Page 108 of Lowdown Dirty (Down and Dirty)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“Heidi, I’m fine. You don’t need to babysit me.” Tim swiped his wireless mouse across his desktop maybe a bit too aggressively, but anyone would have been agitated about the data in those quarterly productivity graphs. Compared to the last quarter and the one before it, his crews had actually gotten less work done. The productivity loss amounted to one entire small boat. It was no wonder he’d felt like they were always scrambling. Having the numbers in front of him, he understood why.

Heidi, in one of the armchairs on the other side of his desk, crossed her legs and drummed her fingertips on the chair arms. She ground her teeth and stared at him.

“Seriously,” he groused. “Go crunch numbers or print paychecks or something.”

“No. Do you know who called me this morning?”

“No. Who?”

“Frank.”

“What’d he want?”

“Just wanted to let me know he was sending his report over to the judge about Kevin. He wanted to give me a heads-up about what it said.”

Tim flinched and leaned back in his seat, rubbing his eyes. “All right, let me have it.”

“Well, brace yourself, because this one’s a shocker.” She leaned forward, knitting her brows. “Kevin is actually doingfine. He puts his head down and does his work. He doesn’t talk much to anyone. He doesn’t moan and groan about the tedious stuff. He just…works.”

Stunned, Tim sat up straighter. “Really?”

She bobbed her eyebrows.

“But at home, he’s—”

“Sullen and uncooperative, when he bothers to communicate at all. Right.”

“Huh.” Tim had stopped trying to get him out of his room, figuring it was for the best if they had some space from each other. Tim hadn’t been the sunniest guy to be around in the past month since he and Valerie had their last falling-out, and he didn’t want Kevin to think that his bad mood was because of anything he’d done.

“So, how do we bridge that?” he asked. “How do we get him to be as cooperative with us as he is with Frank?”

Heidi shrugged. “We could brainstorm it with Frank and see what he’s doing that we’re not—besides making Kevin do heavy lifting. I don’t Kevin would be able to articulate what it is if we were to ask him directly.”

“Probably not.”

“I’m gonna go print paychecks like you said.” Heidi sighed as she stood and pulled her arms over her head to give her long body a stretch. “Are you going to Clay’s tonight?”

“No.”Fuck, no. Not if Leah Lawson was going to be there looking so much like her sister, whom he was through with chasing. He didn’t feel like having people in his fucking space, anyway.

“Mind if I do? Kevin probably doesn’t need you to sit at home with him at this point, but…”

“I get it. You go and have fun. Folks probably miss seeing you.”

“Yes, the darling lechers.” She strode out of his office and out into the workshop. Her office was on the other side of the big space near where the sales guys and admin crew were housed. Tim had always been nestled in his own little enclave that looked out onto the floor, where he could see everything, but obviouslynothingsince he’d apparently let productivity get so far down.

“It’s my own damned fault.”

He needed to do more than inspect boats when they were done—he needed to oversee the builds more closely.

He pushed back from his desk, rolled up his sleeves, and headed to the idlers standing around the half-million-dollar boat that still hadn’t had its windows installed.

If he couldn’t put his passion where he wanted it, at the very least, he could expend it doing grueling busywork. Maybe he’d even derive some satisfaction from it when the boat was done, but he wasn’t going to hold his breath.

He knew it was just a distraction.

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