Caught Up in You - Beth Andrews

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time to process your discussion, your concerns. After report cards are sent out next month, call him in for another meeting. Sam and I can sit in on it if you’d like.”

      Harper wondered if that last bit was a reprimand for skirting the rules and meeting with Eddie on her own. “That would probably be for the best. Thanks.”

      Having Joan and the principal there might be enough to persuade Eddie that she knew what she was talking about. Or it could get her in a boatload of trouble if she couldn’t keep her mouth shut.

      Like today.

      Her mouth. From the time she’d said her first word at eight months old it’d been getting her into trouble.

      She pressed her fingertips against her temples. She’d snapped at Eddie, had told him not to shrug at her again. Her stomach got queasy, embarrassment coated her throat. He had every right to complain about her to her superiors.

      She wrinkled her nose. Maybe not every right. He had been incredibly stubborn and unreasonable. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t complain about their little meeting. She may as well have handed him the phone numbers of the principal, superintendent and president of the school board, and told him to have at it asking for her resignation. Or, more realistically, asking Max to be moved to another class.

      Worse, instead of getting him to see he was hurting Max by ignoring her suggestions, she’d pushed him into digging in his heels even deeper.

      She’d messed up. Royally. Now she had to make it right. Tonight she’d write up some ideas for strategies she could implement in her class, ways to help Max focus and succeed.

      After all, she didn’t need to meet with Eddie or get his permission to try different teaching methods. To do what was best for one of the students in her class. He wasn’t the damn boss of her.

      Joan shut off her computer and got her purse from the desk drawer. “Would you and Cass like to come for dinner? Steve’s making chicken pot pie.”

      “We’d love to, but it’s Uncle Will’s birthday so we’re eating at Aunt Irene’s.”

      Since Beau died, she and Cass never had a shortage of dinner invitations. It was as though her loved ones thought if they didn’t feed her and her daughter, they’d starve.

      Not that she didn’t appreciate the support. She did. Really. It was just sometimes all she wanted after a long day was to pick up Cassidy from day care, go home, put on sweatpants and play with her baby.

      But she tried to make sure Cass saw Joan and Steve—Beau’s stepfather—a few times a week. It was important that her daughter have a connection to her paternal grandparents.

      Keeping everyone happy—and convincing them she and Cassidy really were fine—was exhausting sometimes.

      “Can we get a rain check?” she asked.

      Joan came around the desk and walked with her to the door. “Of course,” she said, shutting off the lights. “How about tomorrow night?”

      “That sounds great.” At least it would save her having to throw together something for dinner. “Thanks. For everything.”

      “That’s what family is for. Try not to worry about Max. I’ve seen this before, parents who are reluctant to admit there’s a problem. They usually come around and I’m sure Mr. Montesano will be no different.”

      “I’m sure you’re right.”

      Even if she wasn’t, it didn’t matter. Because Harper wasn’t about to let Eddie take Max away from her. She couldn’t. Max needed her.

      And to help a child she’d gladly do battle against any opponent—including grumpy, taciturn Eddie Montesano.

      CHAPTER THREE

      WITH MAROON 5’S “Payphone” playing over the radio in Bradford House’s kitchen, Eddie crouched in front of the rough plumbing for the sink. He measured the distance from the floor to the hot water pipe, wrote the figure on a piece of scrap paper and repeated the action with the cold water pipe and drain. Then he measured them all again.

      Measure twice, cut once. Good advice that had been drilled into his head since he started working for his father at the age of fifteen. Advice he heeded on the job literally—and in life figuratively.

      Be careful, cautious, and you were less likely to make a mistake.

      Behind him, the door opened. “If you’re not going to keep your phone on,” a familiar voice said as Eddie wrote down the last of the measurements, “why do you bother to have one?”

      Straightening, Eddie stuck the carpenter pencil in his back pocket and laid the paper on top of the cherry cabinet he’d built for the sink base. “Who says it’s not on?”

      “Me.” James Montesano, Eddie’s older brother, waved his own phone in the air. “And the fact that I’ve been calling you for the past hour.”

      Eddie pulled out his phone and turned it on, then slid it into his pocket. “I had a meeting.”

      He’d rather keep it off. He hated the damn thing. Had no desire to talk to most people face-to-face, why would he want the torture of trying to keep up a conversation over the phone? Or worse, send and receive text messages like some teenager? The only reason he even had one was in case of an emergency.

      And if something had happened to his son, if he’d gotten hurt or sick at hockey practice, James would have told Eddie that immediately instead of laying into him about his lack of cell-phone manners. Besides, their mother was the secondary emergency contact for Max and she would have simply picked Max up if he’d needed her.

      “Hand me the hole saw,” Eddie said, marking the measurements on the back of the sink base.

      James sighed. “Aren’t you going to ask why I’ve been calling you for the past hour?”

      “I figure you’ll tell me when you’re ready.” No sense rushing a man when he had something on his mind. Eddie hated being pushed to speak before he was ready. “You going to give me the saw or not?”

      “I’ve been calling,” James said as his phone buzzed, “because I’m tired of acting as your message service.”

      “Customers wouldn’t bug you so often if you didn’t answer each call and respond to every text message.”

      As if to prove him right, James checked the number of the incoming call. “Shit,” he muttered before answering it with a cheerful, “Meg, hi. How are you?”

      Though their father, Frank, was the head of Montesano Construction, had built the business from the ground up thirty-five years ago, James was the one who kept the company running smoothly today. His anal tendencies, love for organization and rules and unnatural fondness for his smartphone made him the perfect man for the job.

      Thank God. Eddie could handle coming up with the work schedules, and both he and Maddie wrote up estimates for potential jobs. But Eddie would rather shoot himself in the bare foot with a nail gun than have to deal with customers changing their minds, whining about costs and bitching about jobs taking too long.

      And if Maddie, with her sharp tongue and take-no-prisoners attitude, was in charge of customer service?

      Montesano Construction would be out of business in two months. Three, tops.

      Better to keep things the way they were. Even if that meant putting up with James’s nagging, bossiness and him ceasing all conversation to stroke his phone.

      Not that Eddie actually minded that last one. At least it got James to shut up for a few minutes.

      Saving himself the time and trouble of asking for the hole saw again—no sense when James was absorbed in conversation—Eddie crossed to the corner cabinet and got the damn thing himself.

      While he’d been at the parent/teacher thing, Heath had finished

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