Currant Creek Valley(58)

“He seems to be excited for the move.”

“He complains about the separations during the week but I think he’s going to miss his cousins when Nicky and his family move to Europe.”

“What about you? Are you going to miss your brother and his family?”

“They’ve been incredibly supportive since Kelli died. I don’t know what I would have done without them these last few years. So, yeah. I’ll miss them but I guess it was time for all of us to make a change.”

“Why Hope’s Crossing? I’m not sure you’ve ever given me a straight answer on that. Colorado is a big state. A guy with your particular skill set probably could have landed anywhere.”

He was silent. “You’re going to think this sounds ridiculous.”

“Try me.”

“When Brodie first talked to me about taking over and finishing the work at Brazen, Ethan and I came out from Denver to see what needed to be done on the site. I remember, it was a Saturday afternoon in March, sunny and cool. After walking through the restaurant, we stopped for lunch at the pizza place in town.”

“They make a good pie. Certainly not worth uprooting your whole life for, though.”

“The food was good, yeah. But while we were eating, at least three different people stopped to say hello and ask if I needed directions anywhere.”

She smiled at the stunned note in his voice. “Yeah, we can all go a little crazy trying to help out lost tourists. It can be annoying.”

“I didn’t think it was annoying. I thought it was wonderful. I still do. I’ve never experienced that sense of community. I want Ethan to have what Nick and I didn’t, you know? Roots. Traditions. A place to belong.”

He was a loving father who would do anything for his child. “What about you?” she asked, mainly to avoid thinking about how sexy she found that. “What do you see in the stars for your future?”

“Same thing, I guess,” he said after a moment. “It will be nice to have my feet planted in one spot for a while.”

He was quiet while the swing continued its hypnotic movement. “I basically went from the chaos of our childhood straight into taking care of Nick and then into the military, and spent the next decade and a half going where I was sent. When Kelli was diagnosed, we were living in Germany. We both decided being near her family during her treatment was our best option. Not one of our smartest decisions, by the way.”

“They weren’t supportive?”

He sighed. “You don’t need to hear this ugly story tonight. Tomorrow’s a big day for you.”

“Distract me.”

“I could come up with far more interesting ways to distract you than talking about the mess I’m leaving in Denver.”

His words vibrated through the night and her insides quivered. She firmly ignored her instantaneous response.

“How about we stick with you telling me what happened with your wife’s family? Why are you leaving a mess?”

“Her father owns a big construction company. Tanner and Sons. A major player in the area. Despite the name, neither of his sons has much interest in construction. One is a teacher and one is an artist and neither stuck around Colorado. I think J.T., Kelli’s father, had some vague idea of eventually handing over the reins to me. He had been after me for a long time to quit the army and go into business with him.”

That would have meant the world to Sam, she thought. Coming from the hardscrabble beginnings he had shared with her, she could only imagine how he must have wanted acceptance from his wife’s family.

“Once I started working for him, I quickly realized our, uh, ethical baselines didn’t quite mesh.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s not unusual in huge construction contracts to underbid the competition and then cut corners so you can still make a profit. J.T. took that to extremes. I guess I was too distracted while Kelli was dying to really pay much attention to anything else. A few months after her death, I sort of woke up one day and realized I couldn’t do some of the things he was asking of me.”

Sam had a strong core of honor. It was one of the things she most admired about him. How had he developed such a thing through the turmoil of his childhood, with a father who had abandoned him and a drug addict for a mother?

“So you quit.”

His rough laugh held little amusement. “I took things a little further than that. I actually ended up turning him in for gross building code violations for an elementary school he was building. Six months ago, I testified against him and the building inspector he was paying off to look the other way. He was convicted of fraud and bribery, among a host of other things, and is headed to prison pending his appeal.”