“Always.” I hug her back, and as soon as she lets me go, she then turns on her heels and heads upstairs. I watch her go, wondering if I should have said something different, wondering if I should’ve tried to convince her that one day she will find love. But then again, it’s hard to try to convince someone else that love exists, when you don’t really believe in it yourself.

CHAPTER 6

Talon

“I DON’T WANT to hear any more excuses. I want to know when the fuck my order will be here,” I growl into my phone while looking at the two-million-dollar log home my brother and I have been working on for months. The house that is supposed to get our business off the ground, a build we hope will set us apart from other builders in the area. Something that would be a fuck of a lot easier to do if we didn’t keep getting hit with delays, setbacks, and suppliers constantly fucking us over. We haven’t been in business long, and we don’t have the pull some of these bigger builders have, which we never considered would be a problem until we broke ground.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Mayson. I’ll get you a delivery date on your flooring as soon as I have one,” the man on the other end of the phone says, and I scrub my hand through my hair. With just a couple more months before our deadline left, and another fucking delay, I’m losing faith in finishing on time for the open house we’ve had planned for months.

“I want it here tomorrow. I know it’s been delivered to your warehouse. Find it and get it to me, or I’ll find another company to purchase from.” I end the call and shove my cell into my back pocket.

“Do you have another supplier I don’t know about?” my brother Bax asks from my side as I stomp toward the house.

“No,” I bite out.

“Just asking.” He sighs as we head up the steps to the porch.

I walk through the front door with him following, and our footsteps echo in the mostly empty space. “Aren’t you tired of them fucking with us?” I glance at him over my shoulder.

“You know I am.”

“Maybe if they think we’ll find someone else, they’ll deliver the shit we ordered on time.” I stop at the large island in the middle of the open kitchen and smooth my hand over the top of the newly laid granite countertop, with rich veins of gold and copper running through the cream of the stone.

“You might be right, but we’ve been dealing with this kind of thing for months, and I’ve never seen you react like that.”

“Have you looked around?” I wave a hand out to encompass the kitchen and living room, the floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over a fifteen-acre forested area the house is on, the glass fireplace in the center of the room, which will be a focal point when finished, and the rough-cut wood walls. Even with all the beauty around us, there’s a lot of shit that is unfinished, and most of it is because we have continued to have problems with deliveries and employees.

“We’ve had to beg and plead for every single item to get delivered.” I shake my head. “Shit, we just got a crew that we can depend on, and I don’t know if you remember, but we have an open house in less than two months. If things keep going like they are now, there is no way we will be able to finish on time, which means we might as well start tossing money out the fucking windows.” I meet his eye and shake my head again. “I’m tired of the bullshit.”

He glances around, his eyes focusing on all the unfinished work as they move around the room. I know he sees what I do—missing stone in the floor around the fireplace because our order wasn’t delivered in full, unfinished woodwork above the fireplace and doors, and lots of small things that add up to big problems. When his eyes meet mine once more, he looks as frustrated as I feel.

I’m determined to see this shit through. I want to prove to everyone that we have what it takes to build a home that stands out against the competition. An energy efficient, ecofriendly smart home that is unlike anything anyone else is building in the area. A home that will be around for hundreds of years, and a home a family will be proud to own. But in order to do that, something needs to change.

“I’ve been thinking,” he says, and I hold his gaze, hoping he’s not going to tell me he’s throwing in the towel, giving up like we’ve both done so many times in the past.

“About what?” I lean into the counter as I wait for him to continue.

“The Mayson name holds a lot of weight around here. Maybe we can ask Uncle Asher about T&B merging with Mayson Construction. If we have the Mayson Construction Company backing us, people might start taking us a little more seriously.”

He’s right. Mayson Construction has been around for years. Everyone in the area knows about them, not just through their catchy advertising with slogans like “Get Nailed,” but because of word of mouth. My uncles and dad, when he was a part of the business, built a company based on honesty and hard work. They always did what they said they would, on time or before, and the work was and is the best around.

“All right, let’s call Uncle Asher and ask to talk to him and everyone tonight,” I say, and he lifts his chin. “While you do that, I’m going to go pick up the Bobcat from town so I can get the backyard leveled. I want us to be able to start on the deck tomorrow.”

“I’ll let you know when we’re meeting with everyone,” he replies, and with a lift of my chin, I head out of the house and across the yard for my truck.

When I’m halfway to town, my cell buzzes, and the screen on the dash flashes as an automated voice tells me it’s a text from Mia. For the first time today, I smile. I press the button for it to relay it then smile bigger. “It’s me. Just sending you a text, because… well, just because. I hope you have a great day.”

When I get to the rental place, I text her back, letting her know I won’t be in to harass her at work today but will call when I have a chance. An hour later, when I get back to the house, I don’t bother going in to check on the progress inside. Instead, I unload the Bobcat and get to work. I spend the day leveling out the land, thankful for the distraction of Mia’s texts as they come in.

By the time I’m finishing up, all I want to do is to go home, have a shower, drink a beer, and talk to Mia before I go to bed. But my plans are foiled when Bax tells me that we’ll be having dinner tonight with our uncles, each of them equally invested in Mayson Construction.

Two hours later, with a cold beer in my hand, I look at the men gathered around the table at Winston’s, a close family friend’s restaurant aptly named after him. I watch my uncles’ expressions as Bax lays all our cards on the table, telling them about the house, the setbacks we’ve had, and how much we are expected to make if we sell the house at the price we have set with our lenders. Even with these men being family, this is still business, so I hold my breath as I wait for their reaction when Bax stops speaking.

“I think we’d be stupid not to merge with you boys,” Uncle Asher says, and I take a breath.

“I’m thinking the same thing,” Uncle Cash agrees, sitting next to me and patting my shoulder. “Fuck, I wish we thought about going high-end a few years ago.”

“I gotta agree,” Uncle Trevor inserts, lifting his beer in our direction.