“And Mom will be all over us about how we let things get out of hand. Yeah, I know. And I would’ve suggested it if you hadn’t. Except…” He cuffed the back of his neck, glowering at the screen. Or rather, the image of Roxie’s sad, mad green eyes. “Adding five percent to our price isn’t going to add it to his budget.”
“And sometimes,” Silas said quietly, “that’s not our problem.”
Silas was right, Noah knew he was, but…He walked around the desk to sink onto the old, dusty futon on the other side. “I did warn Roxie this might be a bigger project than she anticipated. But she’s going to be pretty disappointed.” A half laugh pushed through Noah’s nose. “Probably more than Charley, to tell the truth. And you know Dad, he’s liable to go over there himself and do it all for free if we’re not careful. And then we’re right back where we started. Having Mom mad at him. And us.”
“So basically we’re screwed.”
“Exactly.”
Silas leaned back again, taking a swig from a can of soda as he stared thoughtfully at the screen. “I suppose I could pitch in on the weekends, maybe. We could ask Jesse, too.” He grinned. “Make baby brother earn his keep for once.”
Noah chuckled. “Baby” brother, in charge of the business’s promotion and advertising, earned his keep fine. However, homeboy was also built like an ox and not incompetent with a power saw.
“That might work—”
“Get Roxie in on the action herself, too. Why not?” Silas said to Noah’s frozen expression. “No reason why she couldn’t do a lot of the demo, whatever doesn’t require a whole lot of expertise, save the crew for the stuff that matters.” He flicked his index finger at the screen. “With enough sweat equity you might squeeze by. Think she’ll go for that?”
Noah unlocked his face muscles enough to get out, “I have no idea.”
“Well, I’m in,” Silas said, oblivious to his brother’s paralysis. “And I’m sure we can strong-arm Jesse. Might want to leave Eli out of it, though. Sleep deprivation and power tools are not a good mix.”
His arms crossed, Noah grunted. “And you guys wonder why I’m perfectly happy leaving the kid raising to you.”
“Uh-huh. And I suppose Jewel had to twist your arm to build that tree house for my boys?”
“And miss an opportunity to watch your brain explode? No damn way.” And before Silas could pursue the topic, Noah stood, checking his watch. “I told Roxie I’d swing by with the estimate before lunch. You mind printing it out for me?”
“See that little printer icon right there?” Silas said, rising as well to slip on his denim jacket. “Click it and watch magic happen.”
“Jerk,” Noah muttered, plunking his butt behind the computer and hitting Print.
“By the way,” Silas said, as the ancient gray monstrosity on the dinged metal table beside the desk wheezed to life. “Jewel and I set a date. April fifth.”
This said with the slightly nauseating smirk of the head-over-heels. in love. Not that Noah didn’t like the eccentric little midwife who’d snagged his brother’s—and his two awesome little boys'—hearts. But that left Noah the last brother standing. Alone. Meaning his mother could, and undoubtedly would, now focus all her matchmaking energies on him, bless her heart. Not.
Waiting for the printer to cough up the estimates, Noah let out an exaggerated sigh. “So you’re actually going through with it?”
“You know,” Silas said after a moment’s silence, “maybe the idea of being ‘stuck’ with somebody for the rest of your life gives you the heebie-jeebies, but in case you haven’t noticed, not everybody sees it that way.”
“Sorry,” Noah mumbled, his face warming as he turned back to the printer. Silas’s first marriage had sunk like a stone, followed by his ex’s death in a car crash when the boys were still babies. For so long, and whether it was right or not, Silas had felt like a failure, Noah knew. So why was he taking potshots at his brother’s well-deserved happiness?
Fortunately single fatherhood had turned Silas—who God knew had taken inordinate pleasure in torturing his younger brothers when they were kids—into a model of forbearance.
“Oh, you’ll get yours someday,” he said, cuffing Noah lightly on the back of his skull before heading out the door.
When hell freezes over, he thought as he yanked on his own jacket and scooped up the estimate, then hotfooted it out of there before his father had a chance to check the new figures.
Or before Noah could think too hard about what he was about to ask of Roxie Ducharme.
For three days, between temping as a receptionist for the town’s only family practitioner, continuing to pound the virtual pavement looking for a “real” job and the unending task of sorting through her aunt’s things, Roxie had kept herself so busy she’d begun to think she’d imagined the close-to-knee-buckling jolt at the end of Noah’s visit earlier in the week.
Except now he was here, his forehead creased as he gently explained to her uncle why his budget was too small by half, and there was the jolt again, stronger this time, undeniable, and she found herself nearly overcome with a sudden urge to bop the man upside the head with the kitchen towel in her hand.
Or herself.
“Well. That’s that, girl,” Charley said, sounding almost…disappointed. Weird. “Can’t afford to do all this. So let’s go with the new windows and let the rest of it ride—”
“Hold on, I’m not finished,” Noah said, and Roxie’s eyes flashed to his. Right there in front of her, not quite the same brown, but definitely the same kindness. The same…genuineness. That it had taken her so long to see the resemblance only proved how prejudiced she’d been. How much she’d been determined to see only what she’d wanted to see.
Her breath hitching painfully in her chest, she propelled herself out of the chair and over to the fridge to pull out stuff for lunch. Cheese. Ham. Lettuce. Leftover spaghetti sauce. Cottage cheese.
“Roxie?” she heard over the roaring inside her head. “You listening?”
Sucking in a breath, Roxie shoved the streak of wetness off her cheek and turned. Both men were frowning at her.
“I’m—” She cleared her throat. Sniffed. “Sorry.”
“You okay?” Noah asked, simply being nice again, and more memories surged to the surface, memories she’d assumed the spectacular implosion with Jeff had wiped out for good.
Silly her.
“Yes, fine,” she said, snatching the three-page estimate off the table and leafing through it. Forcing herself to focus. Holy moly. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “If I’d realized…” Letting the papers flutter back onto the kitchen table, she crossed her arms against the sick, you-screwed-up-again feeling roiling in the pit of her stomach. It wasn’t as if Noah hadn’t warned her, warned both of them, how costly the project might be. But this was…
Wow.
Roxie never begged or bargained or haggled. Ever. So even though embarrassment seared her cheeks, she said, “I d-don’t suppose there’s any way to, um, bring down the prices…?”
“Not without jeopardizing our payroll,” Noah said, his eyes even more apologetic than his voice. “But—”
“Then…I guess we’ll have to stick with the windows. And maybe the front porch—?”
He chuckled. “You weren’t listening, were you?”
“Um…I thought I was—”
Charley slapped the table in front of him, making both the sugar bowl and Roxie