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I looked tired? Fucking really?

I puffed up. “I’m not tired. I can go all day.”

“Great.” Dakota clapped her hands. “Off you go. It’s close quarters, so don’t be shy, boys!”

Her laughter trailed behind her as she wheeled away.

“Your sister is…”

“Evil?” I suggested.

“I was going to say clever,” Joey said. “She wants us to make peace.”

I drew a breath.

“I know that won’t happen,” he assured me. “Let’s just do the work. That’s why we’re both here, right? To make a difference for Carl Triton.”

“Uh, yes. Right.”

I was here to work. Not because I couldn’t resist an opportunity to lay eyes on Joey. I had to make sure he continued to do right by my sister, that was all.

We stepped into the bathroom, and shit, it really was tight quarters. The construction workers had torn out cabinets to create more space for maneuvering. Carl was returning home with a prosthetic leg. He’d use a wheelchair for a while—with the plan to upgrade to a walker and then a cane—so it was a smaller job than we’d done for Ruth.

Safety rails had been placed on the wall nearest the toilet, and a larger, zero-entry shower with shower chair had been installed, with more rails there.

Lyle had hung new drywall where the cabinets used to be. It was our job to paint it—in the two feet of space between the toilet and the vanity.

Joey eyed the wall. “It really might be easier if you leave me to it.”

“I’m not tired,” I protested. “I’ve got better stamina than that.”

The second the word stamina was out of my mouth, I regretted it. Joey’s lips twitched at the corners, as if he were fighting a smile.

“I just said that to give you an out,” Joey said, glancing sidelong at me. “I don’t doubt your stamina.”

Oh, damn it. Now, I was thinking about sex. About Joey under me in that awful Hummer. Joey kneeling in his pool house. He’d made me feel good, but I never had gotten my mouth on him, and that suddenly seemed like a real loss.

Because how could I do that now? With everything that I knew?

“Just kidding,” Joey murmured. “I’ll, uh, get the paint opened.”

“Yeah,” I rasped. “Good plan.”

Joey stood on a stepstool, painting the upper half of the wall, while I worked on the bottom. It gave me a perfect view of his body flexing above me. It also put his ass close enough I could fucking bite it.

My whole body pulsed with how much I wanted to touch him. I locked it down tight, clenching my jaw until it ached, and kept painting.

Dinner with my father took a turn that night. Dad picked up Dakota’s bowl. “I’ll get your stew for you⁠—”

“I can do it, Dad,” she said.

“But it’s easier for me, so⁠—”

“No,” Dakota snapped, snatching the empty bowl from his hands. “I’m not helpless.”

“I know that,” he protested.

“Do you? Because I spent all day at a work site, where everyone deferred to me. They trust me to know what needs to be done. They trust me to know what I can do. Kit gets it. He lets me take care of myself like a grown-ass woman.”