Koalafied for Love (Virtue Shifters) by Zoe Chant & Murphy Lawless

Author:Zoe Chant & Murphy Lawless [Chant, Zoe & Lawless, Murphy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-06-09T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

Sunrise came early in upstate New York in June. Like, much too early to actually have the crew on the job at sunrise. Not because they wouldn’t—Tiffany had never met a construction worker who didn’t like overtime—but because heavy equipment and power tools at 5:30 a.m. wouldn’t go over well with the locals no matter how much one of them needed the gazebo the next day.

Six a.m., though, that was fair game. Mostly because the town square didn’t seem to have very much in the way of actual housing around it. There was the B&B up at the corner, but one end of the square was mostly the town hall, and the other end was dominated by the church. The left side had the long row of businesses stretched along it, including Kate's Cafe, and the right side, where the B&B sat up on the corner near the town hall, had a scattering of other businesses and some homes.

So with apologies to the people at the B&B and the handful of other homes, Tiffany’s team got busy at six. Measuring, mostly, because that wasn’t loud. Some hammering, which wasn’t too bad. By seven, when people other than early-morning joggers were starting to move around town, the team was just about ready to get the new beams cut, including for the roof repairs the town planner had asked them to do.

Fortunately for the peace and quiet of a Friday morning in small-town New York, Eric and Parker drove in right about then, and everybody’s intentions to get the real work going was derailed by checking in on Eric and applauding Parker for his quick thinking the day before. Tiffany thought it was hard to say which of the men was more embarrassed. Parker kept insisting he hadn’t done anything that anybody wouldn’t have done, and Eric was mortified at being taken out by a bee.

“Yeah.” Pauline, one of the two other women on Tiffany’s crew, always spoke like she was delivering the punchline to a dry-witted joke. “Because we have total control over our environment and allergies. Definitely your own fault.”

Eric, gloomily, said, “I could have an office job,” which got a burst of laughter from the rest of the crew.

Parker punched his shoulder. “I know what I keep saying, but that’d kill you faster than the bees. C’mon, stop lazing around, let’s get to work. We got a gazebo to fix.”

With all the distraction, the power tools and equipment didn’t really get going until about 7:30, which was almost civilized. Tiffany wasn’t sure about the noise ordinance laws in Virtue, but they were 10pm to 7am in the City, so she figured it was good enough. Forty-five minutes later she texted Ollie with a list of demands, and to her delight—and a little to her surprise and amusement—he appeared on the green about twenty minute later with two massive cardboard coffee trays.

“I didn’t know there were twelve of you,” he said in his deliciously Australian accent as he balanced his way up to them.

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