by Laura Drewry
“Nick, thank goodness you’re here.” Judy Schwann, dressed head to toe in pink velour, hurried toward him, her hand reaching for his, her husband, Ross, hot on her heels.
“Something wrong?” He knew before he took this job that these two would be high maintenance, but Judy was in his mother’s book club, so what was a guy to do?
“I hope not.” She wrapped her fingers around his arm and looked up at him with her watery gray eyes. “I thought we’d be further along by now.”
Nick patted her hand, then shook Ross’s. “We talked about this, remember? I told you we’d have you in by the end of September, and we will.”
“Yes, but—”
They’d been over this half a dozen times already. “We’re going as fast as we can,” he said. “But as I explained at the start, building a home is an exercise in patience. Do you want it done fast or do you want it done right?”
“Right,” she sighed. Nobody could pout the way Judy could. She had to be sixty if she was a day, and still that pink-painted lip came out whenever she wasn’t getting what she wanted.
Nick offered her what he hoped what an encouraging smile. “Why don’t you and Ross have another look at the floor samples I gave you? We’re going to need to get that ordered by next week.”
“Okay,” she sniffed. “I just want it finished.”
No one wanted this job finished faster than Nick did, but he gave her an understanding nod and waved them off before reaching inside the cab of his truck and pulling out a tray of coffees and a box of doughnuts.
As though on cue, three men in tool belts crept out of the house, keeping wary eyes on the road in case Judy should come back.
“Thanks, Boss.”
After a quick briefing of how the work was progressing, Nick took his coffee inside, leaving the others to their snack. As expected, everything was coming along nicely. The kid, Kyle, was still learning, but he’d come a long way since he first showed up a year ago looking for work. Nick still smiled when he thought about that.
Kyle had been a few months shy of graduating high school, with no idea what he wanted to do. His jeans hung halfway down his butt and he hadn’t even bothered to pull his earbuds out as he stood there, flicking his hair back, chewing gum and wondering if Nick was hiring.
Nick’s immediate reaction was to say no—he couldn’t afford to waste time training someone who didn’t want to work in the first place—but there was something about this kid that stopped him. First day on the job, Kyle showed up with the earbuds in place and the jeans hanging low. All it took was one glance from Delmar and they taught Kyle his first lesson.
Nick pulled out a box cutter, grabbed the cord of the earbuds, and sliced them in half.
“I explained this to you when I hired you.” Nick dangled what was left of the earbuds in his hand. “The work site is no place for these, and no one around here wants to see your junk, so unless you want Delmar to pull ’em up for you, keep your ass covered or get off my job.”
Kyle’s eyes nearly bulged out of his skull, but his jeans were forevermore belted around his waist and Nick couldn’t even remember ever seeing the kid check his phone for text messages while he was working.
Yup, Kyle was a good kid. So good, Nick had replaced the earbuds with better ones a week later.
Nick pulled the lid from his coffee cup and swallowed a mouthful. God, he loved this work. One day you’re looking at a stump-covered lot, a few months later, it’s a family’s home. If they didn’t like something, he could fix it. If something went wrong, he could fix that, too. It was all a matter of a strong foundation, solid framework, and knowing what the home owners wanted. After that, it was simple.
Well, most of the time.
The electricians and plumbers would be back tomorrow to finish roughing in the wiring and plumbing, and while they did that, Nick’s guys would finish the siding. Once the trades were done, Nick could get the insulation in and then they could get to work on the stacks of drywall waiting to be hung.
Between phone calls to and from clients, two trips to the hardware store, a broken-down generator, and a few hours helping with the roof, the day slipped away faster than he liked. He should have brought Duke with him today, but instead he’d been locked up since morning and would probably be going squirrelly by now.
As he rounded the corner of his street, Nick slowed almost to a stop and leaned out the window, straining to hear. The glare Mrs. Eggert gave him as he drove past her yard seemed to confirm it was in fact his dog making all that noise, but where was he?
Nick pulled the truck in beside Jayne’s car and followed the ruckus into the backyard. There was his old dog, tripping over his ears and howling as he lumbered after Jayne around the cherry tree. She dropped to the grass, spread eagle, while Duke slathered her in dog kisses, his ears dragging across her face.
“Having fun?” Nick ruffled Duke’s head and stood smirking down at Jayne, who lay flat out on the grass smiling up at him as a yellowed leaf fluttered down from the tree and landed on her shoulder. Her oversized “Save Ferris” T-shirt was covered in wrinkles and her faded jeans now had a long streaky grass stain across the left knee.
“As a matter of fact …” She pushed to her feet and tried to brush off most of the dirt and grass. “That’s the most fun I’ve had in a long time.”
“How did you make out today?” Nick brushed dirt from her shoulder and followed her across the yard with the dog at his heels.
“Fine, nothing any worse than we’ve already seen.” She stopped just inside the kitchen door. “I didn’t know if you’d be home for dinner or if you had plans with Lisa, or … well, I had no idea what your plan was.”
As she rambled, Nick inhaled deeply. Something smelled good. No, it smelled really good.
“So I made chili. I figured if you came home and were hungry, great. If you weren’t, I could throw it in the freezer and you could eat it some other time.”
He followed his nose to the stove, lifted the lid off the pot, and inhaled again until his stomach protested with a loud gurgle. He set the lid on the counter and waggled his brow at Jayne.
“Did you eat?” he asked, pulling bowls out of the cupboard.
“Not yet.”
“Good.” Nick filled both bowls, grabbed a couple glasses of water, and they dug in. He even gave up SportsCenter to sit at the table for dinner. “Damn, that’s good.”
“It’s chili, Nick, not filet mignon.”
He stuffed another forkful into his mouth and chewed happily. “It didn’t come out of a fast-food bag, and I didn’t have to make it. Doesn’t get better than that.”
“Does Lisa cook?”
“Sure.” He laughed quietly, knowing Jayne would love this. “But she’s a vegetarian.”
“No.” Mock horror filled Jayne’s voice, her blue eyes widening. “Does she know she’s dating the biggest carnivore on the West Coast?”
Another mouthful, then Nick grinned over at her. Confession was good for the soul, right? “I try to dial it down around her.”
“Oh my God, you’re pathetic.”
“True story.” He was refilling his bowl when the front door opened, sending Duke into fits of howling.
“Nicky?”
A quick flash of panic skated across Jayne’s face. Guess she didn’t need to be told who it was.
“In the kitchen, Mom!”
“I brought cookies. Whose car is—”
He met her at the kitchen door with a hug and a whispered warning. “Be nice.” Then he stepped back and waved her through. “You remember Jayne?”
“Jayne.” Debra Scott pushed her son out of the way to get a better look. “Yes, of course.”
Jayne got to her feet, swallowed hard, and smiled. “Mrs. Scott. It’s good to see you again.”
A piece of wayward grass poked out of her hair, just above her ear. Nick tried not to smile, but that’s what she got for rolling around outside like she was five years old.
Debra set the coo
kies on the island, then reached for the locket around her neck and wrapped her hand around it. “Warren missed you at dinner the other night.”
“Sorry about that.” Jayne cleared her throat, swallowed, then looked straight back at Debra. “I didn’t want to impose.”
“Thank you.” Debra’s bottom jaw stuck out slightly as she raked Jayne with a frosty glare. “We certainly wouldn’t want a repeat of what happened the last time you—”
“Mom.” Nick set his bowl down and started around the island, but Jayne stayed him with a look.
“I’m not here to cause trouble, Mrs. Scott.”
“I hope not.” Nobody could ice their words the way his mom could. “I understand you plan to reopen your grandmother’s store. Seems a little odd, don’t you think, that she’d leave everything to you, given you’ve refused to have anything to do with her all these years?”
“Okay, that’s enough.” Nick stepped between them, but he must have been invisible or speaking Russian, because neither Jayne nor his mother paid him any attention. In fact, they both shifted slightly so they could see around him.
“Excuse me?” Color flooded Jayne’s cheeks and she gripped the back of the chair hard enough to snap it, but she kept her voice low and even. Her blue eyes stormed, and her frown turned to Nick. “You never told her?”
Nick’s only response was a halfhearted shrug. “You told me not to tell anyone.”
They’d been fourteen, lying side by side in the middle of the football field when she told him she was leaving after graduation, and why. He’d always known her life with Gran had been pretty sucky, but he hadn’t known all of it. He probably still didn’t.
What he did know was that day was the first time Jayne hadn’t jerked away when he reached for her hand. He’d wanted to sit up and hug her tight, like that day in kindergarten when Goodsen took her snack, but that would’ve made her mad, so he’d wound his fingers through hers, their hands hidden in the deep grass, and held on tight as reality clubbed him over his young heart.
Jayne couldn’t stay because of her family and he couldn’t leave because of his.
His mother’s voice snapped him back to the present. “What didn’t you tell me?”
As far as Nick was concerned, he was still sworn to silence. If she wanted to know anything, she’d have to hear it from Jayne.
“Gran hated me.”
“Oh, for goodness sake, Jayne, you were her only grandchild.”
“Yeah,” Jayne snorted. “A bastard grandchild born to her no-good drug-addict daughter who refused to abort me no matter how many times Gran begged her to.”
The voice might have been Jayne’s, but Nick knew the words had come straight from Tilly’s mouth, and probably more times than Jayne would ever let on. Nick knew it, and if the look on his mom’s face was any indication, she was beginning to know it, too.
“Gran didn’t want anyone to think she was anything but the upstanding Christian woman she appeared to be to the rest of the world, and I didn’t want Child Services sending me off to a foster home, not after seeing what happened to the Kimple kids. At least with Gran, I knew what I was getting; she didn’t beat me, she didn’t starve me, and the rest I could deal with.”
Nick slid her glass of water toward her, but Jayne just flexed her fingers and rewrapped them around the chair.
“The rest?” His mother asked. “What ‘rest’?”
“Jayne, you don’t have to do this,” Nick said. “It’s no one’s business.”
She blinked at him, slowly, then turned back to his mom.
“Knowing that I would never be anything but a burden to her. She was very clear about where I stood in her life, and the most important thing to her was that I knew my welcome ended the day I graduated high school. After that, she didn’t care where I went or what I did, just so long as it didn’t include her or her store.”
“Honestly, Jayne. I know Tilly wasn’t the warmest of women, but you make her sound completely heartless.”
“No, not at all. She loved her friends, she loved her store, and she would have given a kidney to her cat if it needed one.” When Jayne slid back onto her stool, Nick slid onto the one next to her. “In her defense, I don’t imagine it was an easy thing being saddled with a baby at her age, but as far as she was concerned, it wasn’t her job to love me or to be my mother, it was just her job to get me through childhood and she did that.”
His mother’s expression wavered slightly, but she wasn’t about to admit defeat yet. “Yes, she did do that. And then you walked away from her, the only family you ever had, without so much as a word about where you went or how you were doing? Without ever checking on her?”
“Seriously?” Jayne’s sigh was directed at Nick, not his mother. “Didn’t you tell her anything?”
She didn’t even wait for his shrug before she went on.
“I did try to contact her, but she never answered her phone, never once called me back, and I don’t know what she did with the letters I sent. I assume she threw them out.”
“You could have gone to see her.”
“Yeah,” Jayne snorted softly. “I could have, but she slammed that door pretty hard when she kicked me out, and after eighteen years of listening to her tell me how happy she’d be when I was gone, can you blame me for not wanting to hear her say it again?”
Nick wrapped his arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze, but Jayne didn’t even look at him. She just swallowed hard and licked her lips.
“I’m not asking you or anyone else to think badly about Gran, Mrs. Scott. All I know is she flat-out told me she didn’t want anything more to do with me and she meant it. So you think you’re surprised she left everything to me?” Jayne snorted and rolled her eyes. “Welcome to the club.”
“You mean to tell me all of this was going on while you and Nicky were growing up, and I never knew?” Debra rubbed her locket and cleared her throat. She might have lost a bit of her bluster, but not all of it. “You should have told someone.”
“I did. I told Nick and swore him to secrecy.”
“Why?”
Nick watched as clouds built in Jayne’s eyes. He didn’t want her to say it out loud, didn’t want to hear her heart break like he knew it would. Again. But Jayne just inhaled slowly and blinked slowly.
“When I was little, I remember watching the kids in town and wondering how they got their moms and dads to love them. What did they do that made their parents play with them at the park, hold their hands, or even smile at them? They all seemed to have that, and I didn’t, so what was I supposed to think other than I’d obviously done something really wrong?
“All I knew was that if my own grandmother didn’t want me, there was no way in hell a stranger would want a kid who was unlovable, so I just kept my head down and tried to stay out of her way.”
This time when she looked at Nick, there was a softness in her eyes. “Nick was the only person I ever talked to about it, and apparently he took his vow of secrecy to heart.”
“Damn right.”
“Yes,” his mom said tightly. “Well. Apparently he’s still keeping things to himself, like what’s going on down at Tilly’s store. Carter said you’d started work down there, so I assume you’ve settled into her apartment then? Will you be opening soon?”
“Oh my God, Nick.” Jayne’s groan was muffled as she covered her face with her hands and lowered them to the table. “Seriously?”
“Okay.” Nick all but fell off his stool as he stumbled toward his mother. He’d managed to dodge most of his mother’s questions at dinner the other night, but he wasn’t about to let her loose on Jayne about this right now. “I think that’s enough questions for one inquisition, Mom. Can I call you later?”
“I’m sure you can, Nicky.” His mom patted his cheek as though he was eight, and turned on her heel. “The question is will you?”
He all but pushed her to the door where she continued to fire questions at him, but at least she tried to ke
ep her voice down. She wasn’t doing a very good job, but at least she was trying.
“What is she doing here?”
“Eating chili.”
“Don’t sass me, young man. Does Lisa know she’s here?”
“Yes.”
“She better. And why did you rush me out of there so fast—I never got an answer to my question. Has she moved into the apartment?”
“Uh, no. Not yet.” This train was picking up speed and heading for a curve it couldn’t possibly make without derailing. “It needs a little work.”
“Then where is she staying? At a hotel?”
“No.” Train wreck be damned, Nick couldn’t help but grin. “She’s staying here.”
“Here?” His mother’s brown eyes had never been so huge. “Nicholas Warren Scott—what are you thinking? What about Lisa?”
“She knows.”
“She knows? And she’s okay with it? Does she know how many relationships that one’s ruined?” She jabbed her thumb back toward the kitchen. “Isn’t she worried there’s something going on between the two of you? Honestly, Nicky, if you’re having sex with that one—”
“Whoa, Ma, hold up there,” Nick choked, staggering back a step. He’d always been tight with his mom, but that didn’t mean he was going to start discussing his sex life with her. “First of all, wow—what does it say when my own mother thinks I’m a dog? And second, this is Jayne we’re talking about.”
He took a second to catch his breath. “She has her own room, doors stay closed, and pajamas stay on.”
“Unless something’s changed since you were eight, your pajamas are nothing more than boxer shorts, so—”
“Mom,” he cried over a strangled laugh. “I’m begging you, please leave. I promise to fill you in on everything later.”
“You better!” She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Don’t eat all the cookies tonight and be careful, Nicky. Don’t let Jayne get between what you have with Lisa. And don’t look at me like that—you know it’s happened before.”
“Thanks for stopping by, Mom.” He pulled the door open and grinned through gritted teeth. “Always a pleasure.”