himself to his feet. “Goodnight,” he muttered as he pivoted in the direction of the door and walked out of the room.
Chapter Three
Prickle pants.
Jane was still brooding over that one the next morning when she heard Cole coming down the stairs. She was baking a couple of batches of chocolate chip cookies—Finn’s favorites—while he was upstairs misting Carl’s cage. She braced herself for Cole’s appearance. Given the untouched state of the fridge this morning, she was fairly sure he hadn’t eaten anything last night.
His footsteps didn’t come closer, though. In fact, they got farther away, and, within moments, she heard the front door open and then close. Where he was off to, she had no idea, but he was a grown-ass man and not, as she kept insisting, her problem.
She was too defensive; she knew that. Force of habit. She was just so sick of men making assumptions about her job and her capabilities. Not something she got from a lot of women. Some did judge her, but for her occupational choice, not her competence. They couldn’t understand what she saw in this kind of manual labor and getting her hands dirty.
But they didn’t doubt she was capable. Unlike so many men.
Sure, men who knew her, who worked with or for her, knew better than to doubt or question her experience. But too often Jane felt like she was resetting the clock every time another patronizing male made terrible gender-based assumptions. So, it was easier to be on the defensive from the get-go. To keep her shields up and put her expectations out there. To mark her territory by figuratively pissing on everything at a jobsite.
If it was good enough for men, then why not her?
That didn’t make her popular with a lot of knuckle draggers in the industry. She knew they called her The Shrew behind her back, which was fine. It was better than bitch, and she didn’t have time to make friends, anyway. She was building a business, and a damn good one at that.
Why she hadn’t tooted her own horn when Cole had inquired about the demand for her services, she didn’t know. The company was growing rapidly in their home state of California, with a stellar reputation for quality work. From just herself five years ago, she now employed over seventy core people, and sometimes more, depending on the employment demands and location of each project.
The growth had far outstripped expectations, the company exceeding profit forecasts year on year. And after this magazine article? That level of national attention was the kind of advertising money just couldn’t buy.
Yup—a man sure as hell would have bragged long and loud about this level of success, and she needed to work on that. Work on being unapologetically forthright about the accomplishments of her business. She bet Cole was unapologetic about his rugby success. She bet he’d never had a hard time bragging about being at the top of his game.
Although obviously that wasn’t the case now. Since the accident.
Yeah…she’d googled him. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t. CC had told her he was an old football buddy of Wade’s who’d been injured and was here on some R&R. And Cole himself had told Finn there’d been a car accident. She had all the information she needed. Hell, way more information than she needed. But, last night, after she’d finally put down her tools at almost midnight, she’d given in to temptation.
It seemed Cole was a big deal in Australia. And his career-ending accident had made news headlines. The fact that he’d recently signed a contract with a new club—the Sydney Smoke—worth several million dollars made the accident an even bigger tragedy. The Smoke still had him in their starting lineup, which seemed to be causing endless speculation. Some commentators said it was because Griff King, the coach, never gave up on a man. Some said it was out of respect for his exemplary career success.
But, from what she could gather from so-called experts—the medical, sporting, and armchair variety—Cole Hauser was never playing football again.
And that made her sad for him.
Jane was a naturally empathetic person. Sure, she kept up a good facade of indifference, because god forbid she burst into tears on a jobsite full of men. But…she couldn’t imagine how it’d feel to have to give up her job.
The timer on the oven dinged, startling her, and she realized she was thinking about him again. Why was she thinking about him again? In less than thirty-six hours, he’d