Hammered Read Online Free Page B

it was his turn to laugh. “I don’t know what this has to
do with getting the job, but okay, I’ll play. My folks made it real easy for us
to live at home while we were building the business. It didn’t matter where we
lived, anyway, because we spent so much time either in that first office we
rented or on the jobs. Sometimes we just slept on one of the cots we kept in
the office.”
    “You’ve come a long way,” she pointed out.
    He chased a bite of muffin with his coffee. “Yep. And we did
everything by the book. That’s something our folks always taught us. Don’t cut
corners. Always keep your word. Those things are very important to us, no
matter how many projects we work on or how big they are. It may sound corny but
our word is our bond.”
    Olivia felt something turn over inside her. Alex McMann was
a well-respected businessman. He and his brothers had built an extraordinary
company. Yet they hadn’t lost any of the sincerity they’d brought to the
business in the beginning. Livy had a bullshit meter that dinged when anyone
was snowing her. There was no snow—or bullshit—around this guy.
    She felt something else, something she hadn’t expected.
Envy, for him and his brothers and their family. Deliberately she forced it
away. She couldn’t let herself be distracted by wishing for something unreal.
    “I’d offer to drive you home,” Alex said. They’d finished
their coffee and muffin and Livy was disposing of their trash. “Only I don’t
happen to have a car handy.”
    “No problem. It’s a nice walk.” She held out her hand. “Nice
running into you. Thanks for the coffee and muffin.”
    He laughed. “My pleasure. Thanks for the third degree.”
    Heat crept up her face and Livy knew she was blushing. “Was
I that transparent? I must be losing my touch.”
    “Not at all. It’s just a technique my brothers and I use
ourselves to make sure our client is solid. It isn’t just the money that
attracts us to a job.”
    He was still holding her hand. The contact sent tingles up
her spine and skittering over her skin. Oh, not good. Remember the rules.
    “I’ll be sure to tell that to Frank. He’ll be impressed.”
    She started to pull her hand back but he curled his fingers
around it. “Since I can’t drive you home, how about if I take you to dinner
tonight.”
    She frowned. “Dinner?”
    “Nothing fancy. Just casual.” He studied her. “Or is that
against the rules?”
    “Against the rules?” She felt like an idiot.
    “This can be a business dinner.” He winked at her. “You can
finish questioning me.”
    Her head kept shouting No! but her body was screaming Yes! “Uh, sure. Okay. I mean, thanks. That would be nice.” Why was she
stammering like an idiot? “What time?”
    “Seven o’clock.”
    She borrowed a pen from the barista and wrote her address
and cell number on a paper napkin. “See you then.”
    She hurried out the door ahead of him, waved and jogged off,
wondering if she was about to make a huge, huge mistake.
    * * * * *
    ”I think she wants to know everything including whether I
wear boxers or briefs,” Alex said to his brother.
    Tyler had stopped by on his way home from a job site and
caught Alex just after he’d come back from his jog. The two of them were
relaxing on Alex’s rear deck with ice cold beers.
    “She sounds like a barracuda,” Tyler commented, taking a
long pull of the icy liquid. “At least that’s the word on the street.”
    “Oh?” Alex lifted an eyebrow. “I didn’t think her streets
and yours intersected.”
    Tyler clapped a hand dramatically over his heart. “You wound
me, my man. Just because I look like I live in a dirt pile doesn’t mean I don’t
get gossip from polite company.”
    Alex chuckled. Tyler was the supervisor on all their jobs
and dressed accordingly. Women who saw him in his grubbies were shocked when
they saw him in his hand-tailored Italian suits.
    “So what do you hear?”
    Tyler took a long pull on his beer.