“Somebody had to run the other crew since you got a wild hair to go off schedule. Those fugly tiles are gone over there, and wasn’t that fun?”

Anything but, Ryder thought, and couldn’t help but be glad he didn’t have to do it.

“If you get material in here tomorrow, we can start the new roof.”

“It’ll be here at eight.” Owen gave Ryder an up-and-down study. “Looks like you’ve earned a beer.”

“I earned a fucking six-pack.”

“Avery’s closing tonight, so I’m going to go over, hang awhile. It’s Beckett’s turn to buy.”

“Beckett’s going home,” Beckett announced. “And taking a five-hour shower. I may eat and sleep in the shower.”

“Looks like you and me, Ry.”

“Looks like you,” Ryder corrected. “I’m doing what Beckett’s doing, and so’s my dog.”

“Fair enough, considering how the two of you smell. We’ll rain check it until tomorrow. We need to go over some things, both sites. We can do it before the crew gets here in the morning, or after we knock off.”

“After,” Ryder said, definitely.

“Friday night?” Beckett arched his brows. “No hot date?”

“My hot dates don’t start that early, they go until early.” But he didn’t have one, and hadn’t thought about it. Maybe after he’d showered off three or four inches of grime, he’d give it more thought.

“See you tomorrow then.” As Owen strolled off, Beckett looked back at the building. He and Ryder stood together like a couple of refugees from hell. “Flip you for who does the final check and locks up.”

Mostly because he remembered early-morning coffee in the kitchen with Clare, Ryder shrugged. “Go on home to the wife and kids. I’ll do it.”

“I’m already gone.”

Ryder went back in, grabbed his clipboard. He wanted to note a couple things down, after he could stand to be around himself again. He checked the door facing St. Paul, got his cooler.

Thought of lemonade.

No time for that, he told himself. And though he wouldn’t mind the pie, he wasn’t going into the inn in his current state. He’d have to rain check that, too.

He started out just as a truck pulled in.

Willy B’s, he noted, with his mother riding shotgun. He tried not to think of the fact that Avery’s father was sleeping with his mother. He’d rather just continue to think of Willy B as he always had: an old family friend—a hell of a nice guy who’d been Tommy Montgomery’s best pal since childhood.

If he thought of big, red-bearded Willy B as his mom’s lover, it just got sticky.

Justine hopped out. She wore those pants that stopped inches above the ankle and some sort of girly T-shirt with fancy work around the neck.