by Laura Drewry
* * *
There weren’t nearly as many logging trucks in the parade as there used to be, but there were plenty of other entries; everything from the Shriners on their little motorbikes to the local pipe band decked out in their finest tartan to Bobby the Coast Guard safety boat. And right up front was Edith Goodsen, leading the way in her chauffeur-driven convertible Mustang.
“Too bad Lisa couldn’t be here,” Jayne said. “What time is she done at the trade show?”
“Not till this afternoon.” A wave of guilt crashed over Nick; if Lisa had come to watch the parade, they would have watched from under a tree in the park where it was shady and less crowded instead of sitting there on the curb where he always sat, the sun warming his back, his best friend sitting next to him, waving at everyone on the floats.
Nick tipped his chin up and laughed as the ladder truck drove by. The same guys who’d kicked his ass in the bed races now hung off the side of the shiny red ladder truck, sirens wailing as they tossed candy to the kids on the sidewalk.
Behind them came a group from the library handing out bookmarks, a couple of teens riding unicycles, and then the clean-up crew who gathered up the orange cones and stacked them in the back of the Search and Rescue command vehicle.
“Pop’s grilling steaks tonight, so if you’re feeling okay—”
“I feel fine,” Jayne snorted. “But there’s no way I’m going anywhere near your mom’s house tonight—are you crazy?”
“Why not?” Nick held out his hand to help her stand but she pushed herself up and brushed the dirt from her butt. Didn’t take a rocket scientist to know she was purposely not looking at him. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the store window, trying not to laugh at her. “Jayne, are you still scared of my mom?”
“I’m not scared of her, Nick.” She lifted her shoulders nonchalantly, but he wasn’t fooled for a second. “I just need a bit more time to recover from last night before I subject myself to the wrath of Debra Scott.”
“She doesn’t hate you, Jayne.”
“I’m sorry,” Jayne choked, as she headed toward the bookstore. “Are we talking about the same Debra Scott who moved me to the kids’ table at your wedding?”
“Okay, so she’s a little overprotective.”
“A little?” Jayne unlocked the door and stepped inside. “Grizzly bears are a little overprotective, Nick.”
She stepped into her Tyvek suit and pulled on her dust mask and goggles. “I’m pretty sure the rats and I have an understanding now, so you should go to the Loggers Show. I’ll be fine. Really.”
“I’m not going without you.” He unlocked the back of the U-Haul and jerked the door up until it rolled back. “Besides, it doesn’t matter to me if we spend the day here or at the show, just so long as we spend it together.”
“Seriously?” Her mouth hung open as she shook her head. “It’s shit like that that makes your mom hate me.”
“What are you talking about?” he laughed.
“That! Saying you want to spend the day together.” Shaking her head, she hunched over her iPod dock and fired up the music. “You can’t just say stuff like that and expect people to think we’re just buddies.”
“Why not? We haven’t seen each other in four years—what’s wrong with wanting to spend some time together?”
“Nothing, except your mother—like most people—doesn’t understand why you’d want to spend time with me instead of spending it with a guy friend or, better yet, your perfectly sweet girlfriend.” She pulled her hair back with one hand and tucked it through the back of her ball cap, but a few strands escaped and hung over her ears. “It’s going to turn into Abby all over again.”
“Hang on.” He pointed to the stacks of boxes near the door. “These are ready to go?”
When she nodded, he lifted the first one and carried it out to the truck, then walked right back in and frowned at her.
“This is nothing like Abby.”
“Ha! It’s exactly like Abby.” Jayne never stopped moving. As soon as she was finished with one bag or box, she went right to work on the next. “Your mom told you a long time ago that having a girl for a best friend would ruin things between you and other girls, and she was right, but because her little angel, Nicky, refused to ditch me, she had no one else to blame except me, so even though I’ve tried to separate myself from you and whomever you were dating, in her mind I became some sort of pariah set on destroying every relationship you had.”
“It wasn’t that bad.” Nick rested his elbows on the stack of boxes and watched her bend over a carton of plastic spoons and measuring cups.
“Uh, yeah, it was.” She shoved the box his way and sighed. “You didn’t notice because you were busy making cow eyes at anything in a skirt.”
“Cow eyes?” If he worked as fast as she did, they’d be finished in no time, but instead, he stayed right where he was, watching her move. She was cute when she got going like this; a little cranky, a little worried. Eventually he’d get her to smile again, it was just going to take a bit of work.
“Yes, Nick. Cow eyes. Big sappy hazel cow eyes.” Before she could make a motion for it, Nick pulled the top box off the next stack and set it at her feet. “Thank you. I might never be your mother’s favorite person, but it’d sure be nice if she stopped thinking I’m the antichrist.”
He chuckled, but Jayne didn’t so much as smirk. “Come on, that’s a little bit funny.”
Her flat stare said otherwise and no amount of teasing changed that, so finally Nick gave up and got down to work.
With music blasting from the speaker, he kept a close eye on Jayne as he continued to haul shovelfuls of God only knew what out of the apartment. She didn’t seem to have any lingering problems from last night, but anything could happen. During trips up and down the stairs he watched her every move; the way she tapped her feet along to the music, the way her hips moved to the beat, and how well she played the air guitar.
When he couldn’t see her, he could hear her. Hell, they could probably hear her down at Loggers Sports grounds. Truth was, Jayne was a hell of a lot more entertaining to watch than any form of underhand chop or log birling.
* * *
“Wow.” Art Hague rubbed his beefy hand over his mouth and waved his clipboard, showing the sweat ring under the pit of his white shirt. “Couldn’t even get through the door the last time we were here.”
“We?” Jayne asked. “Who’s ‘we’ and how many times have you been here?”
“Fire Prevention Officer and myself. We were here just the one time, a couple weeks before she passed. Let’s see now, that would have been on …” Hague lifted the top page of his notes and skimmed to the bottom of the last sheet. “Right. June fifth.”
“Hang on.” Nick barely moved, but Jayne didn’t miss the way Hague flinched. “You knew about this two months ago and you didn’t do anything?”
“Of course we did something. We issued a No Occupancy Order and gave her twenty-one days to get it cleaned out.” Hague cleared his throat sharply. “She didn’t appear compromised—mentally or physically—and while she might not have been able to do the work herself, she certainly had the means to hire someone.”
“Oh my God,” Jayne cried. “You think this is the work of a mentally stable person?”
“If your grandmother had given any outward indication that she was unfit, we would have taken steps, but—”
“But instead you left her here in this mess.” Jayne took a long slow breath and swallowed hard. “Why didn’t someone let me know? Surely to God you could have asked any of her friends and they would have found a way to reach me.”
“Confidentiality, Miss Morgan. We asked her if there was anyone we could contact for her, but she was adamant that we not contact anyone, and so as long as she wasn’t endangering anyone else, there was little we could do.”
“What if it had been your grandmother? Wouldn’t you want someone to do something if they knew what was going
on?”
Sweat beaded across Art Hague’s forehead and his cheeks grew more red by the second. “If it had been my grandmother, Miss Morgan, I wouldn’t have let it get this bad in the first place.”
“Son of a—” Nick was a step away from Hague before Jayne caught hold of his shirt and hauled him back.
“He’s right.” They could yell at Hague all they liked, but the fact was, Jayne should have known, and she should have done something. “Gran wouldn’t have let you or me in here, but I should have had someone check on her once in a while, even if it meant spying on her. Can you at least tell me, Mr. Hague, why nothing was done before now? She’s obviously been hoarding stuff for years.”
“We didn’t know about it.” Before Jayne could rebut, he held up his hand and went on. “The fire department inspects every business annually, but once the business closes, there’s no reason for an inspection until such a time as it reopens or changes hands.”
“But Gran wasn’t going to reopen, and so far as I know, she wasn’t going to sell, either, so why the inspection in June?”
Hague sighed. “The hydro company was getting weird readings from the building, so they came by to adjust the meter, which, as you know, is inside like all the other old buildings downtown. Tilly refused to let the guy in, but when she opened the door, he managed to get a quick look inside and called Bylaw. When she refused to let them in, too, they called us.”
Nick’s jaw was locked iron tight as he turned his back on Hague and Jayne and kicked an empty milk jug through the space they’d cleared.
“Look.” Hague’s cheeks began to take on a normal color again. “Nick knows how tough City Council is on code violations, and given your grandmother’s somewhat turbulent history with them, you can understand why they’re not going to be overly flexible about this.”
“Meaning?”
Hague shrugged slowly. “Meaning according to the paperwork filed back in June, you only have seventy-two more hours to get the rest of the building cleared out.”
Seventy-two hours? Was he crazy? Before she or Nick could ask, Hague sighed.
“There is a little good news, though. After our inspection in June, the FPO took Tilly over to City Hall and helped her fill out all the paperwork for the permits she would have needed to bring the place up to code.”
Jayne frowned, but Nick perked right up. “How?” he asked.
“They pulled the specs from the original building and based it on that. Took a little finagling, but the paperwork’s done. All that’s left is the work, which will of course have to be done on time.”
“Or?” She looked from Hague to Nick, both of whom were staring at each other, waiting for the other to answer. Nick spoke first.
“Or they can have it declared a safety hazard and knock it down.”
“What?”
“These buildings are old, Miss Morgan, and left as it is, it’s only going to get worse to the point of it being condemned by the city.” Hague cast a quick glance around the space they’d cleared. “You’ve already done a tremendous amount of work, and I’m sure with Nick’s help, you won’t have any trouble with the rest. I’ll be back Friday at nine to assess the situation. If you’ve cleared it out, I can do a complete inspection of the building and let you know what we’re looking at, but you should be prepared for the entire scope of work to be completed in short order.”
A thick red haze began to form in Jayne’s eyes. “They’d knock down my store?”
“Nick knows the building codes back to front, so you might want to talk this over with him before you decide to do anything more, but in the long run, Miss Morgan, it might be easier and cheaper for you to tear it down yourself.”
“Tear it down myself?” Jayne gaped. “Are you crazy?”
“I’m just saying it’s an option.”
“No,” Nick growled. “It’s not. We’re done here.”
He jerked the front door open and held it until Hague had barely cleared it, then waved his hand toward Jayne. “Come on, let’s go for a walk.”
“I can’t go for a walk,” she sputtered. “There’s too much to do.”
“ ’Course you can.” He took her hand, locked the door behind them, and pulled until she shuffled after him. “A little fresh air and exercise’ll help us think.”
They walked three blocks to the end of town, then followed the road around past the yacht club and log sort, and on past the terminals office to the trail beside the slough. The path wound its way along the west side of the water, shaded by huge maple trees on one side and the shadow of the mountain on the far side of the water.
Seventy-two hours. Three days. How the hell was she going to—
“Breathe, Jayne.” Nick’s voice, even quiet as it was, snapped her into focus. “We’ll work it out.”
“But—”
“I know. Just breathe.”
Right. Okay. She could do that. The air was cool, crisp, and each long inhale began to slowly ease the knot in her stomach and the tightness in her chest.
Bright yellow buttercups danced in the wind, bending almost to the ground, but never breaking. A thin brown garden snake hesitated on the path ahead of them, then slithered into the underbrush before they got too close, while two red-winged blackbirds chased each other high through the trees.
It was hard to feel anything but awe as they made their way along the trail. No worries, no piles of garbage, just the smell of damp sand wafting up on the breeze, the scattered warmth of the morning sun as it filtered down between the branches, and the sharp scolding they got from a big brown squirrel that watched them from the safety of a stump.
About half a mile up, where the slough flowed into the sound, Jayne and Nick stood on the beach for a while and watched a lone seal bob its head up out of the water, then dive down out of sight again. Farther out, two windsurfers struggled against the gusting wind and white cap waves. The one with the bright orange sail seemed to be leaning way far back, but managed to stay upright. The one with the rainbow sail fought the good fight, but spent more time trying to erect his sail than he did actually sailing.
Using both hands to hold her hat on in the wind, Jayne let her gaze wander: to the eagle soaring above them, its white head and massive wingspan daunting even from this distance, to the nosy seal who swam a little closer, then a little closer still, to the man far down the beach throwing sticks for his dogs.
“It’s like a whole different world down here,” she breathed.
“Told you it’d do you good.”
“Hey, Nick!” A blond woman in skinny black yoga pants and matching top jogged up, pulling earbuds from her ears as she got closer. “Day off?”
“Nope, just taking a break is all.” He waved his hand between the two women. “Amber, this is Jayne, she’s just moved back to town.”
“Nice to meet you.” Amber smiled brightly as she bounced from one foot to the other.
“Yeah,” Jayne said dryly, running her hands down the front of her paint- and grease-stained sweats and trying to remember if she even brushed her hair before pulling her ball cap on. “You too.”
“Better keep going,” the blonde was saying. “Gotta keep the heart rate up, you know. See you later!” She blew Nick a kiss, pushed her earbuds back in, and jogged off around the corner.
Without a word, he started back the way they’d come, leaving Jayne to stare after him.
“Oh no,” she called after him. “Spill it, buddy. Who’s this Marathon Barbie chick and why is she blowing you kisses? Does Lisa know? Oh, heaven help us, does your mother?”
He walked backward until she caught up to him, a stupid grin on his face. “She’s my housekeeper.”
“Shut. Up.”
“True story.” He lifted his hands, palms out. “She comes twice a week and does a hell of a job, don’t you think?”
Jayne pointed down the trail Amber had taken. “She’s your maid?”
“Housekeeper.”
“Pardon me,” she mocked. “And
does she blow kisses at all her customers?”
“Clients.” He was clearly enjoying himself. “And I dunno. Maybe her other clients don’t tip her like I do.”
“Oh my God, you’re such a pig!”
“What?” he laughed. “People in the service industry don’t make a lot of money, Jayne. They depend on tips to make ends meet.”
“Uh-huh, keep talkin’, pig boy.”
“She’s a single mom trying to make ends meet is all.”
“And who better to help her out with that than a hot rich contractor?”
“Hot?” He tipped his head toward her, his grin bright, his eyes twinkling. “You think I’m hot?”
“I meant sweaty.”
Nick put his fist to his chest, staggered, and pretended to pull out a knife.
“Idiot.” She gave him a soft shove then laughed when he tripped on a root. “Come on, you need to get back to work, and I’ve got garbage bags to fill.”
“I could stay and help—”
“I’m fine.”
“But—”
“Nick.” She scowled up at him, but with him grinning down at her like that, she couldn’t hold it more than a few seconds. “Go swing your hammer, I’ll be fine.”
“You’ll call me if you need anything?”
“Yes, Mother.”
A one-armed hug, a quick squeeze of her hand, and he was gone, leaving Jayne standing in the doorway of the store, shaking her head.
It’s shit like that, she sighed. If she had any hope of keeping the peace with Debra, or Lisa for that matter, Nick was going to have to stop doing things like that. No more holding her hand, no more kissing her cheek, and he really needed to whoa up on all the hugging.
It was the only way to keep the peace, she knew that, so the old ache that started to press against her heart was just going to have to shut up and be pushed back down where it belonged.
Chapter Six
Screws fall out all the time, the world is an imperfect place.
John Bender, The Breakfast Club
Nick pulled up to the job site just as the owners stepped out of what would eventually be their foyer.