“He is. He’s excited, but I actually saw a bit of fear mixed in with it. He’s just getting used to living with my rowdy two, and now we’ll add another into the mix. I think he’s afraid he won’t be a good father. He sure has nothing to pattern fatherhood after.”
“It does sound like his father was a cold man.”
“You mean because he basically shipped Owen off to boarding school his whole life? Or how he refused to acknowledge Jake was his son?”
“Owen is nothing like that. You can see how hard he’s worked at gaining your boys’ trust. I don’t think he’s anything like his father.”
“He has been great with the boys. I’m sure he’ll be great with this new little one.”
Bella looked across the restaurant and saw Becky Lee watching them. She smiled at her friend, but self-consciously slipped her hand off her belly.
CHAPTER FOUR
Cal pushed through the door to Steve Bergeron’s construction company with Scotty following closely behind him. A man looked up from the table he was standing behind and smiled. “You must be Cal. Larry called and said he was sending you my way. I’m Steve.”
Cal crossed the room and shook the man’s offered hand. A firm handshake. He could always tell a lot about a man from his handshake.
A small boy came running from a room off to the side followed closely by an Australian shepherd dog. They both skidded to a stop beside Steve. “Hi, I’m Josh. This is Louie.” He turned to Scotty. “What’s your name?”
“Scotty.” Scotty leaned over and patted the dog. The dog thumped his tail in response and wriggled in excitement.
“Dad, can I go show Scotty the fort I’m making out back?”
“If it’s okay with Cal.”
Cal had no idea what was okay and what wasn’t these days, but if Scotty wanted to go with the boy, and it took the haunted look from his eyes, he was good with that. Cal nodded.
Scotty, Josh, and Louie headed out the back door of the office.
“We can keep an eye on them out the window.” Steve nodded towards the back window. “Now, Larry says you have construction experience. What have you done?”
“I’m great with drywall, done a lot of the framing, too. I’ve done tiling and wood floors. I’ve also done quite a bit of painting and I’m a bit of a perfectionist with it.”
“That sounds great. I’m so shorthanded these days. I do run background checks on all the people I hire.”
Cal froze. Of course, he’d do that. There would be paperwork to fill out, a social security card to show.
Steve looked at him, one eyebrow arched in a question. “Is there a problem? Something a background check will turn up?”
“No. Well, yes. I mean.” Cal raked his hands through his hair. “I go by Cal Gray. But you’ll see when I do the paperwork, it’s not my given name. I’d prefer to still be known here in town as Cal Gray, though.”
“Are you in some kind of trouble? I can’t have trouble around my son or my company.”
“It’s… a family thing.”
“Ex-wife?”
“No, nothing like that. I just need time to sort it out. You can do a web search on my real name and you’ll find out… things. I’d prefer to stay under the radar right now.”
“As long as the background check goes well, I’m fine with calling you whatever name you want.”
“And if you can keep what you find out private, I’d appreciate that.”
“I can do that. If it all checks out, when can you start?”
“Whenever you want. I need to find a place for Scotty and me to live. We’re staying at the Sweet Tea in the meantime. And I need to find childcare for Scotty.”
“Tell you what. If you want to go in the back with the boys and help with that fort they’re building, I’ll run my checks. I’m badly in need of help, so we’ll get you started as soon as you can sort all that out.”
“Here is my driver’s license with my given name.”
Steve took the license. “I’ll run the check.”
“That sounds great.” Cal headed toward the backdoor. “You’ll see I check out. It’s just… complicated right now.”
~ * ~
Steve’s eyes widened when he ran a quick check on Cal’s given name and found out who he really was. It seemed strange a man from that background would take a construction job, but it sounded like he’d done it before. Steve glanced out the window and saw Cal nailing a board on Josh’s ever-growing ragtag fort he was building behind the office.
Steve usually had good instincts when it came to people, and his gut was telling him to hire Cal. He didn’t know why Cal was keeping his real identity a secret, but the man must have his reasons. There wasn’t any legal problem that came up, so his inclination was to hire the man.