Can't Shake You by Molly McLain Page A

feeling stirred in Josh’s gut. He couldn’t imagine any of his guys sabotaging him. Every member of his crew took pride in their work. It was why he’d hired them and why he kept them on. He was good to them, too. They were paid well and their benefits were better than most.
    “You piss anyone off lately? Deny vacation or a raise?” Mark asked.
    Josh thought about it for a moment and came up with nothing. Everyone received a decent raise a couple months back and he’d always been flexible with vacations, since he had plenty of hands. And he understood the need for time off, too, since three years ago he’d needed an extended leave himself.
    His mind went back to the wiring incident. Whoever sliced everything to shit had to know what they were doing. That had only been last weekend. The weekend of Dan and Maddie’s party.
    When he’d broken up Carissa and Tony.
    No way. No way in hell could Tony be behind this. His foreman had been more embarrassed than angry and, aside from a few awkward moments on Monday morning, he seemed to have completely forgotten the altercation.
    Josh shook his head. “Nah, I got nothing.” It wasn’t Tony. It couldn’t be. It was such a ludicrous idea to begin with, he wasn’t about to make the matter worse by throwing the possibility at his cousin for consideration.
    “All right.” Mark sighed. “But if you think of anything, you know where to find me. And if your insurance company decides to give you grief over the additional damage, I’ll have the reports in order by the end of the day.”
    Josh shook the sheriff’s hand and let him get back to work. He and Fletcher sauntered back to his truck.
    “This guy’s serious, bro. I hate to freak you out, but you gotta think of your other jobs too. The clinic. Carissa.”
    Josh tensed. It hadn’t crossed his mind the perp might hit the flip.
    “The house is peanuts compared to the other sites, so I’m sure it’ll be fine. It wouldn’t hurt to be cautious though,” Fletcher said.
    “I’ll have Mark add a couple nightly drive-bys to the schedule.” He felt bad enough about Henry’s place being messed with, he couldn’t imagine how he’d feel if something happened to Carissa’s house. Especially with the eviction looming over her head.
    “Things going okay with you two?”
    Josh froze, his guilty conscience rearing its ugly head. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
    “Things seemed a little tense when I walked in earlier. Though you’re both so damn thick-skulled, I can’t say I’d be surprised if you were butting heads already.” Fletcher chuckled.
    “Just ran into an unexpected expense.” And a few inconvenient erections.
    “I know I’ve said this before, but I’m damn glad you took over for Kelly. Rumor has it he roughed up a dancer in Grand Island a couple weeks ago. She didn’t press charges, but the thought of him working with Car...” Fletcher shook his head, an expression of disgust and concern crunching his features. “I would’ve killed the SOB if he so much as looked at her the wrong way.”
    Josh craned his neck from one side to the other until it cracked. He shared his friend’s sentiments, but if Reed knew the way he’d been looking at Carissa, he’d want to kill him, too. Probably in a pretty tortuous manner.
    Was that going to stop him enjoying the view? Probably not. No harm in looking, right?
    Besides, the fact that Carissa had been his before Fletcher’s—if only for one night—still prickled like a horse hair at his conscience. He knew it was wrong to wonder what it might be like to have her again, but a small part of him couldn’t stop thinking he was somehow entitled to those wayward thoughts, the timeline considered.
    Fletcher clapped him on the back. “There’s no one I trust more with her, Hudson. No one.”
    Josh’s gut twisted into an impossible knot, reminding him that no matter how he tried to rationalize his crazy attraction to Carissa, nothing would change the fact that his best