Yuletide Hearts Read Online Free PDF

mean all that much.”
    â€œI knew I liked you.” Matt smiled as he approached the group. “Supplies are due to arrive in three hours and Jim Slaughter should be here anytime with his equipment. Hank, can you get these guys together on inspecting the roofs, marking any part that needs to be redone while I finish a few phone calls?”
    â€œI’m on it.”
    They spent the first hour setting up ladders and scaffolding, then split into two groups, checking for damage.
    â€œWe’ve got a problem here,” Callie called out mid-morning as Matt passed by below. He clambered up the ladder, saw what she’d uncovered, and grimaced. “We’ll have to take this section back down to the rafters.”
    â€œI’m on it.”
    She’d been amazing and quick, working hard and long beside the men without a break, and in her hooded sweatshirtand loose-fit blue jeans, no one would even know she was a girl.
    So why couldn’t Matt get it off his mind? Focus, dude. “You really have to go to the restaurant tomorrow? No chance of getting someone to cover you?”
    Callie looked up. Had he tempted her? Heaven knows he tried. She shook her head. “Sorry, can’t be helped. But I’ll see if one of the girls wants to pick up my shifts next week because working here pays better than waiting on the lunch crowd at the Olympus.”
    â€œIf you can do that, lunch is on me every day next week.”
    â€œFor all of us or just the pretty girl?” Tommy wondered out loud.
    â€œEveryone.” Matt shot Tommy a quick grin of appreciation as he jerked a thumb in Callie’s direction. “Although she’s easier on the eyes than the rest of you lugs.” He headed back toward the ladder, the crew’s work ethic easing his concerns. “I’ve got a friend who works at the Tops deli in Wellsville. She can hook us up with some pretty good eats.”
    Tommy exchanged a grin with Buck. “I had a few of those friends back in the day.”
    Matt laughed and discovered it felt good to laugh with a crew like this, as unlikely as they appeared. A gray truck turned into Cobbled Creek Lane, the town emblem emblazoned on the cab doors. Matt swung onto the ladder, his features relaxed.
    Callie stepped toward the roof’s edge, then squatted alongside him as though checking something. “It’s Finch, the building inspector.”
    Matt paused his descent and nodded, wondering how the scent of fresh-sawn wood could smell so agreeably new and different to a longtime contractor like himself. Or was it her strawberry-scented shampoo?
    â€œYou’re not from around here, but he’s a little high on himself.”
    Relief tweaked Matt. She obviously didn’t know he’dgrown up here a long time ago. He chalked it up to their four or five year age difference. The old Matt Cavanaugh was best left forgotten, although that wouldn’t be completely possible. He’d messed up big time back then. Now?
    Now it was his turn to make things right. Make Grandpa proud. His newfound peace with his half brother and half sister, Jeff and Meredith Brennan, was a good start. Glancing down, he swept the gray truck a quick look. “Overzealous?”
    â€œBingo. And you can’t let him see you have stuff in the model, that you’re staying here.”
    â€œHow did you…? Never mind,” Matt continued.
    Of course she’d notice, she lived across the street. His truck had been there all night and his lights were on before 5:00 a.m. “I’ll steer him clear.”
    â€œFive-hundred-dollar fine,” she muttered under her breath. “No contractor wants to waste a cool five hundred.”
    She was right. He’d traded off the apartment to save money, not throw it away. He climbed down the ladder, nodded his approval at the scaffolding Matt rigged in front of house number seventeen and stuck out a hand to the inspector. “Matt