“You need to find a girlfriend so I can have someone to confide in.”

“I’m too busy for a relationship.” Although with the mention of female companionship, the image of Parker with a gun slung over her shoulder emerged in his head.

Grace silently watched him.

“What?” he asked.

“What was that smirk for . . . or should I ask, who was that smirk for?”

He closed the lid on the grill. “No one.”

“Liar.”

“Would I lie to you?”

“Yes.”

He smiled.

She made a gesture with her fingers inviting him to talk. “C’mon, give it up.”

Their family didn’t hold secrets from each other. “Remember Parker Sinclair?”

Grace’s smile spread from ear to ear. “The Creek Canyon project?”

“Yeah.”

“I knew there was a reason you wanted me in on that meeting. Are you seeing her?”

He quickly shook his head. “No, nothing like that. I just . . . I don’t know. I think about her.”

“Uh-huh . . .”

“She’s gorgeous, right? Not in a dressed up, high heels, night-on-the-town kind of way, but more subtle.” She was the right mixture of the girl next door and sexy he liked.

“Not that you’ve given that any thought,” Grace teased.

Colin shook his head and told his body to calm down with the image of her in his head. “Whatever. She hasn’t looked at me twice.” Except for the Ted Bundy was good-looking comment.

“You’re smiling again.”

“She has a full plate.”

“And if she hasn’t noticed you, it’s because of that. You turn on the Hudson charm and she’ll see you.”

“Is that dating advice from my little sister?”

Grace picked up the empty bowl and licked some sauce from her finger. “It’s all about me. The sooner you bring a woman around here, the sooner you can stop hearing about my sex life.”

He leaned in, wiped his finger inside the bowl, and brought it to his lips. “So what, you can talk to her and learn about mine? That’s twisted, Gracie.”

She winced. “I didn’t think about that angle.”

“That’s what makes me the big brother.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

The permits were signed, the engineers had drawn up their plans, and it was time for Colin to do his thing. That started with an on-site walk-through with his team. And in this case, it started with him calling Parker a few days before and setting up the date and time for the walk-through. She’d sounded nervous. He knew there wasn’t a thing he could do to calm her fears until he was on-site and working with his men to assure that she and her brother and sister were going to be taken care of.

The impact on her life was going to be significant. He knew from experience that the homeowners thought they knew what they were in for, but never really saw the scale until the trucks started to arrive. The last thing Colin was going to do was describe that. She’d figure it out soon enough.

He drove up to the Sinclair home at eight in the morning. The gate was open as she said it would be, so he drove in on the south side of the property and parked. What he really wanted to do was drive up to the house and see if she was there. But that wasn’t what he’d normally do on a job where the property owner wasn’t someone he was attracted to. So instead, he sat in his truck until three more trucks filed in behind him. He jumped out and tucked his cell phone in his pocket.

“This is some place,” Fabio said. His name wasn’t actually Fabio, but he’d been called that for years because his hair ran down the length of his back and the crew loved giving him shit about it.

“I wonder what it looked like before the fire,” Glynn said.

“Green,” Colin told them.

Ron pulled up in his welding truck. He wasn’t a supervisor, but one of Colin’s main men for the actual structures, and he wanted to see the scale of the project so he could calculate the time needed. He slid out of his truck, ditching his cigarette in an ashtray before closing the door. “Hey,” he greeted them.

Colin shook his hand.

“So this is where we’re staging the equipment?” Fabio asked.

The property was set up in four quadrants. The dissecting points were the driveway down the middle running north and south and the creek bed running east to west. They were in the southeast corner, which took up a little less than an acre of property.

“We’re going to try and keep the entire operation on this side of the wash.”

Fabio snorted. “Yeah, right.”

“Try.” Colin put up his hand. “I know. You don’t have to say it.” The likelihood of keeping anything contained was slim to none. The magnitude of water that could come off the canyon didn’t hold to any contract or boundaries. It was going where it wanted to, and it was up to him and this team to do what they could to contain as much as possible.

For twenty minutes, he pointed out the areas of immediate need to prepare for the excavation and trucks, which were arriving within the week. But before any of that, they needed to prep the area and set up shop.

They walked across the wash and stopped at the site of the second structure. This one sat on the edge of the fenced portion of the Sinclair property.

They were deep in conversation about the engineers’ plans when Glynn said, “Is that the homeowner?”

Across the manicured section of the lawn, Parker emerged with her black lab on a leash. She marched toward them, a nervous smile on her lips.

“She doesn’t look old enough to be the homeowner,” Glynn pointed out.

“It was her parents’ place,” Colin said before she was close enough to hear. “She’s holding it all together for her brother and sister after they died.”

“Oh, damn.”

Colin wasn’t sure who muttered the words. His eyes were focused on the woman marching toward them.

“Good morning,” she said once she stopped at their side.

“Good morning, Parker,” Colin said. He took a minute to introduce the men. “I was just showing everyone around and explaining the layout.”

Her lips were a thin line. “I wanted you to meet Scout. He’s big and loveable, if not a tad stupid. I’ll keep him tied up when I’m at work, or inside. But if he gets off the leash, I hope one of you can bring him back up to the house so he doesn’t get run over by the trucks.”

Scout sniffed the bottom of Glynn’s shoes.

“He won’t run off?”

“No. With the activity, he will just get underfoot.”

“Good to know,” Colin said.

“We’ll be pulling equipment in on Monday,” Fabio told her.

She nodded. “What are the hours you guys will be here?”

“Monday through Friday. We will start as early as seven thirty in the morning and likely be out of your hair by five.”

Colin sat back and let Fabio talk. He would be the main man on the site, outside of him, and Colin needed Parker comfortable with him.

“And weekends?” she asked. She held Scout’s leash firm, even though the dog looked like he wanted to jump on anyone willing to hand him attention.