Page 75 of One Bride for Three Single Dads

It’s great. It’s costing me an arm and a leg, but it’s great.

The thing is, I don’t know if I want to live in Chattanooga for the rest of my life. I haven’t discussed this with the guys, but ever since Lydia died, there wasn’t very much keeping me in Tennessee except for Harrison and Boone.

Harmony is still so young, she would never know the difference. We could go anywhere. I have family in Chicago, in Annapolis, and even in Texas I think. Kind of a distant relative. Farmers.

I’ve been telling myself after every project to consider scaling back. Handing over control to Harrison or Boone. Or both.

At the same time, they have been trying to get me to scale up. Seems like they are always talking me into a new piece of equipment. A new project. We got an office that I didn’t really want, and then we had to have somebody run it so we hired Chuck… Who has turned out to be awesome, I admit.

Chuck is… different. He’s what my grandma used to call “wound really tight.” He’s tense. But basically he’s on top of everything. He likes to draw diagrams and create spreadsheets and shit like that. He’s nuts.

On the other hand, finding Chuck made me feel like leaving Harrison and Boone with the company got a little bit easier. Whatever they dropped the ball on, Chuck would clean up for them.

So I guess I have been halfway out the door for maybe six months. Every time we would get a new project, I would tell myself it was the last time. I am done. I don’t know why I’m here.

Until we met Jolene, that is.

Now all of a sudden I’m trying to find ways to stay. Of course, I still dream about traveling. Sort of like we are doing now, anyway. But instead of trying to untangle myself from the group, I’m trying to build a more complicated nest.

She’s on my mind all the time. I think about whether or not she’s happy. I’m a little jealous of the time she gets to spend with Harmony.

And I’m glad that she seems to be adjusting to the Irish seaside. They are taking short excursions up the hill. She’s even talking about finding a way to get Alexis to the beach. I know she is nervous about it, and I am proud of her for trying.

Is it strange that I think about her happiness? That it occupies so much of my time?

I don’t know. It feels so right.

Walking through the project, I can see how far we have come already, and it hasn’t even been a month. The fireplace just got completed and the mortar lines are still dark and damp as they cure. I find Harrison staring at it, his head tipped to one side.

I walk up to him and tip my hat in the same direction.

“What are we looking at?” I ask.

He crosses his arms and rocks back and forth on his heels, slowly raising his right hand to point at the limestone blocks.

“That. Do you see that?”

I squint at it. Then close one eye.

“It’s not another squirrel, is it?”

Harrison ignores that. It is still funny to me, though. Probably always will be.

“No. Does that seem uneven to you?”

“What are you talking about?”

Harrison walks forward two steps, then two steps to the right, puts his hands on his hips and goes for steps to the left. Throughout all of this, he keeps staring at the left edge of the stone fireplace.

“I swear it’s uneven,” he shrugs without looking at me.

“What’s uneven?” Patrick asks, striding up behind me.

I edge away a little bit. The guy is bigger than me, and somehow silent as a panther. He freaks me out a little bit.

Harrison turns around with a start and holds his hand up helplessly.

“I’m not saying it’s your fault,” he explains, “but tell me you don’t see that?”

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