Love Rebuilt

by Stewart, Delancey

  “How’s the food, though?” Dad loved cruise food.

  “It’s good. I need to be careful at those buffets, though. Don’t want to pack on pounds while I’m here.” He chuckled.

  “Your vanity will get the best of you one day, Daddy.”

  Dad laughed and I had a sudden wrenching pain, a memory of that laugh from my childhood. “How’s school, smart kid?”

  “Cam is smart too, Dad.”

  “Yeah, but he’s not getting his master’s degree, is he?”

  “It’s not like I’m becoming a doctor, Dad. It’s an MFA.” Why was I arguing about a degree I’d given up on years ago now?

  “Are you doing okay? Eating enough?”

  “I’m fine, Dad.”

  “How is that idiot Jeremy?” Dad had not been fond of my grad school boyfriend. Hearing Jeremy’s name still caused a slash of sadness and regret through me. I’d been fond of him.

  “He’s fine, Dad.” I was beginning to feel a little sick. Talking to my father was a lot like lying and I was never sure I was doing it right.

  “Good, good. Listen, sweetheart, this annoying steward is waving at me to get off the phone. I guess the phone charges from the boat might be pretty steep. I’ll call you when I get back. I’ll come visit you and your brother, okay?”

  “Okay, Dad. I love you.”

  “Love you, Peach.”

  I hung up, replaying memories of my dad before Mom had died as if they were on a screen across the wall of the trailer. He’d been so virile, athletic, and fun. Always fun. He was quick with a joke, especially of the sarcastic variety. He’d played tennis every day well into his sixties, and considered himself quite the ladies’ man, though he was faithful to Mom to a fault. When she died, he kind of died too, I guessed. This endless cruise was his mind’s way of coping with her absence. Or at least that was the philosophy Cam had developed.

  My brother Cam had been the one to handle everything when my mom was sick, when Dad started to lose it.

  A wife who had to play nursemaid to ailing parents hundreds of miles away was not part of the image Jack had invented for me. And Cam had never forgiven me for my absence. It was lucky, I guessed, that Dad didn’t remember any of that. At least he still wanted to talk to me. Even if he did think I was perpetually in graduate school.

  I moped for a couple minutes after the call, regretting so many things that I was powerless to change about my life. And then I realized that if I didn’t leave the cabin that day there was a very high likelihood that I would actually drown in my own self-loathing. I needed to get out. See some people. Do something.

  Jeans, boots, and ponytail in place, I climbed into my shiny Jaguar and drove down into town. The car didn’t fit up here in the mountains any better than I did. And it was ridiculous that I lived in a tinny trailer and drove this particular specially ordered and ridiculously pricey car. I knew that. But I pretended I was a woman of mystery, full of amusing contradictions instead of terrifying swirling eddies of nothingness.

  Chapter 4

  Kings Grove was quiet. The summer was coming to an end, and weekend visitors tended to drive back down the hill on Sunday nights, taking their exuberance with them.

  I eased into a spot by the post office and went in to check my mailbox. A bank statement, a bill from my lawyer, and four fashion magazines stuffed the tiny slot.

  “You should really check more than once a week if you’re going to be ordering all these magazines,” a flat voice informed me. Craig Pritchard: mail clerk and the town’s most vocal lobbyist against the development of mansions on hillsides.

  “Sorry, Craig.” Not sorry at all.

  I stood and leafed through the magazines for a moment, my back to the door as Craig tended to someone else who had just stepped in. My attention was absorbed totally until the voice behind me made me turn my head. Connor Charles. He had handed a package to Craig and was waiting while the postman weighed and stamped it. His back was to me and I took a moment to appreciate the hard solid planes of muscle that pulled his T-shirt tight against his back.

  He thanked Craig and then turned, and I buried my face in the magazine again, turning away slightly.

  “Hello again,” he said, planting himself in front of me. The cinnamon muffin scent caught my nose for a brief second, making me want to lean in closer. I resisted the silly urge, leaning back instead.

  “Hi.” I gazed upward to his face. He didn’t have the shades on, and I could see the startling blue of his eyes.

  “Nice to see you again.” He turned then, and pushed his key into a box near mine.

  I gathered my things and locked the mailbox I’d left open. I was on my way out when Craig decided to quiz me about my choice in postal deliveries.

  “What do you do with all these magazines, anyway? It’s not like anyone up here gives much weight to what kind of shoes you’re wearing.” He had a point. A snarky one, but a point still. He leaned out to glare at my high-heeled boots as he waited for my answer.

  “Just like to keep up with civilization.”

  “How’s the house?” He sneered when he asked this, his thin lips disappearing beneath the silver and blond mustache.

  “The same.”

  Connor Charles stood still at his mailbox. I could tell he was listening, though he had the grace to pretend to be sorting his mail.

  “We get enough snow and those walls might just topple over, you know,” he said with a smile.

  “So they say.” I did not want to discuss the house with the one man who had done everything in his power to prevent it being built in the first place.

  “You gonna get back to work on it? People say you can’t afford to finish it.”

  “People should probably mind their own business.” I glanced at Connor again, and he looked up and caught my eye, giving me a small smile as he turned and moved toward the door.

  Craig continued his harangue. “The things people build in the confines of a national park are pretty much everyone’s business, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Not when we’re talking about private property, Craig. Thanks for your thoughtful interest in my home, though.” I smiled at him and then turned my back to him, sticking my tongue out and scrunching my face up as I realized that Connor was still at the door, holding it open for me.

  “Nice face,” he whispered, stepping out behind me as the door swung shut.

  I could feel the heat rising in my cheeks as I blushed. “I know. Mature, right? He just pushes my buttons.”

  “I think that was his intent.”

  “I’m sure it was.”

  We were standing on the sidewalk in front of the post office, Connor looking down at me and smiling as the sun set his fiery locks aglow and cast his face into shadow.

  “Well, it was nice to see you again, Mrs. Douglas.”

  I cringed. “It’s Turner. Maddie Turner.”

  “Right. Well, nice seeing you again.” Connor turned and strode to the big white car parked at the edge of the lot, and I couldn’t help but watch him go. He moved with confidence, and the sheer size of him was impressive. I wasn’t a short woman, and he towered over me, making me feel dainty in his presence.

  I sighed and turned around.

  “Hey you.” Miranda stood in front of me, grinning. “Just enjoying the view?” She watched Connor get into his car with a grin on her face.

  “Something like that.” I didn’t want to discuss it. Connor seemed like a nice enough guy. He probably didn’t deserve whatever gossip was circulating about him. I decided to be above that petty town talk.

  Miranda turned back to me. “What are you up to today? Big plans on your day off?”

  I raised an eyebrow at Miranda. “Hardly.” She knew me well enough to know that I was teetering on the brink of self-hatred and generally did not have exciting social plans to pull me back.

  She grinned at me. “Let’s go down the hill. Shop? Eat? See a movie?”

  I felt something spring to life in me. Sometimes I forgo
t there was a real world down there below six thousand feet. “You don’t have to work?”

  “It’s slow. Adele let me off today. Getting close to reducing hours.”

  I cringed. Fewer hours would mean freedom was even further from my grasp. I’d hoped to at least make it to October before my shifts got cut in half. I watched Miranda bounce on the balls of her feet, her muscled legs flexing beneath her denim skirt. She was six years younger than me, and had a kind of natural beauty I envied, though I didn’t think she even knew she was pretty. Her skin actually glowed, her eyes sparkled, and her hair looked gorgeous even when it was a complete long-greasy-shift-at-the-diner sort of mess. She wore dark-framed glasses that slipped perpetually down her pert nose, and she had a self-deprecating sense of humor that put people at ease. Even better, though, she exuded happiness.

  “Let’s do it. Let’s get the hell out of here and decide when we get there.”

  “You’re driving. We look way hotter in your car.”

  I smiled at her. It might have been all I had, but yeah, I had a hot car. And that was a hell of a lot more reliable than hot men.

  * * *

  I drove the car down the narrow winding road, enjoying the way it felt to harness some kind of power that I could hold onto.

  “Slow down, Speed Racer,” Miranda said, gripping the sides of her seat as we roared around a curve.

  I tapped the brakes. “Sorry. I like flying.”

  “I can see that,” she grinned at me. “I’ve always been a little scared of this road.”

  “But you grew up on this road!”

  “No. I grew up in Kings Grove. And I like staying up there. Or being down in the valley. I don’t like the in-between parts.”

  I took the next few curves a little less aggressively and Miranda stopped clawing the leather.

  “I didn’t figure you for a crazy driver,” she said, looking at me with wide blue eyes.

  “I’m not. I’m a good driver. Just a little bit aggressive, I guess. I learned to drive on Southern California freeways and then out at the track at Buttonwillow.” I flashed her a grin.

  “Buttonwillow?”

  “The racetrack. Jack enrolled me in some driving courses when he bought me this car.”

  “Like defensive driving?”

  “Not exactly. It was a ‘performance driving clinic.’ I learned how to control a skid, brake like a badass, and how to ride a corner. Stuff like that.”

  “You’re a race car driver?”

  “No, I’m a woman who can handle a V8 with five hundred and fifty horses.” I downshifted around a curve, neatly making my point.

  “That sounds like a story,” Miranda surveyed me, like she was first meeting me.

  “It was part of Jack’s effort to mold me into the perfect woman.” I glanced at Miranda. Jack was generally an off-limits topic, even for Miranda.

  “That sounds batshit crazy. What exactly did that involve?”

  I sighed. “Lots of little things, but in the end, he must have missed some crucial element.” The valley rolled out before us, dusty brown hilltops with waves of dark green orchards curled between them.

  “What do you mean?”

  “If I’d been a success, he wouldn’t have had to bring in a newer model.”

  “He cheated?”

  “Spectacularly.”

  Miranda didn’t press, but I could feel her buzzing with the effort of holding the question back.

  “He had an affair in the office for a year, and proposed to her before he’d even mentioned a divorce to me.”

  “That’s…”

  “Shitty.”

  “That’s generous. I was going to say grounds for some serious revenge.” Her eyebrows were practically hitting the roof. “So how’d he tell you?” She was gaping at me now, but then quickly added, “Unless you don’t want to talk about it.”

  “It’s fine.” It was time. Not only because I could feel steam building at the memory, but because I had been feeling lately like I wanted someone in my life that actually knew me. “We moved up here to build our dream house. He parked me up here full time and went back and forth to San Diego to manage his business down there. He was supposedly moving his office to Stockton. He was going to specialize in vacation properties, cut down his hours. We were supposed to live up here and raise a family in the clean air.”

  “Sounds reasonable,” Miranda said.

  “I was to stay here and supervise the building. Because I’m such an expert at that.”

  “Right.”

  “And I did. Despite how bored I was. No lunches with friends, no shopping on Coronado and no general San Diego wonderfulness. Instead I had an exciting daily routine of staring at trees and missing my old life. I got sick of Kings Grove.”

  “How could you get sick of watching Chance Palmer build something?” Her voice took on a dreamy quality. Miranda had a not-so-secret crush on the overeducated contractor, though I’d never seen him look twice at her.

  “Well, that was a good way to pass the days,” I agreed. “But you can only get so far staring at sweaty men out the window of a trailer. It’s not really a full life. And it’s not like there’s much else to do up here.”

  “I think it’s nice,” Miranda sniffed. “There’s nothing phony in Kings Grove.”

  “Look, it is nice. I know you grew up in Kings Grove.”

  “I thought you kind of did too.” She tilted her head, confused.

  “Not really, though. We spent some summers up here. My family owned the land we camped on. Where my house is. I mean my trailer.”

  “Got it. Go on.”

  “So when Jack stuck me up here, it was a big adjustment for me, that’s all. And I got the wise idea to fly back to San Diego to surprise him one weekend.”

  “Uh oh.”

  “Yeah. His little office tramp had moved into our house.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Nope. When I got there, he was out somewhere and she was lying out by my pool, wearing my bathing suit.” The words tasted bitter as I said them out loud.

  “Holy.”

  “My Manolo sandals were next to her chair, too. I thought there was some kind of weird misunderstanding on my part. But when I woke her up, the way she reacted made it pretty obvious that she was guilty of something. She was all self-righteous and defensive, talking about how I’d invaded her home. I nearly drowned her in my pool.”

  “I can’t believe you didn’t.”

  “We called Jack instead and waited for him to get back, but she confessed everything in the meantime. He’d told her we were divorced and that I’d left everything I owned behind. She thought it’d be fine to adopt all of my abandoned stuff.” I rolled my eyes. Like anyone would abandon that wardrobe.

  I slowed the car as we merged onto the highway that connected the two-lane mountain road to civilization.

  “So. What are we in the mood for?” I asked.

  Miranda was still shaking her head at my confession. “Shopping. Food. Some civilization for the city girl and something for me to wear to work that might actually get Chance’s attention.”

  My head swiveled. “Oh yeah?”

  She smiled and nodded, blushing.

  “I had a hunch about that.” I was quiet for a moment as I thought. “Miranda…he has no idea.”

  “I’m super nice to him. I’m sure he knows.”

  I thought back over all the times Chance and Sam had eaten in the diner. Miranda had never stopped by to chat, or even smiled in their direction that I could tell. “I think it might take more than a cute skirt. We might need to coach you on some flirting skills.”

  She eyed me sideways, her chin slowly turning to face me. “Really?” The enthusiasm on her face said it all.

  “We’ll see if I remember anything,” I said.

  The sun beat down on the car as we headed through the busy streets; the temperature in the valley was at least twenty degrees hotter than it had been in the mountains. As we parked and w
alked toward the outdoor mall, I tilted my face toward the sun. Talking had been balm for my soul, and walking in the sun, in an actual city, was even better. Even if it was just for an afternoon.

  We wandered into a patio restaurant for some Italian food, the scent of basil and garlic wafting around us, and enjoyed the movement of shoppers on the sidewalks as we talked about what to order.

  Once the menus were collected, Miranda gave me a questioning look. “Have you thought any more about the offer on your house?”

  I tilted my head at her. “I thought you were warning me off from that guy?”

  “I don’t mean him. I mean in general. I really didn’t know you were looking to sell it.”

  I shrugged. “I didn’t either. Jack told me he’d decided to sell it for me.”

  “Is that his call to make?”

  “Not at all. The house is mine. For whatever that’s worth.”

  Miranda sipped her iced tea, her eyes squinting behind the lenses of her glasses as she thought. “What are you going to do? You can’t live in that trailer forever. You’ll freeze up there this winter.”

  “It has a heater.” I was being difficult. She had a good point. The trailer wasn’t awful, but it probably wouldn’t be ideal in the winter. “I don’t know. Maybe I should sell it, but it’s hard. That land has belonged to my family for a century. I camped up there as a kid, and so did my mom, and her dad before her.”

  “You don’t have a long time to decide.”

  “Thanks, Madam Obvious.”

  She gently buttered a piece of crusty bread, lost in thought. After a moment she said, “You should totally call Connor Charles.”

  “You told me he was creepy.”

  “I don’t really know him. He’s just… a stranger.”

  “Everyone’s a stranger until you know them.”

  “Some are stranger than others.”

  I thought about the polite and handsome man I’d just spoken to at the post office. There was nothing about him that matched her description. Confident and successful? Sure, I could see that. Creepy and suspicious? No. I wasn’t getting that at all.