Amy leaned against the closed door and closed her eyes. He’d called her “baby,” just like old times. Her heart pounded and her mind swirled with confusion. She’d hoped everything would be clear when she got to Sweetness and saw Kendall again, but it had only clouded things more. And instead of being glad he was involved with someone else, she was— Amy groaned in dismay—jealous.
She pushed away from the door and padded over to her phone to see if Tony had called, bitterly disappointed to see he hadn’t. Feeling a little desperate, she dialed his number again. While Tony’s phone rang, Amy opened her wallet to his picture and ran her finger over his handsome face for reassurance. After three rings, he picked up.
“Hello?”
“Hi, sweetie, it’s me,” she said, almost weak with relief to hear his voice. “Did you get my message earlier?”
He sighed. “No, I haven’t had time to check.”
“Oh. Well, I made it to Sweetness, Georgia, this afternoon, and my cell phone works here.”
“Duh. How long are you going to be in Hicksville?”
She tamped down irritation. “Like I told you, about three months. But I’ll come back in a couple of weeks so we can see each other.”
“They couldn’t get someone else to build their stupid bridge?”
She bit down on her tongue. “They could’ve, but they asked me.”
“Whatever,” he mumbled.
“I miss you,” she offered.
He grunted in return. “I hate this place.”
“It’s a good place,” she said earnestly. “You promised you’d give it a chance.”
“I gotta go.”
She pressed her lips together, awash in helplessness. “Okay. I love you, Tony.”
He sighed. “Love you, too, Mom.”
Amy disconnected the call, her heart pounding in her chest. She studied the picture of Tony, her twelve-year-old who had recently morphed from a sweet boy into a sulky adolescent. No matter what she did lately, it was wrong. She had never begrudged raising him alone, but recently she’d begun thinking it would be easier if he had a male father figure around.
Or his father.
And Tony looked so much like his father, she acknowledged with a squeeze of her heart. From his tall frame and square jaw…to his deep, cobalt blue eyes.
Kendall leaned against the door, wishing he’d walked away when he had the chance. Hearing Amy profess her love for someone else was like a kick to his gut. The guy who’d given her the topaz ring, no doubt.
It was his own fault, he acknowledged. He’d let Amy get away over a decade earlier, and had gone against his instincts to go to her. Of course another man had recognized how special she was and had wormed his way into her life.
Kendall turned and strode away, lasering unreasonable, but palpable, dislike toward this Tony, the guy who had replaced him in Amy’s heart.
8
The next morning when Amy rode out to the bridge site, she was still churning over the previous night’s encounter with Kendall, and her subsequent conversation with Tony. The sun was just breaking over the eastern wall of the bowl of mountains that surrounded the little town. The air that whipped her hair behind her was frosty…as frosty as Tony had grown toward her.
Maybe she’d made a mistake by enrolling him in a military school, but his increasing disobedience and recklessness while attending public school had alarmed her, and when he’d been arrested for vandalizing school property last fall, she’d had few options at her disposal. The school counselor had said he was in need of discipline and a male role model. It was the closest she’d ever come to contacting Kendall and informing him he had a son—who was incorrectly channeling the Armstrong traits of stubbornness and arrogance—and she needed for him to step in. But like all the other times she’d had that conversation in her head, she’d talked herself out of it.
She’d raised Tony by herself through some pretty lean and lonely times, but had savored the chocolate-covered kisses, first words, faltering steps, handprint art, the shedding of training wheels and other happy little-boy milestones. It didn’t seem fair to call Kendall when things with Tony had gotten bumpy. Besides, she’d prided herself on being able to keep a lot of balls in the air—working, getting her education and taking care of Tony. It hadn’t been easy, but she’d thought she’d managed well enough…until the phone call from the police. A quarter in a military boarding school had seemed like a viable, albeit expensive, alternative for instilling discipline while giving him an outlet for his excess energy. They’d argued about it—Tony had accused her of trying to off-load him—but she’d pointed out that he’d made his own bed and in the end, he’d gone willingly, if reluctantly, a sign to her that he was taking responsibility for his actions.
But she harbored a lot of guilt herself. She’d done some things she wasn’t proud of when she was a teenager and had had her share of run-ins with authority. She and Kendall had argued over her penchant for trouble and occasionally taking things that weren’t hers. It was, she’d decided, why he hadn’t asked her to marry him. Like everyone else in town, he’d considered her tainted. Part of her was afraid that if she called Kendall for help with their son, he would accuse her of being a bad mother…a bad person.
Dropping Tony off at the school after the holidays was the hardest thing she’d ever done. In that instant, he wasn’t a tall, troubled adolescent on the verge of manhood—he was her little boy on his first day of preschool begging her with his eyes not to leave him. She’d cried all the way home. Tony had performed and behaved well enough at the school to earn cell phone privileges, but she knew, from his increasingly short and quiet conversations, that all wasn’t as fine as it seemed.
Her heart squeezed. She missed him so much it hurt. Their little house in Broadway had seemed big and empty without his clutter and the chatter of his soccer friends and the sound effects of his video games. He was basically a good kid. Bright, too—he was always near the top of the class, had excelled in math and taken home ribbons in science fairs. Schoolwork came to him more easily than it had to her at that age. Even though she had controlled the nurturing part of his development, there was no denying that when it came to nature, he was his father’s son.
Except for the getting arrested part…
Amy crested the top of the hill where she’d parked yesterday to find Kendall already there, sitting sideways on an ATV, drinking from a travel mug. Seeing him after being so deeply mired in thought about him and the son he wasn’t aware of made her nervous. She suspected that Marcus knew about Tony, and while he’d respected her privacy thus far, she had a feeling the clock was ticking on that matter.
Amy tried to school her face into a neutral expression as she parked the four-wheeler nearby, but she was still smarting over the fact that he’d knocked on her door after a make-out session with curvy Rachel Hutchins. Years ago, he’d wanted to put Amy on a shelf while he went out into the world, taking for granted that she would always be there, waiting. Or maybe he was hoping she’d just take the hint and move on. That was partly her fault, she acknowledged, for idolizing the man, for being grateful that he’d allowed a poor little girl from the wrong side of the tracks into his life. Of course, he would assume that since she’d come back to Sweetness, she was still hung up on him, and would accept whatever attention he had to spare for the time she was here.
Wrong.
When she cut the engine, he waved. “Good morning.”
He looked so good dressed in dark jeans, sturdy boots and a gray sweater. By comparison she felt like a lumberjack in her fleece hoodie and wool pants tucked into knee-waders. “Good morning,” she said through gritted teeth. “I distinctly remember saying you didn’t have to be here.”
He gave her a disarming smile. “I’m here to learn. Besides, this project means a lot to me, too.”
Too… There he went assuming again. “I prefer to work alone when I’m in the design stage.”
He made a zipping motion across his mouth. “
You won’t even know I’m here.”
“Suit yourself.” She climbed off the ATV and opened the storage compartment to remove her heavy-duty laptop built to withstand the elements, and another small bag of equipment.
“Can I carry something?” he asked.
“Nope.” Amy shouldered the bags and turned toward the bridge site. Kendall followed her, staying a few steps behind. When she reached the top of the hill overlooking the site, she glanced down at the rushing stream of Timber Creek. The water was crystal clear and at this spot, about waist high. From this vantage point, remains of the three stacked-stone piers that had once supported the bridge were evident. They would have to be replaced, of course, but their presence would help guide the rebuilding efforts. She erected one tripod for her laptop and another for a laser measuring device. Kendall hovered throughout.
“Can I help?” he asked.
“Nope.”
“Do you want some coffee? I have a thermos.”
Amy pursed her mouth, then gave him a pointed look.
“Right,” he said. “I’m not here.”
But darn it, his coffee smelled good and a caffeine headache was working its way up her temples. “Do you have an extra cup?”
He grinned. “Sure do.” He removed the top of the thermos that doubled as a cup and filled it, then handed it over.
“Thank you,” she murmured. “The creek seems deeper than I remember.”
He nodded. “Debris from the tornado created lots of logjams. We’ve cleared most of the larger ones, but there’s still enough filler to raise the water level by at least a foot. The one good thing is that the fallen trees and rubber tires kept the banks from eroding.”
She nodded. “I’ll inspect the abutments, but they’re in much better shape than I expected. We’re still looking at the same bridge length, but what about live-weight load? Do you expect heavy-duty trucks to be using the bridge?”
“Yes. The land on the other side is going to be zoned commercial. Porter is working with a scientist who wants to build a lab there, and we thought it was a good site for the recycling plant, too.”
She took a sip of the coffee. “That sounds like a lot of traffic for a one-lane bridge.”
“An inconvenience, maybe, but worth the sacrifice to restore one of our landmarks. Can you design it to support a commercial load and give it the clearance height it’ll need?”
Her back stiffened. “Of course I can. But it complicates the execution. And I can’t stay past the three months I committed to.” Tony would be out of school then.
“We’ll get it done,” Kendall said, his voice smooth and confident.
We. It was a word he used to throw around a lot when they were together, making her believe they were a team. Amy took another drink of the coffee, then set to work.
True to his word, Kendall was quiet as she took careful measurements with a laser ruler and entered them into her CAD program. She moved the tripod around at various intervals, then waded into the creek to assess what was left of the support piers and take more measurements from those angles.
She felt his gaze on her as she moved and measured, but standing shin-deep in icy water and dressed like a man, she felt more self-assured than she had last night at dinner. Here, she knew what she was doing. She could fall back on her education and instinct. Satisfaction bloomed in her chest. If she had to come back home to Sweetness, at least she could stand toe-to-toe with Kendall on professional aptitude.
“How many bridges have you designed?” he asked, offering her a hand as she scaled the creek bank with her equipment on her back.
“A few, none of them noteworthy.” She ignored his hand, but struggled and slipped. Kendall caught her, and the contact sent a jolt of awareness up her arm. Even after she made it to level ground, his hand remained.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice husky.
She looked up at him, into those amazing blue eyes and, to her dismay, she realized how easily she could get used to being around him again.
Except being around him meant living in Sweetness.
“I’m fine,” she said in a choked voice, then pulled away. She quickly packed up the rest of her equipment and returned the cup he’d given her.
“What have you designed other than bridges?” he asked, picking up the conversation where they’d left off.
Her chin went up as she headed toward the four-wheeler. “I’ve done a little of everything—pedestrian skywalks, parking garages, a couple of monuments, even a roller coaster.”
“That sounds fun.”
Her tongue burned with questions about projects he’d worked on, but she really didn’t want to hear about all the adventures he’d had without her while she’d worked in day cares so she could be with their son, then went to night school, and waitressed on weekends.
“Do you have a favorite project?” he asked.
“If I had to choose, I’d say sidewalks for two inner city neighborhoods.”
His eyebrows went up. “Sidewalks?”
“There’s an art to designing sidewalks that will foster community growth,” she said defensively.
“I don’t doubt it,” he said, but she felt foolish as she repacked the storage compartment of the ATV. All she’d ever wanted to do was impress Kendall, yet she always wound up feeling inept. Maybe not much had changed after all.
“I’ll see you before the conference call,” she said.
He glanced at his watch. “Actually, I was wondering if you had time to take a look at the materials we recovered from the old bridge.”
Amy bit down on the inside of her cheek. If she was going to incorporate the original materials, she’d have to know what they were working with before she completed the design. “Okay.”
“Follow me to the dining hall,” he said, then climbed on his four-wheeler.
“I’m not hungry,” she said, climbing on her ATV.
“But I am,” he quipped. “Besides, Molly McIntyre runs the dining hall as well as our Lost and Found warehouse. I know she’ll want to see you.”
Amy balked, then fired up the engine. Molly McIntyre was a friend of the aunt who had begrudgingly taken Amy in after her parents had died. The women had exchanged letters while Molly was in the Armed Forces—the Army maybe? Amy couldn’t recall which branch. But she was sure her aunt had kept the woman informed of all the trouble her unwanted niece had caused her. Worse, when Amy was twelve, the woman had visited her aunt and while they were talking, Amy had taken a ten-dollar bill from Molly’s purse to buy a pink blouse at the five and dime, one she had coveted but her aunt had said she didn’t need. Molly had caught her red-handed, and after giving Amy a private but thorough tongue-lashing about stealing, had told her to keep the money.
But Amy had felt so guilty about taking it, she’d dropped the bill in the church offering plate instead. She wished she could say it was the last time she’d ever stolen anything, but it wasn’t. Still, that lecture had meant something to her. Not so much the words, but the fact that Molly had cared enough to actually talk to Amy about what she’d done, instead of screaming and hitting. It had been a turning point for her, one she would reflect on many times as she grew older, and when dealing with her own son.
Amy pushed aside the poignant memories and rode side by side with Kendall over the trail that ran parallel to the main road. The moisture content in the air was rising, which was never good for construction. Not every engineer had a built-in hygrometer like she did—she thought ruefully of the red hair she could practically hear kinking up—but it did come in handy at times. She’d have to remember to ask Kendall to obtain weather forecasts for the next twelve weeks.
They pulled up to the dining hall, a long ugly building with a scrappy sign. She’d heard they intended to make it more of a diner in the near future, but for now it was little more than a cafeteria. Still, it was an efficient, popular place, crowded with construction workers, women and school children. She felt conspicuous walking in wearing her heavy work c
lothes and rubber boots, but conceded that she’d looked worse after leaving a jobsite.
Of course, the first person they ran into was Rachel Hutchins, looking like a Playmate in black corduroys and a long-sleeve T-shirt with a picture on the front that was stretched beyond recognition.
“Hi,” she said to Kendall with a special smile.
“Hello,” he said, smiling back.
Rachel turned to Amy and gave her a once-over. “Looks like you’ve been…working.”
“That’s right,” Amy said agreeably.
“We came in to get a bite to eat,” Kendall said. “Then I’m going to show Amy the Lost and Found warehouse.”
“That’s nice,” Rachel said to Kendall. “When are you planning to stop by to see me again?” Flap, flap, went her lashes.
He shifted his feet. “Soon.”
“I’ll cook dinner for us.”
“Okay,” he said.
“Do you have any special requests?” Rachel asked. Flap, flap.
“I hear you make a mean chicken salad,” Amy offered, remembering the story Nikki had relayed about Rachel giving Porter food poisoning on a picnic. Apparently the woman was working her way through the Armstrongs.
“Anything you make will be fine,” Kendall interjected. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to talk to Molly.”
“I’ll see you later,” Rachel sang after him.
Amy waited until he was out of earshot, then said in a conspiratorial tone, “I heard Kendall say he likes spicy food.”
“Really?”
“The spicier, the better.”
Rachel smiled. “Thanks for the tip. See you later.” Then she walked away, hips sashaying.
Amy nursed a tiny pang of guilt for lying. Then she remembered the lipstick on Kendall’s mouth when he’d knocked on her door last night and the casual way he’d called her “baby” with those lips. She smiled to herself.
Baby, Come Home Page 7