Male Call. Heather Macallister

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СКАЧАТЬ had whistled at the women and now watched as they walked past the truck. Ah yes, the call of the male hominus jerkus.

      They hadn’t whistled at her, not that she’d ever had a construction worker whistle at her or wanted one to. Or was supposed to want one to.

      And yet, and yet… No. If that was what she had to wear to get whistled at, then forget it.

      She stood and watched the men watching the women.

      “Hey! Haul that stuff off to the dump!” The foreman glanced at the women then tossed a bag of sweepings into the back of the truck. It drove away and the foreman walked into the yard where he set up two sawhorses and a work light clipped to the open door of the Bronco.

      He was still in his T-shirt, impervious to the cold. The muscles in his back stretched, the muscles in his arms bunched and his torso was probably a work of art.

      Marnie sighed. If she were going to have a man whistle at her, that was the one she wanted doing the whistling.

      But he hadn’t even acknowledged her presence.

      She should get going or she’d miss her usual train. Except something drew her to the man in the yard. Marnie stepped off the curb and crossed the street. What would she do if he did notice her?

      Put out some vibes, that’s what.

      The whine of an electric saw shrieked into the evening. Marnie made the brilliant deduction that he was cutting a piece of wood. He wore safety goggles and looked solid and competent and was concentrating as fiercely on the movements of the saw as Marnie usually did staring at a computer screen. Of course if Marnie made a mistake, she wasn’t likely to lose a finger.

      A man at work was a thing of beauty. If that wasn’t a famous quote, it should be. Yeah, if nothing else, seeing more of this guy made renting the apartment worth it.

      Knowing that he couldn’t hear her, Marnie shouted, “You’re a thing of beauty! And I just rented the apartment across the street. What do you think of that?”

      The saw reached the end of the board. The whine stopped and a chunk of wood fell to the ground. Setting the saw aside, the man picked up the part he’d cut and held it to the light. As he examined his work and blew bits of shaving and sawdust off the design, a huge smile creased his face.

      ZACH RENFRO liked nothing more than restoring San Francisco’s grand Victorians. He did excellent work, if he did say so himself. No one could afford him, but since he didn’t charge what he was worth, it all evened out.

      People lacked patience these days. People like the actor type who lived in the Victorian across the street. The day Zach and his crew had started ripping off the disgusting dress this pretty lady had worn for the past seventy-five years, the guy had swished across the street to complain about the noise. He’d blathered on about a script and how Zach was committing auditory assault.

      “What the hell are you talking about?” Zach had climbed down a ladder to talk with the guy and wasn’t pleased about the interruption.

      “I have work to do. How can I concentrate with all this commotion?”

      “Earplugs?”

      “I, Franco Rossi, should not have to wear earplugs in the privacy of my own home.” He gave Zach a haughty look.

      Great. One of those. “Well, Frank.” Zach couldn’t believe anyone would admit to being named Franco and shortened it out of courtesy. “This is my work.”

      “But my work is art.”

      Zach gestured to the house. “So is mine. Once upon a time, my lady, here, was just as pretty as your house. But she wasn’t treated right and now I’m going to give her a little nip and tuck, get her a new dress and make her a pretty necklace.” Zach reached into the front seat of his truck and grabbed the piece of wood that he planned to use as a pattern to cut gingerbread trim. “Now look at that. It’s a custom design and I’m going to cut it out by hand. Are you going to tell me that’s not art?”

      Franco stared at the wood, then raised one well-shaped—probably plucked—eyebrow. “My apologies for not recognizing a fellow artiste.” He bowed. Bowed. Zach glanced around to see if his crew noticed.

      “So you will understand if I confess that the call of my muse is so faint that your muse is drowning her out.”

      “Hang on.” Zach bent down and rummaged in the open toolbox propped on the front steps. Inside was a package of earplugs. He shook out a couple and handed them to Frank. “Occasionally, my muse gets loud even for me.”

      Franco stared at the two pieces of bright yellow foam. “Do you have these in blue?”

      “No.”

      He sighed, then pasted a brave smile on his face. “I shall persevere.”

      Zach hadn’t seen him since. Fortunately.

      He liked working in this area of San Francisco. There was a lot of contrast with the edge of the Mission District and the trendy part of Valencia Street. He wouldn’t mind living in a place like this. Of course, he wouldn’t mind living in any of the Victorians he’d restored. That was the secret to his inspiration—he got emotionally involved in them. It wasn’t practical, but he left the practical part of running Renfro Construction to his father and his brother, who had enough practicality to spare. Enough for Zach to be Renfro Restoration. So what if he did get a few pangs at the end of a project? Another one always came along.

      Zach took a deep breath of the cool evening air and turned on the saw. The drone of the blade as it cut through the wood served as a soothing backdrop for his thoughts.

      In spite of all evidence to the contrary, there was a practical side to Zach and that practical side, a residual of years working in the office side of the business, pointed out that there were thousands of very good commercial patterns and manufacturers of Victorian gingerbread trims. And even if he wanted to continue to provide custom designs, he could recycle his more successful ones to increase the profit margin. It would still be a Renfro Restoration original, but he could outsource the fabrication and carry the designs in stock. Construction time and standby labor time would be less, thus increasing the profit margin.

      Lord knew it wouldn’t take much to increase the profit margin. But knowing each house was unique appealed to Zach’s pride and an artistic sense he hadn’t known he had.

      He owed his father and brother big-time for letting him run this part of the company. They never said a word when Zach’s penchant for perfectionism ate into the already slim profits.

      And he was just so much happier doing this than anything else. They knew that, too.

      So, he’d work on this new trim design tonight so he wouldn’t have to pay standby time to the crew tomorrow.

      Zach concentrated on working the jigsaw and holding the wood steady. One slip would ruin the design. Yeah, there were nails and wood glue, but that was a last resort.

      He became aware of a blob of bright colors in his peripheral vision. The blob could have been there any number of minutes since his vision was partially blocked by the side of the safely glasses. He’d seen that blob before—walking by every day and a little while ago it had nearly been beaned with a piece of wood.

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