Page 3 of The Fixer

“And knowing my mother, she didn’t bother doing any of those things.”

“No,” he agreed, “and in her defense, she bought it before the new regs went into effect.”

“Well, I guess that’s good news for you. Now that I look at all that paint, I not only see years of god-awful color choices, but I see dollars lining your coffers. Maybe that’s why you’re so in love with this termite-infested wood.”

Charlie prided himself on being upbeat, on letting shit roll off his back as if it were a slick shingle. His day had started out like every other—on the bright side—but the black storm clouds that had begun gathering from the moment he laid eyes on Joy Holiday were crowding out every beam of light.

He practically growled, “This isn’t the Midwest. We don’t get termites here.”

His father had always taught him to follow his first impressions, and right now he was summing them up in his head and debating whether locking horns with Joy for the foreseeable future—even at a distance—would be detrimental to his health. He knew pretty much all he needed to know. One, she had no respect for his town or the people in it—she had proved that by racing up the street thirty miles over the speed limit in her uber-fancy car. Two, she was wound tighter than ratchet straps on a load of lumber. And three, she had a chip on her shoulder the size of the building she wanted to knock down.

Deep in his heart, though, the debate was already over. He wanted this project. Somehow, he had to make this work.

Raking his fingers through short strands he still wasn’t used to, he pulled in a steadying breath. “I have a proposition for you.”

Chapter 2

Options

Am I being tooharsh?It was times like these when Joy wished she could call her therapist and put her on speaker for a reality check. Or Estelle, her latest in a long line of personal assistants. It was possible Estelle had balls brassier than Joy’s. The woman wouldn’t hesitate to tell Joy if she’d overstepped the boundaries of courtesy—in fact, she’d probably relish the chance.

She could practically hear her assistant’s lecture play out. “You’re from Chicago, Joy. You’re a big-city girl used to pushing against corporate hotshots high up the food chain. They’re accustomed to that kind of behavior from you. They may not like it, but you speak their language, and they respect you for it.

“Right now you’re in a small Colorado town, and the guy in front of youliveshere.Workshere. These are his people.” Then she’d push her glasses up the bridge of her nose and add, “And in case you haven’t noticed, this local boy issohot he should have a warning label slapped on him. I volunteer to do the slapping.”

Joy shook her head.Get out of my brain, Estelle.The hot contractor—well, the oneEstellewould definitely lust after—studied her with piercing gray-green eyes that flickered with an emotion she couldn’t read. Contempt? She was used to that one. No, this was closer to incredulity.

She resolved to put on a cool facade as she wrangled her ping-ponging emotions into a semblance of order. After she’d been diagnosed with ADHD years ago, she’d learned how to manage it, and then she’d figured out how to harness it. A neurobehavioral condition that often stymied others had become her springboard to lofty career heights and the financial rewards that came with them. But at rare times—like right now—the beast escaped its leash and wreaked havoc with her higher brain functions, leaving her with no way to corral it.

And how had the beast escaped? It wasn’t so much a jailbreak as an outside force dismantling its cage. That outside force was Fall River, and Joy was struggling to understand why the town wouldn’t allow the annihilation of her mother’s shop, along with its contents, which brought back a past so painful Joy could scarcely breathe. She thought she’d buried it, but it was clawing its way up from the grave.

I should have cremated it!

She needed the catharsis of destroying the building, damn it! Her mother had probably planned this very outcome just to give Joy one last parting blow.

And now she stood speechless in front of Charlie Hunnicutt, whom she’d hired sight unseen because she’d been told he was the best. She was seriously second-guessing her snap decision. In a moment of weakness, because she’d been too emotionally taxed to use the logical brain God had bestowed on her, had she made a huge mistake? He might be country-friendly, but he didn’t show any signs of being a pushover, and she needed someone she could boss around, like most everyone else in her life … except, of course, Estelle.

“Who’s in charge, Joy?” her therapist’s voice soothed in her head.

I am,she silently answered, though she wasn’t convinced. Even after all these years and all the time spent trying to get her head screwed on straight, the threads still didn’t line up perfectly.

“No one in your family has control over you anymore. You’re a strong, independent, successful woman in charge of her own destiny,” the voice continued.

Joy added her own mantra, which she’d repeated many times before.You can do this.Except those two voices couldn’t shout down the hysterical one wailing that she shouldn’t have come here—not that she had a choice. That pitiful wail belonged to a helpless little girl who had long ago been devastated by her mother’s indifference and terrified of the future that detachment foreshadowed.

Oh great. Not only was she having a meltdown in front of her new contractor, but she was hearingmultiplevoices in her head. Yep, she was careening into split-personality territory. Apparently, a luxury car, expensive clothing, and massively impractical high heels couldn’t conceal the mess she was.

Charlie the contractor arched a manly eyebrow. “Is everything all right?” This was the second time he’d posed the question in the last ten minutes, and like before, his tone was cautious, as if he were afraid confetti might explode from the top of her head at any moment. And he wouldn’t have been far off.

Joy tossed her hair back, lifted her chin, and stole a moment to gather herself. She needed to lasso these thoughts shooting out in all directions. ADHD was not on her side today. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be? Now what were you saying?”

Something about a proposition? Notthatkind of proposition, not that she would have taken him up on it (unlike Estelle). Besides having a working relationship with him—rocky start aside—he was so not her type. He was blond, which was his first strike. Then there was his tattoo, an intricate mountain scene that spanned the entirety of his muscular arm before disappearing under the T-shirt sleeve straining around his bicep. On the other wrist, he wore a thick watch nestled between a leather bracelet and another made of wooden beads. The combination reminded her of a bad-boy biker crossed with a male model. Nod to Estelle, a ridiculously hotbiker-slash-model. As appealing as his looks might be to her assistant, for Joy, they were strike number two. Silver rings on tanned fingers lent him a Renaissance man air to go with his almost poetic ode to historical buildings—and that was strike three, the biggest of them all. Who could love these dilapidated shacks in this ancient mining town? Charlie Hunnicutt admired them as though he had stardust stuck in his eyes. She didn’t get it.

He offered a tentative smile. “I was going to propose a joint venture.”

She mentally toed her way out of boggy ground to more solid footing. Joint ventures were familiar lingo. “Define what you mean by joint venture.”

“You own—I mean, you’re in charge of getting rid of your mom’s property, and I own a remodeling company that specializes in buildings exactly like this one. I’ll fix it up so we can put it on the market for top dollar, and we’ll split the profit once it sells.”

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