His team still had to find the senator. Had they located W? Was there a plan to go wheels up soon? Not being with his team chewed on his patience like termites on the rotten trim he’d ripped off this facia.
What’d Nitro think Sam would do with six days more than he needed? Party in the middle of Nowhere, Maine? As if he’d earned the nickname Partyman honestly. What a joke.
He dug out another nail from his carpenter pouch and hammered.
Bent that one too. Dammit.
Flipping the hammer to the claw side, he yanked the nail out and put it in a different pocket of his apron—the one getting fat from rejected nails.
Why hadn’t anyone replaced the decaying wood on this house before now? Angie could hire people. It was as if she kept crap work on the chance he’d show up and need something to do.
He’d told her the summer he turned sixteen that he was no carpenter and not cut out for small-town life.
“This is not a small town,” she’d replied as they’d walked to the Clercville general store to get paint for that summer’s free-labor task. “We’d need a library and city hall tah be an actual town.”
That hadn’t improved his sour outlook as a teen.
Nothing much had changed in twelve years. He still hated being here.
Angie loved it and believed tourists would flock here to stay in her ten-bedroom inn. That they’d sit in her Adirondack chairs along the wide front porch and admire the panoramic view with a cocktail in hand.
That would never be him.
He’d rather shave with an oyster shell than be that person.
How was he going to survive this week? He never asked for time off. Something Angie complained about every time he did come back.
The last visit hadn’t been so bad when he dropped in to check on her. He’d met sweet Janean at the hardware store. She’d been divorced for eight months and had a nice smile. She’d invited him to dinner and that woman could cook. She’d wanted only a friends-with-benefits relationship.
Who was he to say no? Yeah, that would make this week better. He’d give her a call.
That cheered him up.
“What’s takin’ so long tah fix that bowahd, Sammy boy?” Angie asked in her New England accent.
He’d grown up believing the letter r had been outlawed in New England. He’d made a point of not speaking with that accent to avoid sounding like his father who adopted it even though he’d been from West Virginia. The ability to alter his speech pattern had worked in Sam’s favor when he began special operations training, which required operators to be chameleons.
Angie kept yammering at him. “I made shoh yah had plenty of nails, wood, and paint. Yah fahget how tah replace a simple piece a’ trim, Sammy boy?”
He dropped his head to the trim. He hated that name. Angie didn’t care.
Sweat ran down his back. Tourists thought the temperatures in northeastern US were always cool. Not in the summer when the breeze refused to find its way here off the bay.
He sighed and lifted his head. “I shouldn’t even be out here. I’m supposed to be healing from a concussion.” What was the chance she’d buy that?
She made a scoffing noise. “Yah were ovah that nonsense by the time yah woke this mahnin’. That nice young man who braught yah home said yah should be movin’ around bettah today. If not foh him and his two buddies, heh, yah’d prahbly be sleepin’ in a guttah.”
Nice young man.
His traitorous team led by Nitro.
Sam argued, “I’m still bruised and sore.” As if that had ever slowed him down? No. He’d have left the minute he woke up in his old room upstairs if not for the risk of drawing Logan and Margaux’s attention.
They were all but married without the paperwork. As Logan’s partner running the teams, Margaux was a deadly operator and had a temper no one wanted to test.
Sam was trapped. Slipping out of here in the middle of the night would land him on leave for months, or worse. That threat alone would keep him in place. He wanted to go back to the team.
“Bruises? Give me a break.” Angie stood to the side on her veranda. “Yah wuh bruised moah aftah ev’ry football game back in high school. If yah hadn’t been pahtyin’ so hahd yah wouldn’t have fallen offa that stage. Thought yah’d grown up some.”
