Yellow buses lined the drive, waiting their turns to unload. Cars were bumper to bumper, too, and the sidewalks carried plenty of foot traffic from the surrounding neighborhood. Ben watched for a moment, then decided to move to the parking lot next to the elementary school. The sign said Staff Only, but he’d never had any problem with disregarding minor rules that stood between him and what he wanted. Besides, he wouldn’t need the space for any longer than it took the buses to unload.
Alanna was on the third bus. Laughing at something Susan was saying, she stepped to the ground, switched her backpack to her other shoulder, then tucked her hair behind one ear. She waited for her sister to get off—Josie, three years younger, also born of a worthless father—then the three of them started toward the grade school building. Halfway there, they were met by a small gang of kids—Caleb from the night before, a taller, older boy, and three younger kids. Ben had seen them all at the concert, with the man Alanna called Dr. J.D.
Caleb was a thin, gangly kid with brown hair and a shy smile. He looked about as innocent as a boy his age could be, but Ben knew well that looks were often deceiving. He could pass for God’s own favorite angel himself, given the incentive, when he’d always had a friendlier acquaintance with the horns-and-tail guy down below.
The younger kids wandered off while the older four settled on the steps to talk. Ben had never been the sentimental type—had never looked at a little girl and wondered, Does my daughter look like that? Does she giggle and act silly? Is she a tomboy or a prissy little girl? He’d never given a thought to whether she played soccer or studied dance or liked boys yet, had never considered her first words, first steps, first date, first broken heart.
Now it all seemed more important than he could have imagined. Seeing her made the difference. It made her real.
A woman who reminded him of every sour-faced school secretary he’d ever known—and being a frequent visitor to the principal’s office, he’d known plenty—passed his car and gave him a narrowed look. Deciding it was a good time to leave, he drove out of the parking lot, but he didn’t head for McBride Inn or the Bishop house on Fourth or even the lodge. He went to the hardware store across the street from the doughnut shop and felt a comfortable sense of familiarity the instant he walked through the door. He might not belong in a lot of places, but after fifteen years in construction, he knew hardware stores well. He could hold his own in any of them.
This one was nothing like the huge building centers that could be found all over, which gave it that much more personality. The checkout counter was located in the center of the building and also served as office space. Just past it was a circle of lawn chairs, price tags taped to the backs and ignored by the men who sat in them, drinking coffee and talking. Most of them were elderly and dressed in work clothes, and all turned to watch as he approached.
“Morning.”
A couple repeated his greeting. The others simply nodded.
“Think it’s going to rain this morning?”
Everyone turned to look at the oldest man in the group, who removed his John Deere cap, scratched his head, then replaced it. “Might. My bones have been hurtin’ this mornin’. Then again, that could just be my arthritis flarin’ up.”
“Or bein’ ninety-four years old,” mumbled the man beside him, a youngster probably in his seventies.
“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with my hearing.” The old man scowled before turning his attention back to Ben. “You new in town?”
“Yes, sir. Name’s Ben Foster. I’m up here for a while from Atlanta.”
“Isn’t young Nathan’s wife from Atlanta or somewheres down that way?” The question came from the man nearest Ben, with thinning white hair, the name Melvin embroidered above his shirt pocket, and missing parts of three fingers on his right hand. “You know Emilie Bishop? Used to be Dalton?”
“No, sir.”
“Huh. I don’t believe I’d live someplace where I didn’t know my neighbors.”
Ben liked the anonymity of the city. He’d known plenty of people and hadn’t needed to know more. Plus, it had been easy to avoid his mother when one of her rare maternal urges struck, or his father when he needed to be bailed out of jail at three in the morning.
“You lookin’ for a job while you’re here?” the old man asked.
“Yes, sir, I am. Thought maybe someone in here could point me in the right direction.”
“What can you do?”
“Just about everything on a building site.” He wasn’t boasting—there was no need to. Besides, he knew better. Any one of these men would spot a fraud a mile away.
“Pull up a chair and we’ll see what we can come up with,” the old man said, waving a bony hand in the direction of a display of lawn chairs.
Ben chose a five-gallon bucket of drywall mud instead. No sooner had he settled in than Melvin was passing him a Styrofoam cup of steaming black coffee brewed strong enough to strip paint.
The conversation meandered from debating the merits of the new construction in town to forecasting the weather to occasional questions about Ben’s previous jobs, what he was best at, what he disliked most. He admitted to a fondness for framing and building cabinetry, along with a strong dislike for painting and outright loathing for taping and mudding, choked down the coffee in small sips, and listened. Somewhere in the conversation, he decided there was something to be said about small-town familiarity. These men had known each other virtually their entire lives. They knew all the important events and embarrassing moments in each other’s lives. They had a history with each other.
Emmaline was the only person Ben had shared that kind of history with. Between his practically nonexistent relationship with his father, his on-again, mostly off-again relationship with his mother, and his absentee-father act with Alanna, he was alone. No one who was a part of his life today had been a part of it ten years ago or ten years before that. No one who knew him now knew that his parents had more or less abandoned him before he could talk, that his grandmother had done most of his raising, or that he’d abandoned his own child before she was even born.
Maybe someone knowing all his secrets wasn’t such a good thing, after all.
He’d swallowed the last gulp of coffee and felt as if the hole it was eating through his stomach was just about complete when the bell over the door rang. Every man around him looked to the front, so he did, too. Unfortunately, from his vantage point all he could see was a freestanding display of saws.
“Well, would you look at that,” the old man murmured.
“What do ya think she’s doin’ here?”
“Probably come to ask for advice. I heard she’s been turned down by every contractor and sub in town,” Melvin remarked. For Ben’s benefit, he explained, “She bought the old Hope place outside of town. It needs a lot of work, but no sub wants to take on a small job like that when they can sign on with one of the contractors and have work guaranteed into next year.”
“I heard she was bringing in somebody from Howland.”
“She was gonna try,” the old man said. “Would you drive ninety miles round-trip through the mountains for a short-term job, or spend most of your profits to move here until the work was done?”
There was a chorus of no’s, then slowly the old man turned to look at Ben. So did Melvin and, one by one, all the others. The old man removed the John Deere cap once more, scratched his head, then grinned. “Son, this just might be your lucky day. Provided you’re as good as you say and you meet with her approval”—someone snorted—“you just might get yourself a job. You’d even get to be your own boss.”
Someone snorted again.
Finally the click of heels on concrete circled the display and came to a stop at the counter. Ben leaned forward to see past Melvin and found he had to look six inches higher than he normally would to see the mystery woman’s face.
The Amazon.
Her manner was so cool and detached that she might as well wear a sign that said Keep Your Distan
ce. Her posture was rigid, her clothes—a navy-blue jacket and skirt, pin-striped vest, and heels—unimaginative. Her black hair was pulled back and secured at her nape, but her skin was too pale, her features too delicate, for the style to look harsh, as intended.
As she waited, showing no visible signs of impatience, Melvin pushed himself to his feet. “Pardon me, boys, I’ve got a customer. If I can, I’ll steer her your way, sonny.”
Ben looked at her again. She was confident, intimidating, and judging from those earlier snorts, presumably difficult. But there was more to her than that. In the café the afternoon before, she’d been the one intimidated, and by nothing more than a tiny baby, and at her car last evening, when she’d thought he was following her, she’d looked vulnerable. Neither response was quite what he would have expected.
“You do that,” he replied. Hey, a job was a job, and considering his real purpose for staying in Bethlehem, being his own boss just might come in real handy. As for working for the Amazon … She was a beautiful woman, and like most Southern men, he had a weakness for beautiful women. She was a bit of a puzzle, too, and as a kid, he’d always been good at solving puzzles. Besides, it wouldn’t be for long. Only until he found the courage to approach Alanna.
What would happen then was anyone’s guess.
Lynda waited at the counter, deliberately ignoring the men off to her right. She hadn’t been pleased when she’d checked her schedule immediately after arriving at the office and discovered that the deadline she’d set for finding someone to work on her house had arrived. She wasn’t at all pleased that she’d had three weeks to look, had made countless calls to every contractor, carpenter, plumber, electrician, and self-proclaimed handyman in a hundred-mile radius, and had gotten the same answer from every one of them. No.
Oh, most of them had couched it differently. Call back in October or December or after New Year’s. I can give you an estimate in August. I’m all booked up until next spring. I just don’t have the time. No one wanted to tie himself up on a one-time remodel, not even for premium wages, exceptional benefits, and bonuses.
But she refused to accept defeat. There must be someone willing to handle at least the most pressing repairs. Her big plans, such as the laundry room, the new floors, and the bathroom remodels, could wait, but the leaky roof, the faulty wiring, and the rotted porch boards were priorities. She would see them fixed immediately, even if it meant buying a shelfful of how-to books and doing the work herself.
The idea made her smile. If there was one thing she knew nothing about—besides babies—it was construction. Any roofing, wiring, or carpentry she might do would surely result in conditions more dangerous than she currently faced.
“What can I do for you, miss?”
She turned up the competence, the capable confidence in the smile, a few megawatts. “I’m looking for someone to handle a few small jobs for me, Mr. Fitzgerald, and I was told you might be able to help.”
“What kind of jobs?”
As she detailed the priorities, he started to grin and sent several sneaky glances toward his cronies in back. Lynda felt the heat rising up her neck, as if she were giving them great cause for amusement without knowing why. The bigger he grinned, the stiffer she got. By the time she finished, she was barely moving her mouth.
“Well, now …” The old man tilted his head to one side and scratched his jaw. “You know, Bethlehem’s got something of a boom goin’ on right now in construction. Anybody can hammer a nail straight won’t have no problem finding steady, long-term work with any of the builders round here. And you wouldn’t want somebody can’t hammer a nail straight. Somebody who doesn’t like taping and mudding—that’s okay, ’cause nobody likes it. That’s why the fellas that do it get paid so well. What kinda money are you planning to offer?”
“I … don’t know.” She couldn’t remember saying those words at any time in the last twelve years. She’d learned instead to reply, I’ll find out, and do so. But she hadn’t found out this time. She’d assumed she would pay a fair price for good work.
“I’ll warn you, it’s a seller’s market.” The old man pitched his voice unnecessarily loud. “Anyone you find who’s both qualified and willing will set his own price, and it likely won’t be cheap.”
She smiled faintly. She hadn’t dickered over the price of the house. She certainly wasn’t going to fuss over the cost of making it the perfect home she wanted it to be.
Lowering his voice to normal once again, the old man went on. “There’s a young ’un over there, new in town, talks all the right talk. ’Course, that don’t mean he’s as good as he says, but a few calls to Georgia can prove that.”
Lynda felt as if her smile were frozen in place. What were the odds that it wasn’t Ben of the green eyes, the sensual Southern drawl, and the lazy, heat-inducing way of moving? Ben, the good candidate for fantasies, if she were the fantasy-indulging type.
“Why don’t I call him over and introduce you, then the two of you can reach an agreement amongst yourselves.”
She wanted to say no, forget it, she’d changed her mind. But the notation on her calendar—to say nothing of the fact that rain was forecast for the day and into the night, with one of those roof leaks directly above her bed—kept the words inside. Instead she simply nodded in agreement.
“Come on over here, son,” he called, beckoning with his mangled hand. “Lady’s got a proposition to discuss with you.”
She tried not to watch, but did anyway, as Ben stood up and … oh, yes, ambled lazily around the old men in their lawn chairs. He stopped at the end of the counter, a respectable distance between them, and waited for someone to speak.
“Ben Foster, this is …” Mr. Fitzgerald scratched his jaw again. “Sorry, miss. I don’t believe I know your name.”
She was opening her mouth to speak when Ben did. “Lynda.” He extended his hand, leaving her no choice but to take it. The palm was calloused, the fingers long and slender, the nails blunt cut. The knuckle of his middle finger was swollen and the finger made a distinct bend from there to the tip, leaving a gap between it and the ring finger. This was a hand that had done a lot of hard work … and had probably delivered some incredible pleasure.
She slid her palm against his, curved her fingers ever so slightly around his. She realized with a mental shiver that she was cool and clammy, but his heat was seeping slowly through her veins, stirring her blood, bringing with it a sense of … potential.
“I’ll leave you two young ’uns to work out the details yourself,” Mr. Fitzgerald said as he headed back to his chair.
A moment passed before she realized the old man was gone, another moment before she understood that every eye in the place was on them. She tugged her hand free and gestured toward the door, and they started walking in that direction. “How do you know my name?”
“I heard it at the café yesterday. But I didn’t catch your last name.”
“Barone.”
“I bet that’s the first time anyone called you young ’un,” he remarked as they approached the door.
“But not you.” From the corner of her eye, she saw him shrug—saw the snug-fitting T-shirt stretch over muscles that rippled—and warned herself to forget her self-imposed deadline, buy a few large buckets, and get out before it was too late. But the only thing she forgot as he laughed was her own warning.
“I’ve been called every name you can think of”—his gaze slid over her all-business suit and no-nonsense hair style—“and a few you’ve probably never heard.” He laid his hand on the door, then raised his brows in silent question. When she nodded, he pushed the door open, then followed her outside.
The air was muggy and wrapped itself around her. The sun was still shining in patches, but dark clouds had moved over the valley, bringing with them a slight breeze and a suffocating closeness. She didn’t mind, though. It was better than the hardware store and the grinning old men.
“Melvin said you have a proposition to make. Sounds inte
resting.”
“Actually, I have a job to offer, provided you’re interested and your references check out.” She kept her gaze on the brick buildings across the street. “I recently bought an older house. It’s in fairly good shape, but the previous owners did no maintenance or repairs for fifty years or so. I have plans to completely redo the place—”
“When you’re able to hire a real crew.”
She wasted a moment analyzing the comment, certain it was just a little mocking but unable to find proof in his calm, steady voice. “In the meantime,” she finally went on, “there are some repairs that really can’t wait. The job will involve some roofing, some rewiring, replacing rotted floorboards, and maybe a few other small repairs. As for salary—” Abruptly, she realized why the old man had all but shouted his piece about a seller’s market, and a flush warmed the back of her neck again as her jaw tightened. “As Mr. Fitzgerald made a point of letting you know, you can set your own price … within reason.”
He was grinning again. She could hear it in his voice. “Relax, Ms. Barone. I’m just looking for a temporary job. I’m not planning on getting rich. So … Why don’t we go to Harry’s, have a cup of coffee, and talk? I can tell you whether I’m qualified and willing, and you can get the information you need to check out my references. Deal?”
She finally looked at him again, and felt the strangest sensation in her stomach. Butterflies. As if she hadn’t made a thousand deals a million times more significant with men immeasurably more important. As if there were some sort of potential between them. As if he could not only fix her house but might even fix her life.
Then she came back to her senses. She was behaving foolishly. Her life didn’t need fixing. It was perfectly fine as it was. This was merely a simple job interview, prospective employer to prospective employee—business, plain and simple. And so, as she turned toward Harry’s, she gave him her standard aloof business smile and called on her standard business voice. “It’s a deal, Mr. Foster.”
Getting Lucky Page 4