The Construction of Cheer - Liz Isaacson Page 0,33

her, realizing this place had plenty of space, just like the homestead. If she thought Bishop was handsome and adorable and sexy without his truck, all of those were amplified with him behind the wheel.

He grinned at her as he pulled in, and she smiled right on back. The man had asked her out to dinner for tomorrow night, and she hadn’t answered him yet. Could she bring it up this afternoon? She wasn’t particularly skilled when it came to men, that was for sure.

She knew she possessed a look a lot of men liked—the blonde haired, blue-eyed look. Most didn’t mind her muscles or the extra twenty pounds she carried because of that look. In the end, though, there was always something about her that drove the men away.

Or rather, there was something more alluring about someone else.

“Hey,” Bishop said. “You found it.”

“I sure did,” she said. “It’s a whole house on the side of a hill. Wasn’t hard to find.” She grinned at him, glad when he chuckled. He stepped to her side as she turned to look at the house. Three-car garage. Wide front porch that touched the garage and wrapped around the front corner of the house.

“How many bedrooms?” she asked.

“Six,” he said.

“Who lives here?”

“Three of my brothers,” he said. “Mister, Judge, and Preacher.”

“Y’all have interesting names,” she said.

“That we do,” he said. “None of them are real.” He reached up and pushed his hat further down. “I’ll have to tell you about mine sometime.” With that, he turned toward the two guys who’d gotten out of the extermination truck.

None of them are real? Montana wanted him to turn back around and tell her about his right now. If Bishop wasn’t his real name, what was it? And why did he go by Bishop?

Intrigued, she followed him and shook hands with Ralph—clearly the one in charge—and Peyton, who looked to be no older than Aurora.

“Let’s see what you’ve got,” Ralph said.

“It’s on the roof,” Bishop said. “Or you might be able to see things from inside. I don’t know what you’re looking for.”

“You sounded sure it was termites,” Ralph said.

“Well, there’s significant damage to the roof,” Bishop said, leading the way along the side of the garage toward the back of the house. “I’m not sure what else it would be.”

“Peyton,” Ralph said, and Montana turned back to the pair of them. Ralph was looking at the ground, and Peyton bent down to examine something almost against the cement foundation of the house.

“Mud tubes,” he said, looking up at the older gentleman. Peyton straightened, his eyes serious and his mouth straight. He turned toward Bishop. “Sir, you have termites.”

“On the ground?” Bishop crouched down to look at the mud tubes.

“It’s a sign,” Ralph said. “That’s how they get from their nest to your house. They’re subterranean termites.” He looked out toward the stand of trees several feet away. “Their nest’ll be out here somewhere. Beneath the earth. They travel back and forth.”

“And they’ve eaten all the way to the roof?” The level of horror in Bishop’s voice wasn’t lost on Montana. She wished she could step to his side and take his hand in hers. Perhaps a little bit of comfort would go a long way.

“Let’s go see,” Ralph said.

Bishop squared his shoulders and his jaw, nodded, and continued to the ladder on the back deck. He went up first, and Montana gestured for Ralph and Peyton to go in front of her. She arrived last to find the roof had been stripped of its shingles. A lot of the wood looked fine to her, but there were some definite patches that needed to be repaired.

Bishop and the others stood around a particularly bad wound in the roof, and Ralph crouched down and ran his fingers along one of the beams. Montana could see all the way into the attic, and it sure did seem full of dust and sawdust, all of it covering the insulation there.

“You have drywood termites too,” he said, looking up at Bishop.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Bishop said.

Ralph stood and showed him the sandy stuff on his fingers. “This is called frass. It’s their excrement.”

“It looks like sawdust,” Peyton said. “This type of termite lives in a nest inside your house.”

Bishop took a deep breath, and Montana’s heart pinched at the unrest pouring off of him. “So you’re saying we have subterranean termites that live in nest beneath the ground and travel into the house. And we have drywood