“I didn’t know driving instructors doled out compliments. I certainly never got one.”
“Maybe because you weren’t all that impressive behind the wheel of a car.” I shot him a teasing smile.
“August’s pretty impressive anywhere he goes,” Uncle Tom said very seriously. “When I was young, even though it might seem hard to believe, I was pretty impressive myself.”
That was hard to believe, but I said, “I don’t doubt it.” Yes, it was a lie, but it was a kind one. Kind lies were acceptable. Right?
The rest of Uncle Tom’s face went red.
“You had something to discuss with me?” August asked.
I returned my gaze to him. “Oh. Yeah.”
Together we walked to the office. I shook the computer mouse to awaken the monitor, then clicked all the tabs back open and showed him how several timber delivery slips didn’t match the warehouse stocks.
“Either they’re not delivering the amount listed, or someone’s been stealing supplies from the warehouse.” Some being a benign amount, but still noticeable. Like a missing molar. Not an incisor. I then showed him how the pattern went back almost three years.
“Shit.” August perused all the highlighted numbers.
“Look, it’s probably the timber company. I mean it’s always the same one. If one of your employees were skimming, he’d probably do it on every order, not just on Black Timber’s.”
Unless the person was smart. I truly hoped it was the timber corporation and not an individual.
“How did Mom miss this? That’s thousands of dollars of loss!”
“$17, 533.”
August blinked at me.
I shrugged. “I’ll print everything out so you can double-check my number.”
August stood up straighter. “I trust your calculations, but yeah, print it out so I can show Dad.”
I hit control P on various documents, which made the mammoth printer roar to life in the corner.
August walked over and plucked the papers from the tray before crossing the office, but then he paused in the doorway. “Can you keep this between us? Until I find out what’s going on?”
“Of course.” I mimicked zipping up my lips.
He stepped out but doubled back. “And congrats again on your license. That’s a heck of a milestone.”
I smiled stupidly at him.
With the hand not clutching all the printouts, he tapped the doorframe. “Don’t leave before I get back, okay?”
I nodded, imagining he’d want to debrief after meeting with Nelson. “I drove here, so I’m totally independent.”
A butterfly performed a backflip inside my stomach.
Independent.
How I’d longed for this day.
The sun was setting, and everyone had left, yet August still wasn’t back. I’d been done with my workload for almost an hour and had been poring over the three-dimensional elevations of a luxury lodge. I could almost smell the oiled pine floors and the tall evergreens that had been digitally added beyond the bay windows.
“What do you think?” A warm breath licked up the column of my neck.
I startled, and the 3D printouts scattered on the dusty floor. I slapped a palm across my chest, trying to ease my galloping heart. “August! You scared me.”
His gaze set on my midriff. “You didn’t feel me approach? Because I can sense you from miles away.”
I lowered my palm to my stomach where the phantom thread throbbed, where it had been pulsing for a while, but I’d dismissed it as hunger pangs. “I thought I was just really hungry.”
He smiled as he dropped into a crouch to gather the papers. “And? Are you hungry?”
“I don’t know.” August’s proximity confused the heck out of my body.
He set all the papers back on the desk and nodded to them. “What do you think?”
“I’d want to live there.”
“I thought your dream house was a glass cube centered around a courtyard.”
“A glass cube?”
“You sketched it on a paper napkin when we went for ice cream once and made me swear I’d build it for you someday.”
“Oh. I don’t remember.” I twisted my hair into a rope and wound it into a high bun, looping the ends through the coiled mass to make it hold. “I was quite a demanding kid, huh?”
“You even picked the sort of tree that would go in the courtyard.”
I concentrated on my memories but couldn’t locate the one in question. “What tree did I want?”
“A palm.”
I grinned, dropping my hands from my hair. “Seriously? How tropical of me.”
“It would thrive in Colorado.”
I wrinkled my nose. “But it would probably be an eyesore.”
“It’d be original, that’s for sure.” He tilted his head to the side. “A little like a girl in an all-male pack.”
“Hmm.” When he put it that way… Maybe a disruptive tree would do this place some good.
“You also wanted a loose floorboard in your bedroom. Like the one you had at the foot of your bed.”
That, I remembered. When I was six or seven, Everest and I had pried a wooden slat loose from my floor with one of my father’s work tools, and then we’d lined the shallow hollow with burlap. I stowed my diary inside, along with a treasured collection of Polaroid pictures-my Dad in his wolf form, a few silly selfies of Everest and me, one of my parents dancing in our living room, and several close-ups of August. I remembered this one shot of him, with the sun on his face and this faraway glint in his eyes. I’d labeled it The Dreamer.