The fact that she’d kept this from him made his mind turn in a suspicious direction. Jack thought back to his site visit, remembered how Alex had talked up a few key employees during the site visit. Randy had been one of them.
Why? Why?
Jack and Miranda had even more in common than he knew. And still, she’d ended their…what? Could he even call it a relationship? More like an affair. A fling. A hookup.
Dumbing down their connection angered Jack, but the fear that she’d hooked up with Jack to help Alex burned a hole in his chest.
He pulled out his phone and sent a text to his firm’s travel agent. Postpone my trip to Tampa twenty-four hours.
He needed to deal with this. Now.
20
Miranda felt like she was coming down with the flu. Listless, melancholy, distracted, achy.
She was surprised how despondent she felt after ending things with Jack. Like a light inside her had gone out. Sure, it had been the right thing to do. Letting things linger would have only ended up hurting them both. But that didn’t make the loss hurt any less. And the fact that she was pining for someone she’d known less than two weeks annoyed the hell out of her.
She finished a weld and moved down the beam to a corner join, fired up the torch and began again. The floor was alive with crew members today, steelworkers, fellow welders, general construction workers, a couple of supervisors. It was only ten o’clock, and she couldn’t wait for this day to be over. Every time her memory flashed back to the look on Jack’s face when she’d ended things, her gut twisted. His text weighed on her heart.
I care about you.
She could count the number of people in the world who truly cared about her on one hand. But he didn’t really know her. The same way she didn’t know him. Alex’s assessment of Jack filled her head. Then the way Jack had acted during his site visit. To the things he’d said and the way he’d said them.
Miranda had been exposed to enough bad men in her life to know they could manipulate their personalities to get what they wanted. She’d seen men flip from black to white. Watched unassuming men turn into monsters. Witnessed fights and beatings. Miranda had managed to keep herself out of those situations, but that didn’t make her an expert in staying out of trouble. She’d found plenty of her own when she’d been young.
She wasn’t sure her intuition and judge of character was serving her all that well where Jack was concerned.
“Wright!”
The bellow made her jump. She released the handle of her torch midweld and looked toward the floor fifteen feet below. Jack stood there in his business casual and visitor’s hard hat, hands on hips. And a deep scowl on his face.
Miranda’s stomach hit the ground.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
Alex approached Jack. “What the fuck are you doing here again?”
Jack remained laser focused on Miranda, and he was livid. “Get. Down. Here.”
“Hey, I’m talking to you.” Alex stepped in front of Jack. “Randy’s working. Get the hell out of here.”
“Get the fuck out of my face,” Jack shot back, giving Alex a hard shove.
Alex retaliated immediately, coming back at Jack with a double-handed push. “Fuck you.”
Fear and anger flared through her chest. Miranda pushed her face shield up. “Cut that shit out.”
They stopped and looked up. Alex just looked pissed. Jack looked—shell-shocked. As if he hadn’t really expected to see her. Maybe he’d been holding out hope that whatever he’d discovered wasn’t true. His shock wore off almost as fast as it registered, replaced by fiery anger.
Work on the floor screeched to a halt. All eyes on the three of them. Fire ignited in Miranda’s gut.
Jack pointed at her. “The foreman’s trailer. Now.” Then he pointed at Alex. “You stay the fuck out of this, or I’ll can your ass.”
“You can’t fire anyone, asshole,” Alex shot back. “You don’t even fucking work here.”
“Watch me.” Jack turned toward the stairs and disappeared.
Alex looked up at her, arms out to the sides. “What the fuck?”