Worth The Effort (The Worth Series Book 4: A Copper Country Romance) by Mara Jacobs Page B

heard barking to see Sawyer’s dog dashing through the snow toward her. She bent down to receive the yellow lab’s affection, grateful to have a moment before Sawyer was upon her. She’d come with Charlie and Mac and was taking in the site as they set up surveying equipment. They’d only get preliminary specs due to all the snow, but they’d be able to cross-check them against the set Petey Ryan had provided. Besides, if they could make this project work—and after what the men in Green Bay had told them, she wasn’t sure they could—they wouldn’t be breaking ground until the snow melted anyway. And in the Copper Country, that could be as late as mid-May.
    She thought about her day yesterday, spent in her pajamas going from her bed to her couch just so she felt like she’d moved. She wasn’t sure if the light box would be enough if spring made such a late showing this year.  
    She’d done a lot of thinking, though. About Sawyer not coming home with her. And more about what would have happened if he had.
    And even more about what would have happened after that.
    “Hey, girl,” she said, bending down and pulling off her leather glove to give the beauty a good scratch. Which prompted the dog to assume a submissive position and give Deni her belly, an expectant look on her face.
    “Lucy, don’t be so easy. Play a little hard to get,” Sawyer said as he met them. “Hey, guys,” he said loudly in greeting to Charlie and Mac, who looked up from their clipboards and instruments and gave him a wave before returning to their task.
    Deni finished scratching Lucy’s belly, gave her a couple of sturdy pats, and then stood back up and faced Sawyer. “She’s a gorgeous dog.”
    He nodded, looking down at Lucy, a soft smile crossing his hard face as he watched his pet. “She’s been a good friend.”
    Maybe she should get a dog. But then she thought about having to getting out of bed to let the dog out or not being able to go to bed at eight because the dog would need to go out after that. The whole thought suddenly felt very daunting to her. Her arms became weighted down, and the heaviness seemed to seep up her limbs.
    Okay, not a dog. Don’t worry. Shake it off. Stop the cycle of thought. It was what she told herself when just thinking about certain tasks made the fog creep up. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.
    She met Sawyer’s gaze and saw something that looked like puzzlement in his eyes. Nuts. Had she said the whole “clear your mind” thing out loud?
    But no, it wasn’t puzzlement. The quick glance at her mouth that he snuck looked very much like the look he gave her right before he kissed her.
    But then let her go home alone.
    As if he remembered it at the same time, he cleared his throat and looked around the terrain.
    “Well, he can cut his prep costs down. No trees or anything to get rid of. In those terms, it’s a good location. Halfway between Hancock and Calumet, so you could pull both areas in.”
    “Do you know why he bought this property? It’s commercially zoned and close to the airport, but there’s nothing much else that’s great about it.”
    The land was a blanket of snow now, a huge parcel not far from the county’s airport. Slightly higher elevation would have given a fantastic view of the Portage canal. At this level, though, all you could see was the airport and a tree line at the edge of Petey’s property.
    “No, I’m not sure what he was thinking. I don’t know if he knew at the time. I remember that a few years after he went pro he bought up some vacant property around here. I was paying attention to that type of thing then.”
    What was left unsaid was that Sawyer Beck didn’t pay attention to that sort of thing now. A flash of Sawyer with a long beard dancing in front of a ramshackle shack floated through her mind. Lucy would be there, prancing around beside him, hopping up on him.
    “What?” he said, bursting her hermit vision.
    “Huh?”
    “What were