Yuletide Hearts Read Online Free PDF Page A

disconnected the call and walked outside the house, eyeing the gloaming shadows beneath a waning gibbous moon.
    A noise drew his attention to the Marek place. In the almost dark he saw Callie’s silhouette, captured by the porch light. She clambered down the ladder, a bucket in hand, its weight making the descent awkward. At the bottom she splashed water onto the street, then headed for the side porch, humming.
    Pride and strength embraced her maverick beauty. The idea of working for him obviously bothered her, but if she was as experienced as Hank made out, he was glad for the help.
    Lights blinked on in the front of their house and he caught a glimpse of Callie and the boy, heads bent, eyeing something, a family moment that resurrected all he’d missed as a child. A father’s love. A mother’s touch.
    He headed into the nearly complete model home, studied the mattress and box spring on the floor, the small generatoroutside giving him power for minimal light and heat. He’d surrendered his apartment in Nunda because the commute would eat up too much time. And saving nearly seven hundred dollars a month was nothing to take lightly. Wear and tear on the truck, his equipment? That took their toll over time.
    No, better to headquarter himself here, on the job site, guarding his investment.
    The house wasn’t certified for dwelling, so Matt would have to sequester his sleeping arrangements when the inspector came by, at least until he could get a certificate of occupancy on the model. He’d complete that once the roofs were in place on the other houses, his first-things-first mentality key to this situation. Then he’d set up properly upstairs, but for the moment, this would do. He set his alarm clock early to take a shot at bookkeeping, not one of his strongholds, and burrowed under the covers, burying dreams of heat. And a woman with gold-green eyes.
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    â€œHe’s staying over there.” Callie jerked her head west, her hands plunged into soapy dishwater the next morning.
    â€œMakes sense,” Hank replied as he gathered their tool belts and supplies. “Why pay rent when you’ve got a nearly finished house?”
    â€œBecause Finch McGee will be all over that if he finds out,” Callie replied. She wiped her hands, waved goodbye to Jake as the bus approached, then headed to the table.
    â€œFinch is a little power-hungry,” Hank admitted.
    â€œA little?”
    Hank shrugged. “He’s got a job to do, Cal. You know that. He just does it with more zeal than most.”
    â€œMaybe Matt will be lucky and Colby will be his inspector.” Colby Dennis had taken the job as Finch’s assistant two years before, and he was a decent guy on all levels. Finch?
    Callie’d been privy to more than one run-in with the divorced building inspector, and she knew a jerk when she saw one. She’d kept him at arm’s length, but he’d taken to cominginto the diner at lunchtime lately, when he’d always eaten at the Texas Hot before. And it wasn’t a fluke that put him in her section, day after day, any more than it was coincidence that she traded tables with the other servers, keeping him at bay.
    â€œFinch won’t let the new kid on the block oversee this.” Hank shifted his gaze to Cobbled Creek as they headed down the stone drive. “And while his inspections are all right, he doesn’t have a lick of common sense when it comes to balancing economics.”
    â€œReady, guys?” Buck grinned at them, crumpled his coffee cup and set it inside his truck cab.
    â€œI am,” declared Tommy, a knit hat drawn over his bald head, a thick flannel layered over a turtleneck.
    â€œYou expectin’ a blizzard, Tom?” Hank teased.
    â€œI’m expecting it’s cold now and warmin’ up later,” shot back the older man, “and I’ve crewed with you often enough to know that cold and number of hours don’t