by Jadyn Chase
She blinked her large green eyes at me. “Heating?”
“Yeah. Winter heating. How do you plan to heat the place? Your Daddy won’t survive the winter without heat.”
She glanced toward the door. The longer this conversation went on, the more my heart sank. Jesus Christ, did people really live like this? She must be in real trouble.
I straightened up. “Don’t answer that. We’ll work it out. If you don’t mind, I’ll bring my tools down tomorrow and start working on that post. What do you say?”
She scowled. “I can’t pay you. I just want you to know that up front.”
I did my best to smile at her. “I would be insulted if you did, so it’s all settled. Now, what do you say you take a walk with me up the Bonneville Loop?”
Her eyes darted toward the trees near the road again. Why? That was the second time, and the same inkling of fear crept over her face when she looked there. “I shouldn’t. Daddy needs me.”
I scanned the old man. He hadn’t raised his head once since I arrived. “He looks all right to me. He can take care of himself for fifteen minutes, can’t he?” She shifted from one foot to the other. I saw my chance and hastened to reassure her. “Don’t worry, Amy. We won’t go far. We’ll just take a little stroll and come right back. Come on.”
I didn’t wait for her to reply. I grabbed her hand and pulled her off the porch. When I let my weight fall on the steps, they gave an inch under me. That was another job that needed doing. This place really needed a man—a healthy young man with a good hammer hand.
Amy resisted for a second. Then she relaxed into walking at my side. I deliberately steered her away from the driveway toward the trail leading into the woods. The farther we got from the house, the easier her hand rested in mine.
We meandered along the Bonneville Loop for a while before she paused to look over her shoulder. “I shouldn’t leave Daddy alone.”
I let myself draw to a halt and peered down into her vibrant face. “What’s wrong with him? You didn’t say he was sick.”
“He’s just old and frail.” She sighed and passed her hand across her eyes. “His health is fragile, so he gets sick a lot. Every time he gets the slightest cold, I worry it will kill him.”
“And you take care of him all by yourself? That’s gotta be tough.”
“Who else is going to do it?” She looked back again. “I’m all he has.”
A force stronger than nature made me raise my hand. I didn’t mean to trace my fingertips down her cheek. It just happened. “You’re too young to carry all this worry on your shoulders. You should be out in the bars until all hours driving the guys crazy.”
She didn’t smile. She kept looking around at nothing. She eyed the trees like something was going to jump out and grab her. What could scare her like that? Not her elderly father. That was for certain.
“I never did anything like that,” she replied. “I’ve been taking care of Daddy for the last five years.”
I frowned. “You said your mother died two years ago.”
“Yeah, and she was sick for two years before that. I took care of both of them through it all. Sometimes I think that’s why Barb left. She couldn’t hack it.”
I smacked my lips and threw up my hands. “Dang, girl! You’ve been doing all that—at your age? That’s too much!”
Her cheeks colored and she bowed her head again. She knit her fingers together and shrugged. “Well, somebody had to do it, didn’t they?”
“That’s it!” I grabbed her hand again. “Come on. We’re fixing up this house of yours. That’s all there is to it.”
I towed her back toward the house, but she withdrew her hand and stopped. “Wait, Liam.”
I turned around. “What’s the matter? Don’t tell me you’re too proud to accept my help. You can’t live in that house. I won’t allow it. I would get all my brothers and uncles working on the place if I thought you would let me, but since you won’t, I have to do it. Somebody has to do it, don’t they?”
She looked right and left. She looked anywhere but at me. “It’s not that, Liam. I have to…. It’s like…..I don’t know how to say this…..”
I waited. “Just say it.”
She waved both hands. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. You have to understand that. I didn’t mean to…. Oh, hell. I don’t know what I’m saying.”
“What exactly are you saying?” I asked.
She let her palms slap down on her thighs. “I didn’t mean to get you roped into this when I met you at the fishing hole. That’s what I’m trying to say. I didn’t mean to spin you a sob story and get you to come and work on my house. That’s what I’m saying.”
“How could you?” I asked. “You didn’t know I was going to be at the fishing hole. How could you rope me into it when we only met accidentally?”
“I’m just saying,” she stammered, “I never meant for any of this to happen. Just remember I said that. All right?”
I burst out laughing. The whole thing sounded too ridiculous to bother with. “All right. I can remember that much, I hope. I’m not so stupid that I….”
She threw up her hands again and barged around me. “I never said you were. If you’re gonna do this, just do it and don’t blame me afterward. Just remember it was all your idea, not mine.”
She swished away through the trees heading back to the house. I gazed after her, and the last thing I saw was that glorious rump of hers undulating back and forth under her jeans.
Yes, she really was so much more enticing like this—fiery, comfortable, in her element. The picture of her slithering out of that silvery water with rivulets of gleaming sunshine sparkling on her skin overlaid this down-to-earth, family-oriented girl. They were the same person and she fired my blood more than ever.
Mm-mm. If I could get my hands on her, I would know what to do with her. More than ever, though, I kept a tight rein on my feelings. I couldn’t treat her like a piece of meat because she wasn’t one. Any girl who took that kind of care of her parents and family could never be a convenience to me no matter how much I wanted to eat her for lunch.
I made my way back to the cabin thinking a thousand things. When I got there, old man McMasters still hadn’t moved. Maybe he never moved. Maybe he just sat there inhaling his oxygen and staring into space. How should I know?
I went to the corner post and took hold of it. I jostled it again and inspected the rotten footer embedded in the ground as well as the joint where it fitted into the eaves. The roof joist looked solid from here, but I wouldn’t know for sure unless I got on the roof. I couldn’t do that until I secured the post.
I made a circuit of the building and scrutinized all the damage. The closer I looked, the more desperate the situation appeared. Several places on the walls had no shingles at all. Bare frame studs showed through the gaps, and in some spots, I could see through the cracks to the rooms inside. This would never fly.
When I got around to the corner post again, I found Amy putting a large wooden crate on the ground next to the porch. She picked up a shovel and starting digging out the rotten stump.
My brows furrowed. “What are you doing?”
“I’m helping you. Somebody has to do it, don’t they?”
I snorted. This was getting to be a theme around here. “Do you know what you’re doing?”
“No, but you’ll tell me. I’m guessing you have to put a new support post here. Oh, look, there’s the concrete. Will you pour a new…. what do you call it?”
“Yes, I will,” I interrupted. “Listen, Amy, I don’t really like the idea of you….”
“It’s my house, isn’t it?” she cut in. “I don’t know how to fix it, but if you tell me what to do, we can get it done twice as fast, right?”
I cracked a grin. “What’s wrong? Are you trying to get rid of me?”
Her bright smile vanished in a heartbeat. “No! Not at all.”
I put out my hand, and this time, I didn’t hesitate to touch her arm. �
��I’m just fooling around. Don’t take me so seriously all the time.”
She broke into her brilliant smile all over again and my stomach flipped. This visit turned out to be something I never imagined.
She wiped her forehead on her shoulder to brush the hair out of her eyes and went back to digging. I wasn’t getting it done standing around watching her body sway, either. I examined the crate and found it full of old tools.
I took out a hammer and tapped up the post. It was sound all the way up to the join. The eaves all resounded with a hollow, wooden thump, too. That was a mercy.
While she finished digging out the stump, I walked around the house tapping here and there. I made a mental note of all the rot. In my head, I tallied up a shopping list of all the materials the place needed to make it shipshape.
I knew nothing about Amy’s finances, but I already knew she couldn’t afford it—any of it. I hated to think what she and her father had been living on these last few years. For all I knew, they might not be able to afford power or even food.
By the time I got to the worst areas of decay, I formulated a different plan. I could locate nearly all the materials lying around the Kelly homestead. Pop kept stacks of lumber, nails, sacks of Portland cement, and a bunch of other random goods stored in sheds and barns and outbuildings. He hoarded that stuff just in case the shit hit the fan and he couldn’t get it from the stores.
I would take him off by himself as soon as I got home. When he heard about Amy and her father living in this run-down shack, he would give me permission to take what I needed. That guy could never resist helping someone in need. He would understand why I had to do this alone to preserve Amy’s dignity without getting the whole Clan involved. Amy never had to know where the supplies came from. That would only make her feel beholden to the Clan, and no one wanted that.
I stopped in front of a broken window to measure the frame to match the size. It looked in on a bedroom. One of those high-tech adjustable hospital beds took up nearly the whole room. A shelf loaded with medicine bottles sat against the far wall, and a large oxygen cylinder occupied a corner next to the upright head of the bed.
I put the broken window on my list, but I couldn’t stop staring into the room. Something didn’t fit right here. That bed, the oxygen tanks, the expensive prescriptions—they didn’t gel with the abject poverty of Amy’s lifestyle. Where did she get the money to take care of her father when she didn’t have the money to live in a decent house?
Her voice startled me out of my reverie. I hurried around the building to find her standing triumphantly over a large hole. The rotten post stump protruded from a conical lump of concrete. The whole shooting match lay on its side on the grass along with a pile of moist earth.
“There!” Amy panted. “I got it.”
“So you did. Well, there’s nothing more I can do today. I’ll go get some supplies and some other tools, and I’ll see you back here bright and early tomorrow morning.”
She beamed up at me. “All right.”
I put the hammer away and headed for the Jeep. To my surprise, Amy strode after me. She slowed down as we approached the vehicle. “Liam?”
I faced her. “Yeah?”
She glanced sideways and her eyelashes fluttered in the most intoxicating way. “Thanks. I really appreciate it.”
“You know what?” I pointed at her. “I wouldn’t even mind if you did come and find me at the fishing hole to deal with this. I’m glad I can help you, and if I had known, I would have come and done it anyway. I’ll see you tomorrow, and I hope you’re ready to work when I show up ‘cuz we’ve got a ton to do. Take care of your Daddy ‘til then.”
4
Amy
I broke out in a cold sweat waiting for Liam to show up the next morning. I walked around the house doing my chores, but I couldn’t settle down. What if he didn’t come? What if he backed out on the whole thing?
I never really let myself understand how desperate my situation was until I saw the cabin through his eyes. I fooled myself that we could make it here. The truth was I never let myself think about tomorrow or next month or winter ahead. I couldn’t stand what I saw when I did.
Now someone threw me a lifeline. I grasped it with all the gratitude in my heart, but I understood at last how destroyed I would be if I lost it. I only found Liam two days ago and already he represented my last, best hope. I couldn’t lose that now, or I would break.
All these years, I white-knuckled it through the grinding strain of keeping Mama and now Daddy alive. I lost Mama despite my best efforts. I couldn’t lose Daddy, too, or I would be utterly alone in the world.
The sicker he got, the more anguished and stressed out I got. I couldn’t admit to myself that he was hanging by a thread, and I was hanging with him. One infection, one flu, one mistake in his medications, and I would be screwed, blued, and tattooed forever.
I kept myself busy all morning. I kept telling myself, He’ll come. He’ll come. He said he would come. He’ll come.
Eight o’clock rolled around and he still didn’t come. I reminded myself for the thousandth time he was a young man barely twenty-three. He probably tied one on last night and had to sleep in. He probably wouldn’t come before eleven—if he came at all.
I couldn’t lose my composure if he didn’t come. I had to hold it all together. I had to keep holding up the world or it would collapse around my head.
Nine o’clock—no Liam. No great surprise there. I went into Daddy’s room. He sat by the window. I didn’t want him outside while Liam worked on the house, but if Liam didn’t show up, why shouldn’t Daddy sit on the porch like he usually did?
I took hold of Daddy’s chair to move him when I heard the purr of a motor. I rushed to the window barely able to breathe, and my heart caved open when a truck rolled up to the porch.
For a second, I rushed around the room like a chicken with my head cut off. I couldn’t face Dean Lynch right now. I couldn’t. I couldn’t make up my mind to go out front and confront him or to hide in the closet and wait for him to go away.
I took hold of Daddy’s chair again—like that would help me. I went through a hundred decisions in the space of ten seconds.
All at once, something knocked against the house and a voice called out, “Anybody home?”
I lunged for the door. “Liam!”
I barreled onto the porch almost in tears. Liam frowned at me from the ground. “Well, who did you think it was?”
I blinked at the pickup. “I thought it was…. I didn’t recognize the truck.”
Only now did I recognize it wasn’t Dean’s truck. This one was old, dented, and rusted. Liam strode around it and bent over the bed. “I couldn’t exactly carry all this in the Jeep, could I?”
He hefted a bag of concrete mix onto his shoulder and carried it to the porch. He let it slump on the ground next to the post dangling free. His muscles strained under a clean white t-shirt that revealed his chest and back through the soft cotton.
I hopped off the porch and ran to the truck. When I looked into the bed, I beheld an assortment of building materials. Neat stacks of lumber, bags of cement, and rounds of firewood packed the truck bed.
I pointed at the rounds. “What are those for?”
He took a curious straight implement out of the cab. A short handle ended in a perpendicular blade with a square tip. “They’re cedar. They’re for making shingles. This is a shingle froe. You use it to split the rounds into shingles.”
I frowned at it. “Really? I never heard of that.”
“I’ll show you. You can try it. If you’re any good at it, you can do that for the rest of the day. That should keep you out of trouble.”
I tried to help him unload, but he wound up doing most of it himself. He stacked all the lumber near the house. He even brought out a dirty old wheelbarrow caked with concrete and set it up near the post.
At last, he straightened up and wiped his sweaty face on his shirt. “Now come here, young lady.”
<
br /> I slunk over to him. He set one round on top of another and took hold of the froe. He got a wooden mallet out of his toolbox and held it up. “Making shingles is probably the easiest, safest job on any building site.”
“Great,” I interrupted. “Are you trying to get rid of me or something?”
“You said you wanted to help. If you do this job, you will be helping. It’s that much more time I can spend working on the house instead of making the damn shingles, so pay attention.”
He bent over the round. He placed the froe’s flat blade on top of the round. He picked up the mallet and gave the blade’s wider back a few tentative taps. Once the edge bit into the wood grain, he increased the force of impact. He drove it down into round until a smooth, straight flake peeled off and hit the ground.
I gasped. “Wow! That’s amazing.”
Liam held up the flake and turned it this way and that. “Not really. Split off a bunch of those and then you can get to work shaving them down while I start on this house.” He kicked the post flopping from the corner.
I scrutinized the square timber waving in the breeze. “Don’t you need me to help you on this?”
He chuckled. “Oh, I need you, all right.”
I stared up at him and blushed. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I know what you meant.” He took a hammer out of his tool belt. “I’ll call you when I need your help. Don’t worry. There will be plenty for you to do.”
He started smashing away at the place where the corner post attached to the eaves. He pounded it until it came loose and fell onto the grass.
I watched him for a minute. “What are you doing?”
“I have to replace the post. It’s not long enough, now that end is rotten off. Now get to work.”
I concentrated on the froe. When I tried to copy what Liam did, I found the job a lot easier than I expected. The blade sliced through the straight fibers with little effort. After a few tries, I could split shingles as well as Liam.