Laying a Foundation: Bonus volume: Includes series prequel, The Groundbreaking (The Love Under Construction Series) (37 page)

Nikki leaned in and kissed him lightly. “Hang in there with you? Babe, I’m not going anywhere. I’m yours. Just promise me you won’t forget me.”

“Not a chance!” He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to him. “There’s no way that could happen.”

She broke away from him suddenly and looked at him, her eyebrows almost disappearing into her hairline as his words sank in. “Wait – your whole family? Fourth of July? Is that what you just said?” She hoped she didn’t look as terrified as she felt.

“Yeah. Since my mother wasn’t born in this country, that’s the holiday that’s always been most special to her. She makes a big deal out of it, and she expects everybody, and I mean everybody, to be there. We all get together at the big house and have a huge dinner. About the only ones who don’t make it are some of my nieces and nephews, but all of my brothers and their wives will be there, along with Mamma. And Vic comes too – as far as I’m concerned, he’s as much or more my brother than my actual brothers.”

“So, am I . . .” she started to say, then got embarrassed – she never asked to be included in anything, always waiting to be asked.

“Invited?” he finished her question. “You’re not invited – you’re the hostess.” He smiled. “You’re my baby!”

“Uh-huh. Your baby. So who fixes all of this food? Your baby?” She was afraid of the answer.

Tony threw his head back, laughing. “God no! Everybody helps. Mamma, Annabeth and Katie, Clayton and Brittany, I barbecue and grill, Bart and Freddie’s wives fix food, Helene helps. Everybody pitches in. It’s a lot of fun – you’ll see. I look forward to it every year.”

“That’s something to look forward to – I really want to meet all of them,” she told him, visibly relaxing.

He patted her knee. “They all want to meet you too. And I want to show you off!”

Changing gears, Nikki asked, “So where do we go from here?”

“We just get up in the morning and start again.” He kissed her forehead. “The next month will be tough, but we’ll make it. So tonight, let’s get a good night’s sleep and I’ll see you tomorrow. Call you later, tell you goodnight. Going to pick up the dogs?”

“Naw, Annabeth said they were having a ball, so I told her I’d pick them up after the gym tomorrow.”

“Sounds good. So let’s get you settled in.”

After they’d said goodnight and Tony had driven away, Nikki looked around the quiet house – too quiet. It seemed so empty with no Tony, not even the dogs. She puttered around for a little while, putting away this, straightening that, until she ran out of reasons to stay up. As soon as she got settled into the bed with her latest read, the phone sounded off – Tony’s ringtone. She picked it up and hit ANSWER.

“Hey, baby, I love you!” she sing-songed into the phone before he had a chance to say anything.

“Hey, baby, I love you too! Would you do me a favor?”

“Yeah, sure! What?”

“Could you please go to the door and let me in?”

Nikki dropped the phone and jetted to the front door. And there he stood on the porch, his gym bag over his shoulder.

“Sorry. I couldn’t stand being away from you. Can I come in?” He shrugged his shoulders, a shy smile on his face.

“Get on in here.” She pointed into the house and swatted his backside as he walked past her, then closed the door behind them.

“I’ve got to get you a key,” Nikki announced, lying back and gasping for breath. Tony had wrung three crazy orgasms out of her in less than thirty minutes, one with his tongue, the other two with his cock. The guy was insatiable, but so was she, so she wasn’t about to complain.

“Yeah, I need to get you one to my place too.” He reached over and tweaked her nipple. Shrieking, she tweaked his and laughed when she saw his cock jump. “And I need to show you where the key cabinet is. You need to know where everything is.”

He held her face in his hands and she turned one hand over, kissing his palm softly. “You’re an amazing lover, Tony Walters. I can’t get enough of you.”

“You’re pretty amazing yourself. I’ll be glad when June is over and we can move forward.,” Tony snuggled into Nikki. “Morning’s coming pretty quick. Nite-nite, princess.” He kissed her on the forehead and she sighed as she tucked her head under his chin and drifted off.

“Dad, I need you over at the medical plaza project.” Clayton sounded pretty irritated. Tony had only been in the office for about thirty minutes that morning, and already something was going wrong – he could just feel it.

“What’s up, bud?”

“None of the equipment over here will run. Not one piece of earth-moving equipment, not a truck, nothing. If one wouldn’t start, I wouldn’t think anything of it. But everything? Something’s not right. What do I do?” Tony could hear the frustration in Clayton’s voice, and his heart sank.

“Call Richard, get a crew over there. Maybe he can figure it out.” Richard was Tony’s mechanic, and he was a whiz-bang at diagnosis. Then something from years back rolled through Tony’s mind. “Did you by any chance find a gas cap lying around anywhere?”

“Funny you should ask. Yeah, I did, near one of the end loaders. Why?”

“Sugar in the fuel tanks – oldest trick in the book.” Tony reached for his coffee cup and took a swig before standing. “Takes five minutes, ruins everything, sometimes permanently. And if it’s not sugar, it’s sand; just as damaging. I’ll be there in a few minutes, Clayton. You can handle this, but I’ll come over if it’ll make you feel better.”

“Yeah, I could use the moral support. Everybody’s looking at me like they expect me to know what to do, and . . .”

“Say no more. I’ll be there.” Even though he had full faith in Clayton, the other employees didn’t; Clayton was still very much in the process of proving himself to all of them.

Tony hit END on his cell and stalked past Cheryl’s desk. “Sugar in all of the fuel tanks at the medical plaza project. I’ve got to go provide moral support for Clayton. When you want to go to lunch, just lock ’er up,” he told her. He bounced down the front steps and climbed into the big truck. Cheryl watched him go, sad that he had to deal with the whole GoGreen mess.

By the time Tony got to the jobsite, Clayton had found something for everyone to do to keep them busy. One of Tony’s rules: If they’re on the clock, they should be doing something. “Richard here yet?” he asked as he walked up to Clayton, who looked frazzled.

“Yeah, and you were right. What do we do? We’re at a standstill here.”

“We call Sandusky Rentals, rent some equipment. If we can’t get enough equipment, send the personnel overages to another site, but keep them busy. Did you call the cops?” Before Clayton could answer, Tony heard a commotion and looked back to see three police cruisers pull up.

The detective who showed up talked to Tony for over an hour. At that point, the police had been called to Walters sites so many times that they knew what to expect. The uniformed officers collected what evidence they could find, which was very little. They didn’t even find empty sugar bags, but Richard provided them with fuel samples for analysis. Tony remembered to tell the detective, Keith Ford, about Detective Lynch in Lexington, and asked him to contact Lynch.

When Tony had done all he thought he could do, he turned to Clayton. “Well?”

“They’re sending a good-sized fleet over – be here in about an hour. Thanks for being here.” Clayton looked far more relaxed than when Tony had first walked up.

“Good job, son. I’m going to lunch. You can handle this – I have every confidence in you.” He clapped Clayton on the shoulder and strode back to the truck.

Then he drove straight to The Passionate Pansy. Nikki was surprised when he walked through the door.

“Hey, baby! You’re a wonderful surprise!” She came out from behind the counter and kissed him, and he hugged her tight, but her sharp eyes caught the strain in his face, and she frowned. “Everything okay?”

“No. Can you have lunch with me?”

“Um, probably. Hey, Marla!” Nikki called out to the back. “Can I go to lunch now?”

“Yeah, I guess . . . Hey, good-looking!” Marla broke into a huge smile when she saw Tony standing with his arms around Nikki.

“Hey, gorgeous! Can I steal the most beautiful woman in the world away from here for a little while?” Tony laughed.

“Sure! Let me get my purse!” Marla chuckled. “Oh, you mean her? Well, can’t blame a girl for trying! Go, you two. Have a good time.”

Once in the café with their lunches laid out in front of them, Nikki got straight to the point: “What’s wrong?” He took a deep breath and told her about the morning. When he was finished, he took a bite of sandwich and chewed it absent-mindedly, his thoughts a thousand miles away.

“Well, this is getting stupid,” she said, forking into her grilled chicken salad.

“I know, but they can’t seem to find these people. And I’m not hearing about anybody else having a problem with them. It’s starting to feel very personal.”

“Yeah, I can see why it would.” Nikki patted his hand. “Eat your lunch. We’ll figure it out.”

The next week passed without incident. Tony, Nikki, and Cheryl worked almost every evening on paperwork, and accounting came in to coordinate, bringing their list of needed documents. Cheryl did most of the work, but Nikki could tell it meant a lot to Tony to have her there and willing to help, and she could also tell why Tony valued Cheryl so much as an employee.

They worked that Saturday and Sunday too, trying to get all of the paperwork done. Even though they were exhausted, Tony and Nikki still managed to make love an hour or more a night; neither was willing to give that up. They’d exchanged keys, and she and the dogs went to his house, or he to hers, every night. They’d made it almost halfway through June, and the light at the end of the tunnel was getting brighter.

Until it just about went out in one fiery burst.

“God, baby, fuck me,” Nikki whispered into his ear. The alarm was set for six o’clock, but he’d awakened a little before five with a raging hard-on and found his way into her while she was still half asleep. His firmness slid in and out of her languorously, and she reached down and attended to her clit while he clutched her ass and kept his slow, even rhythm. She started to moan softly and he felt himself readying to come when the phone rang. Without stopping, he looked at the clock – five forty-two. A glance at his phone made his heart almost stop – Clayton.