“What are you doing?” Another familiar voice sounded from the hallway. A strangled laugh followed by, “No. I don’t want a damn balloon.”
As he watched his cousin Jared Walker – also known as the new man in charge of Walker Demolition – make his way into the waiting room, he considered escaping while everyone’s attention was diverted. Ethan prepared himself for the confrontation that he expected to come.
When Jared looked his way, Ethan nodded in acknowledgement but sent up a silent prayer that his cousin wouldn’t stop to chat. He didn’t have anything to say to the guy. Especially after the last couple of conversations they’d had.
Granted, Ethan respected the fact that Travis had hired Jared to come in and manage Walker Demolition now that he was fully immersed in the new resort, but that didn’t mean Ethan liked the guy. Ok, so he liked the guy, he just wasn’t fond of the ass chewing he had received on Blake’s behalf.
Technically, up until that morning, Blake was an employee of Walker Demolition and Ethan didn’t understand why he had to be the one to take the heat every time Blake fucked up. Which had been frequently, Ethan knew.
Blake wasn’t the most reliable, didn’t usually come into work on time, and sometimes disappeared for a couple of days without bothering to even call and let Ethan know where he was. And despite the fact that Ethan had been dating him – for lack of a better term – he wasn’t his keeper. Nor was he his boss. Not that Jared seemed to understand that. So, needless to say, they’d butted heads since the day Jared showed up right around the first of the year.
Now that Blake wasn’t working for them, Ethan wondered if that would help the strained relationship that had started to develop since the first week of January when Jared had shown up out of the blue. There was a story behind his cousin’s reason for relocating to Coyote Ridge, but out of respect to Jared, Ethan had never tried to get to root of that reason. Watching as Jared shook hands with Travis and then Curtis, Ethan started to wonder why he hadn’t put forth the effort.
It wasn’t like Ethan had wanted anything to do with running the family business. He had more than enough to do in the mechanic shop, and that’s actually where he wanted to stay. He liked being out of the limelight, staying in the shadows and not having to deal with any of the political bullshit. Jared seemed to be suited perfectly for the job, although Ethan knew for a fact that if he needed his cousin to get his hands dirty and help out in the shop, he’d be capable of doing that as well.
Hmm… he certainly wasn’t going to tell Jared that Blake quit, that was for damn sure. The last thing he needed was some nosy family member getting all up in his business.
Chapter Two
Beau stood in the background, watching as the Walker family rejoiced in the newest addition to their family. Being in the midst of all of their excitement, Beau couldn’t help but feel it too. Having grown up as an only child, he had found himself drawn to the Walker household because there was always something going on, and he had fit in from day one.
The Walker family was the exact opposite of his own family. Curtis and Lorrie doted on their children, spent time with them, and encouraged them in everything they did – even now, when they were all full grown.
In Beau’s house growing up, encouragement came when it benefited his father and only then. Not that it was necessarily a terrible thing because growing up Beau had worked his ass off to please his father. It hadn’t done much good, but the best memories he had were those rare times his father looked at him as though he hung the moon. Never mind the fact that it all came crashing down during his senior year of high school.
It wasn’t that his parents didn’t love him, he knew they did. They just didn’t have much time for him. Growing up, his father had been right there rooting him on in all his football glory, but, maybe because of that, their relationship had always been tense. At times, Beau felt like his father was more his coach than his actual parent. And, when the day came that his football dreams crashed and burned, an even bigger gap formed between them. Beau had never questioned it. Having felt as though he let his father down, he never even thought to ask why their relationship had dwindled as fast as his future had.
Since he’d had the welcoming arms of the Walker family, Beau had simply continued to put one foot in front of the other, finding himself spending less and less time at home and more time at Zane’s. At first it was strange because growing up, Zane was as much a part of Beau’s family as he was Zane’s. Surprisingly, Zane hadn’t questioned the rift between him and his father, but that’s probably because Zane hadn’t understood it either. After all, Curtis Walker was the opposite of Ben Bennett.