She caught up with Casey as she marched back to the hotel. “So it all worked out, right?”
Her sister sighed. “Sorry. I was mad at Toby, not you. Thanks for the help.”
“You’re welcome.” Probably as good a time as any to ask. “But now I need your help with something.”
“Excuse me?” Casey pulled up short. “Is the apocalypse happening and I missed the memo?”
It had taken all her might to ask, and her sister was making light of it? Meg was tempted to tell her sister to forget it. She’d figure it out on her own. But she really needed Casey’s help. Ignoring her sarcasm, Meg sucked in a deep breath and told Casey about her conversations with Amber and then Walt.
Casey’s smirk quickly vanished. “Let’s go to my office. Too many ears out here.” Casey led the way down the hall. She closed the door behind them and then sat behind her desk. “Beau told me he wasn’t sure he’d be able to fit a job as big as yours into his schedule.”
Settling into a guest chair, Meg said, “He told me that too, but he said he’d think about it. Can you help me convince him to take on my job? At a reasonable rate? Amber is determined to see me fail. But I can do this if I can get Beau to help.”
Casey’s lips tilted as she nodded. “Beau has been after me to go away with him for a long weekend before the boys get back from France. I’ve been putting him off because I thought people would put two and two together if we did that. But I just told him I’d go before I went to pack the boat, so he should still be in a good mood. Let’s see.” She picked up her cell and tapped out a text.
Relief whooshed through Meg as her sister finished her text to Beau asking for his help. “Thanks, Casey. I owe you one.”
“You owe the bank for your loan, you don’t owe your sister for a favor. And see? Trusting me enough to tell me your problem and then asking for help wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“I guess.” Meg owed her sister the truth about Josh too. “You’ll probably be mad at me for this, but I told Josh I’d give our relationship another try.” Meg braced for her sister’s fury. Casey had warned her about handing her heart to Josh. But she hadn’t given it to him all the way. Just enough to test out the waters.
Casey nodded. “I figured as much—” Her ringing cell cut her off. “It’s Beau.” She picked up the phone. “Hello?”
Meg scooted to the edge of her seat.
Please let him say yes.
Casey’s face turned all soft and mushy. Doodling little curlicues on her paper as she listened, she finally said, “Yes, I think we could include some of that as well.” She was quiet for a minute before she said, “Mmmmm, yeah. That too.”
Meg stood to give them some privacy, but Casey lifted a finger and shook her head.
“’Kay. See you later, then.” When Casey hung up, her expression quickly slipped back to normal, but Meg was pretty certain her cheeks were still fifty shades of pink.
“So? Was that a yes?”
“Yep. He said the numbers you talked about were close enough, he’d send a formal bid and a crew to start tomorrow, and that I was going to owe him big-time.” Casey sent her a quick eyebrow hitch. “I’m looking forward to paying him back. But you’ll be interested to know, Amber offered to sleep with Beau if he refused to do the work for you.”
“Well, it’s lucky for me you’re such a wild woman in the sack then, right? He might’ve caved if you weren’t keeping him so . . . satisfied.”
A magazine flew at Meg’s head, but she dodged it. She headed for the door before objects more solid began to fly. “Thank you, Casey. You’re still my favorite half sister.”
“And you’re still a brat!”
Finished with rigging up the trigger device on Meg’s old car, Josh decided to take a break. “Zeke, I need to run a little errand. Be back in a bit, okay?”
The old man nodded and went back to the carburetor he was rebuilding.
After Josh had called Meg and confirmed she was at the lodge and that Haley was napping with Meg’s grandmother, he jumped into his truck.
Their time in the shower earlier still tortured him. Nothing helped. Reciting box scores, the periodic table, and even the alphabet backward couldn’t redirect his thoughts.
He pulled up to the lodge and then circled around back. Meg wore big safety glasses as she swung a sledgehammer that had to weigh half as much as she did against one of the deck’s main support posts. Apparently the whole thing was coming down.
Later.
And he’d do it for her. It could be dangerous.