by Jeannie Watt
“Is there anyone else?”
“Probably not anyone you want to hire.” The old man cocked his head. “How ’bout I send my grandson around? He’s pretty good with that stuff and he’d fix you up for free.”
Molly started shaking her head, then again stopped. Small town. Helpful neighbors...why say no to that? “If he doesn’t mind. I’d prefer to pay him, though. I’d feel more comfortable that way.”
“Well, I don’t know if he’d take money, but I can ask him to stop by tonight after he gets off work and he can see what’s what. Does six o’clock work for you?”
“Yes. It does.” And she needed to get moving. “I have to get to a meeting, but thank you. I really appreciate your help.”
The guy raised a dismissive hand. “Not a problem. We’re neighbors. Mike Culver, by the way.”
“Molly Adamson. Glad to meet you, Mike.” She put the car in Reverse, waved to her neighbor, and backed out onto the street. If Mike’s grandson could help her out with this problem, then her biggest dilemma would be closet space. After the trauma of the past few years, she could live with that.
* * *
FINN HAD A BAD FEELING about this. Mike was a totally capable plumber, a master of the drain snake, so why had he asked Finn to take care of his neighbor’s problem? He assumed it was because she was female. Finn had no trouble meeting women, but the kind of women he dated weren’t generally the settle-down kind. Mike wanted him settled—not that he was actively matchmaking. No, he’d just been dropping heavy hints for the past two years.
Finn also suspected that Mike considered himself the mastermind behind his cousin Dylan hooking up with Jolie Brody, who’d worked at the store. Maybe now that he’d tasted success, he was moving on to his next targets—him and Cal.
The thought made Finn’s blood run a little cold.
The lights were off in Mike’s house when Finn parked in the driveway. Maybe his grandfather really was busy and didn’t have time to help the lady. Feeling slightly better, he started up the neighbor’s walk. The door opened before he reached the low porch, and a slim woman with straight honey-colored hair that fell just past her shoulders and heavy black glasses that gave her a sexy secretary look stepped out the door to meet him.
“Hi,” she said as she closed the door. “You must be...” Her eyes widened as her voice trailed off and Finn had to stop himself from looking over his shoulder to see what had frozen her expression. “Finn Culver.”
She said his name as if it was an accusation and he had the distinct feeling that he had just crossed that line into the twilight zone.
“I am.” He ran his gaze over her, looking for a clue. He sure as hell wasn’t wearing a name badge, so he had to know her from somewhere. Mike said she was new in town, but there was something about her that niggled at his brain.
“You don’t remember me.” The words were spoken in the same flat tone as his name.
Angular face, hazel eyes, really nice mouth, kind of wide and full. A few freckles. Big glasses. He was drawing a blank. “You seem familiar.” No lie there.
“It was a long time ago,” she said.
“What was?”
She folded her arms over her chest. “The mercy date.”
CHAPTER TWO
MOLLY FELT LIKE smacking her forehead as she ran her eyes over the man standing in front of her, looking self-confident to the point of cockiness.
Okay—that had been stupid of her, not cluing in on the fact that her neighbor’s last name was Culver. But she hadn’t thought about Finn Culver in a long time. She had fresher humiliations to think about, like her ex-fiancé spreading the love as he traveled with his ball team. Finn Culver hadn’t even been a blip on her radar—or at least not until he appeared at her door just now, looking even better than he had in high school. Of course he couldn’t be one of those guys who started to thicken up in their early thirties. If anything, he was more muscular, his face more sculpted. And the little lines at the corners of his eyes added to the package. She hated the fact that the package still looked so good.
“Mercy date?” Finn repeated. Then an expression of dawning understanding crossed his handsome features and his face split into a grin. “Wow. That was a long time ago.”
And that grin pissed her off.
“Yes.” But not so long that she’d forgotten any of it. First there’d been the embarrassment of their mothers arranging the date so that Molly could attend the homecoming dance. To this day Molly didn’t know if her mother had been aware of the fact that she’d had a wild crush on Finn, who’d been two years older than her. She’d approached the date with anticipation and terror.
When the big day had finally arrived, she’d gone to the game with one of her friends since Finn was playing, hooked up with him afterward for the dance, thought they were having a good time, and then he took her home as soon as the last song had ended. No kiss at the door. Nothing. Oh well, she’d told herself. So he wasn’t a guy who pushed.
It turned out that he wasn’t a guy who pushed her.
After dropping her off, he’d gone to a party where he’d scored with one of the high school’s socially elite. Molly knew because the girl had wondered aloud in the locker room if she was going to get pregnant because she and Finn had “forgotten” to use protection. And then in a nightmare moment, the girl seemed to remember (a) that Molly was standing at a locker a few feet away and (b) that she’d also been with Finn that night, though not in nearly such an intimate way.
Heat rose in Molly’s cheeks at the memory. Everyone in school had soon known that Finn had ditched her to spend the rest of the evening with someone more in his league. And they’d sure had a great time.
She realized then that even though she hadn’t thought about it in a long time, she hadn’t forgotten the searing humiliation of the homecoming episode—she’d buried it and stacked rocks on top. But the feelings were pushing their way to the surface, and Molly discovered that those feelings were still just a bit raw. She didn’t have to put up with guys like Finn or Blake anymore. Not for one lousy second.
“You know,” she finally said, hoping he didn’t notice her overly pink cheeks, but needing closure on this matter, “I can understand how being saddled with a date our mothers cooked up might not have been the greatest, but did you really have to nail Sheena that same night?”
“Shayna.”
“I stand corrected.”
Finn shifted his weight uncomfortably. Good. “I didn’t intend to humiliate you.”
“Well, you did.”
“Obviously you’re still angry about it.” He quickly held up a hand. “Not that you don’t have cause. You do.”
“I’m not angry.” Molly drew in a breath. “But you know, honestly? I’ll be more comfortable calling a professional for this job.” She’d made her point and now she wanted him gone.
Finn rubbed the back of his neck as if his muscles had gone tight, then met her gaze, and she was irritated to discover that she still thought he had pretty amazing eyes. “Let me look at the problem. I owe you.”
“You owe me?” She spoke on an incredulous note.
“I showed poor judgment.”
“You were monumentally insensitive.”
“I was a horny teenage boy.”
“Who didn’t make one move on me.” The words blurted out and Molly was surprised to find that she didn’t regret them. Not one bit.
A look of surprise crossed his face. “You were so...”
He stopped before he got himself into trouble, but Molly was not letting him off the hook. Her eyebrows lifted coolly. “Please. Finish your thought.”
“Mousy.”
Molly’s eyes went shut for a fraction of a second as her lips thinned. Yes, she’d been mousy. Which was worse than being invisible, which is what she’d
thought she’d been. She opened her eyes again and fixed her gaze over his head at his Mustang as her economical self battled with her pride. On the one hand, the incident had occurred a long time ago. His grandfather was her neighbor. On the other, he’d taken her out on a date, dumped her and screwed another woman that same night.
“Tell your grandfather thanks for sending you.” She started to cross her arms over her chest, then stopped abruptly. No more drawing into herself. “I appreciate you taking the time to stop by. I’ll reimburse you for your gas.”
“Forget the gas,” he said. “And for what it’s worth, I apologize for what I did.”
“Accepted.” Molly meant what she said—even as she wondered if he did—because she was not going to let ancient history weigh on her. But she also wasn’t having the guy work on her drain. Wouldn’t be beholden to him in any way, shape or form. “Now, if you don’t mind...I have more unpacking to do.”
* * *
“YOU’RE BACK ALREADY?” Mike looked over his glasses at Finn.
“Your neighbor—” for the life of him he couldn’t remember her last name “—wants to hire a professional.”
“Are you sure it’s not a case of her feeling uncomfortable about taking up your time and getting help for free? I mean, she wasn’t just being nice, was she?”
“Trust me. She wasn’t being nice.” She was totally pissed over an incident that he’d long forgotten. He doubted very much that she’d walked around regularly stewing about the incident for the past dozen years, but there’d been no question that once she’d been reminded, she still harbored resentment.
“Meaning?”
“She didn’t want me to do it. Maybe she took one look at me and decided I was incompetent.” Or an asshole. Actually, there was no maybe about that. He was not on her A-list.
Mike studied Finn for a long moment, his gray eyebrows coming close together, making Finn feel very much as he had when he’d been guilty of some kid crime and Mike had wanted him to fess up on his own. Finn always had, but today he didn’t think that Mike needed to know all the details of what had gone down between him and Molly whose-last-name-escaped-him.
“Is something weighing on you?” Mike finally asked. “You haven’t been yourself lately.”
Finn gave a snort. “I’m good.”
“You seem unsettled.”
Finn almost said something about the military changing a man, but he didn’t want his grandfather to latch on to the notion that he was suffering from PTSD. He wasn’t. He forced a smile. “Maybe I grew up a little while I was overseas. I’m fine. Anything else?”
His grandfather took a few seconds before shaking his head in a way that told Finn that the matter was not yet considered finished. “Nope.” Mike focused back on the ledger in front of him and Finn left the office.
Until now, he’d thought he’d done a pretty good job of hiding the fact that he no longer wanted to spend his life selling grain and Western doodads. He wanted to do something that spoke to him, that meant something. It wasn’t sales and it wasn’t mechanics, which had been his specialty in the service.
Finn had always been woefully bad about choosing the right path, unlike his cousin Dylan, who’d managed the store while he was overseas. He and Dylan had grown up together, sons of brothers, but Dylan’s father had been terminally ill during their teen years, so his cousin had been all about school and academics and doing well so that his father would be proud. Finn had been all about good times. Academics had never interested him. He excelled at sports, so that was what he’d pursued. After graduating from high school, he slid into the family business, apprenticing under Mike before taking it over when Mike semiretired.
The business had done all right under his watch, but it hadn’t thrived as it had under Dylan’s—or rather his fiancée Jolie’s—and Finn knew that was because managing the store was not what he wanted to do. It was what had been easy to do. His real life had started after closing, but that life—hitting the bars, playing sports, watching games—no longer called to him, either.
During the service a crazy thing had happened—he’d discovered that he enjoyed teaching new recruits the ins and outs of mechanics and enjoyed working with people in a way that didn’t involve ringing up a sale or loading a bag of grain. Teaching made him feel...valuable...in a way he’d never felt before, and on the flight back to the States, he’d come to the conclusion that he wanted to teach industrial arts, to show kids how to work with their hands. He had a feeling he’d be good at it, that it would give him satisfaction, but he didn’t know how his grandfather was going to take his abandoning the store.
Mike was getting older, had retired once, and there would come a time when he would retire again. Who would manage the place then? Because both he and Mike felt strongly about having a family member present in the family business.
Maybe Jolie when she and Dylan returned?
That would be a perfect solution.
One that he was going to discuss with his cousin as soon as he got a chance.
* * *
AS SOON AS the water had gone down, Molly took the top off the drain and shone a flashlight down the drainpipe, but she couldn’t see any obvious obstructions. She then pulled up a video on YouTube about snaking drains and watched it with Georgina looking on over her shoulder.
“Where are we going to get one of those things?” Georgina asked, pointing at the reel holding the industrial-size snake.
“I don’t think we are.” Not unless she could find a place that rented the equipment. She doubted that Finn had the equipment necessary to handle the problem either...unless of course he was a plumber. Which was totally possible, so she paid close attention to the last names of the plumbing experts she found online before choosing one to call. She wasn’t about to ask Mike Culver for his recommendation again, because she didn’t want to explain why she’d sent his grandson packing. She hoped to stay friendly with her neighbors.
Plumbers in the area were busier than she’d anticipated, working on the new houses going in around the lake. But the forecast was clear and sunny for the next seven days, so Molly didn’t panic when she couldn’t get an immediate appointment without paying an emergency fee. She took the first regular appointment, two weeks away, and told Georgina that they wouldn’t be storing anything that wasn’t waterproof in the garage for a while.
“Maybe you should have let the hot prom guy handle it.”
“Homecoming, not prom. And I’d rather sing opera naked in the park.”
* * *
“YOU SURE YOU don’t want to watch the game with us at McElroy’s Bar?” Karl asked as Finn got ready to leave the store for the evening. “We three could attract the girls and maybe one of them would feel sorry for you.”
“Hard to turn down an offer like that,” Finn said with a grin. “But I’ve got some stuff to catch up on at home.”
From the way Karl and Cal exchanged glances, Finn gathered that Mike had shared his concerns with the boys. Finn had to admit that he’d never turned down an offer to go out in favor of kicking around his house before he’d gone overseas, but he hadn’t had a focus or direction then, either.
“Give me a rain check,” he said. “The guy who sublet my place while I was gone let a few things go to hell, and if I don’t take care of things now, I’ll regret it later.”
“We understand,” Cal said, stepping forward to clap Finn on the upper arm, as if he were about to embark on a perilous journey and making Finn wonder if he’d be better off going with the guys to McElroy’s and letting them attract women for him. It’d get these two off his back, but the truth of the matter was that he wanted to register for classes and before he did that, he wanted to give his cousin Dylan a call.
“Thanks for understanding,” Finn said with a grave nod. He’d have to go out and disgrace himself one of these days to ke
ep Mike from worrying about him.
He grabbed his coat off the peg by the door and headed toward the side exit. Behind him he heard Karl, Cal and Mike shutting down the office in preparation for dinner out followed by the evening game. He was glad his grandfather had good friends, because it was going to make it easier when Finn informed him that he wasn’t going to be with the store forever.
After returning home, Finn signed into his newly created account at Eagle Valley Community College and registered for two evening classes, figuring that would allow him to ease back into school without affecting management of the store. He finished his registration, then got to his feet, feeling a surge of energy. No, make that energy coupled with unexpected anxiety.
What in the hell had he just done?
When he’d walked across the stage wearing his mortarboard twelve years ago, he’d sworn that he’d never subject himself to anything close to a formal classroom again. Yet here he was, wading in.
For a good reason.
He opened a beer, turned on the game and tried to focus, but even though the score was close, he kept going over the pros and cons of his plans for his future. Maybe he should have used the money he had coming due to his military service to dive in with both feet and do a four-year college program instead of a couple of courses at the local community college. That would show commitment. Was signing up for only two classes a wishy-washy approach to his new life?
Finn didn’t do wishy-washy. But on the other hand, he couldn’t just abandon his grandfather on short notice...although he had a feeling that if he did, Mike would wish him Godspeed and hire someone to do his job at a lower salary.
He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Action erupted on the screen in front of him, the announcers went crazy, and Finn opened his eyes again. His team had pulled ahead. Cool. Karl was probably going nuts because he hated Finn’s team. Finn smiled faintly and took a long drink, wishing he was enjoying the moment more.
Finally he reached for the phone and dialed his cousin’s number. Dylan answered on the first ring.