Love Under Construction: Love By Design, #1

By M.C. Cerny

Hunter Hart knows construction. 
He knows relationships hurt after watching his parents self destruct.
Somehow he forgot all the warnings when Taylor Jane Bryant blasted through the crumbling foundation around his heart. 

Taylor Jane Bryant knows home design.
Well... she thinks she knows based on marathon sessions of her favorite television show.
Now she's all grown up and ready to nail the last stud, Hunter Hart.

A romantic comedy by M.C. Cerny, Love Under Construction is book one in the Love By Design series. Come meet a sullen, stubborn hero with a 2x4 stuck up his rear about falling in love, and a heroine who has watched every episode of the Property Brothers ready to flip her dream house. Between every construction nightmare possible, animals that need to move out, and friends determined to interfere, what could possible go right? Step into a small town with a big heart, and laugh your way into love. Each book in the LBD series is a standalone HEA romance.

Love Under Construction is written to be read as a standalone, but many readers prefer to read the series in order. 
Love Under Construction (1)
Unlovely Things (2)
Heartburn (3)
Tailwind (4)

Love Actually (5) 
Mission For Love (6) 
Mine To Keep (7) 
Love On Tap (8)

• Language: English
• Publisher: M.C. Cerny
• Release date: Jan 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386997214

Book preview

1

Hunter

T his is it? Following the GPS, I made the turn, trusting the crisp British woman named something like Sally or Margaret to guide me. My passenger was currently enraptured with looking out the window. Her slim profile was mostly hidden by her loose pale blonde hair while her delicate nose pressed against the fogged glass. It had been a long time since her presence graced my vehicle. I found myself missing our shared history acutely.

Driving down the street, I perfected my poker face and waited for a shimmery ghost to appear warding us off the property. At the least, I expected Freddie Kruger to slice my tires and Jason Vorhees to run out of the woods donning a hockey mask chanting, cha-cha-cha. God Save the Queen and my new truck from the pitfalls over cliffs and best friends with big ideas.

My foot pressed the brake, pulling up next to a grey two-story Victorian era house in a depressed block of homes that looked haunted and fresh off the set of The Conjuring. You know, the kind that has wooden siding falling off it, complete with creaking uneven doors and cobwebs thick as wool crowding the window corners, or so I imagined. Looking at it made the shaved hair on the back of my neck stand up, but I would never admit that to anyone even if I were captured by hostiles and water boarded. It didn’t matter that I spent the bulk of my military career with the Corps of Engineers. A haunted house still freaked me out despite being intimately acquainted with its structural integrity.

This house, and I was being generous calling it that, had to be the worst of the lot. A dilapidated structure beyond that must have been a garage of some sort or a place to hide the bodies in winter. If you were looking for the Bates Motel, this could be it, circa the 1890s.

Overgrown shrubs and grass blocked much of the front yard and a large tree had fallen over what I assumed was a gravel driveway from at least fifty years ago. It was a landscaper’s nightmare project between the barren looking grasses and dead shit everywhere. Honestly, I’d be surprised if they didn’t dig up a body somewhere on the property. Tall columns framed the front porch or what was left of it. All I could see from my vantage point inside the truck was a set of rotten wooden steps and a goodly sized hole in the porch veranda. A swinging chair that looked like it had one time been a perfect spot for sipping sweet tea hung precariously by one chain, the rest dragging down on wooden planks. The varnish had easily chipped away a quarter century ago.

A sigh filled the truck from the passenger seat next to me. Isn’t she gorgeous?

Confused, I looked back at my best friend of ten years, wondering what crazy ideas that fancy design school in Brooklyn had given her. Naked women with hands full of tits were gorgeous, but this… this building looked like it should be condemned from the structural damage alone, forget about how ugly it was. She needed her eyes and maybe her head examined, but I kept those opinions to myself, merely responding with a grunt in reply to her question. I knew better than to burst her happy bubble.

I couldn’t bear to be the bringer of bad news and watch her little nose scrunch up, lip torn to shreds by her perfect front teeth, and those blue eyes of hers welled with tears. I might be an asshole in general, but this girl could wreck me faster than a truck on Interstate 84 barreling like a bat out of hell on ice. Nope, I was keeping any opinions I had about this house to myself.

The realtor even said the house isn’t haunted. Chuckling, she glanced out the window transfixed, while I let the potential horror of the situation work itself into my mind fully.

Think about this, Hunter… Think before you speak. My commanding officer said that to me easily a thousand times during my first deployment. Aaron Henderson would have been proud to know I did not make this woman cry, not on purpose anyway.

Barely concealing my wince, I asked, Did the realtor have those ghost hunters check it out to make sure? My fingers tapped the wheel annoyed, and Taylor Jane touched them, freezing me with her smile. Her touch did that to me, an immediate balm that sucked out the bad feelings and replaced them with good ones even years later. It was some kind of woman voodoo when she did that.

Oh, Hunter, ye of little faith. Her face softened with a side smile and I felt myself falling deep down that rabbit hole of no return.

What kind of a fucking realtor gives a house a character reference? Ooh, it’s nice with a white picket fence and the bodies are buried the required ten feet from the property line and propane tank. A whack-job, that’s who, and probably one with a snarky accent like my GPS wench, Sally.

Yeah, babe, because that’s a legitimate reference for a house that looks like it’s about to fall down. Muttering was all I could manage besides sticking my big foot in my mouth.

Hunter. She rolled her eyes, and I swore I should have thrown the truck into drive and headed to St. Mary’s for some damn holy water and Pastor Rooney to lead the exorcism, because I was sure spinning heads were coming next from behind the fallen door on the porch.

Worry churred in my gut. I knew firsthand how impetuous my best friend could be. "You, uh, didn’t sign any papers yet, did you? I mean… please tell me you haven’t done anything with it yet. I paused, trying to find a delicate way to say this to Taylor Jane before heaving a sigh and cutting right to the most important question I had for her. For the love of God, Taylor Jane Bryant, please tell me you had an engineer come and look at it first?"

I hoped this was still in the idea phase and I could talk her out of it, maybe find some other depressed house with far less problems to flip, or heck, not at all. I would find walls in my own house she could paint, put up shiplap, and decorate if it meant not committing to a money pit nightmare.

Of course I did.

Groaning, I could only imagine what unqualified idiot she might have hired and I was insulted she waited until now to consult with me.

To which part? Who in their right mind buys a property within a week of moving home? Getting through a conversation with Taylor Jane required major clarification and a few Hail Marys. We had been close at one time. She shared all her secrets, hopes, and dreams with me until I ruined it. The distance between us hurt, and I had no one to blame but myself.

All of it, Hunter. I had Scott Crenshaw look it over last week and then I put an offer in.

"Honey. I was going to kill that fucking idiot. Scott Crenshaw barely passed junior year geometry."

I winced remembering the dipshit kid with a longtime crush on Taylor Jane. I was forced to have words with him that same year before prom. Jackhole pissed himself and I didn’t even touch him. He must have really grown some balls if he thought of speaking to her in the past decade. That fucker knew I had a construction business since I came back from my last deployment.

Shaking my head, I figured that was another confrontation looming between us in our very near future. Taylor Jane was off-limits to the idiot population if I had any say in it.

He went to college. Taylor Jane huffed defensively and this time my eyes rolled. I’m sure Scott went to college. Probably some online school that had no way to adequately measure his ability to tell if a building was capable of standing, let alone undergo major renovations of the sort I’m sure Miss Design TV had hopes of doing.

"Hardly the same thing." Mumbling under my breath, Taylor Jane eyeballed me from under her thick lashes. Because we were fighting, I waited for her blue eyes to laser mine faster than a whooshed light saber slaying me. I turned to face her in a stalemate.

The only geometry Scott Crenshaw paid any mind to involved the curvy ones attached to a willing and available female, which had better not be Taylor Jane. Shoving a protractor right up his ass was tempting. I wasn’t normally an over protective dick, but part of me felt a responsibility to her over the years that defied time, folded notes in tenth grade, geography, and a few verbal spats.

She continued to ignore any concerns I might have had for the haunted pile of wood and proceeded to tell me more details. I’m so lucky I found it when I did, even outbidding a second buyer. Her enthusiasm under normal conditions was contagious until I sorted out what she actually said… there was a second buyer?

Someone else wanted this dump… and she spent more on it?

Oh Christ.

My brain hurt trying to keep up with her. I’m sure luck had nothing to do with this, just a bubbled housing market that had yet to recover fully in our part of the country.

You know, it was actually under budget, quite a steal.

I’m sure it was a steal. I mumbled. It was a steal right from her pretty little bank account. I was going to strangle that bank manager when I saw him next. If it was still Phil Harmond or his kid that took over, Paul, I was going to torture the life out of them both and then maybe bury them in the backyard of this shit hole for taking advantage of her.

Her overly positive attitude told me this was pretty much a done deal. In fact, I’d place bets that she’d already signed the paperwork, damning the next three to six months of my life working on this thing.

My choices were to either help her, or I’m sure smarty-pants here would find someone else to do it. Yeah, only one option here. I sure as hell didn’t want a shitty contractor taking advantage of my best friend.

"Taylor Jane Bryant." Using her full name, something only her parents and myself did, I needed her attention focused.

"Honey, there’s a lot that goes into flipping a property. I mean, did you talk to anyone about this? What about your dad?" If her father, Alan, knew about this I had to shake my head at what the world was coming to. Alan Bryant was as protective of her as I was.

My skepticism must have been transparent because she resumed her full pout. Don’t be condescending, Hunter, I’m not fourteen, I realize that. The bank wouldn’t have given me a mortgage if they thought this was a terrible idea. The bank manager was probably dazzled by Taylor Jane’s big blue eyes and thought nothing of giving her a loan she had no business taking.

I even drew up my own RFP and budget. Smiling made her face light up with this inner energy you had to see to believe. Yup, fuck a duck. She dazzled the shit out of that bank manager with her mortgage request for proposed funds. Where would she even get the collateral? I was afraid to ask about her parents’ house and couldn’t help the groan that passed my lips. It was useless to fight the tornado that was Taylor Jane Bryant.

Hey. She tugged on my arm, getting my attention. I spent the last four years watching the Property Brothers do it while I was in college. It’s going to be fun working together, bestie!

Oh God… even I knew of those guys, both nice, but a bad influence on Taylor Jane.

She wrapped her arm around my head, pulling me down to rub her knuckles against my scalp. She used to do this in high school and the feelings I tamped down back then roared with an intensity I barely reined in. It was irritating and put me in close proximity of my best friend’s breasts. Beautiful perky mounds I should not have been noticing. I tried thinking of other things, thinking of the girl I was casually seeing, but nothing stymied the softness and fresh smell of the girl right next to me.

I pushed back gently, untangling myself from her. Are you seriously telling me you want to flip a house because two wankers on TV…. I couldn’t even finish my sentence that’s how flustered she got me.

You know what they say about blondes? Taylor Jane had a full head of natural blonde hair. Now I’m not saying she was that type of blonde, but I had my moments when I wondered if there were stereotypes for a reason.

In the silence of the truck, she flicked something off her leg and looked up at me with her big bottomless blue eyes.

Hook.

Line.

Sinker.

Shrugging, she fluttered her eyelashes. I groaned out loud. I knew I was doing this before the words even left my mouth, telling her to knock it off with the puppy eyes. She was my apple pie and girl next door that couldn’t compare to anything else in this world.

How hard could it be? And there it was, she’d already barreled through like a rodeo bull and tossed me hard. I couldn’t say no in good conscience.

Damn it.

If you don’t want to help me, Hunter, just say so and I’ll find another contractor willing to work with me. She sighed, looking over her dream house straight out of a B rated horror film.

Oh hell to the fuck no is she going to pull that trick with me.

Some happy meals lacked French fries.

Crayon boxes were often missing crayons.

Taylor Jane… had a sparkle that rivaled fucking vampires.

I’m so screwed.

Grumbling, I caught a hint of her smile and decided to roll with it. What choice did I have? Tell me what you envision here. Turning the key to the truck off, we sat inside the cool dampness. It didn’t help that there was a humid light rain falling and everything was wet. Our breath inside the truck fogged, blurring the structural lines of the house outside. I don’t bother putting the truck back on to defog anything. Instead, I pretended through the clouded windows that some level of ignorance was bliss. For all I knew we would have to bulldoze the lot and start from scratch. The fog mocked me like the structural integrity of the house.

I want to update the property, restore much of its historic charm and add elements that make it a uniquely modern home that anyone would be pleased to own. Yup. She was going to be the death of me, just tell me where to sign up and to make sure my life insurance was paid in full.

So… not too many structural changes? Like you don’t want to knock down a wall and build an indoor pool or anything?

Taylor Jane laughed, but I had to be reasonable. This woman could talk you into buying sand in the desert, so a simple house flipping project could be the next Mall of America if I wasn’t careful. A man’s gotta be prepared, if you know what I mean.

Oh, Hunter, always the jokester. She lightly slapped my shoulder, looking back at the house even though the condensation kept us from seeing it clearly. No indoor pool, but a screened in Jacuzzi under the back deck sounds like a nice upgradable option.

The whine from my voice filled the truck. Tell me what kind of budget we’re working with. I don’t have a clue of when I agreed to actually do this, but I already regretted telling her I would do it. Taylor Jane squealed with delight, giving me a number that probably wouldn’t cover the permits or the supplies six weeks into this project. I dropped her off at her dad’s house with a sense of panic the next time I saw her.

I hoped like hell I had extra hard hats…

2

Taylor Jane

Ninth Grade - September

L ook, there’s the new kid! Kristen Calloway, my best friend on the planet since we were five years old, nudged me with her boney elbow. We finished our lunch about ten minutes ago, and I hoped to use the remaining time to finish my homework and study. Her smooth voice was an excited whisper and chipper distraction from finishing my notes for class.

Kristen, what the heck? I looked up from studying for my biology test. We were learning about the molecules of cells and having to illustrate what they looked like. Personally, I found them to be un-color coordinated blobs in serious need of a makeover. I mean, who came up with the name mitochondria and decided it should be colored a brick red? I picked through my colored pencils and realized the one I wanted was sticking in Kristen’s hair to secure her bun.

Kristen! I reached up to grab it, but she batted my hand away. Smacking my lips disappointed, I used burnt sienna instead. I started tapping the colored pencils, outlining and shading to the Green Day tune, Wake Me Up When September Ends. It was a bit of a sad song, but one that stayed with me over the summer since school started.

Taylor! She hissed back, dragging out the syllables in my name, nodding her head in my general direction.

Putting my pencil down, I took her math homework from between her book pages and we squared off a moment before trading items. Shaking my head, I looked up and saw who she’d pointed at earlier.

The new kid. The one everyone had been talking about since the end of the summer. Finally the speculation was over and here he was in all our freshman glory, walking with our neighbor from across the street.

Oh fucking hell, Damien is over there already. Breathing deeply, I counted to ten because for as long as I could remember Damien Hart and Kristen Calloway had hated each other on sight. That was an exaggeration, it was seventh grade two years ago, but close enough the way these two waged pre-teen war on each other. I swear their mothers got together and they kicked each other through the womb. Born on the same day, under the same freaking fire sign of Leo, these two could not have been more at each other’s stubborn throats unless they were twins with the same DNA. They weren’t oil and water, they were a compounded blaze I loved equally and was forced to often mediate between.

The trouble seemed to start over something in the beginning of seventh grade. Maybe a hastily scribbled note? Or another girl came between them, but neither had ever confessed what broke the friendship so deeply back then. After it all went down mysteriously, Kristen taught us all the swear words she knew in French that same year… Damien got a week of detention for saying them all in our language arts class. Then he told Kristen her last name really meant ‘pebbles’ in Norman French during genealogy week in history and had been calling her that since… I actually looked it up and for once Damien was right, making the origin Old Northern French. I had my suspicions there was more to it, but neither camp was disclosing more information. To be honest, I felt like staying neutral was my only choice since my parents weren’t moving anytime soon.

Damien was Kristen’s first kiss in seventh grade. She doesn’t know that I know, but when she was at the hospital for a broken arm she muttered something under the influence of pain killers and copious amounts of Coca-Cola from the vending machine. Her big brother, Chase, seemed to be on a mission to smash his face in until I tackled him in the hallway, reminding him that whatever happened was half Kristen’s fault. Knowing her as we did, we couldn’t discount that she might have had a part in this situation. Damien Hart owed me a favor for saving his life that day. When the opportunity presented itself, I planned on cashing that favor in.

Chase and I handled things as best as we could until right before Christmas. Kristen had just gotten her cast off and the one period we didn’t have class together she went off. I mean unhinged, and bit him, leaving a mark so obvious that the girl he was taking to the holiday dance dumped him via folded note during gym class. By then it was a full-on war and I was playing Switzerland on the seventh grade United Nations Security Council.

Luckily for me, they didn’t speak all of eighth grade, which gave me a reprieve last year, but now that we’re all in the high school building it would seem their war resumed full force for ninth grade and I had no reinforcements. I was losing faster than Napoleon in a Russian winter. Just ducky. I hoped the new kid knew what he was in for. Maybe he would be a buffer and save me since Chase was busy… chasing tail as an upperclassman.

So who is he? I looked across the cafeteria and saw him standing next to Damien, holding a tray of food like everyone else. Nothing about him blended in. For one he was taller and broader in the shoulders than Damien. Thicker muscles that you didn’t really see on ninth graders filled him out and made him look older than our age. Both had that