Built (Saints of Denver #1)(23)

I was a man that constructed and refurbished things for a living. If I was intent on one woman, on having not only her but a life with her at the center of it, then there was no way I was going to build anything that wasn’t one hundred percent indestructible even if that meant getting in there and knocking down some walls and pulling up some of the existing structure. Sayer Cole was a project I couldn’t wait to get my hands on.

CHAPTER 5

Sayer

I was sitting at my desk aimlessly sifting through what seemed like an endless sea of paperwork and case files when there was a light tap on my office door. I pushed the paper that was full of words my tired eyes had blurred together away in frustration and told the person on the other side of the door to come in.

Carla Dragon was an amazing paralegal, and the only one on staff who hadn’t been on my last nerve over the last few weeks. I knew I was extra tense and not nearly as focused as I usually was ever since the state had agreed to have Hyde’s DNA tested against Zeb’s. I knew that I shouldn’t be as personally invested in the outcome as I was, but every day that passed I felt like I was waiting for a giant hammer to fall while we waited for the results to come in. I felt like the answer was almost as important to me as it was to Zeb. Which meant experiencing more emotions that were setting me off-kilter and making me decidedly uncomfortable.

Zeb called pretty much every other day to see if there was any word even though I told him repeatedly I would let him know as soon as the paperwork hit my desk. His anxiety and investment in the outcome of the test only served to fuel my own unease, and I could tell he was chomping at the bit to make things happen, to move things along so that he could get access to the child. I admired it, and him, but there was a tiny little piece of doubt that nagged at a place in my chest because even though I talked to the handsome contractor nearly once a day, he hadn’t brought up getting together for that date he’d asked me about.

Logically I knew the timing was off and that we both had far more pressing things to handle at the moment, but the old uncertainty I had spent a lifetime fighting against because it had been ruthlessly drilled into me that I wasn’t enough, wasn’t worth time or effort from anyone, needled me no matter how hard I tried to push back against it. Zeb wasn’t ignoring me or dismissing me, but the memory of how it felt when someone you cared about did, pricked at my skin.

“Hey, you doing okay? This is the third night this week you’re at your desk well after the rest of the partners have left for the day.” Carla entered the office and took a seat across from my uncharacteristically cluttered desk. My gaze went to the manila folder she had in her hands and narrowed. Carla was a lovely young woman with a sharp mind, quick wit, and a laser focus on the career path she wanted. It didn’t surprise me she was also working late. I knew that currently she was happy being a paralegal at one of the top family law firms in Colorado, but she made it known that eventually she wanted to be the one sitting behind the big, messy desk pushing case files around. She worked full-time for us and also had a family. I had no idea how she was going to make law school happen, but I admired her drive and her confidence that she could handle it all. I needed a little bit of that can-do attitude for myself.

In Seattle my life had been structured, rigid, and painfully predictable. When I uprooted myself, threw caution to the wind, and came to Colorado, I was operating completely in unfamiliar territory. I was scrambling in pretty much every aspect of my life outside of work, because everything was so unfamiliar. I had a family I didn’t need to beg for affection. I had someone in my life who knew how to love and be loved without games. I had feelings threatening to overwhelm me where a man was concerned, and I had someone relying on me to be strong for them, to help them heal when I was nothing more than an ugly and open wound myself. I never felt like I was doing any of it correctly outside of the courtroom, but I tried.

“I’m just playing catch-up. I’m not sure how I managed to get so far behind on things, but I am.”

She lifted her eyebrows at me and tilted her head to the file I had open in front of me on top of the mess of the other ones. “Could it be the fact that you haven’t looked at anything other than that case file for the last two weeks? Every time I’m in your office it’s open on your desk and you’re staring at it.”

There was no missing the black-and-white mug shot of Zeb or the angry downturn of his mouth in the image. It was well before his face was covered in fuzz and I couldn’t get over how young he looked and how furious he seemed in the image. That wasn’t the Zeb Fuller I knew and dreamed about at night, but it was a version of Zeb that existed and could prove very difficult to deal with when it came to fighting for his kid. The idea that passion could be so wild and dangerous taunted me.

I knew all about the assault charge and the fact he had pled no contest and served his time. The hiccup and the surprise in the mix was the additional charge of endangering the welfare of a child. The police report was vague and so were the notes from the public defender who handled Zeb’s case. But from what I could piece together, Zeb had gone after his sister’s boyfriend and hurt him badly enough to put the guy in the hospital for several weeks. The attack on the other man had happened at the sister’s apartment and well within the view of the sister’s then three-year-old little girl. The arresting officer claimed the child was terrified and crying. He claimed she wouldn’t even look at him or stop screaming when he came to intervene in the situation, thus prompting him to add the endangerment charge. It wasn’t uncommon for the police to level that charge upon physically violent parents who fought each other with no regard to how their actions might end up affecting the mental well-being of their kids. It was slightly more unusual for the charge to fall on a relative of the child, especially one who didn’t share the home with the minor, and in Zeb’s case it was going to make going before a judge decidedly more complicated.