Making It Right

by Kathy Altman

  “You’re dating? You haven’t been in town for what, a month, and you’re dating? Him?” Harris glared at Gil. “The man can’t win a poker hand to save his life. And he’s going bald, did you see that? You really want to date a bald man?”

  “It’s one spot.” Gil spoke through clenched teeth. “It’ll grow back.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Harris bent at the waist and slapped at the naked top of his head. “That’s what I used to think.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake.” Eugenia fisted the pearls around her neck. “Harris Briggs, stop acting like an ass.”

  Harris shot upright, revealing a beet-red complexion, whether from embarrassment or hanging upside down, Eugenia had no idea.

  He jabbed a finger at Kerry. “You said you were goin’ to prove you weren’t the same person. You said you were goin’ to focus on correcting your mistakes. How can you focus if you have a boyfriend?” He gave Gil an unfriendly side-eye. “Or whatever you want to call him.”

  “I call him my employer,” Kerry said in a not-quite-steady voice. “I work for Gil. Part-time, at the hardware store.”

  “Oh.” Harris passed around a scowl.

  Eugenia sighed. She was disappointed, yes, but Kerry had trusted Gil to bring her here, and Gil was having a hard time keeping his eyes off her. Hope springs eternal, and all that. She glanced at Harris and sighed again. Even when spring had long given way to winter.

  Then she shifted her gaze back to Kerry and went still. Uh-oh. There was more to this. The apprehension on Kerry’s face gave it plain away.

  Harris pushed back his shoulders, looking as contrite as Eugenia had ever seen him. “Sounds like you’re workin’ hard to keep your word,” he said to Kerry. “I’m sorry I accused you of letting yourself get distracted.”

  Kerry’s cheeks were a pale green. Either her skin was reflecting the grass at her feet or the proverbial poo was about to hit the fan. And they were all standing close enough to get splattered.

  “There’s no need to apologize,” Kerry said faintly. “There’s more.”

  “More?” Harris demanded.

  “More,” Gil said firmly.

  More. Eugenia held a hopeful breath.

  Kerry clasped her hands in front of her. The sleeves of her sweater fell to her wrists. “I’m pregnant,” she said.

  Gil fumbled for her hand. “I’m the father.”

  “Oh,” Eugenia breathed. “A baby.” She spun toward Harris and clapped her hands. “You’re going to be a grandfather.”

  He wasn’t as thrilled. In fact, he looked downright livid.

  Eugenia refused to let go of her smile. “Harris—”

  Everything above the old man’s neck turned the color of merlot. With a furious shake of his head he charged toward his pickup, shouldering Gil out of the way in the process.

  “Harris Briggs,” Eugenia yelled after him. Oh, this was bad. Very, very bad.

  The jackass made it worse by running over her tulips as he roared out of her driveway.

  * * *

  THE NEXT MORNING, GIL leaned against the jamb of the office door, sneaking a cup of coffee, watching as Kerry cleaned the outside of the front windows. She was working that rag like the windows were coated with gasoline and someone was running at her with a burning torch.

  It killed him, how hard she was taking her father’s reaction to yesterday’s announcement. Understandable, since Harris couldn’t have made his disgust more obvious. That had to hurt like hell. Still, Gil wished Kerry could find a way to shrug some of that off. The stress couldn’t be good for the baby.

  She hadn’t said a word on the ride back to Cooper’s. When they’d arrived, she’d thanked him for taking her to her appointment, then made a beeline for the broom closet. He’d tried to send her home so she could chill for an hour before her shift at Snoozy’s, but instead she’d swept the entire store, wielding the broom as frenetically as she was now cleaning the windows.

  She stopped suddenly. Shoulders heaving, she slid her phone from her pocket. Whatever she read was not welcome news because she sagged against the window and lightly banged her forehead. Again. And again.

  Gil ditched his coffee cup and strode to the door, telling himself his urgency was more about the potential damage to her brain than the smudges she was making on the freshly washed windows.

  He shoved open the door, took her arm and coaxed her upright. “What’s going on?”

  Her teeth snagged her lower lip and he felt like a frickin’ creepster but he couldn’t look away.

  “I forgot to cancel my coffee date with Liz.” She swept her hair away from her face and tucked her phone back into her pocket. “I’ll call her later. She can’t resent me more than she already does.”

  Not a bet Gil would take.

  “What about Eugenia?” he asked. “Did you get a chance to check in with her?”

  Kerry nodded.

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “Not even a little.” After brushing past him to enter the store, she whirled around. “I shouldn’t have come.”

  “Go home,” he said. “Get some rest. It’s not like I’m neck-deep in customers here.”

  “No, I mean, I shouldn’t have come to Castle Creek. The more I try with my dad, the more I damage our relationship. I’m not sure we can come back from this.”

  “You’re feeling sorry for yourself.”

  “Don’t you think I’ve earned it?”

  “A few minutes’ worth, maybe.” He glanced at the faded blue Dutch Boy Paints clock on the wall behind the cash register. “Time’s up.”

  “He thinks I’m after Eugenia’s money.”

  “He what?”

  She offered up a faint smile. “I’m grateful the thought hadn’t occurred to you, too. But according to Eugenia, my father’s convinced I got pregnant on purpose so I could appeal to her maternal side. Once she takes me under her wing, I’m set for life.”

  “Son of a bitch.” What the hell was wrong with the old man?

  Gil’s boots smacked a pissed-off rhythm as he swung away and strode through the stockroom. He shoved through the back door into the afternoon sunshine of the loading dock and inhaled.

  Spring flowers. Engine exhaust, from the truck that had delivered his shipment of ladders that morning. Plus something dicey from the Dumpster that squatted twenty feet to his left.

  He descended the concrete steps, gripped the handle on the Dumpster’s shoulder-high access door and slid it shut. Clang.

  Harris had never talked much about his daughter as a child, though he had related the occasional story. Gil’s favorite was the one about the “monster spray” Harris and his wife had invented to help their little girl deal with her fears of the dark. Despite Harris’s reticence about her, Gil had never gotten the impression that his relationship with his daughter had been a strained one.

  Until Kerry got married. Then things had taken a deeper dive after her arrest.

  Once she’d served her sentence, she could have stayed in North Carolina and sent money to her father electronically. She’d have had an easier time finding a job in the city. But she was after more than a paycheck. She was determined to mend a rift and she’d put up with prejudice and unkindness to try for it.

  And Harris wasn’t cutting her one inch of goddamn slack.

  The back door squeaked open and shut. He turned. Kerry stood on the concrete apron, arms crossed. She squinted in the sun.

  “I shouldn’t have told you,” she said. “Eugenia’s already given up on him and I’m sure he’d be crushed if you did the same. Please don’t. You have to understand I’ve hurt him deeply. He’s barely had time to adjust to my being in town and now I’m expecting him to deal with a pregnancy, too. I knew it wouldn’t be easy to convince him to forgive me. I just have to give him more
time.”

  Her struggle to be understanding touched him.

  It also pissed him off.

  “No.” Gil shook his head. “He’s had plenty of time.”

  He jumped up onto the concrete apron and got close enough to make her nervous. She dropped her arms and her eyes went wide.

  “Enough with being passive,” he said. “Find a way to talk to him. Make him listen to you.” Like Gil should have done with his own father.

  “This is Harris Briggs we’re talking about. No one makes him do anything.”

  “Do you really want to go through pregnancy, and birth, without the support of the only family you have left?”

  When her eyes went liquid, his chest went hollow.

  He stared at his own hand as it reached out to her. It was as though his arm had suddenly disconnected from his brain. Wait. They’d agreed not to touch. Not to flirt.

  But his traitorous hand gripped one of hers, curled around it and squeezed.

  All neural wiring was spontaneously reconnected. He knew because the sticky warmth of her skin was screwing with his breathing.

  She stilled, neither leaning toward him nor leaning away. He knew he affected her, though, because he swept his thumb across her wrist and her pulse tapped an agitated beat.

  He took one step closer, leaned down and lightly touched his lips to her ear. She shuddered, and he clenched his teeth against a groan. She smelled like vanilla. He couldn’t imagine a more captivating scent.

  “The more you leave unforgiven,” he murmured, “the less you’ll sleep at night.”

  “You said you were the father.”

  That did not compute. “What?”

  “The results of the paternity test haven’t come back yet, but you told my father the baby is yours.”

  He lifted his head, and with the forefinger of his free hand stroked the hair out of her eyes. “You haven’t given me any reason to distrust you. Not since the night we met, and I get why you made that choice. The person I know now...she’s not the type to take advantage of other people.” He stopped when she let loose a shaky breath. “What?”

  “Nothing, I—” She looked away, then back. “That’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me in a very long time.”

  Gil swallowed. Yeah, it had been a nice thing to say. Where the hell had it come from? Where was his resentment? His suspicion? The regret that they’d ever hooked up?

  Christ, he was getting soft.

  Quietly he huffed at himself. No, he was getting used to the notion that she was having his baby.

  He was liking the notion that she was having his baby.

  He pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Face it, Gilbert. You’re falling for her. You’re falling for them both.

  “You’re right,” Kerry said.

  He lifted his head, blinked at the fuzzy-edged version of her and slid his glasses back into place.

  She’d turned toward the chain link fence that stood about forty feet away. That, and the thick row of pines directly behind it, separated the rear of Cooper’s from the rear of the drugstore.

  A small squirrel scampered along the top of the fence. It stopped, chittered a greeting, then went along its bouncy way. Something spooked it and the squirrel sailed off the fence and up the nearest pine tree, soft green spikes jiggling in its wake.

  “I do need to make my father listen. Maybe...” She ran a trembling hand through her hair, dislodging her ponytail. “Maybe by not pushing the issue, he thinks I don’t care. I don’t know. What I do know is that if I keep taking advantage of Eugenia’s generosity, I’ll keep driving a wedge between them.” She pushed up her sleeves. “You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to ask him if I can move in.”

  A kick of regret made Gil catch his breath. That meant she wouldn’t be across the street anymore. He wouldn’t be able to jog over to see her. And if Snoozy offered her a full-time gig? She’d be giving up her job here at the store. He wouldn’t see her at all unless he went by the bar.

  He opened his mouth to invite her to move in with him instead, then closed it before he could manage the first word. When had he become so eager to sacrifice his privacy? Kerry moving in with Harris would be the best thing for both of them. For the baby, as well.

  He repeated the words to himself, in a failed attempt to ease the pressure in his chest.

  * * *

  GIL’S AFTERNOON WAS blessedly busy, leaving little time to stew over the situation with Kerry. He held a class on installing a ceiling fan, and made the mistake of high-fiving someone while descending the ladder. That led to an unscheduled class on ladder safety. After that he had gadget shelves to restock, and after that, an uneventful tutorial on the use of a drywall screwdriver (uneventful if you didn’t count old Mr. Katz driving a screw into a wall and hitting a live wire. The resultant sparks demonstrated quite nicely the importance of wearing eye protection). Still, Gil managed to close an hour early, in the hope that he’d catch Seth before he closed his own place. Fifteen minutes later, he parked his pickup in front of Tweedy’s Feed and Seed, relieved to see that one of the bay doors remained open.

  He strode inside the old firehouse Seth had painstakingly renovated a few years earlier, resurrecting in the process the feed store once owned by Audrey Tweedy’s father. The fact that he’d kept the original name had earned Seth big points with Audrey and her co-mayor besties. But Seth hadn’t been trying to schmooze—he’d simply felt it was the right thing to do.

  Gil took a second to let his eyes adjust to the dim interior. Quiet surrounded the rustic plank shelves laden with pet food and livestock supplies and birdseed and beekeeping equipment and pretty much everything a home-and landowner would need that Gil didn’t carry.

  He drew in a breath, appreciating the rich, grainy smell of sweet feed. This much quiet had to mean Seth’s kids weren’t around. Gil moved to the cash register and tucked under the counter the handful of stick candies he’d brought, just in case.

  “Walker,” he called out. “You here?”

  “Storeroom” came the response from the rear of the building.

  Gil found him in the back, stacking bags of feed onto a pallet, each bag hitting the pile with a crunch. Seth straightened and swiped his forehead with the back of his canvas glove.

  “Hey, man. Good timing. I got a big-ass order to fill.” He grabbed a spare pair of gloves off a nearby shelf and tossed them over. “Make yourself useful.”

  Gil snagged the gloves out of the air but didn’t put them on. “I can’t,” he said, injecting a decent amount of regret into the words. “I just ate.”

  Seth glanced at him with a yeah, right expression. “I’m not asking you to swim, just toss around a bag or two.”

  “You remember what happened the last time.”

  “Grab the bags by the middle, not the pull tab, and that way we won’t end up with twenty pounds of pellets all over the floor.”

  Gil rolled his eyes. “But I’m wearing my glasses.”

  “Don’t make me kick your ass, Coop.”

  Reluctantly Gil pulled on the gloves. “I’m having a baby.”

  Seth snorted as he let fly another bag. “Nice try. Now start stacking. List is taped to that shelf there.” He pointed, glanced at Gil and did a double take. “What’s that goofy-ass grin for?” His jaw dropped. “Shit, are you serious right now?”

  Gil nodded.

  “You got Harris’s daughter pregnant?”

  “Not on purpose.”

  Seth yanked off his ball cap and slapped it against his thigh. “You kept me out of the loop, man. That’s bullshit.”

  “I’ve only known for two days but I can catch you up in one sentence.” Gil crossed his arms. “She’s tolerating me because we’re going to have a kid together while all I can do is picture playing house
.”

  Seth settled his hat back on his head. “No wonder you ditched poker night this week. I thought you were pissed at me for telling you who she really was.”

  “I’m sorry. Things have been... My brother called. Twice.”

  “And?”

  “Remains to be seen.” Gil shrugged. “Thing is, I need to know that something in my life will stay the same.”

  “You won’t get rid of me that easily. Jackass.” Seth stretched a closed fist across the pallet.

  “Jerkwad.” Gil returned the knuckle bump.

  “One last thing.”

  “Hit me.”

  “You sure you want this?”

  Gil didn’t hesitate. “Yeah. I am. Kerry’s made mistakes, but she’s determined to start fresh. And it’s my kid. So...yeah.”

  Seth nodded. “Then just take care of her. Be with her. Something pulled you two together in the first place, right? If it’s meant to happen, it’ll happen. And if you need anything, let me know. Now, you going to help with this order, or what?”

  Gil puffed out his cheeks in a noisy exhale and scowled at the bags stacked at his feet.

  What if it wasn’t meant to happen?

  His gut went hollow.

  Dylan had it right. Love sucks.

  * * *

  KERRY FINISHED OFF the orange juice she’d cut with too much water and the toast she’d left too long to brown and headed back to the bedroom to get dressed. She scowled at the bed that looked so inviting yet had failed so completely to lull her to sleep.

  No wonder she had a headache. Or maybe it was simply the stress of not knowing where she stood with Snoozy. Or her father. Or her bank account.

  Or Gil. He’d eased up on her. More than that, he was actually being kind. But she wanted more. That near-kiss yesterday morning hinted that he might, too, but she had no idea how much of that was motivated by sympathy, or a misguided sense of baby-daddy responsibility.

  The last thing she needed to do was complicate an already chaotic situation by sleeping with him again. She needed to talk to her father. Moving into her dad’s house would put Gil out of desperate-dash-across-the-street range.