Not Quite Mine (Not Quite #2)(18)
Author: Catherine Bybee

The weight of Dean’s stare followed her, watched her, as she wiggled her hips, and didn’t brush away the stranger’s hand when he spread his palm on her ass.

Dean cut in, damn near taking the other man’s arm off at his shoulder. Katie stormed away and Dean followed.

Outside the club, Dean lit into her. “What the f**k, Katie?”

“What’s the problem, Dean?”

His face was red with fury, his fists clutched at his side. “What are you doing?”

“I’m dancing, what does it look like?” She trembled, hating the look on his face.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“And where should I be? Home? Alone?”

“No, you should be with me.”

“Why? I’m not pregnant. You’re off the hook.”

“Our baby was never a hook!” he yelled.

“Maybe not to you.”

His eyes turned to steel. She couldn’t have shocked him more with a slap across the face. “When are you going to grow up?” he asked through clenched teeth.

“Whenever I damn well please.”

Dean swore under his breath, turned, and walked out of her life.

Now, a year and a half later…he was strolling back in.

Chapter Seven

The hard hat Dean had been reduced to wearing now sported a bright pink stripe over the brim. A prank from his men. The day before he’d found a pair of high heeled women’s shoes on his desk with small metal plates covering the toes. Someone had taken some time to construct those.

Every day it was something new and Katie hadn’t shown her face on the site since that first day.

He dangled the hard hat off his finger and walked to the door of his office. Jo was busy typing something into the computer and barely acknowledged him. “I need another hat,” he told her.

A hint of a smile lifted the side of Jo’s lips. Her eyes never left the monitor. “You’ll have to find one out there. The spares are all being used.”

Well, damn, wasn’t that convenient. “Of course they are.”

Jo chuckled as he ducked back into his office.

He made a couple of phone calls and reviewed the latest purchase order on the roofing supplies. The clock on the wall told him it was ten and still there wasn’t any sign of Katie. Maybe she’d changed her mind about the job.

He tapped his fingers along the side of the pink striped hat and gave in. He dialed the hotel and asked for Katie’s suite. He told himself he was checking up on her. As Jack had asked him to.

Just a friend.

“I need the family suite,” Dean said the moment the receptionist picked up the call. The staff knew when someone called asking about “the family suite” that the caller was a friend.

“I’m sorry, sir, but Miss Morrison isn’t in. Can I take a message for her?”

Not in? It was ten in the morning and she wasn’t at work. “When do you expect her?”

“I couldn’t be sure, sir.”

Something in the pit of his stomach soured.

“Sir?”

“I’ll call her cell phone.” He wouldn’t, but leaving a message wasn’t an option.

“Very good, sir. And thank you for calling The Morrison.”

He disconnected the call and started to dial Monica’s number. His finger hesitated over the seventh number and he hung up. Women had a way of talking, and it appeared to him that Monica and Katie had sparked a friendship. If he called Monica asking about Katie, and if Katie was keeping company with a man…

Dean squeezed his eyes shut and ignored the familiar burn in his stomach. The burn that fired up every damn time he’d seen Katie on the cover of a tabloid. There was always some muscled and tanned pretty boy on her arm and rumors about Katie’s love life.

She was a bee that wasn’t ready to make a hive and nest yet.

It shouldn’t bother him that she was probably out doing the same thing she always did, but he’d hoped that maybe she’d grown up a little. Taking the job with Jack felt like a step in that direction for Dean.

Perhaps he was wrong.

He pushed away from his desk, and the urge to call around town checking up on Katie, and left his office.

He passed groups of workers and suffered their snickers and remarks about his hat before he found his plumbing foreman. “Hey, Steve.”

Steve Bowman wore a blue-collared shirt with Bowman Plumbing written on the left breast pocket. The two of them had worked on several projects over the past couple of years and took the time to ride dirt bikes in the desert on occasion to blow off steam.

Steve stuck his hand out to shake Dean’s and glanced at his hat. “Nice hat, princess.”

“Zip it.”

“And give up the chance of razzing you? Not a chance. Looks like the boys have a sense of humor. Why the pink?”

Dean could mark Steve off as the pink painting culprit. Steve crossed his arms over his chest and chuckled.

“Someone’s idea of a joke.”

“It’s funny.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Maybe not from where you’re standing, but where I’m standing, it’s this side of hilarious. Pink brings out your eyes, cowboy.”

“Do I pay you to deliver shit, or get rid of it?”

Steve pounded him on the back with a good-natured swat and the two of them walked into what would be the main kitchen on the ground floor. “I consulted with the chef over at The Morrison like you suggested and he agreed we should have a second dishwashing station on the opposite end of the kitchens.”

The station was the size of a small house. Dean couldn’t imagine why they’d need two. “There’s already going to be two industrial washers in here. Why the overkill?”

“When one of the washers needs repair, the backup is there, but the repairman get in the way of the work. Makes mealtime impossible.”

Dean hadn’t thought of that. “Why not shrink the size of this station and add a twin to the other side?”

Steve shrugged. “We could. But with round-the-clock room service, you might reconsider that suggestion.”

Dean rubbed his chin. “Do we need to pull another permit?”

The two of them leaned over the blueprints and discussed the physical changes that would have to take place in the space to make the additional washers work.

The noise of the job site hummed all around them. Hammers slammed against wood, table saws buzzed with activity, and at least one radio blared music from a local rock station.

One by one, those background noises faded until Dean heard the click of something delicate, and persistent, approaching from behind him. He glanced over to see Steve smiling over his shoulder.