Bells tinkled overhead, notifying a shop clerk somewhere within the cramped quarters that a visitor had arrived. The place carried the smell of old, worn books, varnish, and wood. I breathed in it and let it fill my lungs, pleased, because I loved that smell.
“Hello,” an older woman greeted me from behind a counter to my right. She wore a thin set of half-moon spectacles on the tip of her nose and reminded me of Mrs. Claus. She just looked so jolly in her old-fashioned ’50s housewife dress. She could have stepped off the set of Leave it to Beaver or Lassie, and I decided I really liked her style. “Looking for anything in particular, dear?”
I shook my head. “I noticed your sign from the road and thought I’d pop in.”
“Well, take your time. Books are over yonder, and jewelry in this counter. Clocks are on that wall,” she said, gesturing past me to my left, “and furniture is in the back with the ceramics.”
Five minutes later, I fell in love with a rocking chair near the back of the store. I imagined it on the porch next to our swingset and wanted it despite the weather stains and the chips and nicks on its arms. Tiny imperfections speckled it, and the ancient pattern of the cushion was worn thin.
And really ugly.
But the chair itself reminded me of sitting on my grandmother’s lap, one of those solid and sturdy pieces designed to last, with intricate floral designs carved into the top rail. I smoothed my thumb over one of the patterns.
An old man emerged from a rear room, wiping his hands on the front of jean overalls that cradled his huge belly like a denim hammock. He wiped his hands on an oil-stained rag and tucked it into his back pocket. “That one needs a little work, ma’am. No idea why Edith put it out here.”
“Is that why it has no price tag like the others?”
He nodded. “She buys more of the stuff than I can keep up with. Honest, it needs some work, but it has a sturdy frame on it.”
It certainly did, though I didn’t know shit about furniture. “Can I have a seat in it?”
“Be my guest.”
I settled on the ugly floral cushion. The chair beneath me remained solid, durable, and I sighed with relief. “How much for it?”
“In this condition? Ah, hell. Maybe fifty.”
“I’ll take it.”
Edith gave him a satisfied smirk when she rung me up at the front. “Told you someone would want it.” Then her husband loaded it into the back of my SUV.
Convinced the chair had been waiting for me, I completed my errands around town while trying to ignore the signs on every street corner proclaiming yard sales, garage sales, and estate sales. Despite a tiny voice in my head telling me to stop spending money, I visited two of them and came away with a new dresser. We needed one for the guest room anyway.
Since Russ stayed at home with the kids, I called him up for help unloading my goods. He didn’t let me touch it and lifted the heavy dresser out of the open hatch on his own, enormous biceps straining beneath t-shirt sleeves I expected to split at the seams.
Bear shifters, man. I wondered if he spent all day lifting weights and doing pushups with Nadezdha while Mateo attended school and Dani worked at the bank. Their kids already had some seriously muscular arms, so stout they could probably lift me.
Russ set both the dresser and rocker in the garage, then he ran his thumb down the scarred surface of the former. “Not bad, but it needs to be refinished.”
“Mind showing me how to do it? I figured I’d sand them down and restain them anyway.”
“Sure.” He studied me, dark brows pulling together. “What’s the sudden interest in woodworking though?”
“No idea. Just something I wanted to do.”
He nodded along. “Ian has most of the same tools as me, but if you’re missing anything for your project, I don’t mind. Just let me know when you have the time.”
I glanced at my watch. I had an hour before Sophia was due home from school. “Wanna bring Dani and the kids over for dinner? I was planning to run out to town again to pick up Thai.”
“Thai sounds amazing. I’ll grab the kids from the elementary.”
“Text me your order.”
We fist bumped in stay-at-home-parent solidarity and went our own ways, him to fetch the pickup for kid retrieval, me to the kitchen where I sprayed a generous amount of oven cleaner onto the baked-on mess I’d neglected for months.
I placed a pickup order for Thai over the phone once Russ sent me their preferences, tossed laundry in the dryer, scrubbed bathroom tiles, and came down the stairs as Ian entered from working the first shift.
“Hey, honey, how was your day?”
“Boring. A few speeding tickets and one domestic dispute call. Smells good in here.”
“I changed the filters and put a few drops of essential oil on them.”
Ian blinked. “Oh, well, it’s nice.”
With a smile, I leaned up and kissed his cheek. “Go get changed, and I’ll open a beer for you.”
“All right.”
By now the oven cleaner had soaked in a good twenty to thirty minutes. I pulled a beer from the fridge and opened it, as promised, then set to work scrubbing out the burnt gunk. The biggest chunks slid right out.
Heavy footsteps behind me announced Ian’s arrival.
“Beer’s on the counter,” I called without stopping my work.
“Leigh.”
I ignored him and scrubbed harder, determined to get up the stain on the bottom of the oven.
“Leigh,” Ian repeated, more force in his voice. When the aggressive cleaning didn’t end, he grabbed me by the wrist and hauled me back and up, startling me with his strength. The scrub pad fell out of my sudsy fingers onto the floor.
Something about his shifter strength and caveman tactic appealed to my lizard brain, but I suppressed the urge to mount my husband on the kitchen floor. I had too much work to do. Then I could steal him away to the bedroom to bone him like crazy. “What is it?”
“Maybe I should ask you that. What the hell is happening here?”
“I’m cleaning. This place is a mess.”
His brows jumped up. “A mess,” he echoed before glancing around. “Baby, there’s a little crust in the bottom of the oven from my poor attempt at baking with Sophia. Aside from that, this entire kitchen was already close to spotless.”
“It wasn’t. Did you know there was still dog hair leftover in the baseboards from when we had Petunia?”
Ian tilted his head. An uncomfortable silence passed before he spoke again. “I doubt it. She’s been gone two years and you’re always mopping this place.”
“I found hairs.”
“All right. I think you need a break.”
“I don’t—”
“This isn’t voluntary.”
My lips pursed. My no-nos clenched. Despite the hot flush of arousal, a quick peptalk convinced my nether region to cool it until bedtime. “At least let me wipe the soap out of the oven. It’ll dry otherwise and that’ll be a whole new mess.”
“I’ll do it. You go kick back and watch a show or something.”
“Fine, but I’m folding laundry while I do.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but I held up a hand. “You want clean, unwrinkled shirts to wear? Then I need to fold laundry.”
“Fine,” he grumbled. Because we both knew his way of folding shirts left something to be desired.
“You’d think with all those years in the Air Force, you’d know how to fold a shirt right.”
He scowled. With that small victory, I set to work in the living room. I’d already washed Sophia’s clothes from the week, folded them, and put them away. Only three more loads to go—bedding, bath towels, and curtains—and I’d be done with the laundry portion of my clean-up. At least for this week.
Twenty minutes later, Ian walked in and stared at me, arms crossed over his chest. “What happened to the fridge?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s empty.”
“I thre
w out all the old junk we hadn’t touched in over a week. Or longer, in some cases.”
“I had pepper jelly in there that my grandma made.”
“Two years ago. It had mold growing in it, Ian.”
He huffed, and on the nearby perch, Moonfeather cackled. God that sound was creepy. Ian shot the parrot a traitorous look. “Well… I guess I’ll just do without it.”
“You could always ask her to make you some more. Betty loves doing that stuff.”
“I don’t wanna bother her. She was muttering about her hands the other day.”
“Really?” The news made me frown and suddenly it dawned on me why Ian was so upset over a nasty jar—it might be the last he ever received. Betty, bless her, was a tough old bird but she was getting up there in age, and a normal human like me. We’d just celebrated her one hundred and first birthday in March.
I’d have to visit tomorrow and help her chop peppers. Convince her to teach me the recipe.
“Yeah,” Ian replied. “Anyway, what the heck is up with you and the kitchen? I’m pretty sure I could eat off the floor right now if I had a mind to.”
“Like I said, it was a mess and I was tired of looking at it.”
“Uh huh. And the laundry? I noticed the bed was stripped.”
“The sheets are in the dryer now, they’ll be nice and toasty warm when you’re ready for bed.”
“Leigh, talk to me. The last time you went on a cleaning spree like this was, well, never. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I realized that I’ve been neglecting the house, and you and Sophia. So I cleaned up and I ordered take-out from that new Thai place that opened. I even invited Russ, Dani, and their kids to join us when they drop Sophia off. Oh, which reminds me, I need to wipe down the dining room table. Here are your shirts, please put them away.” I rose with his stack of neatly folded clothes in my arms and passed them over with a smile. Then I moved off while my bewildered husband stared after me as if I’d grown a second head.
Ian
Leigh’s reign of cleanliness continued through the week. Each day I came home to another spotless room and a meal on the table. And when it seemed there wasn’t another room for her to clean, she started over from the beginning.
Even my toolshed hadn’t been spared. She categorized it all by type, drilled holes in the walls, and hung all of my wrenches.
The woman installed shelves.
Saturday morning, I returned from an overnight shift and found her in the garage, the door open, standing in front of an unfamiliar dresser with a cordless belt sander. A blue dust mask covered her mouth and nose and she wore goggles.
This woman meant serious business. I stared at her for a few minutes wondering what the hell had happened to my wife.
Pinterest must have been behind it. The whole site was evil, a trap to lure people into making impossible things they’d never recreate. Then again, my perception was probably skewed, since I’d been forced to choke down the terrifying results of Leigh’s edible experiments. Her bunny biscuits at Easter had been fat blobs with melted faces. And the rainbow spaghetti… I shuddered at the memory.
When I texted a photo of it behind her back to Lyle and Russ, begging for advice, Lyle asked if a unicorn puked on my plate. Russ suggested adopting a dog to eat all future kitchen nightmares.
“Hey, honey. Whatcha doin’?” I asked once she noticed me and turned the power tool off.
“Oh, hey. I picked this up at a garage sale and I’m gonna refinish it for the guest room. We can store spare sheets in it.”
“What’s wrong with keeping them in the closet?”
“Well, I bought us each three new sets, since we really should be changing the beds every week and you get on me about the laundry if I do it too frequently.” She stared at me and lofted one pale brow, daring me to object.
“I…” Didn’t know what to say. A smart man would keep his mouth shut. With that wisdom in mind, I put a smile on my face. “Okay. You need any help?”
“No thanks. I’ll just do it myself. That way I know it comes out how I want it.”
I prayed it didn’t resemble any of her baking projects and nodded like a bobblehead. “Of course.”
What the hell had happened? I tried to figure out the answer as I went inside to change. Sophia and Moonfeather occupied the couch, watching Rio. I paused to swing by and give my girl a kiss.
“Hey, Daddy. Did you see Mommy?”
“I sure did.”
“She said I could help paint later.”
“Did she now?”
“Uh huh. Uncle Russ showed her how to use the tools, and because it’s so loud she promised I could help later. Prince Moonfeather didn’t like it.”
“I’ll bet he didn’t.” I ran my finger down his feathered head. He closed his eyes and leaned into my touch. “Let me go get cleaned up, then I’ll make us breakfast. Sound good?”
“Funny-face pancakes?”
“If that’s what you want.” I kissed her head again, then moved to my room. The whole place smelled like lavender and lemon. The bed was made, with a brand-new duvet no less, and our attached bathroom sparkled.
“Dammit, Leigh,” I muttered. She had too much time on her hands, and while I was thankful she had stopped moping around, her newfound dedication to cleanliness wasn’t much better. I didn’t want a maid. I wanted my wife.
When had she even found the time to get this all done?
“While I was working,” I answered myself, sinking down onto the edge of the bed. Sasha was right. Instead of facing our problems, I’d hidden in a never-ending list of duties by burning the wick at both ends as sheriff and CEO of MacArthur Security. Leigh’s newfound hobbies and compulsive desire to wipe dust from our lives was as much my fault as anything else.
Only one true option remained, one I’d been putting off for far too long. Truth was, I loved my job—I’d been doing it for years after founding the company from the ground up and putting every ounce of my devotion into its earliest stages—but I loved my family more.
There had never been a better time to pass on the torch.
13
Ian
One of our newer deputies knocked on my open door. “Hey, bossman. You have a visitor.”
I glanced up from the work on my desk, gaze settling on Diane. She eyed her reflection in the window pane of my office door and smoothed back her auburn hair, tucking her bangs behind her ears. The unusual fuss over her appearance tipped me off to my guest’s identity. I’d expected him later in the week.
“Let me guess. Long hair and flashy suit. Looks like he belongs on a runway or the cover of GQ, right?”
Color flushed the woman’s cheeks. I chuckled. Only Nadir inspired that sort of reaction in every woman he met. Sometimes men, too.
“Send in him, please.”
“Sure thing.”
A minute later, Nadir strode into the room. Sasha had once described him as Middle Eastern Fabio, which was an apt description of our longtime golden jackal shifter pal. While absolutely straight, I was also secure enough in my masculinity to admit the retired marine was a gorgeous man. Today, he wore a suit without the tie and his dark hair down loose around his shoulders. I rose and moved around my desk to greet him.
“Glad to have you back in Quickdraw, Nadir.”
“Always happy to swing through town and catch up.”
After a brief embrace we each settled into a seat.
“So, what was so important you wanted to meet as soon as possible?” Nadir asked. “This got to do with the Medrano family? Or is it the diva this time?”
“No on both counts. The Medrano case is tied up with the feds, and our pop princess is still pleased with the arrangements you and I made. I’d have contacted you about that over the phone. No, this is about something more important. Something I needed to discuss in person.”
Nadir’s sculpted brows rose. “New job?”
“In a manner of speaking. I am retiring from the security firm and I want
you to take my place.”
“Seriously?” He stared at me.
“You already handle a bulk of the work over in Houston, so why not make it official?”
“But the company is yours. You built it up from the ground.”
“And all men retire at some point. This is my time.”
Nadir sank back in his seat. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you’ll accept.”
He’d better damn well accept, because I could think of no one better to take the reins. Taylor had a business of his own. Sasha worked as a doctor. Juni didn’t want the responsibility, and Russ had a family to tend. Nadir was the only one I trusted in my place.
“Before I give an answer, can you tell me one thing?”
“Sure.”
“Will you be out entirely? I mean, can I call on you for advice or to help out with things?”
“We’re friends, you can always call on me for advice. But unless the sky is crashing down around us, I think my days in the field are done.”
“What about the Medrano issue?”
He had me there. “The Medrano issue I’ll count as the sky falling. Besides, most of that is going to be handled in court. Beyond that, consider me an office consultant. Good enough?”
“It won’t be the same without you, Ian, but I’m humbled by your trust in me. I accept.” He paused a second, then grinned. “But if you change your mind in a week, you’re gonna have to fight me for it.”
I chuckled. “Trust me, I won’t change my mind. I actually already had the company lawyer draw up the papers. All you have to do is sign.”
He blinked at the folio I slid across the desk. I waited while he took a moment to flip through everything. All of the signature lines had been marked with colored tabs indicating where he should sign and initial.
“You knew I’d say yes.”
“Hoped.”
“Ian, these all have my name on them.”
I spread my hands and leaned back in the seat. “Maybe I have another set in my desk with Russ’s name on them.”
Nadir snorted and signed his name at the first marked line. “He’s more retired than you.”
A Man of Many Talons Page 11