“I do, but there are rules. Lots of rules.”
“Fine. Just tell me what you want done, and I’ll do it.”
“If I let you help—and that’s a big if—then you have to do what I tell you to do, the way I tell you to do it. No taking over. No changing things. No ‘here, this is better’ or ‘I did it this way because I know better than you.’”
As she spoke, his smile had grown dimmer. “Do I sound like that?”
“Telling people what to do is how you make your living. I don’t want to be talked into or out of anything, so just keep your bright ideas and thoughts to yourself. And no talking about our relationship. Not a peep. If you mention us just one time—" She swiped her finger across her throat.
“Noted.” He adjusted his ballcap, his awkward laugh oddly endearing. “Just point me in the direction of this furniture that needs work and I’ll get it done.”
“It’s not that easy. I’ll send you some videos that’ll explain what needs to be done. Don’t touch anything until you’ve watched them. I have a vision for each room, and the furniture is key.”
“I’ll watch every video. I’ll even take notes.”
“You’ll probably mess up your new clothes,” she warned.
“I’m willing to make that sacrifice.” As he spoke, he grinned, his eyes crinkling at the corners in that way that made her melt like butter.
Rhino, rhino, rhino! She moved away, trying to ignore the way her heart had just thumped at least four extra beats. “Watch the videos and then meet me at the shed in an hour and I’ll get you started. You’ll be working alone after that, because I’ll be busy elsewhere.” Probably hunkering down under her desk in the fetal position wondering what had possessed her to include him in any way.
“I’d be glad for some company—” he began, but at her look, he added in a rushed way, “—but I understand you’re busy.”
Boundaries, limits, restrictions, those were her friends, not his. So why did he look so pleased while she felt as if she’d just fallen into some sort of trap? She shook off her uncertainties. “See you in a bit.”
He saluted and then collected his bags. “On the dot, Sunshine. Don’t forget to send those videos.”
She managed an acknowledging nod and, suddenly yearning for the quiet of her own apartment, she murmured “goodbye” and left. Head up, she made a beeline for her office, trying her best not to run.
She kept getting glimpses of a different Evan, one who was willing to put the hard work into their relationship that it required. One who wasn’t as obsessed with his business as he used to be.
Was he really different?
And if he was, did it matter?
Her head said no, but her heart—ah, that fickle thing, said maybe, just maybe. And that was what scared her the most.
5
Evan
Evan stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel. Say what he would about this old motel, the water pressure was pure perfection. Of course, that could be because he was the only guest, but for now, he’d celebrate every positive he could find, despite their scarcity.
The last several days had been challenging. His efforts to win his way back into Jess’s good graces had left him with scraped knuckles, a matching set of splinters in one thumb, and a bruised knee from where he’d banged it on an open drawer of the old mahogany bureau he’d been sanding.
And sanding.
And then sanding yet more. He was pretty sure he no longer had fingerprints on his right hand. Even worse was the deep ache in his lower back. And his knees—good Lord, listen to me moan!
Evan had always thought of himself as fit. He exercised often and avoided most carbs, but wrestling a dresser day after day that weighed as much as the Audi even now sunning in the parking lot was proving how inadequate his fitness routine was. He’d never, in his entire life, had back issues. But between the ditch-like bed he’d been sleeping in, spending hours stooping over ancient furniture, and trying to slide that same furniture around so he could reach a “better sanding angle,” his back had turned into one large ache.
He stopped getting dressed long enough to do some stretches, groaning as he did so. If I keep this up, by the time I’m forty, I’ll be using a cane.
Damn. He hoped he wasn’t still living in this ancient motel room trying to win Jess back when he was forty, but hey, if he had to do it, he’d do it, bad mattress and all.
He tossed his damp towel over a wobbly hook on the back of the bathroom door and was just pulling on his jeans when his phone rang. Still dressing, he let it go to voicemail, remembering Jess’s expression when he’d reached for his phone his first night here. That flicker of disappointment had cut to the quick.
A jingle told him a voicemail was now waiting and he was irked by his instant impulse to grab the phone and throw himself back into work.
But no. His time with Jess was running out, and he had to do something different, be someone different, if he wanted her back. The question was, could he do it? Was it possible that for today at least, he could let work take care of itself? He’d hired a rockstar team. Maybe it was time he used them.
A week ago, he couldn’t have imagined himself thinking such a thing, but in the last few days, Evan had realized that old man Doyle had been right—it wasn’t enough to promise Jess changes. Evan had to show her those changes, and that meant trusting his company to the people he’d trained to run it.
His phone beeped, an email landing in his inbox. He flexed his fingers against the urge to check it. Ash was great at her job, he reminded himself. She’d handle whatever had arisen. He was sure of it.
Before their fallout, Brad had referred to Evan’s management style as “effective overkill.” Evan had been proud of the “effective” part and had ignored the “overkill” portion. He now knew that had been a mistake. Being away from the office was giving him startling new clarity, and he was beginning to realize that although he’d chosen and trained excellent people to run his company, he’d never given them the chance to do it.
The things you learn when you stop long enough to get some perspective. Brad was right, as usual.
It would be nice to call Brad right now and get his opinion on Jess and the direction Evan was taking to win her back. But apparently Brad was busy learning the ropes at his new job, too tied up to take a call from an old friend. I’ll call him again tonight and hopefully this time he’ll answer. Jess was right; I miss that guy.
But then Jess was rarely, if ever, wrong. Except about us.
Evan grabbed one of his new T-shirts from the drawer, a bright blue one with a Lion King logo and the words Hakuna Matata written in even brighter pink beneath it. He pulled on the shirt and donned his socks and sneakers.
Unable to resist, he checked the message from Ashley and was reassured that he’d been right. She’d answered her own question and was already effectively dealing with the situation.
Evan zipped off a reply email telling her he agreed with her decision. At the end of the email, he wrote something he never thought he’d write: I’m taking off the rest of the week. I trust you’ll make any decisions necessary. Feel free to call if there’s an emergency, but otherwise, I’ll talk to you Monday.
He started to hit send but his thumb hovered over his phone screen. He trusted his people, but this was a big step. A huge step. I’ll send it later.
Maybe.
Frowning, Evan closed his mail app, dropped his phone into his jeans pocket, and then went outside. He took in a deep breath of cool morning air, welcoming the smell of dew and freshly cut grass as he watched the morning mist roll across the pond. There was something to be said about mountain life.
He turned to walk toward the office, noticing that the lightbulb he’d watched Doyle replace was still burned out. Come on, Doyle. You had one job.
To be honest, Evan wouldn’t mind seeing the old guy. For the last few days, Evan had been confined to the shed as he worked on the antiques Jess had gotten from an auction. They
were complicated pieces, covered with nooks and crannies and ornamental hand-carved wooden scroll thingies, which were all a pain in the ass to sand. Fortunately, he’d had Jess’s expert help.
Not that he’d needed it. Before he’d picked up the first piece of sandpaper, he’d watched a number of videos on the Hows and How Nots of refinishing antiques. By the time he’d begun, he’d felt surprisingly knowledgeable about the whole process.
Or he had until he’d begun the actual work. No video accurately represented how slow, grueling, and time-consuming sanding could be. Still, he’d been determined to do it and do it well.
To his surprise, sometime during the second day, he’d realized that he was enjoying himself. It wasn’t just the satisfaction of working with his hands, although that was part of it. It was also because Jess kept stopping by to check on his progress. Although she’d pointedly told him that he would be working alone, she’d been there most of the time.
He wished he could say she kept returning to the shed because she couldn’t keep away from him, but it was painfully obvious that she thought he needed supervision. That realization had been a blow to his ego, although he’d seen the irony of the situation, too.
Jess was every bit as focused on her motel as he’d been focused on Graham Industries. For the first time, he realized how belittling that must have felt, to be standing right there, working shoulder to shoulder, and yet your partner’s attention remained fixed on the project alone. He’d never thought he could be lonely while in the company of others, but that’s what he’d felt, and it had made him even more aware of what he’d put Jess through.
Evan rubbed his chest where a dull weight pressed over his heart. Every day, the weight grew, and he knew his time was running out. Friday would be here before he knew it.
Frowning, he neared the lobby, his stomach growling as the scent of fresh grass was replaced with the delicious smell of coffee. Yesterday, as he’d walked to the lobby, he’d noticed that the door nearest the office had been left open, probably by Doyle, who had a bad habit of leaving tools and ladders here and there. When Evan had reached in to close the door, he’d realized the closet not only held cleaning supplies and freshly folded towels and linens, but that it was far larger than it appeared. To one side of the door was a washer and dryer, while a workbench sat along the back wall, a pegboard hung over the top that held a number of tools.
Seeing the stacks of clean linens, Evan had taken the opportunity to go back to his room and change out his towels and sheets. To make things easier for Jess, he’d washed the old ones, returning later to fold and replace the ones he’d taken from the shelves.
He knew Jess had noticed because she’d thanked him later that day. He’d told her it was nothing, but he’d have washed and folded a thousand towels and sheet sets just to see that smile again.
Evan glanced at the closet now as he walked past it, the door securely closed. He was going to have to wash his new clothes soon as sanding was a messy business. He reached the lobby and was just getting ready to open the door when he heard a familiar deep voice behind him.
“Getting ready to belly up to the breakfast bar, are you?”
Evan turned to find Doyle standing on the sidewalk just outside the supply closet. One of the new floor lamps from the lobby sat in front of him, listing heavily to one side.
“Good morning.” Evan went back down the sidewalk to join Doyle. The handyman was wearing his usual overalls augmented by a bright red T-shirt featuring a rippling American flag, his toolbelt filled with so many tools that Evan wondered how it stayed in place. “I haven’t seen you around lately.”
“I’ve been here.” Doyle squinted at the lamp, rocking it back and forth on its wobbly base.
“It looks broken,” Evan offered.
Doyle’s teeth flashed as he grinned. “Either that or it’s as drunk as Cooter Brown.“ The handyman shot Evan a measuring look from under his bushy eyebrows. “How’re you doing? I’ve seen you working around the place. Sorta wondered if you were after my job.”
“Hardly. I’ve been helping Jess refinish some furniture.”
“Sanding your way back into her heart, are you?”
“I wish,” Evan said.
The old man’s sharp gaze narrowed. “You don’t sound too sure of yourself.”
“I haven’t been sure of anything for the last few weeks except that I miss her and want to be a part of her life again, but she hasn’t been very encouraging. Quite the opposite, in fact.” He raked a hand through his hair and sighed. “I’m trying, Doyle, but I don’t think it’s working.”
Doyle snorted. “Trying. That’s a weak word, isn’t it?”
“What else should I do?”
The old man moved the tall lamp until it stood in front of Evan. “Try and pick that up.”
What the heck? Evan looked at the lamp. “What do you mean ‘try’ and pick that up? I just—” He grabbed the lamp and lifted it.
“Exactly. Don’t ‘try’ and make things right. Make ‘em right, whatever you’ve got to do. It’s time for actions, boy.”
“We’re back to the Can-Do and the Can’t-Do, aren’t we?” Evan said, trying not to show his frustration.
“You’d think hearing it once would be enough, but it doesn’t look as if it took.” Doyle shook his shaggy head. “So here you are.”
Here he was, indeed. Evan wondered what it would take to show Jess he meant what he said about fixing the mistakes he’d made. Really meant it. Meant it with all of his heart and all of his soul. “I’m not sure what it will take.”
“You’ll figure it out. But let me say one thing, and you need to trust me on this. When you’re old like me, you won’t regret the things you did do near as much as you’ll regret the things you didn’t do.”
Evan was struck by the sadness he saw in Doyle’s bright blue eyes.
Evan’s gaze dropped to the leaning lamp. It looked so out of place there, a modern if broken piece sitting on the grayed and cracked sidewalk of the old motel. It exactly represented how he felt. He sighed, rubbing his lower back where the persistent ache matched the one in his heart. “She’s not making this easy. I’ve founded a huge company and expanded it dozens of times, but trying to reach her is way more difficult than anything I’ve done so far.”
Doyle snorted. “Running a company is a lot simpler than talking to your wife, as there are rules and laws and such. Plus, when you’re dealing with a woman and it’s just you and her, you’re outnumbered before you even begin.”
Evan had to smile at that. “Jess is a force of nature. When I first started my company, she was right there.” He remembered the long days and longer nights when they’d worked side by side for hours upon hours. “She had a thing for spreadsheets even then. She set one up for almost everything. Our accountant loved her.” And so had he. Deeply and desperately. And I still do.
“Those early days were something else, weren’t they?” Doyle lifted the lamp and turned it upside down, examining the wobbly base with an expert gaze. “Things seem simple at the beginning. Easy, even. Although the truth is, you’re just too young, too excited, and too in love to know better. You just think the whole world is yours to conquer.”
“We did conquer it. And we had it all. But somehow, like an idiot, I got distracted and stopped paying attention to our marriage. I don’t know how I let that happen.”
“Life’ll do that all on its own. When Barbara and I were first married, we were thicker than thieves. We liked all the same things—picnics, swimming, fishing. But then, after we had kids and we both started working, we drifted apart. Once the kids moved out, we had to fight our way back to normal.”
“We don’t have children, not yet.”
“You have a company,” Doyle pointed out. “It’s a distraction, just the same. That sort of thing can punch holes in the walls of your marriage. But if you get to it quick and plaster those places up, then those cracks won’t reach the foundation.”
“Everything
is a construction metaphor to you, isn’t it?”
“If it works…” Doyle shrugged.
“I suppose.” Evan thought about what the handyman had said. “What if those cracks have already reached our foundation?”
“Then it’ll take more than mere plaster to fix them. It’ll take a bigger effort, something memorable.”
“Like what? I already tried to give her jewelry and a trip to Paris, but she wouldn’t have it.”
“You’ll have to figure that out. It was easy for me because Barbara was a romantic. She loved flowers, especially live ones.” The old man’s face softened. “Over the years I bet I bought her a gazillion pots of flowers. We had the prettiest front yard in town. If I’d really messed up, though, I’d do something bigger. Like maybe write her a song.”
“Really?” At the old man’s proud nod, Evan asked, “What do you play? Guitar? Piano?”
“The accordion. I played that thing every year at our summer family get-together.”
“You must have been good.”
“Oh, hell no. I was horrible.” Doyle chuckled and scratched his bearded cheek. “I never learned how to play that stupid thing. Barb and I bought it at a garage sale one day on a whim, just for fun. I planned on learning how to use it but never had the time. Anyway, every summer Barb’s family from Asheville, the whole lot of them, would come to Dove Pond and spend a week here. They’d stay in tents, cabins, some even stayed in this here motel back when it was open.”
“A family reunion.”
“Yup. They did it so the kids could all get together—cousins don’t often get to see each other, you know. Anyway, that accordion had been languishing in our closet for years when, out of the blue, I heard Barbara telling everyone that I knew how to play it.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Not even a little.” Doyle chuckled. “She was a scamp, that one. Never missed a trick. She got everyone to beg me to play a song. Swore up and down that I was the best accordion player she’d ever heard. That much was probably true because I don’t think she’d ever heard one in person, just on the television.”
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