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CHAPTER 2
Zeb

I turned my head when one of the guys from my crew called my name, and immediately regretted the lapse in concentration. Behind the filtered mask I had on to protect my lungs from all the deadly things that came out of the walls in these old houses, I dropped a litany of filthy words as the hammer I was in the middle of swinging came down and smashed mercilessly onto my thumb. It happened in my line of work, but lately stupid, preventable accidents were becoming more and more frequent because my head was up my ass and rooted firmly on my last job—or rather the stunning blonde that had hired me to do it.

One of my younger crew guys, Julio, gulped when he noticed the murderous look on my face and the way I was shaking out my hand. He held up his own hands in a gesture of surrender before I even said a word. My temper had been on a shorter fuse than usual lately and the guys that made up my crew had obviously taken notice. It made me feel like a dick, but there was nothing I could do about it. My head was all wrapped up in Sayer Cole and her endless legs and chilly demeanor, and nothing I seemed to do could pull it away from her.

“What?” I pulled the safety mask off my face and forced myself to ask the question in a level tone instead of barking it out like I wanted to. I flicked my throbbing digit with my index finger and swore as it burned like it was on fire. I nailed the sucker good. It was going to be a lovely shade of black and blue when I took my work gloves off and I would be lucky if the fingernail didn’t fall off.

“There’s a lady out front looking for you.” Julio’s heavily accented words took me a second to process. I lifted my eyebrow and put my hammer in the slot that was made for it on the leather tool belt that hung low on my waist.

“Looking for me for what? Is she with the city? Or one of the neighbors?”

Permit people were always dropping by to make sure everything was in order when I started tearing apart historic homes in order to return them to their original glory. I was also pretty good at turning them into something completely new and fantastic, but I still had to have the right licenses and permits in place in order to do so.

Julio scratched the back of his neck and flushed a little. “I didn’t ask. She’s real cute, though.” The kid was young, not even out of his teens yet, but he was a hell of a hard worker and really good with his hands, so even if he wasn’t always the brightest member of the team, I knew he had plenty of time to learn and grow. He just needed a shot and someone not to give up on him.

I shoved my hands through my hair and snorted when a cloud of centuries-old plaster dust floated up from the motion. I was covered in all kinds of construction debris … I always was.

“Inspectors can be both female and attractive, Julio.”

The kid shuffled his feet and looked down at the bare flooring we had spent all day yesterday putting into the vernacular 1870s cottage-style home that was my latest renovation project.

“I know. She just asked if Zebulon Fuller was on-site and I told her you were. She started for the front door without a hard hat or a mask or anything, so I told her the house wasn’t safe. I don’t think she’s a pro or anything. She seems a little …” He twirled his finger next to his temple indicating he thought the woman might be a little bit off.

I sighed. If she wasn’t a pro she was probably an angry neighbor wanting to complain about the construction noise or the mess. It happened all the time, but over the years I had gotten pretty good at keeping the peace as my business grew and expanded, taking my reputation and name along with it.

“All right, I’ll handle it. Can you finish stripping the wall and pulling the plaster off so we can get drywall up tomorrow? Wear a mask. That old paint is no good and dangerous.”

I dealt with lead paint removal so much in these old homes that I’d had to get certified in order to be a lead-removal-certified contractor. What I did was never easy and there were always lots of hoops to jump through, but I lived for the sense of accomplishment I got by saving rotten and falling-apart buildings from ending up condemned or bulldozed. I loved to give something no one else wanted or believed in a second chance.

I shook the rest of the dust out of my hair and ran my hands over my beard to shake whatever was stuck there loose, too. I’m sure I looked like I had been rolling around in baby powder but there wasn’t much that could be done about it. I was in the middle of a workday, and didn’t have time for uninvited guests—in person or the one that wouldn’t leave my mind. I already had enough of a distraction hounding me in the form of a lovely lady lawyer. My still-aching thumb was proof of that.

I stepped out of the hole in the front of the house where the original door had long since been kicked in and rendered useless by squatters or trespassers, and immediately caught sight of a young brunette woman who was indeed very easy on the eyes and who was pacing back and forth on the dead lawn. Her arms were crossed over her chest and she was moving in such an obviously agitated way that I knew whatever she was here to talk to me about wasn’t going to be any fun. I cast a baleful look at the sign that was in the yard that had FULLER CONSTRUCTION on it along with my name and number. It wouldn’t have been too hard for her to figure out who was in charge of the project. I told myself that I needed to rein in my sour mood and forced what I hoped passed for a pleasant and professional smile on my face as I approached the woman.

“I heard you might be looking for me. I’m Zeb Fuller, how can I help you today?”

The woman paused in her tense pacing and I watched her eyes go wide when they landed on me. I got that reaction a lot from both men and woman, so it didn’t surprise me. I was a big dude—really big—and the fact I had ink scrolling up both sides of my neck and across the backs of both of my hands often gave people the impression that I was a much bigger and much badder threat than I really was. The beard and the fact that I looked like I could level the house behind me with my bare hands obviously unnerved her.

She uncrossed her arms and lifted a shaky hand to her mouth. It was my eyes’ turn to widen as the woman suddenly started to cry. Not silent trickling tears either, but big, full-bodied sobs that shook her tiny frame from head to toe. I took an instinctive step forward, which caused her to immediately take a step back. I held my hands up in front of me to show I meant her no harm and also took a step back, giving her some space.

“Hey, you were looking for me. You’re on my jobsite. I just came to see what I could do for you.” I hated to see a woman cry. It killed me. Growing up, it had been me and my older sister and my mom. My dad took off when I was too young to remember what he looked like, so that meant I was always the man of the house. I didn’t let anyone make the woman I loved cry, so when this one went all weepy on me it immediately sent me into protector mode. “I’m really sorry if I scared you.”

She bent over and put her hands on her knees while sucking in audible breaths. Her curly hair fell forward to cover her face, and I could see her shoulders were still shaking. I was getting really concerned when she held up a hand and choked out:

“Just give me a minute. You look just like him and it threw me for a second.” She was still breathing heavily and making no sense. It was my turn to cross my arms over my chest as I watched her physically pull herself together. It took a long time.

“I’m not following. I look just like who?”

She pulled herself back upright and shoved her hands through her wildly curly hair. Her gaze raked over me from the top of my head to the tips of my worn work boots, and when she was done she was shaking her head. Not typically the reaction I got when a woman checked me out but I would take it if it meant the tears stopped.

“I know I’m coming across like a lunatic, but I swear I’m not. It took me a couple of days to track you down since I didn’t have a name or anything to go off of. You took me by surprise. I’m sorry for losing it on you like that. It wasn’t the first impression I was hoping to make.”

I was already grouchy and impatient. I didn’t have the time or the patience to deal with the maze of words this woman was winding around me.

“Lady, I don’t know what you’re talking about and I have to get back to work sometime in the near future. This house isn’t going to renovate itself. I need you to tell me what I can help you with or I’m walking away.”

She cleared her throat and took a step closer to me. I could see her choosing the words she wanted to use very carefully as she told me, “My name is Echo Hemsley. My best friend in the entire world was a woman named Halloran Bishop.” She paused like either of those names or the women attached to them should mean anything to me. When I didn’t reply she kept going and I could see her lip quiver and her hands shake as she did so.

“Halloran had a rough life. She made a lot of bad choices, had terrible taste in men, and used a lot of really awful things to help her deal with her issues.” The woman took a deep breath and I could see the tears well up. “She was also the kindest, gentlest person I had ever met and I never gave up hope that one day she would be able to get control of her life.”

I frowned. “Okay, but I still don’t know why any of that has you on my jobsite. I don’t know you or your friend.”

I mean I knew a lot of woman … A LOT … but all of them I could remember and I never went to bed with anyone without knowing their first name. I enjoyed being single and the freedom to play around, but I wasn’t a douche bag about it. In all honesty, my bed had been very empty and my nights very uneventful ever since a certain leggy lawyer had become the center of every fantasy and daydream I had. I wanted her. Only her, and no one else would do. It sucked because so far no matter how much I showed my interest, she wasn’t having it. She seemed absolutely oblivious to all of it.

Either that or she was keeping our relationship professional and casual because she knew that she was so far out of my league. My business was doing great considering how new it was and I made good money, but even with all I had accomplished in such a short amount of time, the fact was that I was always going to be an ex-con and blue collar instead of blue blood.

I was admittedly impressed and slightly captivated that my past never once seemed to be an issue—at least I didn’t think it was an issue until I started trying to express my interest in her. I was irrationally disappointed when she froze me out after how calmly she seemed to accept my revelation when I first told her about my past. I thought she was different, understanding, nonjudgmental, but when it came down to it, Sayer was just like everyone else that couldn’t see past the bars once they knew they were there. She pretended like she didn’t notice the way I watched her every move, and that she didn’t feel the way the air got thick and heavy between us whenever we were together. She brushed off every compliment I tossed her way and ignored every sexual innuendo that I threw at her. Eventually I got the hint that she was okay with me working for her but dating her and getting her into bed was never going to happen. She wasn’t into me the way I was into her, and no matter how much game I leveled at her she wasn’t budging. Hence the crappy mood I was perpetually living in these last few weeks.

“You’re right. You don’t know me, and it’s very possible you don’t remember Halloran because you only spent one night with her. Do you remember a bar called Jack and Jill’s?” When I just stared at the woman blankly she pulled on her lower lip and puckered her eyebrows in a little frown. “Maybe if you think about the day you got out of prison, that will help jog your memory.”

I jerked my head back at those words and narrowed my eyes. Five years ago I had been released from prison after serving two and a half years on an aggravated-assault charge. I refused to let my mom or my sister, Beryl, meet me on the day I got out; in fact I hadn’t even told my family what my release day was.

At the time I was angry, bitter, and had so much resentment and hostility still pent up over the reasons behind my arrest and the subsequent changes in my life, that I knew I needed to blow off some steam and get my head on straight before I saw anyone that loved me. I needed a few days to get back to the man they knew and not the one prison and life on the inside had turned me into.

I might not remember the name of the bar, but I did recall that I had walked aimlessly for a few blocks once the bus dropped me off at the first stop in Denver. The state prison was miles and miles away in Canon City and I swore to this day that the bus ride back home took days instead of a few hours.

“I might recall finding a bar that day but still don’t know anyone named Halloran.”

I had a bad feeling about where this conversation was headed. I didn’t hide my past but it wasn’t exactly my favorite topic of conversation either. It was unnerving that this stranger seemed to know so much about me.

That day was far from one of my finest.

Sure, I was free and it felt good to be out, but the girl I was in love with when I got locked up had moved on, left me not even six months after I went away. Meanwhile the bastard that I had nearly killed with my bare hands was still free and unchecked, allowed to do whatever he pleased even if that included using his fists on unsuspecting women. The injustice of it all festered inside me, making me a ticking time bomb ready to go off again. My fuse was always primed and just looking for an igniter. To tame the explosive fury that was still churning inside of me and to kill the craving that two years of no booze and no women had left burning in my guts, I figured the best place to scrounge up both would be the first seedy bar I could stumble into. I would get my fix of whiskey and a willing woman and then face both Beryl and my mom feeling somewhat like my old self.

“She was about this tall.” The woman held her hand up a few inches over her own head. “She was blond, blue-eyed, really pretty, and, like I said, supersweet.”

I didn’t miss her past-tense use of the word “was.” It was the second time she had referred to her friend that way. “Was?”

The tears started up again and the woman wrapped her arms around herself like she was giving herself a hug.

“Like I said, Halloran had terrible habits and terrible taste in men. Both of those things caught up with her last weekend. She was shot and killed over a drug deal gone wrong on East Colfax. Her new boyfriend was a drug dealer and thought it was perfectly safe to take her along on a pickup. Halloran should’ve known better, but she never thought things like that through. They were attacked by a rival dealer and his crew. Halloran was shot eleven times, the boyfriend was hit more than twenty.”

The woman could barely get the words out, and I couldn’t stand idly by any longer while she sobbed all over my jobsite. I walked over to her and pulled her into a tight hug even though she was a stranger and not making any sense. She needed someone to comfort her and I was the only one around to do it.

“I’m sorry about your friend.”

She didn’t hug me back, but she did nod her head where it was pressed against my chest. She took another steadying breath and moved away from me while wiping her cheeks off with the back of her hand.

“You might not remember her, she did tell me the night she met you that you were very drunk, very angry, and also kind of sad. She was in the bar because her boyfriend at the time had just kicked her out after knocking her around and she didn’t have anywhere else to go. She said the two of you started trading horror stories; you told her all about the guy that hit your sister and how you went to jail because you stopped him. She was smitten. You were brave, stood up for someone that couldn’t stand up for themselves, and well … look at you.” She waved a hand in my general direction as bits and pieces of that day started to pepper my brain with memories.

I’d always had a thing for blondes. Add some tragedy and whiskey to the mix and there was a very good chance I had gone all in on the booze and sex and just couldn’t remember any of it. I vaguely recalled sitting at the bar while someone that smelled sweet and gazed up at me with sad blue eyes took up the stool next to mine. I remembered heavy words and solemn kisses. I remembered gentle touches and liquor-fueled decisions. I even remembered the itchy comforter from the no-tell motel that I had woken up in, facedown and hungover like a motherfucker. I couldn’t remember the girl, her name, what she looked like, but I remembered that she made me feel better for just a moment and that I wanted to hurt the person who had made her so sad.

“Are you trying to tell me I hooked up with your friend?” I wouldn’t deny that it was a strong possibility and any reason this woman had for tracking me down now after all this time was making me break out in a cold sweat. I could clearly follow the trail she was leading me down without bread crumbs. The destination simply didn’t seem possible.

“Yeah. You guys hooked up, but like always, Halloran made the wrong choice and went back to the guy that was beating on her. She told me she skipped out on you the next morning without even giving you her name.” The woman who said I should call her Echo tucked some of her curly hair behind her ears and looked at me with tired hazel eyes. “She saw you on the news when they did that story about the tattoo shop you were renovating in LoDo. I don’t think she meant to tell me but it slipped out … she saw you on the TV and said, ‘That’s Hyde’s daddy.’”

I knew it was coming, had felt it as soon as she told me I had hooked up with her friend. Fury, whiskey, and a pretty, sad girl led to really bad decisions on my part. I had been having sex since I was fifteen, and I could count the number of times I had done it without protection on one hand with most of my fingers left over. Unfortunately one of those times was the night I got out of jail.

“You’re telling me I fathered a child with your dead friend?” It sounded harsh but my head was reeling and I was suddenly having a hard time breathing. The ground under my boots felt less solid than it had a minute ago and everything inside of me wanted to call her a liar and throw her off of my site.

She nodded. “Yeah. I mean, at the time I didn’t really think anything of it. Halloran has had a lot of boyfriends and Hyde has had a lot of ‘special’ uncles throughout the years. I wouldn’t bother you, would never have tried to find you if it wasn’t an emergency. Because of how she died and her history of drug use, the state took Hyde. He’s with Social Services now on his way to a foster home. If you don’t do something they’re going to put him in foster care and then try and adopt him out. He’s going to get lost in the system.”

I balked and fell back a step. “If I don’t do something? Seriously, lady, I don’t even know if what you’re telling me is true.”

She nodded and dug around in her back pocket until she pulled out a cell phone. “I know it’s sudden, and I know it’s crazy. But Halloran didn’t have much family and the ones that are left don’t have anything to do with her or Hyde, so there are no relatives that can or are interested in taking him. I offered, but I’m gone so much for work and my track record isn’t exactly spotless, so they turned me down as fast as they could. I also had some bad habits and liked the wrong kind of men when I was younger. Luckily I got myself straight before it was too late.” She gulped. “I very easily could’ve ended up like my friend.”

She blinked at me then turned her attention back to her phone. “It may be crazy and hard for you to believe, but you have a son, and if you don’t do something soon he’s going to end up nothing more than a case number in some social worker’s file.”

It was my turn to shake my head. I wanted to tell her to leave. I wanted to tell her she was crazy and talking nonsense, but I had never been the type of man to run away from the messes I created or my responsibilities. So when she thrust her smartphone at me I took it from her like it was going to bite me.

I held the little device in my hand and stared numbly at the picture of a very pretty blond woman with her arms wrapped around a little boy in torn jeans and a Transformers T-shirt. He had wavy dark brown hair, big eyes that were a clear, calm dark green, and a smile missing a few of his teeth. He also had a very familiar dimple indenting his chubby cheek. He was tall for a little kid, and as I gazed at the image before me I couldn’t help but feel like I was looking at a photo from my own childhood. My hand went numb and the phone tumbled to the ground.

Echo didn’t say anything. She just bent down to pick up the device and held it out in front of me. “There are hundreds more if you want to see. The resemblance is startling, isn’t it? That’s why I freaked out when you first came out of the house. It’s like looking at Hyde in the future when he’s all grown up. He looks just like you. He just turned five, so you can do the math if the picture isn’t enough to convince you that he’s yours.”

He did look just like me. He really fucking did.

I ran a hand over my beard and considered her thoughtfully. “Why didn’t your friend ever find me? Why didn’t she ask for help?” The idea that a part of me, a tiny human that I had helped make, had been out there in the world all these years without me knowing had some of that old rage and resentment I struggled to keep a lid on churning deep in my guts.

“I told you, she went back to the guy she had been with. I don’t think she really knew who Hyde’s dad was until he was born. It was pretty obvious when she had him, though, that it wasn’t her boyfriend since he was Mexican and Hyde obviously isn’t.” The girl flinched and shoved her phone back in her pocket. “The boyfriend beat her so bad when she got out of the hospital she almost died then. That forced her to clean up her act for a while because she didn’t want her newborn to be without a mother, but the older Hyde got the more Halloran started to slip back into her old ways. She probably could’ve tracked you down, introduced you to your son, but she was more concerned with chasing the next high and keeping her newest man to be bothered doing something that might benefit her kid. Like I said, Halloran was sweet and kind, but she wasn’t a very good mother. I mean, I think she tried to be, she just didn’t know how. Hyde has had a pretty shitty time of things in his few short years. You could make such a huge difference in this boy’s life, Mr. Fuller. He’s a great kid, outgoing and funny. You would never know what he’s been through. He deserves a real home. He deserves a parent that will love him and take care of him.”