Page 1 of Hard Hat Hottie

CHAPTER ONE

HARRISON

My eyes ping pong back and forth from the road to the clock on the dash as they have since I left the house.

6:53 a.m.

“Move, damn it,” I plead. It’s almost predictable I’d get trapped behind someone going ten miles under the speed limit when I’m running late.

It’s entirely too early for this guy to be taking a leisurely drive about town. Straining to see if there’s someone in front of them, my fingers tap on the steering wheel, and I squint, taking a second glance. Is anyone even driving that car?

Finally, the older gentleman wearing a straw hat turns in the opposite direction, and I hit the gas. He’d been sitting so low in his navy-blue Buick that it appeared to be driving itself.

My eyes dart from one spot to another until I find an open space. Throwing the car into park, I fling open the door, and make a mad dash for my usual perch atop the scaffolding of the Candy Cane Key Emergency Room.

Reaching the upper rung of the ladder, I try to slow my roll as I head toward my foreman, Gus, already concocting an excuse for why I’m in a rush. Not sure why I bother. He’s used to my tardiness on site. Between getting my mother settled withher nurse and a total lack of drive to deal with the oppressive summer sun, rolling in late has become my norm.

“Calm down, old man. You’re gonna hurt yourself.” He chuckles.

“Who you callin’ old?” I grunt, my lips pursed in annoyance. Gus is easily a decade my senior. While I own Hightower Construction, he’s one of several employees who’ve been with me from the beginning. Yet lately, I have to admit, I’m not sure who’s managing who.

I try to slow my breathing and act nonchalant as my eyes roam the various parking areas down below. The patient and handicapped spaces are closest to where our construction is currently underway, followed by the gated physician assigned spaces, the overflow parking, and finally those reserved for the hard-working staff of the Candy Cane Medical Center. It’s barely 7:00 in the morning, yet the waves of overbearing heat from the dark asphalt below are already dancing above the surface of the employee designated lot in the distance.

My eyes connect with Gus’s, and I jolt at the concerned expression.For fuck’s sake.“Would you stop looking at me like that? I’m fine.”

“Sure you are. You remind me of a contestant in an Ironman, scaling the ladder like that. It’s not even 7:00, and you’re already soaked like you finished the swim portion and are moving on to the next leg of the race.”

I tilt my head, rolling my eyes at my old friend before gazing back over the nurses and ancillary staff making the trek from the new satellite lot erected for hospital employees. Our construction site had overtaken the patient parking, thus the administration moved patients to the old employee lot and provided a shuttle bus for them to use in the interim, to ease the transition. No such luxury was provided for its staff, however. They have to hoof it in the hot summer sun, starting and endingtheir shift with one more layer of stress. Until our work began, they were able to park much closer. None of us had missed the scorn on some of their faces as they passed us on the way to the entry doors. As ifwewere to blame.

“I don’t think she’s here.”

My head jerks in Gus’s direction.

“Who?”

“Oh, please.” Gus shakes his head like I’m dense. “You haven’t been on any construction site before 7:00 a.m. in months. Then, one day, you get a flash of pearly whites from the hot tatted brunette in sexy scrubs and suddenly you come racing up here every morning like a squirrel with a nut.”

My brows shoot up to my forehead. “You calling your boss a nut? Maybe you’ve been in the heat too long. I should reassign you to manage the demolition site at Reindeer Falls.”

“The old roach motel? Hell, Harry, the only thing falling in that place is parasites. I’d be covered in bed bugs by the end of the day.” He gives a dramatic shiver, causing the scaffolding to sway beneath us. “And you’re the squirrel in this scenario.”

As if that’s any better. “Well, if anyone’s a nut here…” I toss back, pointing my chin down to the ground below where I find Gino petting the stray cat who keeps coming back.

And now I know why.

“Gino, stop feeding that thing. We’ll never get rid of him. Although I guess I can give him your job if you drop dead of rabies,” Gus yells.

“He doesn’t have rabies. He’s got a collar on. Just no tag.”

I shake my head, relieved by the subject change from earlier as I peer back down at the incoming staff below. However, the ridiculous disappointment I feel at having, again, missed seeing my little mermaid, has me distracted.

Nurses are bound to do shift work here. It’s not like at a doctor’s office, where they’re only open Monday through Friday.So, there’s no way to know what her schedule is. Hell, for all I know, shedoeswork for one of the doctors who rent office space here.But I don’t think so.There have been too many mornings before 7:00 where she’d tote that heavy bag over her arm the long distance from the temporary staff parking, practically a mile away. Why hadn’t the administrators provided a shuttle for them?

“Uh, oh.”

My face snaps over to Gus.

“I get nervous when you start rubbing that stubble on your chin with a far off look in your eyes.”

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