She pursed her lips. “Uh, two a year from the time I was twelve. And I’ve done six since moving into the executive director position. This makes seven.”
Over his shoulder, Daisy saw Ken approaching. Her mouth suddenly went dry, and her heart started pounding. She tucked an imaginary hair behind her ear. “Uh, hi, Ken.”
His smile didn’t make it to his eyes. “Daisy.”
Phillip looked between the two of them. “Excuse me, Daisy. How did you know this is Ken?”
She shrugged. “I always know.” She gestured with her thumb behind her. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Sure.” Ken slapped his dad on the back. “Morning, Daddy.”
“Son.”
As Ken followed Daisy away from the crew gathering around the coffee urn she’d put at the end of the table, she tried to think about what to say. She should already know. She’d had fifteen conversations with herself in the mirror between last night and this morning.
“I didn’t expect you to come.” Daisy tentatively met his gaze, steeling herself for anything.
“I made a commitment to come.” He raised both eyebrows. “I keep my word, Daisy. Especially to you.”
“No, you made a commitment to support us with Dixon Contracting. It had nothing to do with you personally.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. The look on his face silently informed her he inferred she would prefer he had not come. He glared at her, his eyes angry and hard. “I made a commitment to come,” he repeated. “I did that before I knew you. It has nothing to do with you personally. I’m here to work.”
Daisy realized that she didn’t feel the same. It felt very personal to her. “But you don’t have to be here.”
Ken stared at her. For a few seconds, she thought he would just remain silent as usual, but he surprised her. He leaned in close enough so that only she could hear him and whispered, “Good talk.”
He spun on his heel and walked back to the table. As she watched, he unrolled a set of plans and took a small notebook out of his breast pocket and a pencil out from behind his ear. His dad leaned in toward him and ran a finger over something on the plans. Ken nodded and made a notation.
Finally, she realized she had stood there alone for nearly a full minute, just watching him, and she walked back to the crew. She picked up a clipboard off of the table and whistled sharply. “If I can have your attention, please.”
Kenwalked down the line of people at the ready. Some worked for him. Others had volunteered. “Ready!” he yelled, and they all bent, securing their section of the framed-out wall with leather-gloved hands. “On one. Three, two, one!”
As a unit, they bent and lifted the wall. Brad stood on one end and Jon on the other. As soon as they could, they grabbed the wall and helped square it off.
Ken showed a volunteer how to use the nail gun and explained the distance between nails. Once he made sure she had it under control, he climbed the ladder and walked across the beam to start nailing from the top.
As he worked, he glanced down at the flurry of activity below. Workers hammered interior walls, trained carpenters secured trusses that the cranes had set, and his team worked on the outer walls.
If he was honest with himself, he’d admit to going up top so he could scour the crowd and pinpoint Daisy’s location. He’d kept an eye on her all day, noting the times he saw her drinking water, taking a break, getting up from a break too soon.
What he hadn’t done was approach her. Oh, but he wanted to. He wanted to talk to her, joke with her, touch her, make her smile, listen to her laugh. His heart physically ached with the need to be next to her.
If that was going to happen, one of them would need to bridge that gap. He’d thought she intended to this morning but had walked away from that conversation with a lasting sense of disappointment.
He looked up at the setting sun. They would have to put up the exterior wall plywood sheets tomorrow.
When the final nail secured the last outer wall, his team assembled in the drive. “Seven tomorrow morning,” he said, “I’ll have those donuts you wanted, Maddie,” he said, tapping the hardhat of a high school JROTC cadet.
After they left, he walked the site, checking to ensure no cords remained plugged-in and all equipment had been secured. He met up with his family at the plans table. Daisy sat in a folding metal chair and made notes in her notebook. Jon filled his cup with water. His dad conferred with Harvey Madison over something on the plans.
“Got dinner plans?” he asked Daisy.
She looked up from the notebook and stared at him as if she had to translate what he asked from some difficult foreign language, like Klingon. Finally, she said, “I’m going to eat the sandwich I made myself this morning. This is not my first rodeo. I knew if I didn’t have something ready for me at home, I’d cave and do fast food.”
That effectively shut him out of offering to buy her dinner. He smiled a tight-lipped smile and said, “Enjoy.”
He spun on his heel and started to march away, but she rushed after him. “Ken!”
