Lucas shook his head, amused as he heard Sean jump right into the argument with an easy camaraderie. As good as he was with the tech stuff, Sean also was the most easygoing guy Lucas had ever known.
He put thoughts of his brother aside as he walked into the cavernous warehouse. Heavy thuds and clanks sounded and seemed to echo as the different crews loaded up what they would need for the day. The steel walls reverberated with the roar of one of the diesel engines and men shouted to each other to be heard over the noise.
It was a good sound, though. Lucas had always enjoyed being on a job site. Most of the time now, he worked on the phone from the office, but every once in a while, it was good to get back to the basics. Check in with their crews. And just as Rafe had only a few months ago, actually work a job. Though Rafe had done it because he had lost a bet, Lucas enjoyed working a job occasionally just to keep his hand in.
The tension in his shoulders eased a little as he let his surroundings soak in. Whatever else was going on in his life, here at King Construction, he knew exactly what he was doing.
He nodded at the people he passed, stopped to answer a question, then asked one of his own, “Julio, have you seen Warren around this morning?”
“Yeah.” Julio Vega, about thirty-five with a thick black mustache and sharp brown eyes, lifted one arm and pointed toward the back of the warehouse, where the loaders and cement mixers were housed. “He’s back there.”
“Thanks.” Lucas found his quarry easily enough then, but by the look on Warren’s face when he saw Lucas, he was guessing this wasn’t going to go well.
“Boss,” the man said, with a brisk nod and a clenching of his jaw.
“Warren, we need to talk.”
“If this is about the WeDig problem—”
“It is,” Lucas told him, slapping one hand to the cold, metal side of the cement mixer. “You know, you were lucky that the only thing the men hit was a water pipe. It could have been a gas line. The whole damn neighborhood could have gone up in an explosion and fire.”
Warren was in his forties, balding, with a full red beard. His face flushed, but it wasn’t embarrassment coloring his features, it was anger. “Could have doesn’t count. It wasn’t the gas line, Lucas. Yeah, there was a damn flood, but we got the pumps in, most of the water’s gone and we’ll have the damage to the redwood deck repaired by end of the week.”
Defensive. Lucas couldn’t blame him but he also noticed that the man wasn’t exactly apologizing, either. He knew damn well what might have happened and could have always counted. On a job site, there were so many things that could go wrong at any given moment, it was up to the man in charge to stay one step ahead of all problems.
“Yeah,” Lucas said, keeping his voice even and his tone calm. “But doing all of that means we’re not doing the job we were hired to do. Plus, we have to eat the cost of the repairs to the deck.”
Shaking his head, he noticed the other man’s temper spiking, in the way his jaw muscles twitched and his hands continued to fist and relax at his sides. Warren could be as mad as he liked, but it was the wrong damn attitude to take with the boss when it was your own blasted mistake that had caused the mess in the first place.
“Warren, you know as well as I do, we lose money every day we spend correcting what went wrong on your site. Now we’re behind on the job, which puts us behind on the next job.” He patted the cement mixer, then folded his arms across his chest. “You were in charge, and you should have made sure WeDig cleared you before any of the guys so much as lifted a shovel.”
Warren’s barrel chest expanded with the huge gulp of air he took in. “You can’t lay all of this off on me.”
“Who else?” Lucas demanded, his own temper beginning to build. Hell, he knew mistakes happened—briefly, he thought about last night with Rose and could admit that he made mistakes, too—but he didn’t have a bit of sympathy for someone so stubborn they couldn’t even own up to it. “You were the foreman on the job.”
“Every one of those guys has worked for you long enough to know better than to start digging,” the man argued hotly. “Am I the babysitter, too?”
Warren’s voice was getting louder, and Lucas heard other sounds in the warehouse quiet down. He knew people were listening and couldn’t seem to care. He’d have preferred that he and Warren could settle this quietly, but maybe it was just as well that everyone here was reminded of the rules. The Kings believed in second chances, sure.
But keep screwing up and you’re out.
“You’re not the babysitter, Warren. You’re the man who gives the orders on the site.” His anger suddenly fading away into a mass of just-plain-tired, Lucas added, “This isn’t the first time you’ve made mistakes on a job, either. King Construction has a solid reputation, and we’ll do what we have to, to protect it.”
“Like fire me?” Warren demanded. “That’s what this is about, right? You came down here to fire me?”
“That’s right,” Lucas said flatly. He was done here. He’d said what he had to say and now he just wanted it finished. “I did. You’ll get two weeks’ severance, plus your vacation pay, but I want you off King property in the next half hour. One of the guards will walk you out.”
“A guard? Now I’m a thief you have to follow around until I leave?”
“It’s standard procedure, Warren, and you know it,” Lucas told him.
“Standard procedure. That’s great.” Warren was clearly furious, but he was also surprised. Lucas saw it in his eyes. Apparently, he had expected the Kings to give him another warning and that would be the end of it. He backed up a step, muttered under his breath and ran one hand across the top of his bald head. Finally, he glared at Lucas. “Five years I’ve worked for you and you toss me aside this easy?”
And just like that, Lucas thought, his own anger was back. “Like I said, this wasn’t your first mistake. And hell, I could even accept the mistakes if you’d just once taken responsibility for them. But no. You always push it off on the guys. Their fault. They didn’t listen.” Lucas took a breath and blew it out. “Well, Warren, when you’re in charge, you better make damn sure they’re listening to you.”
“You son of a bitch. What am I supposed to do now?”
“No longer my problem,” Lucas told him simply and started past him. His task was over and he didn’t feel any better. Now he had to head back to the office and try to concentrate on work, when the reality was, he knew damn well Rose would be front and center in his mind all day—just as she had been all night.