Stacking the Deck (A Betting on Romance Novel Book 2)(26)

“Whoa! No unauthorized cargo!” Carter caught the boy by the shoulders a moment before the kid hurled himself head-first into the back of his pickup. The boy laughed up at him, breathing heavily and looking over his shoulder.

“Thanks! My brother is after me. I didn’t see your truck.”

“Didn’t see it? You might need to get your eyes checked then, buddy.”

But instead of laughing, the boy’s smile disappeared. “There’s nothing wrong with me,” he said.

Carter picked up a paver from a stack near the tailgate. “I was kidding.” But the boy looked like a puppy that’d been kicked. He turned to leave, his slim shoulders sagging under his Star Wars T-shirt. Carter tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, what’s your name?”

“Ben.”

Carter extended a hand. “Carter McIntyre. Owner of the truck you almost creamed.” The boy shook hands awkwardly. “Sorry. I guess I’m not as funny as I like to think. No hard feelings?”

Ben shrugged, his gaze glancing off Carter’s. “Guess not.”

“Great. Say, I’m mocking up a couple edging patterns. Would you mind helping me carry these out back?”

“Sure.” Carter handed the boy a couple pavers. “I can take more,” said Ben. “I’m stronger than I look. I take karate.”

“Impressive. I can see your muscles. I can move two tons of stone in a single day.”

“Wow!”

“I know. We landscapers are amazing that way. Here, I think you can take one more, I’ll take a couple, then we’ll see what the lady of the house has to say.”

“The lady of the house?” Ben asked as they rounded the corner to the backyard. Carter pointed through the glass slider. “That’s not a lady. That’s my mother!”

“I heard that.” Liz’s sister, Trish, stepped onto the back deck and cupped a hand to her mouth. “Peter! Jess! Front and center! Five minute warning!” A baby snored over her shoulder as she turned back to Ben. “Just for your information, mothers can be ladies, too. It’s not mutually-exclusive.”

Ben rolled his eyes, but grinned under his mom’s teasing. “Where do you want these?” he asked Carter.

“Just set them on the edge of the deck. I’ll get the rest in a minute.”

“I can do it!” Ben said, dropping his load of pavers and charging away again.

Carter watched the boy round the corner of the house. “Sorry. If you have to leave—”

Trish waved a hand. “Let him go. He’s had a hard day. It’ll do him good to keep busy while I corral the twins.”

Ben roared around the corner of the house again and dropped his pavers on the others. A corner chipped off one and sailed through the air.

“Ben!” Trish gasped. “Be careful!”

“I’m so sorry!” Ben stared at the chipped corner, and then at Carter, his eyes welling up as if shocked by his own powers of destruction.

Carter knew all too well how that felt.

Impulsively, Carter grabbed another paver and dropped it on the pile. A corner chipped off a second paver. “Look,” he said. “No big deal. Happens all the time.” He picked up the damaged paver and flipped it over in his palm, held it out. “Luckily, they have two sides.”

When he saw the still-useable face, Ben grinned gratefully and looked at his mom as if to say, “See?” before running off again.

“Thanks,” she said. “He doesn’t mean to be careless. He just has a lot of energy, you know?”

Carter nodded as he watched Ben disappear from view. “Yeah, I know.”





CHAPTER TWELVE


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“I’VE GOT IT, POP.” Carter snaked in front of his uncle and grabbed the handles of the wheelbarrow before the older man could try to lift it. He cocked his head toward the house. “I think I smelled Grams cooking up a batch of those pocket pastry thingies for her friends. Better get ‘em while they’re hot.”

His uncle gave him a long, quiet stare before he finally let go of the handles and stood, a slight grimace the only indication his back was still giving him trouble. “You’re not fooling anyone, you know.”

“The bacon and herbed cheese are the best. I highly recommend them.”

His uncle shook his head and bent to pick up a trowel from the grass nearby. He looked at it a moment then stuck it point first into the mortar in the wheelbarrow. “You were a lot cuter when you were little,” he said as he walked away around the side of the house.

“Love you, too, Pop!”

Carter watched his uncle walk away, his chest tight, then backed the load of mortar through the kitchen door.

“Don’t mind me, ladies. Just carry on. You’ll hardly know I’m here.” Carter wheeled by the dining room where Grams and her friends were getting ready to play cards. Whenever they played at Grams he made a point of stopping by, because Grams was a firm believer that wherever two or more are gathered, there should be food.

Grams stepped into his path and smacked his chest with a potholder. “Stop! You can’t roll that thing through my house as if it were some construction zone! You’ll track dirt all over. It’s bad enough the whole yard is torn up fixing the septic system.” She ended on a near whisper, presumably because septic systems were a subject polite ladies didn’t speak about.