Breakup in a Small Town

by Kristina Knight

  “I called Aiden. He’s babysitting. The boys are fine.”

  Jenny put her hand to her chest. “You called Aiden?”

  “I figured eight might be old enough to be home alone for a half hour or so, but five was definitely too young. And I didn’t know if you had babysitter information anywhere, so I called for reinforcements.” Adam squeezed her hand in his. “Let’s see if Emmett and the crew have saved LEGO City from President Business yet.”

  “You don’t have to stay in the RV,” she said.

  “Yeah, I do.” He smoothed his hand over her hair, and when his thumb caressed her cheek, Jenny leaned into his palm. “For now, I think the RV is the best option for all of us.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  A WEEK AFTER going to the trainer’s home with Adam, Jenny was still trying to figure out if he was serious about changing his life, of taking his life back, or if this was just his way of getting her to do things for him again.

  If this wasn’t a serious effort, he deserved a spot in the next Hollywood blockbuster.

  If he wasn’t serious, the little fantasy bubble she’d been building since that night in the schoolyard might burst and destroy her whole life. She sat in their office, watching out the big window as Adam wheeled himself around the warehouse floor with Aiden. Jenny didn’t understand why it had taken Aiden three months to come to Slippery Rock, but since his arrival, he had dived right into work here, and he’d brought Adam with him. It was good to see Adam enjoying work again. Good to see him at breakfast every morning, to have lunch with him and to make dinner with him. To see him playing with the boys again.

  This morning, Adam and Aiden were poring over designs of some kind, and pointing to different areas of the production floor. Owen had tried to join in, but angrily walked away when his sons continued doing whatever it was they were doing. Jenny had the feeling, since Owen wasn’t involved, they were discussing the furniture. She doodled on the draft of the contract with the Springfield firm.

  Before the tornado, Adam would have been down there with the other guys, protective glasses shoved up on his head until a machine was going, laughing away. This morning he had on the protective glasses, had the plans for a cabinet or something in his hands, and wasn’t even grinning. There was determination in the set of his jaw, in the straightness of his shoulders. Determined Adam was sexy. More sexy than Fun Adam had ever been. And that was dangerous.

  Fun Adam had overwhelmed her with day trips to Springfield or Little Rock, had built her things like the kitchen table and had made her smile when, instead of disciplining the boys, he played with them. She hadn’t been able to resist Fun Adam’s charms. Watching him now, from several hundred feet away, she had the feeling Determined Adam would be just as hard to resist. She should stay in her office, but after two hours of pretending to go over the contract when she was actually watching him, she decided she had to do something different.

  The back stairs were empty this morning. Nancy sat at the front desk talking on the phone with one of her friends, and Owen had been on the floor, supervising the guys loading a truck.

  “I was thinking different woods,” Aiden said when she joined him and Adam near the table holding pieces of an Adirondack-style chair. “To give it a little more character.”

  Adam arranged the pieces and stepped back to study it. He’d left the wheelchair on the other side of the table, and Jenny’s first instinct was to tell him to sit down. There was mechanical equipment around here. But he wasn’t near it, and as she’d told him more than a week ago, he had to start taking responsibility for himself. So she didn’t say anything.

  Adam rearranged what would be chair legs, brought more of the mismatched wood that could be used for the chair backs. Studied them some more.

  “You know, if we cut down the back, so there’s more space between the strips, it might work.” He fiddled with the arrangement of the woods. “Add in a varnish that makes the different types really stand out, and it’s a showpiece for a lake home.”

  It was only a rough mock-up of what one of the chairs might look like, but Jenny liked it. Not just because it had been too long since she’d seen this focused, intent expression on Adam’s face. And it had been too long. A shiver of awareness ran down her spine and her mouth went dry. Intent Adam was a whole other level of sexiness. One she had nearly forgotten.

  Keep your mind on the work, Jen, on the life you want to build. Focusing on the amount of sex appeal he’s putting out right now isn’t going to do anything for your plans.

  It might do something for her libido, which had lain dormant since the tornado. She couldn’t remember the last time Adam had touched her. Well, not counting that kiss in the backyard last week. Before that it had been... She thought back. Too long.

  Aiden caught Jenny’s eye from across the table and winked. This was what she’d hoped, and it was happening so much faster than she expected. Aiden had been in town for only a week, and Adam was back at Buchanan’s. True, coming to work for a few days wasn’t the same as committing to life again, but at least he had come. And for the second time in a week, he’d been the one to make breakfast for the boys. Since that first morning, when he’d met her on the stairs with breakfast, she had made sure she got to the kitchen ahead of him. Let him cook if he wanted to, but she didn’t need Adam delivering breakfast in bed.

  It was just too weird.

  He lived in an RV in the driveway. Accepting breakfast in bed from him felt like the two of them were up to something...sketchy. There was nothing sketchy about separating from her husband. Heartbreaking, yes. Sketchy, no. At least, that was what she told herself. And now here she was, practically beaming because he’d taken a little interest in something that used to consume all his days.

  At this point, she was confusing herself about what she wanted. Adam back at home. Adam in the RV. Adam working, showing signs of life.

  Just what did she want out of all this? A real change for her life or to get back into those old, familiar ways? God, it had to make her some kind of idiot not to know which direction she wanted for her life.

  Okay, one step at a time. Jenny stood back, letting the guys work. What did she want?

  She wanted Adam to come back to work, but she knew if he didn’t, she’d be okay. The business would be okay. She wanted a real marriage partnership, one where she wasn’t the only one doing adult tasks like raking the leaves and grocery shopping.

  “What do you think?” Adam stood back. The piece wasn’t finished, but he’d rigged it so that it looked more like an actual chair than a few random sticks of wood. The highlights and grain patterning, the fanciful look of it, fascinated her.

  Jenny stepped forward to run her fingers over the smooth strips and pieces. Not a single splinter. The wood felt like satin under her hands. She could see this chair, and another just like it, in their backyard, overlooking Slippery Rock Lake. Sun setting behind the forest of trees on the opposite side, the water turning fiery red, then orange as the sun faded into the western sky. And in the chair beside her, the Adam she remembered. The sweet, funny, charming man she’d married.

  The image pricked at her heart. She wanted that Adam, and she wanted to be sitting beside him, making more plans. For the business. For their life.

  Her opinion on the chair was that it was perfect.

  Her opinion on her marriage was that it could be.

  “I think it’s beautiful. It needs a matching chair, maybe a little table to set between them for drinks. One of those sudoku magazines we see on the racks at Mallard’s.”

  “That is really specific.” Aiden grinned and put his hands in his back pockets.

  “I have opinions. Thoughts on things. For example, my thought is that you shouldn’t just be here on vacation. Building boats is probably a lot more challenging than building cabinets and lawn furniture, but you have a talent.”
She held her clipboard to her chest, watching her brother-in-law closely for a long moment.

  “Funny, I was just thinking you don’t really need me here at all,” he said flippantly.

  “She doesn’t. Jenny has a vision for this place, one I shared until a few months ago, and she’ll make that vision happen with or with you.” Adam’s voice was quiet, but despite the noise from the warehouse, Jenny heard him clearly. “I’m the one who needs you here. I can design, but I can’t build, and I’ve never designed anything like this chair. We could make a good team. If you stayed.”

  Aiden and Adam watched one another for a long moment. “I could stay a little longer,” Aiden said eventually. “But I can’t say that I’ll stay forever.”

  “We’d love to have you here for as long as you want,” Jenny said, emotion clogging her throat.

  “I’m going to grab a Coke from the vending machine,” Aiden said, and slipped away from them.

  Adam gazed at Jenny. “I don’t think I’ve ever asked your opinion on a chair. I didn’t even ask you about the kitchen table,” he murmured.

  “You didn’t have to ask. Our tastes were always evenly matched in that department.” Jenny kept her hand on the arm of what would eventually be a chair. She couldn’t touch him. They needed this talk, and if she touched him, she would stop talking. She would assume that he understood what the touch meant, like she had done so many times before. Having an opinion, at this moment, meant sharing that opinion.

  “I loved the table. Round and solid, and you finished it in my favorite honey oak tones. It was perfect for the kitchen. It’s still perfect for the kitchen.”

  “But I didn’t ask. I never asked, I just did.”

  “And I never objected. I just went along because I thought... I didn’t want to be the stringent harpy, always demanding. Never getting or having enough. I love my mother, but that’s how she is with my dad.”

  “You could never be a harpy.” Adam tucked a curl behind her ear. “It isn’t in you.”

  “It’s possible you’ll change your mind about that. I made a vow to myself after our fight over the laundry that I’d tell people what I thought. What I wanted. What I need. I don’t want to be so bottled up and angry that a messed-up load of laundry sends me over the edge.” The words were like a release. When she’d told Mara and Savannah about the fight, about the flowers, it had been like a small valve had opened, letting her thoughts trickle out. Telling Adam was like opening that valve to maximum capacity. She wasn’t angry. She wanted to move forward.

  “What other opinions do you have?”

  “That you don’t have to try to make up to me by making me breakfast. That walking the boys to and from school is so helpful, but I miss those few minutes when it’s just the three of us. That I really want this contract with the Springfield distributor, and I think we can handle it and the new contract with the builder out of Joplin by adding about eight more employees.”

  Adam blinked. “You want to hire more staff? We already have more employees on the books than Buchanan’s has ever had.”

  “I know, but it can work, Adam. It’s what you’d planned, before—” Jenny blew out a breath. “Before the tornado. You wondered how we would find enough workers because Slippery Rock is such a small town. But there are still people out of work because of the damage done, and a few people have moved into town because they hoped there would be more construction work. It’ll be tight, but we can make it work.”

  Adam looked around the busy warehouse and shop floor. She wondered if he saw what she did: busy workers, guys swiping at one another good-naturedly after they finished loading the truck. The satisfied expression on Owen’s face. The woodworkers so intent on shaping straight boards into spindles, and chair backs, and cabinet fronts. Buchanan’s was still alive. It could still grow.

  “I can’t build anything.” His words were quiet. “I want to build something.”

  “You’re wrong, you know. You can’t work with the machinery, at least not yet. But you can still design.” She paused to consider her words, then said, “You can still build this business. Buchanan’s can be more than a local shop. We had plans, and we’ll have to adjust, but...” Jenny stopped talking. She couldn’t make him want this any more than she could make him want her, want life in general. He had to want those things.

  He watched her for a long moment. “We?”

  He wasn’t hung up on the business plans. He was hung up because, without thinking, she’d used the word we.

  Jenny tried to cover. “We both signed the papers to buy the place. I put these contracts in motion, but you would have to approve. You. Me. We.” The explanation felt weak, as weak as she was for insisting she wanted more out of her life, but falling right back into old habits.

  Her gaze met his, and it didn’t matter that she’d asked him to move out. That their marriage might be over. What mattered was the look in his eyes. The green darkened to nearly emerald, and seemed to cut right through the confusion she felt at what she wanted, professionally and personally. All that mattered was that, for this moment, the two of them were together. He’d come out of the shell she had begged him to exit.

  Adam was back. Jenny swallowed.

  “And if I approve?”

  “I have drafts of the contracts in my office. All you have to do is sign.”

  “I’ll sign anything you want me to.”

  Jenny couldn’t breathe, and not because she was afraid or worried. This was Adam. Her Adam. The man she’d loved since she was a teenager. The man she’d seen herself growing old with.

  Adam was back, and she wasn’t going to let him go.

  * * *

  JENNY WAS UP in her office, studiously going over some kind of paperwork. Adam couldn’t take his eyes off her. All she needed was to put all that crazy, curly hair into a bun, maybe get a pair of reading glasses at the drugstore, and she would be the sexiest executive Slippery Rock had ever seen. He could be the printer repair guy, sneak into her office after everyone left for the day. Flick those blinds closed and—

  “So when are you taking this trip?” Owen asked, startling Adam.

  The pencil in his hand snapped, and he nearly fell off the three-legged stool he’d brought over to the drafting table. Instead of a few chair designs on the paper before him, Adam saw the sketch of a face with long, curly hair, a straight nose. High cheekbones.

  He had to figure out a way to work with his wife without his hormones going into overdrive every time he caught a glimpse of her. That wasn’t the way to win her back.

  After their conversation at the school a few nights before, he had a better idea of what Jenny wanted. All the things he’d promised her but never delivered on. He’d sworn to love her, to support her, and what he’d done was leave her alone with two babies and a lot of housework. Like she was some 1950s housewife who had no ambitions other than a perfectly vacuumed carpet.

  “Well?” his father asked. He wore old work jeans, a flannel shirt over a striped T-shirt and a leather tool belt strapped around his waist.

  “Well, what?” Adam racked his mind for the question Owen had asked, but the only question he could come up with was how he could make up the last nine years to Jenny.

  “When are you going on that Branson trip?”

  “Branson trip?” Jenny didn’t hate Branson, but it wasn’t on her list of dream destinations. Was he having another seizure? Only this time instead of his body shaking uncontrollably, was his brain just cutting out portions of the conversations going on around him?

  “You said you were taking her and the boys on a camping trip. That’s why you wanted the RV. I was just wondering when you were leaving.”

  Right. His reason for borrowing the RV. Not because she’d asked him to move out, but because he wanted to take her on a trip.

  “Maybe in a week or two
. The boys don’t have any days off from school for a while—”

  Owen waved a hand. “Third grade and kindergarten. What are they going to miss? A couple of art projects? Take your family on a vacation. God knows you could use the time away.”

  Actually, taking Jenny on a vacation wasn’t a terrible idea. Now that Aiden was in town, his dad would have help at the warehouse. Adam caught a glimpse of her in the upstairs window. She’d pulled her hair into a makeshift bun atop her head and stuck a pencil through it to hold it in place. His hands itched to caress her graceful neck.

  “We, ah, we’re figuring it out, Dad.” There, that wasn’t a complete lie. What he and Jenny were figuring out was a bit more serious than vacation plans, but Owen didn’t need to know that. Not right now.

  His dad pulled another stool up to the table, examined Adam’s sketch as if were a Louis XIV chair instead of part of his wife’s face. “Always so much on her mind, our Jenny,” he said after a moment.

  Adam wasn’t sure what emotion Owen had taken from the pencil lines of curly hair or the shadowing of a high cheekbone, but his father wasn’t wrong. Jenny kept a lot inside. Adam had never taken the time to figure out what those things were, not until she’d blown up at him over the laundry a few weeks ago. He’d been too comfortable going about life as he always had, a bit effortlessly.

  More like carelessly.

  He glanced up at the office window again, but Jenny wasn’t there. Probably on the phone or getting a cup of coffee. Silly for her absence from a window to make his heart clench like this. Adam shook himself.

  “Yeah. She has big plans for this place.”

  “From what I’ve seen, you both have big plans for this place.” Owen knocked his shoulder against Adam’s. “When you were still sick, I thought those plans might be too much. I was used to how I ran the shop, I guess.”