She smiled, not because she felt like it, but because he expected it. “Go plan your spa day. I have things to hammer.”

He nodded and started for the door. Then he stopped. “Don’t you ever get tired of it?”

“Of what? The work? The travel?” It was her turn to shrug. “Nah. I like being rootless.”

“There might be a happy medium between being tied down and being a tumbleweed,” he said.

She didn’t think so. “Maybe,” she said brightly.

Dean gave the wall a rap of his knuckles. “At least put the cabinet conundrum up for a vote on the ’gram. Get your people excited about it.”

And then he walked out, leaving her all alone.

11

11

A string of curses volleyed out of the kitchen, echoing off the walls of the hallway. Silas proceeded with amused caution.

He found Maggie yanking a sledgehammer free from the wall and hauling back to take another swing. It wasn’t the kind of deliberate, economical move that he’d come to expect of her. This was temperamental destruction. He recognized it as he, too, was a fan of physically exorcising a good mad when the occasion called for it.

She was winding up again when he stepped up and plucked the sledgehammer out of her grip.

“Hey!” She was not amused.

“Hey back,” he said, leaning the hammer against the wall out of her reach.

She had a fine layer of plaster dust on her shoulders. There was a raw scrape on her forearm and a tear in the knee of her pants that hadn’t been there that morning.

Her eyes, that whiskey-in-a-glass color, flashed with emotion.

Silas knew better than to ask what was wrong.

“What do you want?” she asked. It wasn’t exactly a snarl, but it was in the neighborhood.

“Wanna take a walk? Look at some dirt?” he offered.

She frowned. “What time is it?”

“Just after three,” he said.

Swearing, she glanced around the dust-covered room. Taking a stab at what she needed, Silas handed her the thermos he found under the table and watched as she drank deeply.

“Been at it a while?” he guessed. He’d been at another job—an outdoor kitchen hardscape—and hadn’t seen her outside when he returned after lunch.

Maggie tugged up the hem of her tank and swiped at the sweat dotting her brow, earning him a peek at her taut stomach and bright-purple sports bra. Her gaze slid to the massacred wall and then back to him. “Let’s look at some dirt,” she said with a marked lack of enthusiasm.