Page 20 of Wrong Number

But the other two were a coin toss.

Going through the paperwork more thoroughly, I skimmed through previous deals to see if we usually won over bids from Wright. We always kept track of who else was interested in a job. There was a lot of competition for the best work in the city, and we needed to know who else was after it.

From the looks of things, we beat Wright at nearly every opportunity.

The only jobs that they had ever beat us for on a consistent basis were a selection of condo towers going up in the West End of the city by the lake. But those building corporations were not of the variety we usually dealt with.

It was the sort of corporation that changed its name every two years, both for tax purposes and other questionable legal reasons. The sort of corporation that employs a lot of family and select friends, and was extraordinarily close-knit.

It was the sort of “ family ” that nobody crossed. Or else.

I knew that my uncle had nothing to do with them, so I didn’t realize he had ever quoted on those jobs. Maybe it was only to piss off Wright. It was a few years ago, before I was really keeping an eye on the paperwork.

As soon as I submitted the last of the quotes, I got a call from Gus, one of our carpenters, that his partner Louis didn’t come in today.

It sounded like Gus had been trying to cover for him, but was just getting too far behind. The problem with having twenty condos to finish in a certain time frame was that you really needed to hit each day’s target. Getting behind was simply not an option, because there was no way you could guarantee that you’d catch up.

There are all the cliches about construction taking double whatever the time was quoted, but we really tried to distinguish ourselves by always hitting deadlines. Or having a darn good reason if we were a day late, such as custom finishes being held up in transit.

I raced over there to help him, and by the time my workday was done, It was already seven-thirty. I jumped in my car and called Tana before deciding whether I should go home.

“Hi,” she answered, and I could picture her sweet smile already.

“Hey, sweetheart. I’ve had a lousy day. I was thinking about taking you out for dinner, but I just can’t deal with the outside world right now.”

“Do you want to come over for dinner?” she asked.

“I would absolutely love to. I don’t want to impose, though, if you have other plans.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said quickly. “Come on over.”

“If you hear the screeching of tires in about thirteen minutes, that’s me pulling into your parking lot,” I chuckled.

She ended the call while laughing at me, and I found the quickest route to her apartment. As soon as she opened the door, I held up my hands. “I am the worst guest ever. I didn’t have time to bring you a gift.”

Damn, she was beautiful. She had her hair swept to one side today, her lovely eyes sparkling as she let me in.

“No gifts, just your wonderful company is enough.” Tana kissed me quickly, then returned to fussing around the kitchen table. Or maybe she considered it the dining room table. Her apartment was really one long room, plus the bedroom and bathroom, and I really didn’t know how she divided it up.

“I know that I should have tried to impress you by making dinner, but I got held up at work tonight,” she said, sliding the various Chinese food dishes into large bowls. “Dr. Brannigan is great, but he’s definitely more of an optometrist then a professional organizer.”

“Uh oh. Is he driving you nuts?” I asked.

She shook her head, smiling gently. “Not really. But it would’ve been handy if he had figured out the layout of the shop area and the storage before ordering in all of the glasses frames. He sort of sprung everything on me, and he’d done half of it before I could step in and make sense of things.”

She set out plates, forks and chopsticks, then poured us large glasses of water. “I’m not complaining, mind you. Everyone has their own process. It will be fine in a couple of weeks, I’m sure. Just growing pains.”

“I’m glad that he has you to straighten him out,” I said.

As she began to sit down, my hand darted out over her chair to squeeze her cute round butt a little.

“Sir, that is absolutely inappropriate dinner behavior, “ she snapped, but her eyes were smiling.

I stared at the ceiling while reluctantly retracting my hand. “How do I tell my new girlfriend that she’s so hot it’s tricky to behave myself?”

Looking back at Tana, she was nearly blushing, placing a napkin on her lap.

Then I realized something. “Sweetheart, I’m your first boyfriend, aren’t I?”

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