The idea went against everything in him, against his every belief. Then he looked at the eager faces of the women around him, saw the questions and doubts in their eyes.
“Sure. No problem.” Before anyone could call him on that, he lifted his beer. “First, a refill and then I’ll give her a call.”
Turning on the heel of his boot, he did something he’d never thought possible. He ran.
And wondered, where the hell he was going to find a fake girlfriend?
* * *
“CATARINA MARGARITE.”
Middle-naming her?
Chin sinking until her shoulders damn near cupped her ears, Cat Peres winced. Crouched down on the side of her mother’s house next to the crawl space access, she slid her eyes to the left then the right.
Nobody in sight.
Slowly, as if the slightest shift of her hair would alert the world, she turned her head to the east then the west.
Nobody there, either.
Thank God.
Cat was a strong woman. A brave woman.
She’d spent one windy winter working the high beam. She had a black belt in karate. And she made her living intimidating big, burly men sporting power tools.
But the sound of her middle name ringing out from her childhood home? It sent a cold chill down her spine.
She wasn’t ashamed of that.
She might be strong and brave, but her mother was a scary woman.
Unwilling to risk a repeat, she shot to her feet. Hammer still in hand, she sprinted up the cement steps and yanked open the screen door. Even as she made a mental note to oil the hinges, she dashed across the kitchen, her sneakers sliding on the wet tiles. Arms pin-wheeling, she struggled to keep her balance.
“Holy crap.”
“Catarina,” her mother snapped. “Watch your mouth.”
“Right. Sorry.” Pulling a face, Cat stopped in the doorway between the tiled kitchen and carpeted living room to take off her slick shoes. “I didn’t realize you’d mopped.”
“It’s Thursday.”
Thursday? Already? Cat grabbed the cell phone out of the back pocket of her jeans and pressed her thumb to the home button. Freakin’-A. It really was Thursday.
Laundry was done on Monday, dusting on Tuesday, bathrooms Wednesday and floors Thursday. Cat knew the other days got their own chores, too, but she’d managed to block those out. Another few years living on her own and maybe she’d forget the rest, too.
Sliding her thumb over the screen, she started to pull up her schedule as she moved into the living room.
“Clean your tracks,” her mother instructed as soon as her foot hit the carpet. Cat sighed and, still reading her phone, did an about-face toward the broom closet.
“You can’t do a proper job with that phone clutched in your fist,” her mother called out, proving once again that her X-ray vision could see through walls.
Rolling her eyes, Cat slipped the phone into her pocket and got to work removing evidence of her slide across the floor. As she mopped, she went over the schedule, trying to figure out how she could be in San Diego and El Cajon at the same time. She was overseeing four jobs next week, two small enough that she could set up the crew and go, but as lead carpenter on one and job supervisor on the other, her presence was sort of vital. She wished Marco would get his act together and schedule these jobs right. She had no problem calling the San Diego couple and rescheduling, but then she’d have to listen to another one of Marco’s fanatical customer relation lectures.
Debating, she tucked the mop away.
“Hey, Mom? Is tonight Aunt Ceecee’s book club or is it next week?”
“You got problems with Marco again?” Lucia Perez tut-tutted as she arranged silk roses into a crystal vase. A mirror image of her youngest daughter, her hair was black where Cat’s was caught somewhere between brown and blond, her eyes brown while Cat’s were sky blue. And while all of Cat’s sisters had inherited their mother’s petitely lush curves, Cat was long, leggy and on the skinny side of slender. And much to Lucia’s dismay, Cat’s only nod to femininity was the long hair she kept pulled into a tail.
“No problems,” Cat said, denying her mom’s accusation. “I just needed to check something.”
“If Marco is going to put you in charge of all that work, he should let you be in charge. Selfish man. He’s just a figurehead. Like your papa, you do all of the work, take all of the responsibility. He takes all of the glory and the money.”
Cat loved her job as a contractor and once she’d gotten past the heartache of losing him, she’d loved following her father’s footsteps at Peres Construction. Sure, it’d be nice if she’d been able to step into her dad’s position, but she understood the necessity of proving herself—of working her way up the ladder—until she could take her dad’s place as Marco’s partner. It was bound to happen soon, too, with her uncle making noises about retiring.
She was close. So close.
But Cat was a smart woman.
Smart enough to know that close didn’t matter to her mother.
“That’s a pretty arrangement,” Cat complimented, also smart enough to change the subject. “Are you doing a flower show this weekend?”
“Leda and I are going to Vegas this weekend,” her mother said with a worrisome look in her eyes. “You should come with us. You could drive.”
Ah, there it was. Motherly pity. If she’d stopped at fixing the leaky kitchen faucet and replacing the furnace filters instead of reframing the crawl space vent, she might have actually escaped, pity unspoken.
Oh, the pity would still be there. Just not there, out loud. After all, Cat was single, childless, with nary a date on the horizon to fix that.
“Mom, I’m not tagging along with you and Mrs. Powell.” Before her mother could say anything, Cat held up one hand. “First off, you both like fighting over who drives too much for me to take that away from you. Second, I don’t gamble and don’t want to see a show. Third, I have to work this weekend.”
“Work?” Lucia pursed her lips, too ladylike to spit out the pshaw Cat knew was on her mind. “You know, if you were your own boss instead of working for that tyrant Marco, you’d be able to take time off. You’re a smart girl, a hard worker. Why haven’t you gone out on your own yet?”
That was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it?
Oh, she could run her own company. And she’d be good at it. She was an excellent carpenter, a fair plumber and a decent electrician. She knew how to get respect from the crew, how to handle costing out jobs and what to send the accountant.
She’d learned all that at her father’s knee. She’d idolized him, admired him and wanted nothing more than to be like him. When her sisters were learning to flirt and wear makeup, she’d been learning the ins and outs of construction.
But she didn’t want her own business.
She wanted the family business.
Knowing her mother wouldn’t like that answer, she simply shrugged.
“Business is good,” was all she said. And it was. Real estate had bounced back over the past couple of years, but it still wasn’t near the peak it’d been during the bubble. Most people weren’t buying new, they were adding on, refurbishing or remodeling.
“You should be dating eligible men on weekends, not working. If you don’t date, how are you going to find your soul mate, Catarina? You waste your life swinging a hammer instead of dating, you’ll find yourself old and shriveled, alone in your