Two days later, Blake found himself sitting alone in his uncle’s office at Bartlett Construction. Uncle Henry had abandoned him less than an hour into his first day of work. Blake couldn’t say he blamed the man. The stack of paperwork sitting in the tray on his uncle’s desk was about a foot and a half tall. And that wasn’t counting the stack sitting on the office chair that needed to be taken care of as well. Or the email that had all been moved into a folder labeled “to do.” The unread messages were in the quadruple digits. It made Blake’s eye twitch.

Lucky for his uncle, one of their foremen had called with a delivery issue so Henry had gone to see what he could do to help. Blake stared at the stack of work needing attention and shook his head. He’d managed to get elbow deep in a pile of invoices when a voice from the doorway drew his attention.

“Hey, old man, I need— uh, sorry.”

Blake glanced up and nearly swallowed his tongue. One of the most gorgeous men he’d ever had the pleasure of seeing had just walked into his uncle’s office. Bright blue eyes, muscular arms, shoulders for miles. Blake gulped and tried to find his words.

None came to mind.

“Linc!” Uncle Henry’s booming voice came from down the hall and a moment later he’d gripped the other man’s shoulder in his typical greeting. “I see you’ve met my nephew.”

Linc glanced over at Blake with a grin. “Actually, I haven’t had the pleasure.”

“Well then let me remedy that right now. Blake Bartlett, meet Lincoln Coleman, one of my best foreman. Linc, meet Blake, my nephew. He’s going to be helping me run this place so I can hopefully retire one of these days.”

Linc returned his attention to Blake. “Nice to meet you.”

“Same.”

Blake swallowed and tried to find something else to say, but the moment was lost. Uncle Henry led Linc out the door and down the hall. After a moment, their voices faded. Blake sank down into the office chair and blew out a breath.

Lucy, their purchasing manager, stuck her head in the door just in time to see his expression. “Yeah. I had that reaction to him for about the first six months.”

“Wow.” Blake shook his head and smiled. “I’ve not stumbled over my words like that since I first saw Justin Gregg take off his shirt during ninth grade gym.”

She cackled and leaned against the door frame. “I hear ya. Linc’s hot and he knows it, but he’s a good guy. Treats us right here in the office so that makes him okay in my book.”

Blake frowned. “Does someone not treat you right?”

“Oh, not any more. Some of the guys forget their place, but don’t you worry about that. I have no problems jerkin’ a knot in the ass of anyone who gets a little too big for their britches.”

He smirked. “Really, Luce? How Southern are you exactly?”

She snorted and sauntered over to the desk. “Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit, what do we have here?”

Blake burst out laughing. “Please tell me I don’t sound like that!”

“Give it a minute, honey, and you’ll be spoutin’ the slang as much as the rest of us. And just think, Caroline will have the most delightful Southern accent. It’ll be precious.”

“Seriously, that kid does not need any more weapons in her arsenal. Have you seen how cute she is already?”

“Oh, I’ve seen. Henry has about a thousand pictures of her on his phone already. First thing this morning, he comes in, before I’ve even had my coffee mind you, and starts showing me pictures of her. He knows better than to talk to me before I’m fully caffeinated.”

“She’s the first of the next batch of Bartlett cousins. I’ll have to get Abe to give her some pointers on being the oldest. Can you imagine?”

“You should head over to the work site and see him this afternoon. He’s been elbow deep in a wiring nightmare so I know he’s not made it over to your momma’s to see you yet.”

He grinned. No, he hadn’t managed to see his cousin yet. The man was practically his brother. “Actually, we’re having a big family dinner tomorrow night at Uncle Henry’s so I’m sure he’ll be there. Aunt Paula would have made sure of it.”

“No doubt about it. I wonder if I can sneak in and steal a pan of her fried corn.”

Blake scoffed. “You could try but I’m afraid I’d have to hurt you. No one gets between me and Aunt Paula’s corn.”

“Bring me leftovers and I’ll help you get through this stack of doom.” She wiggled her eyebrows at him and Blake knew he’d been beaten.

“Deal.”

They worked for several hours, getting the stacks organized into piles. Uncle Henry’s system of organization had defeated them both, but luckily most of the paperwork itself had been handled. Lucy filed everything under the proper job and they were only left with a small stack of outstanding documents that Blake needed to get with his uncle to finish sorting. He stretched and straightened up from the computer with a groan once the last email had been handled.

“Why don’t you head over to the Glidden job and get your Uncle to take care of this?” Lucy asked. “You look like you could use some fresh air and honestly, it’ll do you good to get to know what they do.”

“I don’t want to abandon you to the rest of the filing.”

She scoffed. “You think I’m not used to your uncle by now? Go on. I can handle this. The address is in the folder.”

“Thanks, Luce. I’ll not only bring you some corn but I’ll throw in some bonus peach cobbler.”

“Now you’re talking.”

She grinned and scooped up the last stack of filing before heading out of the office. Blake tucked the folder into his laptop bag and went out to the Bartlett Construction SUV his uncle had agreed to let him use until his car arrived. He’d figured out pretty fast that sharing a car with his mom would be a headache, especially since he’d started working for his uncle so quickly.

Although he’d been concerned about leaving Caroline so soon after losing Michael and making the big move, Caroline didn’t seem to mind his absence, especially since she had her grandparents at her beck and call. The little stinker had told him just that morning that he needed to hurry and go to work so her “Jeep” would give her ice cream for breakfast. His dad had pretended to be shocked and horrified, but Blake had seen right through his feigned innocence.

Smirking at the memory, he drove through the limited traffic in Havendale and made his way over to the Glidden site. Several Bartlett Construction vehicles were parked on the road outside the house. He parked behind one of them and hopped out of the truck.

He’d learned enough from his brief encounter with the paperwork that this job was a home remodel. The company had different teams of contractors and subcontractors that they used for different aspects of the job. Each job had a project manager and they brought in teams of electricians, plumbers, and other craftsmen as they were needed to complete the job.

From the outside, the house looked fine, but Blake could only imagine what the inside looked like. He’d been to a couple sites with his uncle when he was younger and had even helped out one summer to earn some extra money. He heard his uncle’s voice and followed the sound around the side of the house where the garage door stood open.

His uncle and Linc were poring over a set of blueprints that they’d stretched out on a piece of plywood. Blake stopped beside them, grinning when his uncle reached out to grip his shoulder without taking his attention from the plans.

“I think you’re right, Linc. We need to get the engineer back out here to check out the beam. It probably isn’t going to be enough to support the weight of all that damn marble we’re putting in upstairs.”

“Sounds good. When the owner changed to marble, I wanted to verify.”

“And you be sure to bill her for the change,” Uncle Henry grumbled.

“It’s like you’ve never done this before,” Blake said. “I mean, she might decide she wants granite instead of marble next. Or… what’s that stuff called? The thing that sounds like boat boards?”

“Shiplap,” Linc provided. “We are not in Texas. If I have to field one more question about that stuff…”

“Dear God,” Uncle Henry added, “those shows are enough to give me an ulcer. Everybody thinks they know how to do it themselves until they actually tear their house apart and get in over their head.”

“But that’s why we have jobs,” Linc said. “Very busy jobs.”

Uncle Henry huffed. “So what brings you out here, Blake?”

“I brought you some paperwork to take care of. Nice job leaving me on my own to handle everything. I see what you did there.”

His uncle grinned and shrugged a shoulder. “I hate paperwork.”

“What you hate is filing. The paperwork you’d managed pretty well. Lucy helped me get your mischief managed but I do have a few things I need help with.”

Uncle Henry blinked. “You made it through all that already?”

“Filing, Uncle Henry. It’s a thing you do once you’ve completed a project.”

“Now you sound like your aunt.”

Blake grinned. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Linc laughed. “As you should. Your Aunt Paula is a force to be reckoned with.”

“Fine, fine,” Henry grumbled. “Hand over the rest and I’ll flip through it. Hey, you should get Linc to take you over to the Lawton project. He’s heading up that one too, and I think we should be to a point where you can let us know if it’ll work for you and Caroline. Linc, that work for you?”

“Yeah, I can walk you through,” Linc said. “We’ve got a bit of finishing work to complete but you’ll get the idea. Some of the stuff I can probably get swapped out if you don’t like something.”

“That’d be great,” Blake said. “I’ve wanted to take a look, but I still have a bit before our furniture arrives.”

“You boys head on over there. I’m going to try to call in a favor and have an engineer to get over here today to check out that beam. Blake, I’ll meet you back at the office shortly and we’ll go over the last of that paperwork.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Blake followed Linc out to the trucks.

“You want to follow me over there? It’s not far.”

“Sure,” Blake said. He got into the SUV and cranked up the air conditioning. It had been cloudy when he’d left for the office that morning, but now the sun was out in full force and the humidity had kicked up a notch. Sweat dripped annoyingly down his back and Blake wished for a moment for the cool, crisp air of Washington.

Linc didn’t seem to be bothered by it at all. The window in his truck was down and he had one tanned arm hanging out of it as he drove the truck. Blake followed, forcing himself not to think of the man in any way besides that of coworker. God, he was gorgeous though, and Blake couldn’t deny that he was both lonely and horny. He’d been on his own since he and Michael split up, and the sight of Linc had his imagination kicking into high gear.

They drove past the familiar turn off to Uncle Henry’s house before turning a couple blocks further on. Blake was familiar with the area and was pretty sure his Aunt Heather and Uncle Kevin had lived on this street at one time or another. Linc stopped in front of a one story painted a crisp white. It looked nice from the outside, although the landscaping clearly needed some work.

Linc climbed from the truck and walked over to Blake. “What do you think?”

“It’s nice.”

“Needs some work done on the plants and stuff but we normally save that to the end. I have someone scheduled to come out next week and spruce it up.”

“That’s good.”

Linc gestured him forward and pulled out a ring filled with keys. He deftly flipped to the correct one and unlocked the door. The inside was clearly still under construction. Bare white walls were partnered with plain concrete floors. Remnants of building supplies were strewn about the room in the form of wood scraps, piles of dry wall dust, and abandoned plastic tarps.

“So, it’s your standard three and two,” Linc explained. “Master is through here with its own bath, and the other two bedrooms are down the hall with a bath in the middle. Nothing was really wrong with it structurally, but it was seriously outdated. It was built in the early seventies and I’m pretty sure it hadn’t been updated since then. We took it down to its bones so it has updated insulation, new drywall, and a new roof. We also upgraded the electric and gave it a new HVAC system.”

The house was nice sized, just under two thousand square feet, and plenty big enough for him and Caroline. Housing out west was pricey to say the least, so having this much space seemed luxurious.

“It’s looking great.” Blake took in all the materials still scattered around while doing his best not to stare at Linc. “Will it really be ready in a couple weeks?”

Linc nodded and led the way to the back of the house. “Yeah, we’re further along than it looks. Electrical and plumbing is done. Dry wall is done. Kitchen is almost done. I can’t get different cabinets in for you because we ordered them a while back, but if you want to pick out your own appliances, we can make that happen.”

“Can I let my daughter pick out a paint color for her room?”

“Absolutely. And if your wife wants something different or whatever, just let me know.”

Blake blinked. “I’m…um, not married.”

Linc paused then turned to look over his shoulder. “No?”

“No. Widowed. Technically. My, um, husband passed away recently but we’d been separated for almost a year.”

Something shifted in Linc’s body language, interest taking the place of the casual politeness he’d shown to that point. He turned completely, facing Blake, and searched his eyes for a long moment.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.”

He’d grown so used to the automatic response to those words, he didn’t even hesitate. He didn’t think he could form any other words though, not with Linc’s blue eyes locked on his. He’d felt the flip of desire earlier when he’d first seen the man, but now that he was the focus of his attention? Blake’s knees wobbled and his heart kicked up a beat.

Linc grinned, obviously picking up on Blake’s reaction. “Come on. Let me show you the rest of the place. I think you’re going to like what you see.”

Linc turned and talked out of the room and Blake’s eyes drifted to watch Linc’s ass as it filled the tight, worn out jeans he wore. Oh, he liked what he saw all right. He liked it a lot.