Finding Refuge Read Online Free

and he’d find
it.
    He had to. The price of failure was way too damned high. He
could barely live with himself after losing one brother. To lose the second?
No. Never, ever going to happen, no matter what.
    Travis grimaced. He should have taken the business trip to
Colorado when Dad gave him the option. It would have saved him from so much.
Danny. Mr. Jasper pestering him about the house.
    A crystal-clear memory of catching Rachel’s friend,
Andromeda, slammed into his thoughts. He shook it off, unwilling to give
thoughts of her devastating smile and equally impressive curves any more time.
Bad enough that she’d invaded his dreams.
    He forced his brain back to the Danny issue. It might have
done Dad some good to retrieve Danny from the hole of an apartment where his
skanky girlfriend lived. Maybe it would open his eyes. Confronted with Danny’s
substance abuse that blatantly, how could Dad continue to avoid the subject?
    That’s exactly what he’d do, send his father next time. As
much as he hated to think it, there would be a next time.
    Travis blew out a long breath. He’d feel better after he
pounded some nails. Nothing could reach him when he worked. Not paperwork. Not
Danny. Not pretty women with mythical names who he’d never see again.
    ****
    Andri stood by the Garrett Electrical van, adjusting the
thick coil of insulated copper wire on her shoulder. She breathed deep, letting
out a contented sigh as she turned her face toward the sun. It was much warmer
today, though the air was still cooler here than in Arizona.
    For the last couple of days, she’d gone to work with Rachel,
playing gofer, and she found herself appreciating the routine, so different
from her usual one. In Phoenix, she’d grab a piece of toast on her way out the
door in the morning, then put in ten hours or more at work, dealing with
network installations, systems malfunctions and end-user meltdowns, followed by
on-call emergencies once she got home. She’d squeezed in time here and there to
attend business functions with Pete and managed to catch an uninterrupted movie
once in a while.
    Rachel’s more relaxed life had already forced her to slow
down, to remember how to breathe. The difference in her tension level amazed
her. She was sleeping far more than usual, working on eliminating the severe
sleep deficit she’d accumulated over the last few years. She even tried out
Rach’s unhurried breakfast routine this morning, enjoying the eggs and
hashbrowns she’d cooked up.
    Andri looked around at the condominiums under construction
around her. A few units closer to the road, near the Silver
Meadows by Holt Construction sign, were completed and up for sale. Rachel
had parked in front of a framed building of four joined units. “So what’s the
plan today?” she asked as Rachel handed her a staple gun.
    “Rough electrical. Lots of drilling, setting boxes, running
wire.” Rachel filled the pocket of her toolbelt with nails, then grabbed
another coil of wire, a drill, and a bucket of outlet and switch boxes. “You
can staple the wire unless you’d rather relax and read. Totally up to you.”
    Andri lifted the staple gun in a salute. “I can handle
stapling. Lead the way.”
    She followed Rachel up the makeshift front steps of the
first condo unit, pausing when she heard the rumble of a pickup truck pulling
in by the framed building south of where she stood. She turned and a delicious
shiver coursed down her spine when she saw Travis Holt climb out of the big
black truck. Shoot, what was he doing here? Didn’t Rachel say he was running
the construction company with his father? Yet there he was, buckling a tool
belt around his narrow hips. Wait, he was here to work, hands-on?
    She wanted to walk up the steps and into the condo before he
glanced her way, but her feet were glued to the wood beneath them. And then she
no longer wanted to move. Travis stripped off his shirt in one graceful,
mouth-watering motion. A tingle started low in her