Erin set the rest of her wine aside. “I wasn’t always, but we all have things in our past that make us grow up.”

Parker looked away, didn’t pry. “If you ever need someone to talk to about those things, I’m a good listener.”

Erin sighed. “I’ll remember that.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Just like when she’d first gotten into her job with the school district, Parker received early morning phone calls either telling her she wasn’t needed or telling her she was. Every night she’d go to bed early anticipating the need to work the next morning, and half the time she’d end up staying at home until eleven.

So when the text came through calling her off until ten thirty, Parker was already up and on her first cup of coffee.

She stared at her phone, read the text again, and closed her eyes. “This is temporary.”

Nora’s advice rolled in her head like a script. Real food, not frozen. Bake cookies, cut coupons. Ask for and accept help from others. That was the hard one. Help had flooded in the first few months after her parents’ death. The occasional holiday or birthday card would come from her aunt on her mother’s side who lived in Florida. Almost nothing from her father’s brother, who lived in Alaska. He lived on propane and food he shot himself, so he didn’t even learn about her parents’ death until they’d been buried. She didn’t ask for help often. It wasn’t in her nature. Depending on help you didn’t get was worse than not depending on it at all.

“What are you staring at?” Austin asked as he walked by and saw her peering out the window.

“The lack of trucks.”

“Give it thirty minutes.”

He opened the fridge, grabbed the milk. “I take it you’re not working this morning.”

She stood in her bathrobe. “Not until recess.”

“Then can you toss my clothes into the dryer for me?”

“Sure.”

He stopped what he was doing and ran downstairs to the laundry room. Within a minute, she heard water running through the pipes in the house.

It was nice that they could count on each other. Every day she was thankful that Austin hadn’t reverted back to the mess he was after their parents died. She’d like to think she didn’t worry he would relapse, but she’d be lying. The closer he came to his eighteenth birthday, the better adjusted he became.

Austin ran back up the stairs. “So what are you going to do with your mornings now?”

She finished the last of her coffee, smiled. “I’m going to get donuts.”

“What?”

She sat her cup down and walked toward her bedroom. “Donuts. For the guys.” Everyone loved donuts. Which was like cookies for breakfast.

Yoga pants and a T-shirt later and she was in her car and driving down the street.

She didn’t make it back before the first of the trucks started rolling in, but she did manage to pull out three pink boxes and set them up on the break table as the bulk of guys parked.

If there was a universal language of food, it was pink boxes in the morning and large, flat, square boxes filled with pizza at lunch. Years of working in an elementary school taught her that.

She was sitting on the edge of one of the benches, holding Scout back from jumping up to get a sugar high, when Colin stepped out of his truck.

This was the first time she’d actually seen him since they agreed to flirt and flowers had become a thing. She was debating sprinkles or no sprinkles with one of the guys when he walked up.

“Who brought the donuts?” he asked.

Ray directed a chocolate-tipped thumb toward Parker. “This one.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” he said, yet he was reaching into the box.

“I wanted to.”

“And we’re glad you did.” The voice was behind her.

Scout barked and then sat and panted with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. “None for you.”

The welder, his name escaped her, grabbed two, waved, and walked away.

It was nice watching them dig in like it was something special. Less than thirty bucks and the crew’s morning had been made.

“I appreciate the extra help around here,” she told them. There was the little issue of needing a trench dug behind the fence to help channel water that flowed off the back hill. But instead of asking right then, she tabled that for a day or two.

Ray popped up when the sound of the first dump truck driving through the gate alerted him. “It’s time to get going.”

“We need to hustle. The extended forecast is showing it clear, but I don’t trust the weatherman,” Colin told the men in earshot.

“You got it, Boss.”

The crew worked their way to their respective equipment or task, leaving Colin standing beside her, one foot up on the bench, him leaning on his knee while he devoured a maple bar. “Was this my mom’s idea?”

“She suggested cookies.”

He waved the uneaten half of his donut her way. “Chocolate chip. Oatmeal doesn’t go over well with this crew.”

She smiled. “Noted. I should have thought of it myself. I’ve been a little self-absorbed.”

He dropped his foot, sat beside her. “I think you’re allowed. This is a lot to take for an outsider.”

She looked around, confirmed none of his men were close by. “Thank you for the flowers.”

He presented his fully dimpled smile. “My pleasure.”

The fluttering in her belly was starting to become a regular thing when he was smiling at her. “You sure it’s not some kind of conflict of interest . . . you giving me flowers?”

“The only conflict is if you didn’t want me to give them to you.”

“Won’t the guys give you a hard time?”

He finished the donut. “Undoubtedly. But probably not in front of you.”

She ran a hand over Scout’s head. “They won’t give you too bad a time, then.”

“No, I expect nothing less than a dump truck full of hard time. But I think you might be worth it.”

“Might?” She grinned, stopped petting Scout’s head.

He pushed the pink box aside. “Depends on the cookies.” He winked.

“I see where this is going.”

His eyes found hers and held. The smile on his face matched the warmth in her cheeks. That smile slowly slid and his eyes traveled to her lips.

It dawned on her then, how close they were sitting to each other. The heat of his thigh met hers even though they weren’t touching. Men buzzed around them, but for the first time in weeks, she didn’t seem to notice.

His lips were full, the kind that promised they knew how to kiss. That single thought had her mouth open and she moved in an inch.

When one of Colin’s fingers grazed her thigh, she stopped staring at his lips and found his eyes. The humor was gone, replacing it was a heat she hadn’t ever seen in a man’s eyes.

“What are you doing Friday?”

She swallowed. “This Friday?”

He dropped his gaze to her lips again. “Yeah. Two days from now. I want to take you out.”

She dropped her hand to her thigh, touched his pinky that reached for her. “Well . . . if I wasn’t so rusty, I’d say Friday is too short a notice for me to be available to do anything.”