her expressive brown eyes widened, he grinned. “I understand more than you think.”
“If you need this job as badly as you claim, then I doubt you have the means to pay for a lawyer.”
“There are plenty of free legal clinics in the city.”
“You’re bluffing, Mr. Smith.”
Lowering his voice, he asked, “Are you willing to put your job on the line to find out, Ms. Alvarado?”
She settled her hand over the hammer dangling from her tool belt. He suspected she’d like to pound his head with it. The boss lady was one-hundred-percent miffed female.
“How about a second chance?” He pressed his lips together to keep from chuckling at the dark flush stealing across her cheekbones.
“On one condition.”
Conditions, again? His grandfather. Now her. “What?”
“Finish installing the wallboard in the living room and entryway by the end of the day.”
“Or else…?”
“Or else you’re unemployed.”
Chapter Two
Jennifer strolled past the corner of the house, then collapsed on a stack of roofing shingles. She breathed deeply, hoping to settle her rising frustration—if she could call the jittery feeling in her stomach frustration.
The new crew member, Mr. Smith, hadn’t fooled her. A construction worker…yeah, right. And she was a runway model. If his brand-new jeans, sparkling-clean work boots and the absence of a tool belt and hard hat hadn’t given him away, his hands would have. Clean, well-manicured nails and slight calluses—the kind a person gets from working out at the gym. The guy was a fraud. A heck of a handsome one, but a fraud nonetheless.
Barrio Amigo usually employed only local Latino men. Why would her boss send her someone who—she’d bet her best Bosch drill on this—had never even driven through Santa Angelita before today? And why hadn’t Louisa, Barrio Amigo’s secretary, notified her that the new replacement would be starting this morning?
She’d been hoping for a man with more experience, one who could do the work of two men each day. Due to the unusually rainy weather, the crew had fallen two weeks behind schedule on Mrs. Benitos’s home. Jennifer had promised the older woman she could move in by the end of May and today was April first.
April Fool’s Day. She smacked her open palm against her forehead. Louisa had sent Aaron Smith as an April Fool’s Day joke. I wish. Louisa was too flighty and self-absorbed to carry out such a scheme.
“Who’s the new anglo?” Juan, Jennifer’s second-in-command, shimmied down the ladder propped against the back of the house. He spoke fairly good English—when he wished to—and supervised the crew if she had to leave the site.
“His name is Aaron Smith. Ricardo’s replacement.” Ricardo had slipped a disc in his lower back a week ago and had gone out on medical leave.
“Doesn’t look like a construction worker.”
“I doubt he’ll last the day.” She peered around the corner just in time to witness the new employee stagger under a thirty-five-pound sheet of wall-board. Returning her attention to Juan, she asked, “Will you keep an eye on this guy while I run to the office?”
“Sí.” Juan climbed back up the ladder and disappeared from sight.
Five minutes later, Jennifer hopped in her truck and headed to the nonprofit organization’s headquarters. Traffic north on Wilshire Boulevard had slowed to a crawl, but at least vehicles were moving. She should have waited until Louisa entered the office at noon to hear the scoop on Aaron Smith, but Jennifer wanted to know more about the new guy ASAP.
The headquarters for Barrio Amigo sat in a strip mall that had seen better days. A Closed sign hung in the window, so Jennifer let herself in with her own key and went straight to the metal filing cabinet against the far wall. She skimmed the employee records but found none marked with Aaron’s name. Next she rifled through the secretary’s In basket but again, nothing. Did Aaron Smith even exist? She scribbled a note, asking Louisa to call her cell phone later, then locked the door and left. By the time she’d returned to the site, the crew was breaking for lunch.
“Don’t go in there,” Juan warned, blocking the front door of the house.
Her stomach clenched. “I thought you were keeping an eye on him.”
“One of the trusses had to be adjusted. I just now got off the roof to check on his progress.” He shook his head in disgust and mumbled something about having to repair the damage the anglo had caused.
When Jennifer entered the house, whistling sounds greeted her ears. From the snappy tune to the jig in his step, Aaron appeared to be enjoying himself. No wonder—he’d gone loco!
“Hey, boss.” He flashed a charming grin.
She scowled.
“I’m making good progress.”
Inching closer to one wall, she examined his work and shuddered. He’d used the wrong nails, and most of them had been pounded into the wallboard at odd angles. She turned slowly in a circle and surveyed the entire area, unable to prevent her mouth from dropping open.
“What’s wrong?” He joined her and together they twirled like a couple of toy tops.
“Where are the outlets? The heater vents? The air-intake vents?”
“Outlets and vents?”
“Those things you plug lamps and TVs into? The places hot air and cool air enter the room.”
He scratched his head. “Shoot. I must have covered them up.”
Unsure whether to laugh or cry at his perplexed frown, she pressed her palms to her forehead, hoping to ease the thump, thump building in intensity. “You’ll have to remove all the wallboard, cut out the electrical and vents, then nail them back in place. I doubt you’ll get that far by the end of the day, but if you do, find me.” She tapped her finger against a bent nail head. “You’re using the wrong-sized nails and they have to be pounded in straight.”
She snatched the hammer from his hand, then grabbed a nail from the pouch on her tool belt. “Do it—” with one blow, the nail went straight into the board “—like that.”
“Impressive.”
The compliment startled her. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d awed a man. Oh, heck. She didn’t care what Smith thought of her. As long as he respected her authority—Then why did those clear blue eyes make her yearn to do something else to catch his attention?
Although she suspected the new employee had never worked construction until today, he intrigued her. But no good could come out of becoming better acquainted with Aaron Smith. Where men were concerned, especially anglo men, she no longer trusted her instincts. An anglo had burned her once and left her family devastated.
Troubled
