Ready For It (MacAteer Brothers #2) - M.L. Nystrom Page 0,4

stuff around pools. A couple gazebos and pergolas. I’m getting a lot of calls about them and I need an extra pair of hands for a few weeks. You want to summer here and do something different for a while? The kids would love to see their uncle.

Owen debated for a few minutes as he read the text. Garrett had mentioned the new job was more of the same as this one. More framing for a large housing development. Cookie cutter work. He always got paid well, but the unchallenging work had lost any appeal to him, not to mention the stress of working with his father. Connor’s projects would be a nice change of pace, and he wasn’t under any contractual obligation.

Owen: Do I get to design or just build?

Connor: I’m getting calls for both. Pick what you want as long as the jobs get done on time.

Owen: I’ll help out at least a week or two. You got a place to park my camper?

Connor: I think it will fit in the backyard once I clear the brush on the side of the woodshop. Bev won’t care. She leaves all the yard work up to me. No trouble though for you to sleep in the house. We have the room.

Owen: Depends on how long I stay. Only a week, I’ll take the room. More than one, I’ll hook up to the house. Fair?

Connor: Great. You’ll be saving me a lot of overtime. Seriously, think about sticking around for a while. I need extra help I can count on.

Owen swiped the screen closed and slipped the slim phone in his back pocket. Four more days, then I’m building something special. It would be nice to take a break and enjoy his nieces and nephews. Each one had a unique personality, and he loved watching them grow up. There was another person in Asheville he wouldn’t mind seeing, but that dream had long since faded.

“Hey, Owen! You gonna stand around with your thumb up your ass? Get to work!”

Owen started the air compressor, and the loud chugging drowned out the foreman’s voice. He rarely indulged himself in anger, as he didn’t see a point in it. Especially since in four days he would be in Asheville eating steaks with his family and starting something new. He kept his mouth shut, loaded the nail gun, and resumed work.

Chapter Three

I sat in my car outside Beverly’s remodeled home, inhaling huge breaths through my nose and exhaling slowly through my mouth. After I had my panic attack on Monday afternoon, I drove straight to the closest CVS for a pregnancy test. It took me about four point zero seconds to step back out of the store and drive home empty-handed. What was I thinking? The clerk was a former student of mine, and I avoided buying tampons and condoms when he was working. A pregnancy test? No way. I ended up going back home and ordering two from Amazon. The box arrived yesterday, and I took the test this morning.

The red plus sign had mocked me from the plastic wand, and I took the second one just to make sure the first one wasn’t defective. Fuck! This is real.

Beverly’s house had been two side-by-side duplexes, with her and her kids crammed into one side and Connor in the other. When they married, Connor redesigned both sides into one house with six bedrooms, a large open kitchen and den area, a game room, and a deck in the back. It was still a crowded house with four kids and two adults, but they made it work.

My hands tightened on the padded steering wheel. It had to be close to dinnertime before I made myself loosen my grip and exit my vehicle. I had told no one yet about my condition, still coming to grips with it myself. I wasn’t ready to share, but I needed advice. Scratch that. I needed help.

“Hey, Auntie M!” Mattie, Beverly’s youngest son, answered the door. The blue ring around his seven-year-old mouth told me he had been in the ice pops. “Watch this!” He ran through the den in his socked feet and surfed over the smooth linoleum floor. I’d seen him pull this move before, usually with a crash into a cabinet or the fridge.

“Mattie-boo, you’ll make a fine surfer dude someday.”

“Coolio! Mom’s out back with Connor. Uncle Owen is coming tonight.”

Fuck, why me? I hadn’t seen Owen since last year, when he, his twin, Garrett, and their sister,