Any Way You Build It Read online

  “I love you.” He pushed the hair back from her forehead and kissed her gently. “I love you. I love everything about you. I love your kids, the way you walk on your hands, the way you smell like strawberries, and your courage.”

  “Oh.” She wasn’t sure if she could trust what she was hearing.

  “I love kissing you and the sound of your voice and the way you make me feel.”

  He kissed her again. It was a kiss full of promise and yes, love.

  “I love you, too.”

  “I know. Thank you.”

  “I don’t think you need to thank me.” She smiled at him.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  Several minutes later, she remembered he had wanted to show her something. “Hey, what was it you were going to show me? I mean, I’m fine with just this.” She ran her hands down his naked torso. The shirt was gone, but the shorts were still in place.

  “Oh yeah. Sarah, you want to come see my tree house?”

  “Wow, you’re letting me in your secret clubhouse?” She laughed.

  “I couldn’t think of a better way to show you I love you.”

  “I’m very honored. Does it have a keep out sign?” she said as he dragged her up the stairs. “Because I think we might need one.”

  #

  You could see an awfully long way from Todd’s tree house. It wasn’t the view out the windows that interested Sarah as she slipped her clothes back on.

  Todd was watching her from his vantage point on his sofa.

  “So this is where the magic happens, huh?”

  “Oh, you thought that was magic, huh? I’d like to think . . .”

  She grabbed a rubber ball off his desk and threw that at him. “Not that silly. I mean where you get your ideas.”

  He gave a shrug as if what he did was no big deal. “I guess. I get the ideas all over the place. This is where I usually make them into a reality I suppose.”

  Her eyes fell on a familiar nationally recognized logo, Tree House Designs. That was Todd.

  “This tree house is a big deal to you, huh? It’s in your logo and you bought this property so you could build it . . .”

  “Yeah.” He pulled her down on his lap. “The day my dad died he had bought the supplies to build me a tree house. Well, it was for Mike and me, of course, but I was the one who really wanted it. He’d just hauled the timber round the back and he keeled over.”

  “Oh my gosh.” She raked her fingers through his hair as he talked.

  “Yeah, so naturally I felt bad.”

  “It wasn’t your fault, though, Todd.”

  “I know. Even the doctors told me that and I did believe them. But I thought if my Dad died trying to build me a tree house, he must really want me to have one. It was important that the job get done.”

  “I can see that.”

  “But no one would help me do it. I’d ask people and they’d say ‘sure kid,’ but no one ever made the time, it didn’t matter to them, you know?” He looked at her, his face imploring her to get it, and she did. “It mattered to me, though, and I couldn’t make myself heard as a kid. Then, the wood rotted away and . . .”

  “You must have been devastated.”

  “Yeah, so I vowed when I got older I’d build one myself. As a teen I guess I could have done it, but I mean, I felt kind of foolish, what sixteen-year-old builds a tree house?”

  “Not many, I guess.”

  “Exactly. So I went away and the job wasn’t done. My mom sold the house and moved away. No tree house. Heck, no home at all.”

  “Well, I know how that feels.” She sighed. “That’s a pretty hopeless feeling.”

  “Right? So then when I made my money, all by myself, from a game no less, I decided I’d build my own tree house. I mean, people spend hours playing games these days, dressing virtual animals and decorating virtual houses, how is this any more ridiculous I asked myself?”

  It wasn’t at all. She shook her head. “Nope, not ridiculous.”

  “So I called my company Tree House Designs because that was my goal, to make enough money to come back here and buy a home, and then build a tree house.”

  “It just so happens you made enough money to build a really bad-ass tree house, huh?” she said, smiling at him.

  “Exactly.” A look of satisfaction crossed his face. “But I couldn’t build it in town. I wanted to build it right on Main Street but that wasn’t allowed. Now I can see this was better.”

  “How?”

  “Well, now I don’t have to leave home to see it or use it. Plus, because of it, I met Esme who was like family to me . . . and now I’ve met you and Zach and Livi.”

  He leaned in and gave her a soft kiss. “Destiny.”

  “Yeah, or something like that.” He smiled.

  “Speaking of which, I have to go home and relieve Katie who is with the kids today.”

  She wasn’t sure what would happen next. What did his declaration of love mean for them?

  “Great, I’ll come, too. I’ve missed them.”

  That made her heart dance. “Okay. Oh, Zach made the team.”

  An extra big smile swept across his face. “That’s my man.”

  “Your man, huh?”

  “Yeah. If that’s okay? I mean, if you want to keep this just between us, I’m fine with that. I know this is pretty new and there’s so much we haven’t even talked about.”

  “Like?”

  “Livi and the accident for a start . . . but anyway, we don’t need to do this all at once.” He was trying to reassure her, not push. “So, I’m fine to do this at your pace. The kids and you and how you settle here, that’s got to come first. I can just be Todd the neighbor. You’re the mom, Sarah, so it’s all up to you.”

  Yeah, she was the mom, but for the first time in a very long time she felt like more than just the mom. She had been worried about letting someone in, but she could see Todd wasn’t just someone and letting him in wasn’t going to make life harder for her or the kids.

  “Well, Todd the neighbor, I’m not sure about sleepovers that don’t take place in the famous and possibly permanent living room tent with the kids present, but I think the kids knowing we’re dating, or whatever we want to call this, is probably a good thing.”

  “You don’t think they’ll mind sharing you with me?” he asked, his head cocked slightly to the side.

  “I think you have that a little backwards. I’m not sure they will want to share you with me,” she said, pulling him downstairs, out of the tree house, and into the real world where he well and truly belonged.

  <<<<>>>>

  If you liked Any Way You Build It, please leave me a review. Good reviews make an author’s day.

  Sign up for my newsletter at www.moniquemcdonellauthor.com for information about new releases, promotions, and giveaways.

  You might also like my other novels.

  Upper Crust Series

  Any Way You Slice It, An Upper Crust Novella

  Any Way You Dream It

  Any Way You Fight It

  Any Way You Plan It

  Any Way You Want It

  Any Way You Build It

  My stand-alone novels and novellas

  Mr. Right and Other Mongrels

  Hearts Afire

  Alphabet Dating

  Building Attraction

  A Fair Exchange

  Snowbound, a Chicklit Christmas Novella

  This was supposed to be the last novel in the series but due to reader interest there will be one last book—Any Way You Spin It—where Minnie finally comes back to town after running off in Any Way You Dream It, Book 2 in this series. (Out in June.)

  My new series the Something series will begin in July with the first novel, Something of a Spark, featuring a girl with a few too many secrets and a sexy fireman who only has one rule—no secrets.

  Acknowledgements

  I hope you enjoyed reading Sarah and Todd’s story as much as I enjoyed writing it. I have a real soft spot for Todd and lot
s of people wanted to read about him after reading about him in Marissa and Mike’s story, Any Way You Plan It.

  First off, I owe a huge thank you to the lovely members of Writers’ Dozen who support my writing and keep me on track.

  Without my wonderful writing friends, I know I could not continue and a special shout out to Rae and Terri for their feedback on this book.

  Thanks to my beta readers for your ongoing help—especially to Renee, Betty, and Terri whose help I found invaluable.

  Thanks to cover designer Erin Cawood for the gorgeous cover design, which I absolutely adore, and to Chrissy Wolfe at EFC Services, LLC for the editing.

  Finally, a thank you to my regular readers who write reviews for my books, e-mail me, and tweet me about my stories. Knowing you’re out there reading my stories and anticipating the next one gives me more joy than you can possibly imagine.

  And finally, to my local friends Diana and Gill who never see me without asking about my books and begging me for the next one. Sometimes I have felt like no one else cared if I ever wrote another word but them, so a huge shout out for all the moral support.

  Table of Contents

  Any Way You Build It

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  If you liked Any Way You Build It, please leave me a review. Good reviews make an author’s day.

  Acknowledgements