Reunited with the Billionaire by Sandra Marton

Author:Sandra Marton [Marton, Sandra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781460398562
Publisher: Harlequin Presents
Published: 2016-09-17T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

CLINT COOPER SQUATTED next to Seth, protected from the bite of the wind by the walls of the woodshed behind Twin Oaks. Firewood lay scattered all around them; above, snow fell lightly through what, until the evening before, Clint had thought was a perfectly good roof.

Seth ran his hand along the edge of a rafter that had supported the roof, and frowned. He poked at a couple of the logs and turned them over. Finally, he stood, took off his gloves and slapped them against his jeans-clad legs to rid them of snow.

“Well?” Clint got to his feet and tucked his hands into the pockets of his coat. “What do you think?”

Seth heard the impatience in Clint’s voice. He’d called him a couple of hours ago, sounding upset. Maureen had gone out to the shed the night before for some wood, and a section of the roof had collapsed on top of her.

“Is Maureen okay?” Seth had asked.

Clint said she had a couple of bruises and that she’d been a little shaken by the accident.

“But she keeps insisting she’s fine,” he’d said wryly, and then he’d asked if Seth could stop by and see about repairing the shed. Seth had said he would, but ever since he’d gotten here, Clint’s questions had dealt more with how the accident could have occurred than with fixing the woodshed.

Seth decided it was time to confront that, head-on.

“Come spring, I can fix the shed easily enough,” he said, watching Clint closely. “But I get the feeling there’s more to your question than how long it’ll take me to get that roof back up.”

Clint hesitated. “You might say that, yes.” He looked up at the empty space. “The thing is, I can’t figure out why the roof would give way.”

“Snow can be really heavy, Clint. You know that as well as I do.”

“There wasn’t any more weight on that shed than usual. Less, maybe. I shoveled it off just a couple of days ago.”

“Still, stuff like this happens.”

Clint sighed. “Does it?”

“Sure. You’re dealing with wood. This shed was built a while ago, near as I can tell. There are termites and carpenter ants, hungry little buggers that can weaken a piece of wood over time. A building can go all to hell if it isn’t maintained properly, especially with lots of snow, icy rain… I’ve been working over near Williamstown. There’s a farm I pass each day. Old place, with lots of small outbuildings. Monday, this little structure that looks like it might have been a pumphouse was fine. Tuesday, I drove by, noticed that a section of it had collapsed.” Seth smiled. “Welcome to the country, pal.”

“Yeah.” Clint nodded. “I guess I feel guilty, that’s all.”

“About what?”

“About the roof coming down on Maureen instead of me. She always insists on bringing in the wood, but I’d noticed that there were only a few logs left by the fireplace in the gathering room and said I’d do it. Then the phone rang and I got sidetracked.

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