Cole didn’t point out that Drake was already doing him a favor. While their mom was unquestionably the priority, it sure as shit didn’t suck to have a legit reason to avoid Sierra for the day.

Chapter Twelve

It was almost quitting time Friday afternoon, and the crew was finishing up for the week at the Draper home, cleaning the site for the weekend, loading up what equipment they wouldn’t need next week.

Sierra was pondering important questions as she secured her laptop and some papers in her truck: Red or white wine? Happy hour solo in her apartment or out at the bars with Hayden?

One way or another, there would be a happy hour.

It’d been a hell of a week, between the challenges of a hundred-year-old house with an attitude, getting her ducks in a row on the Eldridge app as she waited for Cole’s input, and, well, personal stuff. Personal Cole stuff. Stuff she shouldn’t let bother her, but dammit, it was bothering her.

Since Monday morning, when she’d swan-dived over the line and kissed Cole in her office, he’d managed to avoid spending any private time with her. After his day off on Tuesday, which she fully understood and supported, he’d made a painful point of not starting or ending the day at the Dunn & Lowell offices, as he normally did several times a week, and he showed up at the Draper site as close to starting time as he could get without being late, giving them zero opportunity to discuss anything but the day’s work. Which was his objective, obviously.

She didn’t need to hash out the kiss or their feelings, but she’d thought they were past the stiff, impersonal professionalism stage. Long past it. Clearly, kissing him had been a mistake. Message received. But what had happened to the companionship, the camaraderie they’d built up over, oh, either three years or, at the very least, last weekend?

Red wine it was. She needed the mellow relaxation…plus the ability to stop picking apart every interaction—or lack thereof—with Cole.

Though it was getting chilly as the sun lowered in the sky, maybe she’d see if Hayden was up for red wine on the balcony with a warm blanket or two this evening.

Sierra shut the door on her truck, intent on one last trip inside to make sure the guys had cleaned their work area to her standards. As she made her way past the back end of the truck, toward the house, and tried to step up on the curb, she somehow misjudged and stepped wrong and—

Shit!