Nailing Mr. Nasty (Campy Romances Series Book 2), page 4
“She’s afraid you’re going to blow your top and kill him,” Natalie said. “I admit that I’ve fantasized about that, too.”
Jack shook his head. “Killing that motherfucker isn’t worth going to prison for.”
“You’re right,” Natalie said.
“We shouldn’t say such things,” Margot scolded and a single tear wet her cheek.
That tear made him grind his teeth and feel even worse. Margot’s soft heart and desire to find goodness in every human made him feel unsettled, unbalanced. He and Natalie were on the same wavelength – hating Paul Nast and wishing fervently that he’d drive off a bridge into the Arkansas River or suffer a life-ending stroke. They barely tolerated their mother’s excuses or coverups, refusing to go along with Thelma Nast’s constant stream of excuses for her drunk, abusive husband. But Margot was different. She couldn’t hate. She couldn’t bring herself to exile her father from her life. She clung to hope while fighting off despair.
Her husband Walt, who headed up the Bravo Company crew, was just like her. Easy-going, laidback, Walt wore a dopey grin almost constantly. Walt and Margot were misplaced flower children who should have been born in the Age of Aquarius. Walt even had a tattoo on his right arm – Chinese writing that said something about controlling your emotions or they will control you. He’d met Margot in their junior year of high school and they’d recognized their other halves immediately. Their kid, six-year-old Andy, was the most tender-hearted and soft-spoken child Jack had ever been around. When Andy’s tee ball team had won their first game last year, Andy had cried because he felt bad for the other team. He’d kept asking why both teams couldn’t be winners.
“Chill, baby sister,” Natalie said, grabbing a throw pillow and hitting Margot with it. “We’re just letting off steam. Unlike you, Jack and I get wound up when we hear about Punch and Judy’s latest adventure.”
“Oh, stop.” Margot fended off the pillow and a whispery laugh escaped her. “I know you two don’t mean it, but it bothers me all the same.” She spread out her hands. “Mom needs us. Having us around makes her happy.” She turned her big, doe eyes on Jack. “She adores you, Jackie. You should visit her more.”
“Like Nat, I can barely tolerate being in that house. Makes me sick to smell his cigar smoke and see our family pictures with him grinning in them like a proud papa. I can hear their fights echoing in the rooms and I see the nicks in the walls where he threw things at her, swung on her and missed, or where she fell hard enough to crack plaster. I can’t blot those things out or not remember the hell he put us through.”
“She depends on you, though,” Margot insisted. “You’re her strength. She knows she can call on you and you’ll be there. You wouldn’t ever really turn your back on her, would you? No matter how aggravated she makes you?”
“No, I won’t ever desert her,” he said and he meant it. He loved his mother. Adored her. He’d always rescue her.
“Maybe it’d be better if you did.”
Natalie’s softly spoken words sliced through him like ice water and jerked his gaze to hers. Margot gasped and hugged the afghan to her pregnancy plump breasts.
“You don’t mean that,” Jack said. “If she called you, you’d be there for her in an instant.”
Natalie drank some of the tea and lifted one shoulder in a barely-there shrug. Her eyes glinted with a challenge, a dare, a thinly veiled accusation. Jack made a scoffing sound, calling her bluff.
“Natalie?” Margot ventured, her wavering faith evident in that one word.
“Look.” Natalie set the glass down on the table and placed her hands on the ragged, torn knees of her jeans. “Are we her strength or her crutch? Her safety net? I know we were her excuse for years. She told us that she stayed with Dad because of us. Like we wanted him there!”
“We did,” Margot said, her soft voice rising with alarm. “Or I did! We’re family. Mother wanted us to stick together.”
“Really, Margot?” Natalie shifted to glare at her sister. “You think that was the best decision? You enjoyed being in the middle of that mess? You looked forward to Dad coming home late?”
“No, not when he came home late, but he could be fun. He took us to the fair and to ball games. Remember that summer he took us to Grand Lake and we fished and camped out all weekend?”
“And he drank so much beer that Mother had to drive us home?” Natalie added with a droll tone. “Yeah, I remember. I’m sure Hitler had his good days, too.”
Jack chuckled, then laughed harder when Margot tried to look disapproving and failed. The sisters dissolved into giggles and whacked each other with sofa pillows until Margot surrendered and begged for mercy.
“Enough of this. Where is Vic?” Jack asked. His precocious, ten-month-old nephew could always make him smile.
“He is in daycare,” Natalie said. “I put him in daycare for half a day every Monday and Tuesday so that I can run errands and visit friends without hauling baby gear with me. I’ll get him when I pick up Linc and Gretchen from school.”
“When are you going to get married and have babies, Jackie?” Margot asked for the umpteenth time.
Jack stood, knowing when to make an exit. “I have work to do. I can’t sit around here and sip tea with you girls.” He aimed a finger at Margot. “I think I have another job for Walt. I’ve bid on a remodel near the fairgrounds.”
“Oh, in our neck of the woods again? That will be convenient. He can come home for lunch.”
“Or for a quickie?” Natalie said with a lusty wink. “A good, old in-and-outie on the dining room table!”
“Stop!” Margot’s cheeks pinked up to match her shirt. “That’s gross.”
“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. Right, Jack?”
He held up his hands in surrender. “I’m outta here.” At the door, he turned back to Natalie. “I’ll drop by this afternoon and check on Mother.”
Natalie tipped her head to one side, regarded him for a moment, then kissed his cheek. “If she wanted you to help her, she would have called you. You know that.”
“I know.” He looked from Natalie to Margot. They all bore the Nast dimpled chin. His sisters had passed it on to their offspring. If he ever sired a child would he pass that dimple on or perhaps more negative traits of his old man. “Love you gals.”
“We know,” Natalie said, grinning. “Lucky us.”
“Love you, too, Jackie!” Margot called over Natalie’s shoulder. “Be careful out there!”
“What’s all this?” Jack asked, thumbing through the neatly typed pages Sam handed him the next morning at the office.
“The first page is the overall punch list from the Reservoir Hill house,” she said, swiveling around in the office chair behind the metal desk to look up at him. For a few moments, she was transfixed by the length of his dark lashes brushing his cheeks as he read through the data. Her stomach did that weird twisty thing, jarring her from her trance. “The next pages are per room lists to make it easier to see what needs to be done where,” she hurried on, valiantly focusing on the work instead of the piece of work standing a foot from her and smelling faintly of pine and freshly cut lumber. “I’ve included the vendors and what sub-contractors I was told about along with their contact numbers at the bottom of each sheet. I know this isn’t how Lucy does it, but it seemed more efficient to me. If you don’t like it, just toss those extra pages and go with the one punch list.” She consulted her cellphone. “The tile for the master bathroom is supposed to be delivered today. So far, it hasn’t been. Will it arrive here or at the job site?”
Jack looked over the material with a mixture of gratitude and grudging respect. She’d far surpassed his expectations. Her question registered and he glanced up from the lists. For a few moments, he was lost in her silvery eyes that shimmered with pinpoints of light. She was a beauty and having her around was a big distraction. That’s the main reason he’d been reluctant to hire her when Lucy had suggested it. Oh, he’d told himself that he was concerned about having her around his work crews, but the fact was that he couldn’t look at her without finding something alluring – her gray eyes, her sly smile, her tumble of blond hair, that rocking body. God, that body! The woman was a walking fever dream.
“Something wrong?”
Her question and the way she looked at him with her brows knitted and her mouth gathered into a sexy moue jolted him from his wayward thoughts. “Uh . . . okay . . . yes. I mean, the tile will be delivered here. I should call them.”
“I can do that.” She touched her cellphone screen a couple of times and made the call. “Hello, this is Sam Striker calling for Nast Construction. We’re expecting a tile shipment this morning. What’s your ETA on it, please?”
A smirk lifted one corner of his mouth. Her tone was calm and efficient and he liked the way her perfectly shaped eyebrows arched as she spoke. She was a corker. He thought back to how she’d helped with the clean up of Mrs. Wilson’s yard. Hadn’t asked him, hadn’t said a word. She’d just grabbed a broom and dustpan and had gone to work. He liked that. Showed character and that she was a self-starter. Might be better if she wasn’t chained to this desk every day. There was nothing wrong with her checking on the crews at the job sites, he supposed. Unlike Lucy, Sam wasn’t afraid of a little dirt and grime.
Taylor plopped down on his dog bed and let loose a long, rattling sigh of contentment.
Sam chuckled. “What’s wrong, Taylor? Has he been a bear this morning already?”
Jack’s phone buzzed in his pants pocket. He yanked it out, saw that it was the Realtor he was working with, and answered. “This is Nast. What’s up, Vickie?”
“I have a counter on that house near the fairgrounds. The one on Knoxville?”
“The bank countered?”
“Yes. You offered seventy-five and they countered with one hundred.”
He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “No, that’s too much. Tell them I’ll bite at eight-five, tops.”
“What about the one on Swan Lake, Jack? You could make a nice profit on it.”
“Oh yeah? The basement floods and there are termites.”
“It’s been treated for the termites,” she rushed on and he could imagine her perfectly coiffed brown hair and professionally applied makeup. A woman in her late forties, Vickie Morey was a powerhouse commercial and residential Realtor and he liked working with her. She was a straight shooter, just like him. “Swan Lake, Jack. That is prime real estate, no matter what. I know I can get them to sign it over if you offer three and a quarter.”
“Jesus, yeah, they’d sign for that! And I’d have to put in another eighty to a hundred grand to bring the place into the twenty-first century. Where’s the profit in that?”
“The couple who lived there have let it run down, for sure, but the way you finish things out, Jack, you could list it for six or seven hundred thou and bank some serious dough.”
“Has any house brought that much on Swan Lake in the past few years?”
“They sure have. Last year one sold for eight and change.”
He rubbed the back of his neck and numbers, net, profit, interest, overheads, and wages flew through his brain. “Let me take another look at it. But it’s a big ‘Hell, no’ on the Knoxville bank counter. Eighty-five. That’s it. They can shove their ridiculous counter offer right up their tight asses.” A choked sound jarred him from his conversation. Sam stared pointedly at her cellphone as she fought off a grin.
“Jack?” Vickie prodded. “You still there?”
“Yeah.” He refocused on the caller. “When can I see the Swan Lake house again?”
“How about next Monday at ten? That good?”
“Works for me. I’ll see you there.” He ended the call. “Ten o’clock Monday we’re going to see a Swan Lake property. You meet me there. Be ready to take notes and measurements. And pictures.”
“I love Swan Lake. I’ve always fantasized about living there.”
He scrunched up his face. “Why?”
“Because it’s beautiful!” She eyed him as if he were a circus oddity. “To look out your front window at that lake with swans and water fowl gliding across it. Every season is breathtaking there. Someday they will get the old fountain working again and it will be like a dream come true.”
“When they dredged that lake a few years ago they found all kinds of garbage in it. Every house there has had to fight off termites. The basements flood and stink like an open cesspool. The city has to spray around there all summer to keep the mosquitoes from making hamburger meat out of people. Don’t get me started on the mold problems.”
She folded her arms against her chest. “Thank you, Captain Sunshine, for that captivating information. I don’t care what you say. Swan Lake is gorgeous and the people who live there would agree with me.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Tell me that after we tour the house and you come away with a list of needed repairs as long as your arm.” He motioned for Taylor before heading for the door. “I have work to do. Call Wayside Exterminators and have them meet us at the Swan Lake house. There’s a file in the cabinet about the property. It’s the one marked ‘Lake Lemon.’”
“What if Wayside can’t have someone there at ten?”
“Then they don’t get our business. Your job is to find someone who wants the job. If you can’t handle that, you know where the exit is located.”
He figured she made a face at his back, but he didn’t give a damn. He needed to break her in or break her. Her honeymoon was over.
Staring after him, Sam stuck out her tongue and squinted her eyes. Jerk! Handsome, magnetic, sexy jerk. Even the way he walked was a turn-on. That loose-limbed swagger that made her think of cowboys, athletes, and gladiators. She’d worked on those reports until two o’clock this morning, obsessing over every word, every number, every name. Had he been impressed? He seemed to be. Of course, he wouldn’t tell her. She had to guess. She would need to find ways to open him up, make him talk to her on a more personal level. Because she wanted to like him and to know him.
Chuckling under her breath, she turned back to the desk and files. Who you fooling, Striker? an inner voice chided. Yeah, you want to know him. In the Biblical sense.
Chapter 4
Teardown or Remodel?
The house on Swan Lake was one of the older ones that had been remodeled into a duplex sometime in the 1980s. Vickie met them and explained that the owners had moved out, but had lived in one side and rented out the other. She’d rattled off a few more background details before begging off, saying she had a closing she had to attend.
Watching the exchanges between the Realtor and Jack had been educational. Sam had noted the undercurrent of flirtation that never crossed the line to sexual. There was respect and professionalism with a dash of awareness. Vickie wasn’t intimidated by Jack in the least, and Sam construed that was one of the reasons Jack liked working with her.
“Get back to me, Jack,” Vickie had said, sliding into the leather seat of her Caddy. “Don’t let this one go. It’ll make you money.”
After Vickie drove away, Sam and Jack made their way to the basement stairs. As Jack had assured Sam, the underground space had about two inches of water in it and it hadn’t rained in a week.
“Sump pump,” Jack said, standing on one of the lower steps. “New hot water heater. We’ll have to plumb for the washer and dryer to be moved up to the main level. I don’t want them down here.”
“But if they are to be shared—”
He turned and started back up the stairs, forcing Sam to scramble up or be run over by him. “They won’t be. If I take on this project, I’ll make this a single-family home again.”
“Oh, I love you for that, Jack Nast. This should never have been made into a duplex. Not on Swan Lake Drive. They need to all be single-family houses. One-of-a-kind gems.” She glanced back at his frowny face and smiled. She was beginning to like those faces he flashed at her. Even the scowling ones. In fact, he was kind of cute when he made them. His dark brown brows knitted and lowered over his eyes like thunderclouds. His mouth dipped lower at one corner so that his frown was partly a sneer. Reminded her of Elvis Presley a little bit. But her favorite Mr. Nasty face was his befuddled one. When he looked at her as if she were an alien who had spoken gibberish to him. That expression always made her giggle under her breath. He’d get that small line between his eyes and tip his head to one side, like Taylor did when she made funny noises at him.
She’d worked for Jack a whole week and had already cataloged his facial expressions. Was that a good thing or a bad thing?
The face that perturbed her the most wasn’t his angry one. Nope, it was that melancholy one that drifted over his features like a shroud. His beautiful, lushly lashed blue eyes would darken to deep cyan and his perfectly sculpted lips would dip at the corners. Sadness and disappointment hovered around him when he was in that mood, which overtook him usually after he’d spoken to his mother. Abruptly, he’d shake off the feelings and run a hand down his face to erase the evidence of his troubles. Inevitably, he’d glance around, checking to see if anyone had witnessed his gray mood, and then he’d square his shoulders and don his usual dour mask. Obviously, he had a complex relationship with his folks.
She’d thought Jack would be similar to T.L., her old boss, but he wasn’t. T.L. was fidgety and fastidious, wanting attention and getting persnickety when he didn’t get it. Jack Nast didn’t crave attention. He wanted respect. A perfectionist to be sure, but mainly he wanted people to rise to his level of dedication. If they couldn’t, then he had no interest in them. He’d gained his Mr. Nasty reputation from his quick temper and quicker assessment of who was worth his time and who wasn’t. So far, she’d passed his test.
The guy from OK Exterminators came into the living room from outside. Wayside hadn’t been able to agree to Jack’s timetable, but OK had been eager for the job.
“What’s the verdict?” Jack asked, jumping to the bottom line, as usual.
