Love Ahead PDF
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Dreamspinner Press www.dreamspinnerpress.com Copyright ©2008 by Madeleine Urban and Abigail Roux First published in 2008, 2008 NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment. CONTENTS UNDER CONTRACT OVER THE ROAD * * * * To my Boo, for his unending supportand excitement on my behalf.~Madeleine UNDER CONTRACT A loud clang, crash, crunch, and tinkle was not what Ted Lucas wanted to hear on a bright and sunny Monday morning. Not at all. He rolled his chair back from the blueprints, grabbed his hard hat, and ducked as he jumped out of the trailer, skipping the stairs altogether. He ran around the corner of the huge cinderblock foundation and stopped in his tracks. "Goddammitalltahell! What's going on out here?” he yelled at the top of his lungs. Everyone stopped. Some looked confused, some looked amused, and some had that ‘deer-in-the-headlights-oh-my-God-I'm-going-to-die’ look on their faces. Nick Cooper stood with his foot on a length of pipe from the bundle that had crashed to the ground. He looked up at the bobbing White Hard Hat of Doom when it came tear-assing around the corner and raised an eyebrow. "Morning, boss,” he greeted with a calm smirk, knowing the cheeky greeting wasn't likely to smooth Lucas's feathers any. He'd ceased trying to smooth the man's feathers about a week after first meeting him. It was a bit more interesting to ruffle them every now and then. Lucas practically growled, looking over the mess: a bundle of piping spilled off a cart, two sets of drywall sheets smashed, a window broken, and probably a fucking partridge in a pear tree shitting somewhere. He looked around at the workers milling about, lips compressing. “Boo!” he suddenly screeched—and most of the men jumped and scuttled off. Sanders, the electrician who had received one too many shocks over the years, passed clean out from the scare. "What the hell, man?” Cooper muttered as he watched his crew beat a hasty retreat. “I have to find a new job,” he grumbled, bending to heft a nearby rock and stick it under the pipes to keep them from rolling further. Hands clenching into fists, Lucas walked over and started to shift the trolley so they could stack the pipe back onto it. “We're already two weeks behind. I've got supply delays, a skittish electrician, a mudder who streaks, and now this,” he said under his breath. “I'm gonna get skinned." Cooper glanced behind him and frowned down at the unconscious electrician. “He's like one of those goats that passes out when you clap. You think we should check his pulse?” he asked casually. “Man, that'd shoot the company insurance to shit, huh?” he asked a little evilly. "Jesus Christ, Cooper, don't tempt fate,” Lucas practically begged, pushing his hard hat back and rapping his forehead against the thick bar handle on the trolley. "You know, maybe if you didn't shout everything you said, half your crew would still have their hearing,” Cooper pointed out as he wiped his sleeve over his dirty cheek. Lucas looked like he was chewing on something sour. “Hell. Half of ‘em are deaf anyway from all the machinery,” he muttered, bending over again to help the other man pick up the heavy pipes. "What'd you say?” Cooper shouted, barely keeping a straight face as he tilted his head and cupped his ear. The foreman just rolled his eyes. Not too many people got away with prodding at him like Cooper did. It was probably because Cooper was damn good at what he did. It didn't hurt that he was almost as tall as Lucas, although he didn't carry the same muscle mass. It also didn't hurt that Lucas thought about him at all hours.... Within several minutes they had the pipes and glass cleaned up, and some brave souls flitted in to start replacing the drywall. Sanders was dragged into the shade until he woke up. "What happened, anyway?” Lucas asked. It was 9 a.m. on a Monday. He shouldn't be tired already. It made him cranky. "I don't know, it wasn't my day to babysit,” Cooper answered with a matter-of- fact shrug. “I just saw the pipes running away and threw myself in front of them. I deserve a bonus, I think,” he told his boss with a sad nod. Lucas's head snapped up, and he looked Cooper over carefully. “You don't look hurt. Are you hurt?” He started walking to the side, looking the other man up and down. No blood. No bones sticking out. No gashes or tears in his clothes. Just the usual dirt and sweat. "Mental anguish,” Cooper drawled, the smirk finally surfacing as he readjusted his heavy work gloves and glanced sideways as the boss man looked him over. The foreman sighed and crossed his arms, trying to hide the intense relief that flooded him. “Anything else, Mr. Assistant Smartass Foreman?" "No, sir, Mr. Hardass Foreman, sir.” Cooper snickered and sketched a mock salute and bow as he turned to go back to work. Growling again under his breath, Lucas stalked back to the trailer. He'd better not stay or he'd catch himself ogling. That wouldn't be good. To take his mind off his rather inappropriate thoughts, he reminded himself that he still had to find the discrepancy in those manifests, which reminded him that he hated paperwork. He'd much rather be out swinging a hammer or driving a frontloader or drawing blueprints from scratch. The rest of Monday passed without any other mishaps, and after reviewing the section reports, Lucas was feeling a bit better. Apparently Cooper had lit a fire under some of the men, because several of the crews had made up two to three days’ work today. Grabbing for his hard hat, Lucas realized he still had it on his head. Sighing, he left the trailer—for only the second time that day, he thought miserably—looking for his assistant. At that moment, his assistant was up to his elbows, literally, in drying plaster mix. Cooper knelt in front of the bucket, lips pressed tightly together, praying to God that they would find the chisel before Lucas came out of his trailer. It was almost quitting time, and he'd be prowling out here any second. Lucas looked around the building, checking the rooms, before heading out back. He saw Cooper from behind before he saw anything else, and he immediately quashed his first response—a decidedly physical one—to Cooper's body. It was a response that he tried not to admit even to himself that he had (and had and had and had), and he moved on. “Hey, Cooper, you know, from behind it looks like you're up to your ... el ... bows ... what the hell?" "You weren't exactly supposed to see this,” Cooper responded grumpily as he glanced to the side, trying to turn and see the man without actually lifting the bucket full of plaster up to do so. The foreman just stared. It was so hysterically funny that he couldn't even laugh. He actually bit his lip. Hard. “Do I even want to know?" "I did it before I could think about it, okay?” Cooper said defensively as the runner finally came jogging up with the chisel. “Be careful with that fucking thing, man, remember my fingers are down there,” Cooper growled. His usually amiable personality, especially compared to Lucas's typical pissiness, did a lot toward making the men like and respect him. That meant that when he shouted or growled, well ... the men quaked. He turned back to glance at the boss as the trembling chisel was placed against the hardening plaster. “One of the guys dropped his damn wedding ring in it, and I reached in to grab it before it could dry up. Then when I couldn't get my hand out, I reached in with the other to pull it out,” he admitted, hoping the flush of embarrassment was covered by his deep tan. The stupidity of the act was due mostly to the fact that he hadn't gotten more than three hours of sleep last night, but he didn't mention that. It was hard not to offer it as an excuse, though. Lucas actually winced when he heard the first crack of the plaster. “That's still going to hurt like hell,” he murmured, accompanied by a sideways glare from Cooper. “Once you're free, come over to the trailer. I've got some solvent to get the shit off without pulling off all the skin." "Yeah, okay,” Cooper grumbled, flushing deeper as he turned back to watch the slow progress of the chipping. “Someone get a fucking knife over here and slice open this fucking bucket!” he shouted in uncharacteristic frustration. Lucas backed away and caught himself looking at Cooper from behind again. Closing his eyes tightly, he made himself turn around and walk back to the trailer. He spent some time digging in the closet for the solvent, and even more time digging under the sink for the wide trough bucket. He'd just pulled it all out when he heard someone on the steps outside the trailer. Outside, Cooper huffed and kicked at the door, unable to knock with his hands. God forbid he get plaster all over Lucas's office door; the man would go apeshit. Hurrying to the door, Lucas pushed it open and held it so Cooper could get up the stairs. He grimaced when he caught sight of the other man's arms, still mostly coated with hardened and clinging plaster, a smattering of shallow cuts to go along with the damage. Once he let the door shut, he walked back into the bathroom, running warm water into the trough and then adding the solvent. “All right, thing about this shit is, it's going to sting like hell once it gets down to your skin. But that's how you'll know you can start wiping the plaster off. It gets all soft like wallpaper paste,” he explained, carefully carrying the trough out to the small table. "Great,” Cooper muttered, stepping up to the table and poking three fingers into the stuff distastefully. The many cuts, blisters, and cracks in his work- hardened fingertips began to flame, but he closed his eyes and simply dunked both arms into the stuff, all the way to his elbows. Lucas went back to the bathroom and turned on the shower, near full hot. He knew Cooper would want to get that solvent off as soon as possible. It hurt like absolute hell, but it was still better than trying to pull the plaster bits off. That was excruciating. He headed back into the main room of the trailer—there were only three—and waited, trying not to think about how attractive the quiet stoicism was. Or about the shower the man would soon be stepping into.... Cooper didn't wince, not once, as the solvent burned its way through the plaster and then started working on his skin. He calmly wiped at his forearms and hands, his face betraying nothing as he did so. He wanted to scream. Or at least kick something. Cry, maybe. Cry a lot. When he had taken as much as he could stand and the plaster was mostly goop once more, he stood abruptly and nodded at the shower he could hear running. "Go on,” Lucas said hoarsely. He could see the strain around the other man's eyes and the set of his jaw. He knew how much it hurt. “The hot water will finish dissolving the plaster and wash off the solvent."
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