He wasn’t sure why he included the older man in the statement, but realized its truth right off. Despite hard times, Hank Marek was unafraid to put his hand to the task, a guy like Grandpa, tried and true. That kind of integrity meant a great deal to Matt.

“Nice outfit, Callie.”

Matt turned in time to see the wince she hid from McGee as Callie came down the ladder.

McGee’s words pained her, but why would a pretty girl like Callie Marek be hurt by a little teasing? Two thoughts came to mind. Either Callie’d been hurt before or McGee’s words came with a personal tang.

“She’s working for you?”

Matt turned, not liking the heightened interest in McGee’s tone but not willing to make an enemy out of the building inspector who would be signing his certificate of occupancy documents. “Yes, they’re a talented family.”

McGee acknowledged that with a nod as he headed out. “They are. I’ll stop around now and again, see how things are coming along.”