Tom’s head connected with the upholstery in just the wrong spot, exactly where the window had flattened his skull earlier, sending sharp, painful shock waves through his brain.
Ignoring the injury, he reared up, fists flailing, and managed to land a hard punch on Dave’s throat.
The other man choked and gasped, rearing back, and Tom dove toward him, hoping to knock him back and escape as Dave struggled to breathe.
Although he coughed and air rasped roughly in and out of his chest, Dave managed to shove him back. Tom’s head bounced against the seat again and he wondered how something as soft as a car seat could hurt so fucking much.
When he could finally suck in enough air, Tom opened his mouth to yell but barely managed to make a feeble huff of sound before Dave clamped his fingers around his throat.
“Don’t fight me,” he warned.
But Tom couldn’t help it. His body was demanding air and the panic of not being able to breathe overwhelmed any fear of other hurts Dave could inflict on him.
His hands pulled at the fingers choking him as his vision narrowed further, until even that tiny circle of view went gray and fuzzy.
The panic faded to a surreal sense of disappointment.
What a shitty, pointless way to die
, he thought, just before blackness swamped his brain.
Tom couldn’t get out of the truck.
“Shit,” he muttered without moving his lips, just in case someone was watching. He hated when this happened, especially when it was for such a stupid reason. There wasn’t any real danger. All that lay outside the truck door was a building site, some innocuous construction workers and an HVAC contractor who was most likely getting impatient waiting for Tom’s panic attack to subside.
Blowing out a breath, he stared at his gloved hands. His fingers were wrapped so tightly around the steering wheel, Tom could feel the first cramping tremors vibrating from his wrists and across the backs of his hands.
“It’s been almost six months,” he told his fingers. “’Bout time you got over it, isn’t it?”
His hands didn’t agree, not relaxing at all.
“He’s probably not even here,” he tried, reasoning with them. “Even if he is, so what? He’s not the same guy. He doesn’t even look that much like him. You going to grab the steering wheel every time there’s a big blond guy in the vicinity?”
A tap on the passenger-side window made Tom jump and his head whipped around to see Schultz, the mechanical contractor, peering in at him.
Fuck.
Now the guy had witnessed Tom talking to his own body parts. Excellent. He sighed.
Schultz’s curious gaze prodded him to finally release the steering wheel and yank open his door, so that was one good thing.
There was nothing like a little humiliation to overcome irrational terror.
Tom reached for his hard hat and slid out of the truck. As he circled the front of his vehicle, he tried to use the few-second grace time to get himself under control before coming face-to-face with Schultz. He had mixed results, managing to greet the other man with moderate calmness, although Tom knew his face was still flaming with color.
“Cooper.” Schultz eyed him as they shook hands. “Everything okay?”
Tom hated that question. He’d heard it way too many times over the past months.
“Of course,” he assured the contractor, forcing a smile. “Except for our little problem of getting an eight-inch duct through a flush beam.”
“Right.” Schultz’s droopy hound-dog face fell even more at the reminder. “Want to take a look?”
“Might as well.” Forcing another smile, he fell in next to the contractor. As they crossed the rutted dirt area that served as a parking lot for the site, Tom tried to avoid stepping into one of the iced-over mud puddles while simultaneously looking for a certain terror-inspiring construction worker.
When Tom didn’t see a tall blond figure around any of the partially constructed buildings, his shoulders lowered as some of the tension eased out of his muscles. When Schultz gestured toward one of the buildings, Tom put on his hard hat and ducked through the plastic-covered doorway, feeling almost lightheaded with relief.
“Let’s fix this duct situation then,” he said cheerily, glancing back at Schultz and grinning, honestly this time, as the man’s expression fell to a whole new level of gloom. “How bad can it be?”
“Bad,” Schultz grumbled.
With a shrug, Tom swallowed another smile. What was one flush beam? Nothing compared to the presence of one blond, built, too-hot-for-his-own-good construction worker.
He was here.
As soon as Darwin glimpsed the man through the skeletal framing, he dropped his nail gun.
“Bloom!” MacDougal’s bellow made Darwin sigh as he bent to retrieve the tool.
“Yeah, boss?” Darwin turned an innocent look to the foreman.
His face was as red as the hair beneath his hard hat. “What are you trying to do to me, Bloom? Do I look like a man with a healthy heart? Well, do I?”
“No sir,” he answered honestly, eyeing MacDougal’s ruddy face and beefy form.
“So you’re trying to kill me then? Is that what you’re saying?” His face darkened to a whole new shade of rage. “We’re two weeks behind schedule, a heaping fuck-load of snow is supposed to drop any day and you’re jacking around, trying to nail your fucking foot to the ground? Is that what you’re doing?”
Darwin blinked. “No sir.”
“Then get the fuck back to work and quit trying to ruin my relationship with the OSHA assholes!”
“Sure, boss.” He turned back to the framing, disappointed to see the stranger had disappeared. With a silent sigh, he started working again and MacDougal stomped away, muttering under his breath.
Darwin figured it was for the best anyway. His odd fascination with the unknown man was illogical and couldn’t lead to anything good. He didn’t even know the guy’s name. All Darwin knew was his heart kicked into overdrive each time the man showed up on the construction site.
“Stupid,” he muttered, sinking another nail. If he pursued this, Darwin could fuck up a perfectly good situation—a steady job, a cabin to which he was much too attached and a damn good hiding place. He didn’t want to have to go on the run again.
What he needed to do was keep his head down, not start a relationship with a stranger. For fuck’s sake, he didn’t even know if the guy was gay.
With a self-directed growl, Darwin tried to force himself to focus on work. If he let himself get distracted, he’d slip up…work a little too fast…lift something a little too heavy for normal people to lift. He had to focus, concentrate on not giving himself away.
No. An attraction, if he acted on it, could easily derail his life. It was a damn bad idea.
He
knew
that.
The problem was—he didn’t really care.
Stranger or not, Darwin wanted this guy.
*
“The architect’s not going to like this,”
Schultz grumbled as they stepped out into the sharp November wind.
“The soffit just has to be dropped a foot along that one wall,” Tom said. “It’ll hardly be noticeable.” At Schultz’s look, Tom amended, “Okay, so maybe it’ll be a little noticeable. At least we didn’t have to lower the whole ceiling. Jane would’ve really screamed at that.”
Schultz heaved a mournful sigh.
“Want me to talk to her?” Tom offered.
Schultz’s expression lightened instantly, making Tom a little suspicious he’d just been played. “Would you? That’d be great.”
“Yeah. But next time something like this happens, it’s your turn to be the bearer of bad news.”
“Of course.” Schultz was almost beaming now as he shook Tom’s hand. “Let me know how it goes.”
Tom winced, already regretting his impulsive offer. “I can already tell you how it’s going to go—shitty, that’s how.”
Schultz just laughed and headed toward the construction trailer. As Tom picked his way over the icy mud of the improvised parking lot toward his truck, he imagined the architect’s reaction when he told her the news. Pulling off his hard hat, he made a face. This wasn’t going to be fun. With a sigh, he reached for the truck door handle.
“Excuse me.”
Tom froze.
Without looking, he knew, just
knew
who was standing beside him. Every muscle locked in place except for his heart, which took off like a rabbit that had just spotted a wolf.
The man behind him cleared his throat.
“Excuse me?” His voice was curious now, with an inflection of amusement that pricked Tom’s pride enough to force him out of his paralysis. He turned his head to see exactly whom he’d expected to see—the brawny, blond construction worker.
Close up, the man was huge and even prettier than he’d appeared from a distance when Tom had glimpsed him during previous site visits. He was so good-looking, in fact, that Tom felt an unreasonable rush of hostility.
He clung to the feeling, appreciating how it helped subdue the panic a little, just enough to control the urge to bolt.
“I’m Darwin,” the obnoxiously beautiful man said. “Darwin Bloom.”
Tom didn’t know what he was supposed to do with that information but the guy appeared to be waiting for some kind of response. He gave a cautious nod.
“You’ve been here before,” Darwin continued, bringing Tom’s panic back to the red-alert level. Had the guy been watching him? Even here, in broad daylight with dozens of people working within view, fear coated the back of Tom’s throat, clogging his breathing. “You an architect?”
Tom managed to jerk his head to the side in answer but getting any words out seemed impossible, so he didn’t even try to explain what he did. Blood rushed noisily in his ears, almost blocking out the other man’s words.
“I was wondering,” Darwin said, “if you wanted to grab a beer sometime?”
It took several seconds for Tom to understand what he was hearing.
A
date
? The guy was asking him out?
The too-handsome face was starting to look a little uncertain. “Or coffee. Or whatever. Anything. I live in Deer Pines and there’s this little pink store called…well, The Pink Store, and they serve coffee there. Or sandwiches. Or if they know you, they’ll pull a bottle of whiskey out from behind the counter and pour you a shot. Shit, I’m babbling, aren’t I?”
Tom’s grip on the door handle eased slightly. It was hard to be completely terrified of a guy who was chattering on about some pink store. Once again, Darwin seemed to be waiting for something from him, so Tom managed a small shrug.
“What’s your name?” Darwin asked, shifting his weight and shoving his hands into his pockets.
Clearing his throat, he croaked out, “Tom.”
“Tom.” Darwin grinned. “I—”
Whatever he was about to say was cut off by MacDougal’s bellow. “Bloom! What the hell are you doing over there? Get your ass back to work!”
Tom jumped, startled by the foreman’s shout, but Darwin just glanced over his shoulder with a grimace.
“Here,” the blond said, digging in his pockets and pulling out a pen and a scrap of paper. “This is my cell number. Give me a call if you want to do something sometime.”
Darwin flattened the paper against the side of the truck and scribbled a number on it.
Folding the paper, he reached out, pausing for a moment when Tom flinched.
Embarrassed, Tom forced himself to stay still, even when Darwin slowly pushed aside Tom’s unzipped coat and tucked the slip of paper into his shirt pocket. The heat from his fingers burned Tom’s chest through the fabric and he stopped breathing again. This time, though, fear wasn’t the only reason his lungs quit working.
“Better zip up,” Darwin said, tugging the edges of Tom’s jacket together. “It’s cold out here.”
Tom could only stare, unmoving, as Darwin turned and jogged back toward his fuming boss.
It took several seconds before Tom could move again. Pulling open the truck door, he tossed his hard hat onto the passenger seat and climbed inside. It was a relief to slam the door shut, closing himself into the illusion of safety created by the truck cab.
He moved to put the key into the ignition but his hand was shaking too much to manage it, clattering his keys uselessly against the steering column.
With a frustrated huff, he sat back and closed his eyes for a moment. What had the man been up to? A guy who looked like Darwin didn’t ask out a guy who looked like Tom, especially when he was pale and mute with fear. Had Darwin been making fun of him? If so, what an asshole.
The scrap of paper still burned through the shirt fabric to scorch his chest and Tom fumbled in his pocket, finally grabbing the slip of paper in his shaking fingers.
Crumpling the note, he tossed it at the passenger-side window. It bounced off the glass and fell onto the floor mat.
His miniature tantrum actually made him feel a little better. After a few more deep breaths, Tom’s hands were relatively under control again and he was able to start the truck.
“Forget it,” he muttered to himself, shifting the truck into reverse. “Just let it go.”
As he drove away, he couldn’t keep his gaze from doing a sweep of the site, searching for a final glimpse of the blond construction worker.
*
Darwin was just a few minutes from home when his cell phone rang.
“Shit!” He yanked the wheel to the right, making an abrupt turn into The Pink Store’s gravel parking lot. He fumbled his phone, almost dropping it before managing to flip it open and answer.
“Hello?” Darwin closed his eyes. He sounded as breathless and eager as a kid getting a call from Santa.
Smooth, D. Really smooth.
There was a pause. “Darwin?”
His excitement draining away at the sound of Ed’s voice, Darwin grunted, “Yeah.”
“Who’d you think it’d be?” Ed sounded amused.
“No one,” he growled. Ever since Ed had started hanging around with Claire, he thought he was pretty damn funny. At that moment, Darwin missed the old taciturn, humor-free Ed he’d known in the lab.
“Uh-huh.” Ed didn’t sound as if he believed him but he didn’t pursue it. “The three of us made it.”
“Three of you?” Darwin repeated but then figured it out for himself before Ed could explain. “Right. You’re counting the rat.
That’s
normal and not weird at all. Any problems?”