Barefoot in Pearls (Barefoot Bay Brides Book 3) (13 page)

“Absolutely,” he said without hesitation. “I’ve missed seeing her grow up and into such a great woman. And now she’s getting married.” She heard a wistful note in his voice. “So that only makes me want to be here more so I can get to know my brother-in-law.”

She sighed. “And you probably think I’m some kind of hard-line activist who would put an end to all that family goodness.”

He didn’t answer for a minute, then said, “But you have to honor your grandmother’s wishes. That’s family goodness, too.”

There was enough softness in his voice to fold her heart in half, and she appreciated that he at least recognized what mattered to her. She needed to do the same for him, but how?

“I told you Grandma always said that being true to a cause has a cost.”

“So if she wasn’t close to your own mother, how’d you manage to have such a great relationship with your Grandma Good Bunny?”

She laughed. “Good Bear. We had the power of the universe on our side, or so Grandma said. At first, it was just a series of what
you
might call coincidences that happened during consecutive summers. My parents had to travel, and I got to stay with her when my brother and sister went with other family. Then, Grandma had cataract surgery and needed someone to help her and asked for me. After a few years, it became an unspoken thing—I spent two months every summer with Grandma Good Bear.”

She closed her eyes, stepping back in time to remember going to Native American festivals around California, with the rows of crafts and sounds of drums and the sweet, sweet taste of spicy hazelnut relish on cornbread. There were long walks in the woods, late nights of talking to the wind, and learning that faith was really another word for
trust
. “Best times of my life.”

“Did it cost you?” he asked. “I mean, are you close to your parents or was your relationship with your grandmother more important?”

She considered the question from a few different angles, including the fact that just asking it made him seem incredibly wise. “I’m fine with my parents,” she said. “I did what they wanted me to do, which was to entirely and completely assimilate into a non-Native American cultural existence. My Indian blood is no different than my Irish blood or, on my father’s side, English blood.”

“Except it is,” he said, his voice barely loud enough to be heard over the wind. “And, honestly, I get that.”

She studied him for a minute, trying to put all the hormonally charged thoughts to the side completely, appreciating him for the man he was right then. Sexy in a whole different way.

“I lived in another country for almost fifteen years,” he told her when it became apparent she was looking at him a little too hard and long. “I fought wars in many others. I understand cultural battles, internal and external.”

As they reached the top of the causeway bridge, high enough that tall-masted sailboats could easily pass underneath, the wind howled through the windows, snapping her hair across her face and filling the car with the brackish smell of the gulf below.

She pushed the strands back and turned to face the wind, absently counting a half-dozen pleasure craft leaving long, white wakes behind them.

It was too noisy for easy conversation, so they drove in silence to the mainland, then headed north from Naples, until he had to navigate the streets of Fort Myers. When they finally reached the address that housed GeoTech Engineering, Ari lost the fight not to reach out and touch Luke’s arm.

“I’m not an ogre who wants to separate you from your sister,” she said.

“And I’m not the evil builder who wants to desecrate sacred ground.”

For a few seemingly endless seconds, they stared at each other, his skin as warm and inviting as she knew it would be, his eyes a deeper, darker green than she’d even remembered, his chest rising and falling with a slow breath.

“Let’s go, then,” he finally said. “We have a bet to settle.”

“That we do.”

Chapter Ten

GeoTech sounded a lot more high-tech than it looked. In fact, the place looked more like an abandoned building than the office of an engineering firm. There was no reception area, no sleek office space, not even a mass of cubicles with ringing phones and busy people.

When Arielle and Luke walked in, the smell of burned coffee assaulted them, the “reception area” nothing more than an empty room with an open doorway that led down a barely lit hallway, no sign of life anywhere.

“Hello?” Luke called, stepping into the hallway. “Anyone here? Mr. Waggoner?”

A woman came out of a door at the end, thin and blond, peering at him over reader glasses. “Are you looking for Ken?”

“Ken Waggoner of GeoTech,” Luke confirmed. “He’s expecting us.”

He thought she laughed, but maybe she coughed. “C’mon back. He’s in the bathroom.”

Luke and Arielle shared a quick look, then he put a hand on her shoulder and guided her ahead of him.

“You with that property down in Mimosa Key?” she asked as they got closer.

“Yes, I’m the general contractor.” He held out his hand. “Luke McBain. This is Arielle Chandler.” He shook the woman’s hand, realizing that she was much younger than she looked from a distance, though she’d done some hard living in her forty-some years.

She gave a tight smile. “I’m Michelle. Come on in. He’ll be back. Never takes him more’n ten minutes to do his business.” The woman opened a door and led them into another room that was part office, part kitchen, all royal disaster. Papers and files stacked halfway up walls, a desk covered with notebooks, coffee cups, and a pair of headphones dangling out of the computer tower on the desk.

Luke knew exactly what Arielle had to be thinking.
This
was a respectable engineering firm that did a legitimate core sampling? And he could hardly blame her. Who would hire this kind of sub?

He hadn’t built a house in the States, but things couldn’t be that much different here than in Lyon. The way a person’s office looked usually reflected the quality of their work.

And if that were the case, GeoTech was a wreck.

“Here’s a chair.” Michelle indicated for Arielle to take a straight-backed wooden chair that looked like it came from a fourth-grade classroom. Luke was presumably left to stand or take the chair pushed under the only desk in the room.

He stood while Arielle perched on the edge of the chair, and after an awkward beat, the woman nodded at them, wiping her hands on a pink cotton sweater that barely reached a pair of hip-hugger jeans, revealing a slight roll of extra skin.

“I’ll go knock on the door,” the woman said.

“No, no,” Arielle said. “Let him…we’ll wait.”

She brushed some hair off her face and sighed. “I’ll be right back.” Then, taking a cell phone from the top of a file cabinet, she stepped outside, sneakers squeaking on the linoleum as she walked down the hall.

Arielle looked up at him, and he could swear he read admonishment in her eyes.

“Engineers,” she said, tipping her head to the side. “Strange breed.”

He laughed, appreciating her humor, and gestured toward the mountain of mess behind her. “Not usually so sloppy.”

She stood up, rubbing her arms and taking a step toward the other side of the room. Behind some folded-up blueprints, a whiteboard with an annual calendar leaned against the wall.
Last
year’s calendar.

“Mr. McBain.” A man marched into the office, tall and so lean his chest looked concave. Now
that
was an engineer, Luke thought. “So very nice to meet you, sir.” He offered a cool handshake and turned to Arielle. “Mrs. McBain, I presume?”

“Oh, no.” She shook her head. “I’m…the historical significance consultant,” she said.

Ken blinked at that, and Luke did the same thing. The
what
? But then Michelle walked in and croaked, “What the hell is a historical significance consultant?”

Luke stared at Arielle, curious to learn the answer to that question.

“My role is to make sure the land that’s being developed doesn’t hold any historical significance to the state or country.”

Ken turned down his lips and drew back like he’d been offered a lemon to bite, then chuckled. “Can’t say we’ve ever had one of those, huh, Shelley?”

Michelle didn’t laugh. “Do you have a license for that position, ma’am?”

Arielle shook her head. “No, it’s really more of a hobby.”

“Then don’t be sniffing around our records and being a bother,” she said. “If you’re not licensed, we don’t do business with you. Right, Ken?”

Luke stepped in between them, literally and figuratively. “We want to go over the core sampling you did for the North Barefoot Bay property on behalf of Jim Purty, the former GC. And I’m licensed,” he added.

“Temporary license,” Michelle shot back.

How did she—

“Michelle, let me handle this,” Ken said, heaving a sigh as he walked to his desk. “I know where that file is…” A stack of papers began to topple, but Ken flattened a seasoned hand on the top, averting disaster before he pulled out a drawer stuffed with more papers.

“We really can’t do business with someone not licensed,” Michelle said, still eyeing Arielle. “You’ll have to—”

“She’s also a designer,” Luke said quickly. Both woman looked at him, one with mud-colored eyes narrowed in suspicion, the other with ebony eyes wide with surprise. “And I assure you she is licensed and contracted as a certified interior decorator.” He underscored the bluff with his own expression of confidence, which worked. At least enough for Michelle to nod slowly, then excuse herself and return to the hallway.

While Ken paged through paperwork, Luke winked at Arielle, getting a quiet smile of gratitude in return.

“Oh, here it is. Purty, James S., general contractor,” he read aloud, pulling a slender manila file from the drawer. So slender, in fact, that when he opened it, there was nothing but a business card that floated to the ground. “Oh,” he mumbled. He turned the folder over and inside out, as if the papers would miraculously appear.

“This is what was filed with the county,” Luke said, holding out his blue copy. “But there should be a longer report, with soil samples with the final feasibility study, erosion and sedimentation controls, earthwork volumetric calculations…”

Ken looked at Luke like he was speaking French. “All that stuff was done and filed, right down to the alphabetical letter, I swear.”

Except this office didn’t look like the workplace of anyone who did or filed anything to any letter.

“How about the samples?” Arielle asked. “Can we see them?”

“Those are in storage,” Ken said. “Come this way.”

He tossed the file onto the pile of other junk and marched toward the door. Arielle followed, but Luke lingered long enough to pick up the business card.
Duane Dissick, Owner, Southwest Masonry.
Of course, the only decent sub on the job.

Ken led them back down the hall to the entrance, outside, and around the back of the building to what looked like a temporary storage pod. As they got there, the front door whipped open, and Michelle walked out, drawing back when she practically slammed into her boss.

She reeked of the bitter smell of fresh cigarette smoke, pausing to stare at Arielle again. And not in any way that could be considered friendly.

“What were you doing in there?” Ken asked.

“I found the reports you should have had but didn’t,” she said, an edge in her voice. “They’re on top of the job box, last row on the left.” She let out a loud put-upon sigh and held the door open for them, then she gave Luke a dry smile. “Sometimes it’s hard to be the only brains in the operation.”

Which made Ken laugh, surprisingly enough, and he shook his head while she walked away. Inside, it was far more organized than the office, with stacks upon stacks of labeled, clear storage bins, each full of plastic bags stuffed with soil, rocks, sediment, and dirt samples.

Ken made his way through the maze of bins to the back, tapping one with satisfaction. “Well, I’ll be damned. I did leave the full reports here with the samples.” He gave a grin over his shoulder and waved them closer. “She’s a bitch on wheels, and I know it, but the whole business would collapse without that girl. Don’t know how I got so lucky when she applied for a job.”

Luke ushered Arielle through the boxes, the lingering smell of that bitch on wheels’ cigarette already giving him a headache. But he’d give her this: If she was in charge of this area, she was better organized than her boss.

“Here’s the whole thing,” Ken said, slapping a stack of documentation into Luke’s hands. “Every single one of those things you wanted.”

Luke glanced at the paperwork, then at Ken, who seemed strangely unfamiliar with the common terms in his business. “Did you do this core sample, Ken?”

“Me? No, I hire out with my own subs. I’m just the middleman.”

“Can we get in the box?” Arielle asked. “I really want to see the actual samples taken from that property.”

“Sure thing. Grab us some gloves.” He nodded toward a box of latex gloves hanging on the wall. “Michelle’s a freak about cleanliness and safety.”

Arielle snapped some gloves from the dispenser, handed them to Luke and Ken, and took another pair for herself. After she’d put hers on, Ken unlatched the box and pulled out one of the bags, full of finely ground pieces of cream and brown rocks and shells.