Ready-Made Family

by Cheryl Wyatt

  “Can Bearby and I help, Mommy?”

  “I’ll find something you can help with. Let’s get started.”

  “Just watch the little one around the oil and stuff. Hate for her to eat it or get covered up like a dipstick.”

  “I won’t let her or the oil out of my sight.”

  “You’re a right good mama.”

  His words riveted her to the spot and crashed waves of emotion over her. “Thank you. You have no idea how much I needed to hear that.”

  “Maybe I do.” He stood silent a moment. “I lost my daughter to a car wreck under two years ago. My wife just a year ago to cancer. She never stopped grievin’ our daughter.” He swiped a hand over his face. “I’d give anything to be able to tell both of them one more time what good mamas they were. Least they’re together again now. And I’ve got my grandkids. Twins.”

  “Wow. Your daughter carried double-deckers, huh?”

  “Yeah.” He chuckled and pulled out a demolished wallet. “She got me this wallet when she was seven. Don’t reckon I’ll ever part with it.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  Unfolding it, he pulled out pictures of two toddlers. “They hafta have a nanny because their daddy’s military. In fact, that enamored airman fella who drops you off here—”

  “Enamored?”

  “Yeah, Benjamin. The one who’s been a courtin’ you—”

  “Courting?”

  “You got oil in your ears or something? Boy can’t take his eyes off you. Anyway, his team leader was recruited by my son-in-law, Aaron Petrowski, when Joel was young. From here originally. Returned a couple years back. Married a local teacher. Petrowski’s my claim to fame. He’s brass, see? Pulled military strings to get the PJs set up in Refuge. Aaron was a PJ too. Them boys are the unsung heroes of the Air Force. And most of ’em like it that way. Ain’t the types to hype themselves up in the public eye, but you can bet your bottom dollar they’re some of the most superbly trained operatives in the world.”

  He pulled out another picture from his chest pocket. “This is their mama.” The picture was as worn as the wallet, telling Amelia he pulled it out an awful lot.

  “I’m so sorry for your losses. Do you have pictures of your late wife?”

  His eyes brightened. He waved a hand around him. “All these? Are her. Some of her and me and the family, that was before—” He took a hard swallow. He stuffed the boys’ pictures back in his wallet. Then studied his daughter’s photo once more before tucking it back where it belonged…close to his heart. “But hey, I’m quite sure you got better things to do than listen to an old man jabber.”

  She shook her head. “No. I’m quite sure I don’t.” In fact, there was nothing she wanted to do more than lend empathetic ears to words that desperately needed to be said. She slid an upside-down bucket over and sat. And listened. And he talked. And talked. And talked.

  She caught glimpses of a life changed forever in the blink of an eye. Then he stumbled over the sentence that stunned her when he told her his daughter and he had had a falling-out and hadn’t spoken for weeks before she died. His words of regret rocked her to the core.

  Only in her case, it wasn’t too late to reconcile.

  Then he talked about how Ben’s team rallied around him and Petrowski in the aftermath of grief.

  And now she was even more enthralled with Ben.

  And with possibilities she never dreamed possible.

  Reece had grown antsy, so she needed a diversion. “I’ve got a few hours to kill. Looks like you could use quite a hand around here. I think your phone rings more than the Refuge operator’s. I could answer it for you a couple days a week.” That would also enable her to be a regular sounding board.

  His frosted brows rose. “How much’d that cost me?”

  “Nothing. I’d do it for free. Donate my time since you’re working so hard on my car.” By the looks of the place, she doubted he could afford to pay her.

  “Why sure. I’ll never turn down help. In fact, come on. Let me show you the office.”

  She and Reece followed him into a cluttered storage room.

  Scratch that. This was the office.

  Oh. My.

  “As you can see, the biggest wreck of all’s in here.” He chuckled, so her shock must have shown.

  He scratched stubble on his chin. “Notepad’s on the desk which is…somewhere. If you can find a pen in that mess I’ll know there’s hope. My business partner up and flew the coop on me. He took care of all this racket. I took care of the cars. I’m no good at organization.”

  “But I’ll bet you can make a dinged-up car sing.”

  That made his eyes sparkle. “Yes’m. I can. Refuge has a wildlife preserve in it. Many businesses stick with the theme. When you answer the phone, you say, ‘Eagle’s Nest.’”

  “Will do.”

  He turned to go but stopped at the door and faced her. “I’d be right proud if you were my daughter. Offering to pay your own way when you don’t have to. That’s mighty kind. You were raised right. Not too many like you around nowadays.”

  Tears pricked Amelia’s eyes. She turned away from Gus, who her heart had endearingly adopted as her mechanic, and hid her face from Reece before she burst into tears.

  No, her father wasn’t proud of her. Not in the least. He’d ridicule her for even being in an establishment such as this.

  Two hours later, Amelia had neat piles of messages for the mechanic, separated in stacks. To Do. To Call. To Ask. She’d cleaned the office top to bottom and filed every paper in sight. Disinfected the bathroom, floors, scrubbed walls and every conceivable surface with supplies she’d found in the closet. She’d even cleaned that. Decluttered then organized it. Then found hardware to finish putting up utility shelves someone had started but never finished.

  Reece was handing her one more screw to drill into the wall when a throaty sound from behind made her pivot on the ladder.

  Ben leaned against the doorframe, hands pocketed, watching. Her cheeks flamed even more than they were from working amid heat in this office. Aware she was covered in sweat and nine kinds of grime, she swiped a hand across her forehead.

  By the multiplication of his grin, she must have smeared the grease instead of removed it. “I—I planned on washing up in the sink, but wanted to get this shelf hung first.” How long had Ben been standing there? How did he sneak up on a person without being detected like that?

  He pushed off from the wall and sauntered toward her. “Didn’t know you were so mechanically inclined.”

  “I’m not, really.” She waved a vague hand at the shelf, trying to get his bold and unabashed attention off her and onto something else. “This is pretty basic stuff.”

  He peered around the immaculate room. “Basic? I haven’t seen the place look this good since Gus’s brother died.”

  “Oh! My goodness. When he said his partner flew the coop, I didn’t realize that’s what he meant.”

  “Yeah, Gus downplays a lot. Like someone else I know. You’ll never cease to amaze me, Amelia.” Coming closer, he stepped up the ladder until they stood nose to nose.

  “M-may I ask what you’re doing?” Amelia asked in a shaky voice when he just stood there.

  “Standing on a ladder getting ready to ask a girl slathered in grease to date me. And hoping like crazy she’ll say yes.”

  Reece giggled in the background.

  “Date?” she squeaked.

  “I want to get to know you better. That’s usually why people date.” He grinned.

  Her heart raced her thoughts, which never quite caught up.

  “I—I want to get to know you better too. I—I like you. A lot.” Please say you like me too, Ben. Please, please say it.

  He studied her intently for a moment while she thought her lungs, heart and hope might burst from holding their breath.

  Then that slow grin she’d grown so fond of spread across his face like Miss Evie’s sweet apple butter on homemade bread.

&nb
sp; “I like you, too, Amelia.” He stepped even closer. “A lot.”

  Time suspended. His breath hovered over her cheek, forehead, and her eyes then lingered there. Warming her the way the mysterious music did coming from behind the Bed and Breakfast.

  The singing and guitar strumming that lulled her to sleep every night. She’d grown to suspect it was Ben, just because her amateur sleuthing had clued her in that the music started after he either left her and Reece’s unit, or when he pulled in from wherever he went on the evenings he didn’t spend with them.

  The look on Ben’s face right now had a mesmerizing effect. For the first time in a long time, she felt vibrant and alive.

  “Is Mr. Ben gonna kiss you, Mommy? Because it seems like he wants to. That’s the way movie people act right before they smooch.”

  Ben’s grin widened and mischief entered his eyes.

  Speech evaded Amelia. Because in truth, she couldn’t deny having dreamed what kissing Ben would be like.

  The ladder step creaked as Ben shifted his weight, putting his back to Reece. “But since I’m incurably honest, I have to admit I came here to give you a hand. Not a kiss.”

  Genuine disappointment crept through her.

  Until his gaze ignited in earnest and seared a slow path down her face, danced over her lips and strolled back up again. “But the latter isn’t such a bad idea, either.”

  Amelia let loose the breath trapped in her lungs.

  Reece jumped up and down. “Kiss her! Kiss her! Kiss her! Even Bearby says you should!”

  Heat flashed to Amelia’s face and she tried to peer around Ben to unleash The Mommy Look. But he shifted again, effectively blocking her. If it were possible, he leaned closer, leaving only inches between them. He raised his arms above, on either side of her head, bracing them on the top of the ladder and angled his face down.

  He inched in and brushed a gentle kiss on the brow bone just left of one eye. As feathery as the contact was, her skin felt branded.

  He’d kissed her eye, he’d kissed her eye, he’d kissed her eye. Oh. Kay. He’d only kissed her eye. She peeked. He stared. And his kinetic expression boomed thunder-loud and lightning-clear. She didn’t need words to read the message that burned like lasers in his eyes.

  Had Reece not been in the room, he would have kissed her lips instead. And thoroughly.

  She’d never in her life had a guy look at her like—like—well, frankly, like she was steak and he was starving.

  She felt cherished and irresistible. Attractive, even.

  He slipped the tools and hardware she’d forgotten she was holding from her numb hands. Then helped her finish suspending the shelf. Her brain buzzed.

  He’d kissed her, he’d kissed her, he’d kissed her.

  Her mind couldn’t stop shouting it out. Even if it had only been on her eye.

  He stepped off the ladder leaving her to hyperventilate.

  “Hey, if you go on a date, who will watch me?” Reece asked.

  He knelt. “I hoped you would hang out with us this evening too. We could watch Charlotte’s Web. Figured I’d order burgers and curly fries to go from the B and B while your mom cleans up.”

  Amelia laughed. “Do I smell that bad?”

  He stood, reaching to help her off the ladder. When her feet found solid surface, he didn’t exactly let her go right away. He leaned close again. “You smell like hard work. Grit and determination. You smell a lot like courage and a little like motor oil and I love every drop.”

  She started to tilt her face away but his gentle hand stopped her. “Don’t hide. Just for the record, when I see you, I don’t see imperfection. I see beauty.”

  She wanted to snort. “In this case, I think blindness rather than beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

  “You’re wrong. And I’m on a mission to prove it to you.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Mommy, this is so good!” Reece said weeks later as she scooped enchilada pie onto her spoon and slid it into her mouth.

  “Isn’t it?”

  Celia Munez, the wife of one of Ben’s teammate, Manny, had brought food by this evening, welcoming Amelia to Refuge. Last week, Joel’s wife, Amber, had brought Mountain Dew Apple Dumplings and a welcome basket. Amelia had begun to feel at home here, yet she still yearned for her family, dysfunctional as they were.

  “I wish Mr. Ben was here to eat with us.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Why isn’t he?”

  Like Amelia, Reece had grown used to Ben’s near constant presence. Amelia pondered how to answer. She and Ben were past the point of friendship, yet there were still aspects of his life he wouldn’t divulge. Like where he went every nonworking Saturday after spending Friday evenings with her and Reece.

  He said he wanted to date her. She didn’t want to date other people. But what about Ben? Was that where he went? On dates with other girls?

  How could she measure up to other girls in Ben’s eyes? Any guy who looked like Ben had to have hordes of girls after him wherever he went.

  The thought made her queasy. She needed to think about something else. She pivoted to face the kitchen.

  The crystal vase Ben had bought her in the hospital sat boldly on the counter. The burgundy blooms remained in full force, because Ben replaced them weekly.

  The sight of them helped to combat the lies. She’d choose to believe in Ben’s sincerity. And fidelity.

  “Reece, you want to go for a walk after dinner?”

  “Yeah. I miss our walks, Mommy. I wish Grandma was here to go with us.”

  Amelia swallowed past the lump. Reece, Amelia and Amelia’s mom would take strolls around the North Carolina neighborhood and along the beach every weekday evening after dinner. Amelia brushed Reece’s hair out of her eyes. “I wish she was, too.”

  Reece slid off the chair. Clops sounded as her shoes hit the floor. “Let me get Bearby.”

  “Okay. You do that and wash your hands and face while I put this food away.”

  She could freeze it. There was enough for another meal. Miss Evie had left another bag of fruit also, as she had the day Amelia had moved in, to welcome Amelia as a tenant. She covered the pan with foil she found in a drawer and put it in the fridge.

  Miss Evie must have stocked everything the day they arrived because the dates on all the canned goods were for years away and everything in the cabinets was unopened.

  “They’re right. Refuge lives up to its name.”

  The only trouble spot was that none of the gazillion applications she’d turned in had produced results yet.

  The ones that had asked her for interviews were leery of hiring her without dependable transportation. Soon as Gus fixed one thing, something else broke. He’d suggested she sell her car for parts, but what she really wanted was to stick dynamite in the tailpipe and be done with it. The transmission was toast and the engine shot. In short, the car was totaled. She’d be better off to put the money into a newer one.

  Problem was, to buy even a used car, she had to have income. To have a car, she’d need a loan. She couldn’t get a loan without credit. And she couldn’t get credit without a job. And she couldn’t get a job without a car. And she couldn’t get a car without money.

  Her life was a maddening catch-22.

  Amelia hoped she’d get the kitchen dishwashing job at Refuge Bed and Breakfast. That would be her salvation. Then she could save enough to get another car. And she still wanted to pay Gus for his work, even though it hadn’t resulted in her car being fixed. She knew it wasn’t because he hadn’t tried. He was more than competent.

  She didn’t want to mention the potential job at the B and B to anyone because she didn’t want to jinx it. Every other potential job she’d mentioned to Ben or Glorietta had fizzled.

  There was a day-care center right down the road, and school buses ran by the B and B. She’d need to enroll Reece in school somewhere soon. So she had to find a job in Refuge before she decided whether they were going to be able t
o live here.

  Amelia hated to hope for the job only to be disappointed, but she really, really, really hoped the job could be hers.

  “I might have found a job for Hutton,” Ben said between heavily loaded barbell lifts, as Joel spotted him at the gym Joel built on his property.

  “Yeah?” Joel suspended his palms under the weight bar.

  “Yeah, he’s one of thirty applicants who got picked for a preliminary interview at the B and B.”

  “He did okay washing dishes for your mom at the bakery, right?”

  “He did great at it. He also dusted powdered sugar on every surface in the kitchen besides the donuts, including himself. But he always cleaned everything up. Excluding himself. Most people who saw him leave the bakery thought he was an albino.”

  Joel laughed.

  “But other than that, he handled the duties well.”

  “Sounds like the job would be perfect for him.”

  “That’s what I thought, too. And since he’ll be living here with me, he can walk around the front of the building to work. So transportation won’t be a problem.” Ben pushed the bar up again for his next set of reps.

  “How’s your dad? What’d the doctor say?” Joel helped Ben replace the bar on the last lift of the set.

  A heavy sigh. “He never went.”

  “You’re kidding. He still that extraterrestrial shade of gray you mentioned?”

  “No, last Saturday when I went to visit, his skin was pinker. I pressed his arm and his capillary refill was about three seconds.” Ben started another set of reps.

  “So just a little delayed.”

  “Yeah, not bad. Except I noticed at times his bottom lips looked streaked blue. Like veins.”

  “But no true cyanosis?”

  “Not that I could tell.” Ben blew breaths out between the words. “Maybe Dad’s right and it’s just the arthritis in his neck from gawking at Mom all these years.”

  Joel laughed then grew serious. “Hopefully.”

  Ben stood and swiped sweat off the weight bench. They switched places on the machine. Ben positioned himself behind Joel’s head to spot him.