More to Give (16 page)

CHAPTER 16

T
hat was the
last
thing Callie expected to hear. Maybe losing your hearing was part and parcel of losing your mind.

“Did you say what I think you said?”

Sam sighed. “Sit down, Callie.”

It was a good thing her desk chair was right behind her, because Callie dropped at the order. The chair rolled backward away from the desk, with her in it.

“I knew this was going to be a major undertaking, even before the Christmas wedding opportunity came about,” he started. Callie watched his lips move to make sure she didn’t miss anything. “Against my better judgment, I took a backseat and let you handle the brunt of the project. A mistake on my part.”

Callie let those words sink in. Tilting her head to the side, she asked, “Are you implying that putting me in charge of this project was your
mistake
?”

“Not at all,” he said, face stern. “I stand by my decision.”

Then she’d fried every last brain cell, because Sam wasn’t making any sense. “Tell me again what exactly it is you’re apologizing for.”

Sam lowered himself into the chair in front of her desk. Finally. Callie was getting a crimp in her neck from looking up at the man.

“I shouldn’t have taken the hands-off approach.”

Again, not a vote of confidence.

“So you should have been more hands-on?”

“Yes.”

“Because I clearly was not the right person to be in charge.”

“Not at all.”

Maybe she was asleep and this was some psychotic dream. Callie pinched her leg. It hurt. Sam was still there. So . . . not a dream.

Scooting forward, Callie propped her elbows on the desk and massaged her temples. “I can get this,” she said. “One more try.” She looked at Sam through narrowed eyes. “You’re confident that I’m the right person to run this project?”

“Yes.”

“But you made a mistake by not being more involved?”

“Exactly.”

She waited for something more, but Sam remained silent. Callie considered how much it would hurt her career to walk out now and never look back. Surely her mental health was more important than any job. And right now, she was seriously worried for her mental health, because someone in this office was nuts, and Sam looked perfectly normal.

“Why are you wearing that outfit?” Sam asked, confusing her even more with the abrupt change of subject.

Callie glanced down to remind herself what she was wearing. Oh yeah, the work clothes. “I’m wearing these clothes because I’ve been scraping wallpaper off the walls in the dining room. And last week I wore something similar because I helped rip out the carpet.” She wasn’t going to apologize for getting her hands dirty. “If I had the skills, I’d probably be at the end of the hall, helping lay the new floors. If somehow that means I’m unfit to run this job, then I’m sorry, but I don’t agree.”

“The only thing that means,” Sam said, “is that I’ve been an idiot.”

Was this exasperating man incapable of giving a clear answer?

“Part of me wants to agree with you,” she said, too tired to keep this up much longer. “But an idiot on what grounds?”

Sam leaned back, propping an ankle over his knee. “On the grounds that I should be doing my part as well.” He stood up, prompting Callie to leap out of her seat. “I’ll report back after lunch, ready to work,” he said.

Wait, what?

“Ready to work?” she asked, absolutely certain this time she’d heard him wrong.

“That’s what I said.” Sam exited the office while Callie was still standing stunned behind the desk.

She ran after him. “What work do you plan to do?”

“Is there more wallpaper to be scraped?” Sam tossed over his shoulder as he pulled the front door open.

“Well . . . yeah,” Callie said.

“Then we’ll start there.” As he practically hopped down the steps, he added, “Make sure there are enough scrapers to go around.”

Callie slumped against the door frame, too confused to process his last comment. Sam was going to work beside her? Like, manual-labor work?

There was no way.

Jack chose that moment to sneak up behind her. “What happened?” he asked, ignoring Callie’s startled gasp. “Did he can you?”

“No,” she said. “He’s coming back to help.”

“Help with what?”

“Scraping wallpaper.”

“There’s no way,” Jack said with a snort.

“My thoughts exactly,” Callie chimed.

Guilt was Sam’s constant companion for the next hour as he stopped at the Anchor to let Yvonne know where he would be the rest of the day, then drove by his cottage to change clothes. He hadn’t been joking with Callie. If she had to pitch in with manual labor, so would he. Especially since he’d left her to completely fend for herself for the last month.

All because he’d wanted to have sex with her.

When he’d turned into a ball-less wonder, Sam didn’t know. But he didn’t like the feeling.

To his relief, and to Callie’s credit, the project wasn’t nearly as behind schedule as it had looked on his first visit of the day. As luck would have it, the kitchen had been updated shortly before Uncle Morty had passed away. Since it didn’t need any work, Callie had used the kitchen as a staging area. As furnishings, linens, and décor pieces arrived, the boxes were labeled and organized into zones for more efficient distribution later.

The idea was brilliant and further proof Callie knew what she was doing. Right now, though, she didn’t look brilliant. She looked like a woman about to snap.

“You’re back,” she said, twitching more than she’d been earlier.

“I am.” Sam plopped a large bag of tacos onto the counter. The two teens lingering behind the check-in desk perked up as the scent hit their noses. “And I brought food.”

Callie ran a hand through her hair. “I’m not really hungry—”

“No working on an empty stomach,” Sam interrupted, tossing another bag to the boys. “This one has paper plates, utensils, and napkins. Is there someplace we can all sit to eat?”

“All?” the taller kid asked. Dark hair run with a shock of white hung over one eye as he hugged the bag he’d caught to his chest. Brown eyes darted from Sam to Callie and back again.

Chewing on her bottom lip, Callie shrugged at the teen, then slid her hands into her back pockets. “We could sit on the old chairs in the dining room that Olaf hasn’t gotten to yet.”

“Works for me,” Sam said. He dragged the bag back off the counter. “Lead on.”

Thirty minutes later, the boys he now knew as Jack and Lot had eaten four tacos apiece and departed the dining room to return to their work. Jack had called it hurling duty, but Callie explained they were discarding the old carpeting through a window to be carried around to the Dumpster at the end of the building.

That sounded a lot better than the image that had first come to mind.

Once they were alone, Sam asked, “Why aren’t we stepping over a work crew at this point? I’m assuming you didn’t plan to do everything yourself.”

“The winter festival,” Callie answered, as if he should know what the hell that meant.

“I’m sorry?”

“They’re all over in the village, setting up for the winter festival coming up this weekend.” She collected the empty taco wrappers the boys had left near their seats and tossed them into one of the bags. “It’s only for a few days, and then they’ll be back.” Keeping her face averted, she added, “I hope.”

Sam ignored the last bit. For now.

“The outside looks good.”

“Doesn’t it?” Some light returned to her eyes, revealing the capable, reasonable woman who was still in there somewhere. “Bernie says they should finish with the shingles in the next day or so, then they can start on the porch.”

Having the exterior finished before the brunt of winter arrived was a good sign. “Where do we stand on the interior?”

Callie’s errant twitch returned. “Well . . . ,” she hedged. “About that.”

Adding his own trash to the bag, Sam said, “Show me the plans marked up to where we stand right now. I know you’ve got it on paper, so show me.”

“Of course I have it on paper,” she said. “But it’s on my office wall. You’ll have to come see it.”

As he followed her, Sam noticed how good her bottom looked in the tight-fitting jeans. The denim showed off the curve of her hips in a way fancy skirts did not. And no heels were needed to put a swing in Callie’s step. By the time they reached their destination, Sam had to remind himself why he was there.

And then he saw it.

On the back wall of Callie’s office was a giant blueprint of sorts of the entire Sunset Harbor Inn. Both floors were broken out, one on top of the other. All rooms were numbered and included the color scheme, as well as the décor pieces and even what area rug would go in each. She’d cut out pictures of the curtains and linens and pinned them to their intended destination.

All the guest rooms on the bottom floor were marked as
PAINTING COMPLETE
.

“So, once the workers return, they’ll begin painting the second-floor rooms?” Sam asked, marveling at the precision and detail of the diagram.

“That’s right.” Callie stepped up beside him. Pointing at the rooms at the far end of the bottom floor, she said, “The flooring is complete in the two end rooms, but it’s slow going. Since we can’t start putting things together until the floors are in, I’m afraid this is going to be our biggest speed bump.”

“Why so slow?”

Callie sighed. “I could only find two people on the island with any experience installing this kind of hardwood flooring. They’re actually quite quick, but we couldn’t start until the painting was done. By then, Elder was in the middle of another job, so we had to wait.”

“Elder Wonnamack?”

“That’s right,” Callie said. “He and Frank Ledbetter are doing the floors. You know them?”

“I had Elder do some repair work at the Anchor. I didn’t realize he installed floors.”

With brows drawn, Callie asked, “How much work did you put into the Anchor to renovate it? And where did you find the workers?”

“Thankfully, the Anchor didn’t need as much work as this one does,” Sam said. “I brought a crew in during the off-season and put them up over here.”

Ice-blue eyes went wide. “You didn’t use locals?”

“I wanted a trusted crew I knew would do the job right.” Sam hadn’t thought much about it at the time. “The only reason I didn’t suggest we do the same over here is that we’re still doing steady business at the Anchor and I didn’t want to tie up the rooms.”

Callie rubbed her hands over her face, emitting what sounded like a groan between her fingers. Then she shoved them into her hair and said, “Let me get this straight. You brought in outsiders, bypassing any skilled local workers who might have been available.”

“I . . . ,” Sam started, but Callie held up a hand to silence him.

“It’s no wonder these people don’t like you.”

“Excuse me?”

“Several of the villagers have refused to join the crew.” Callie paced the small space behind her desk. “I couldn’t figure it out before, but now it makes perfect sense. I wouldn’t want to work for you either.”

“What are you talking about?” Sam asked.

“It’s you!” Callie exclaimed, poking him in the chest. “All this time, I thought they didn’t want to work on a job run by a woman. I was so pissed I could barely sleep. And I couldn’t tell
you
because I was already a complication you didn’t want to deal with, so why give you more reason to replace me?”

The pacing resumed, quicker this time. “All that stress for nothing. It’s you they have a problem with, not me.”

Sam didn’t care who liked or didn’t like him, so long as his peers respected him and his businesses did well. Life had never been a popularity contest, and he wasn’t about to play that game on this inconsequential little island to keep the natives happy.

“Are you done now?” he asked, once Callie had finished her rant. Sam took her huff as a yes. “I did what I had to do to bring the Anchor Inn up to my standards and get back to business as soon as possible. I don’t need approval from you or anyone else on how I choose to do things. The existence of a high-quality hotel with spotless views and incomparable amenities for an island this size directly contributes to bringing more tourists to town, which in turn benefits every person in that village.”

Pausing to rein in his temper, Sam attempted to button his suit jacket before realizing he wasn’t wearing one. Crossing his arms instead, he said, “I will not have my tactics questioned. Not by anyone.”

Callie stared at him for several seconds. Her eyes searched his, for what Sam didn’t know.

“You really believe that.” The words were a statement, instead of a question, so Sam held silent. “You don’t know how to be part of a community.”

“I don’t give a shit about community,” Sam growled, tired of feeling judged. He’d endured enough of that in his early years. “What I care about is business, and getting this one back up and running in time for that wedding in six weeks.”

“And if we’re going to make that deadline, we need bodies,” Callie said matter-of-factly. “Solid, hardworking bodies, of which there are plenty on this island.”