Love Restored (Gallagher Brothers #1)(12)

“Why are you here, Owen?” he asked again, pushing thoughts of Blake from his head.

“I came to talk about a few things with you project-wise since we have more than the house on the hill going on. We have to punch out on the Henderson place in a couple of days, and I want to take a look at another site and place a bid.”

The place on the hill was what they were calling Blake’s place since calling it the Brennen place had seemed off for some reason. The fact that they’d done that spoke volumes about the neglect that the old place had endured for so long.

Graham’s mind went to work, shifting gears. “We don’t have time for another bid. Like you said, we punch out at the Henderson place when we get back next week, and we still have part of our crew at Jackson’s. Not to mention, we haven’t even used a freaking hammer at the place on the hill yet. We can’t take another bid right now. We’re not the Montgomerys with that kind of manpower.” He was fine with that actually, since they each had their niche. They usually didn’t compete for places since the Gallaghers went for the smaller projects—as well as the ones that were purely historical.

The place on the hill being the exception since they hadn’t been the ones to place the bid in the first place. That had been the lawyers.

Owen raised a hand. “It wouldn’t come up for a year, Graham. It’s on the historical society’s registry, and they are slow as hell at getting things done. So we bid down, get our other projects out of the way, probably work on another in between, then do it.”

Graham sighed. “Fine. I guess you know what you’re doing.”

Owen was already making notes on his tablet, his head down. “Well, yeah, as that’s my job and all. You run the crews, I run everything else.”

“Is that all you came over to talk about?” Graham said after they’d discussed the new bid in detail. “Because you could have waited until Monday for that. Or, hell, used the damn phone.”

Owen shook his head and pulled out two tickets from his messenger bag. “Austin gave me two tickets to the Avs game tonight since he and Sierra can’t go.”

Graham’s brows rose, and he took a ticket from his brother. Austin was Maya’s brother as well as the other owner of Montgomery Ink. Sierra was his wife. While Graham knew the other guy and was close in age, they weren’t best friends or anything. It was more that their outer circles crossed thanks to their siblings.

“Why didn’t he give it to his siblings or one of their forty cousins? They breed like rabbits.”

Owen snorted. “I was in the shop with Jake to pick something up, and Austin handed them over. I guess I was the first person he saw. Anyway, you want to go?”

Watching guys shove each other into boards, get into fights, and pass the puck around in person sounded like a damn better night than what he’d planned, considering he was just going to watch it at home in his underwear.

“I’m in.”




Since Owen drove, they were there early. They already had beers in their hands and were settled in their seats before the teams had even finished with their warm-ups. For Owen, being on time meant being there fifteen minutes early. Being there right on the dot was late. So, instead of making it to the Pepsi Center right as the lights started to go down as Graham liked, he was there, sitting down and watching the Avalanche and Maple Leafs pass the puck around on their respective sides of the ice. He liked watching how fast they moved as they practiced. It was a delicate balance between strength and flexibility since most of these guys were well over six feet and weighed more than he did but in pure muscle.

While the Avalanche were having a crappy season, and frankly, had been having them since Sakic retired in Graham’s opinion, he still thought they could beat the Maple Leafs.

At least, he hoped they could, since watching a game in person where his team lost sucked.

While he and his brother sipped at their beers, the seats around them began to fill in, except for the two on Graham’s side. He was just about to ask Owen about it when he spotted a very familiar face at the end of the row walking toward them.

“The f*ck?” he growled.

Owen turned at Graham’s curse and snorted. “Oh, that’s sweet,” he said before sobering. “Don’t be an *,” he muttered before standing up. “Hey, Blake. Fancy seeing you here.”

Blake’s honey eyes widened as she took in Owen and Graham. She didn’t freeze, but Graham figured that had more to do with the fact that she didn’t want to step on the person’s toes in front of her. Their grouping of four seats was in the middle of the row, three rows behind the glass. Amazing freaking tickets, but now Graham had to sit next to the one person he was trying to stay away from.

“You,” she mumbled. “It had to be freaking you.” She raised her chin like she had before and went to sit down in the spot farthest from him, only to get pushed slightly as the man behind her took the seat instead. “What the hell, Derek?” she snapped as she turned around.

That gave Graham a moment to look at her tight jeans that encased a very nice butt and shapely thighs. His dick hardened, and he cursed. This was going to be one long game if he couldn’t get his thoughts off her ass.

But considering it was right there, all nice and perfect for his hands and everything, he couldn’t really help it. Owen cleared his throat beside him, and Graham turned away, cursing under his breath again. This woman was going to be the death of him, and he didn’t even know why.