Life Rewired (Aspen Friends, Book 3) Read Online Free Page A

start wiring the house while the rest of them would get working on the roof. The crew listened intently, a few asked questions, but none of them gave her any grief. She’d told me she hired only the guys she’d liked working with on the crew she came from, but this was a little amazing. Ordinarily someone was grumbling by now.
    My group started drilling through the studs where we’d run the wire. It didn’t take long to figure out the cheap drill I’d bought to pick up extra work on the weekends wasn’t going to cut it on a real jobsite. Natalie swapped mine out with hers without a word or letting Cole see her do it. She was saving my ass everywhere now.
    After the mid-morning break, we were making good progress on the first floor. Vivian appeared in the doorway, giving Natalie a bright smile and nodding at Cole and me. No kiss for Natalie this time. I hid a grin as I watched them put on their professional faces.
    “Will you run through the electrical plans, Viv?” Natalie asked. “We’re picking up the supplies later.”
    Vivian walked through each room we’d worked on. They discussed adding more boxes to a few additional locations and asked me about codes and such. She was more than just a designer. She knew what she was doing architecturally, design wise, and on a construction site. I felt a twinge of envy that Natalie had found herself a real winner here.
    “Lunch!” someone yelled from outside.
    I checked my watch not able to believe the time had flown by so quickly. Days at the chicken packaging plant stretched out endlessly. Cole tore through the room we were in toward the front door. Guys started clanging down the ladders from the roof. Lunch must be a group thing, too.
    “Owen barbecues once a week,” Natalie explained, ushering us out the door to the work tent where he’d been slicing reclaimed wood into roofing and siding shingles all morning.
    The guys lined up at the grill where Owen was dishing out burgers and brats. It looked good if I still ate meat, but years of being forced to eat meat-like objects in prison turned me into a vegetarian. I started toward my stashed cooler, but Natalie grabbed my arm and shook her head.
    “Grilled cheese okay?” Owen called to me.
    All but the Sweeney brothers turned to look at me. My mouth dropped, not believing Natalie would remember the one time I mentioned now being a vegetarian. “Great, yeah, thank you, Owen.”
    He held out the plate with the grilled cheese sandwich to me. “I can make another if this isn’t enough?”
    “Oh, no, thank you. This will be plenty.” I felt a lump form in my throat. This little act of kindness piled on top of everything that Natalie had already done got to me. I didn’t normally get choked up unless I was backed into a corner that I didn’t have the power to get out of. It happened so often in prison and on parole. Getting choked up for a good reason was a new experience for me.
    Natalie’s hand squeezed my shoulder. I used to do this to her when we’d worked together. A way to make sure she knew that I had her back among some of the assholes we had to work with. Now she was doing it to me, and I felt the ton of bricks I’d been carrying on my shoulders throughout parole slip away.
    I found a bowl of pasta salad and a stack of grilled corn to add to my plate and took a seat next to Cole to enjoy a loud and happy lunch. They talked like they were a group of friends at a bar not just work colleagues. Cursory questions were tossed my way throughout. Natalie obviously hadn’t told them about my record. I felt bad about it for maybe a second. In fact, I felt more like the woman I was when I’d first known Natalie. The woman I’d liked before I became someone motivated by the wrong things.
    “Let’s go pick up those wiring supplies,” Natalie said to me as we finished lunch and everyone got back to work. “Head up to the roof, Cole. We’ll grab you when we get back,” she told him and let Owen know where we