by Kay Lyons
“Always running somewhere, that one. Get that sink done?”
Joe pulled out the chair next to Wilson and sat down. “It’s drying. Should be set by the time I finish this,” he said, picking up one of his sandwiches. “What’s next on the list of repairs?”
Wilson shrugged. “Gotta ask Ashley that. She’s got a list a mile long.”
Joe glanced at the empty doorway and cleared his throat, careful to keep his voice low. “Look, I don’t mind helping out, but as far as this job goes…I don’t like keeping secrets. Especially one as big as my record.”
Wilson pursed his lips and nodded sadly. “Guess the evidence was right then,” he drawled. “You killed that baby girl.”
Chapter 4
I DIDN’T,” JOE countered forcefully.
Wilson pointed a gnarled finger at him as he nodded. “That’s what I wanted to hear. And I never said you couldn’t tell her, boy. But I’d wait and let her get to know you and have something else to go by before you go spillin’ your guts about why you were behind bars.”
Joe stared down at his plate.
“Got some friends left in town, you know. Buried more than I care to think about, but a friend called to check on me while you were under that sink. Heard all about you getting turned down when you went looking for a job this mornin’. You tell Ashley now and you’ll be out of here so fast your head’ll spin.” His rheumy eyes narrowed. “Whether I believe you or not.”
Joe took a drink of tea only to find it bitter. He set the glass down and watched as Wilson scooped spoon after spoon of sugar into his.
“I know I’m the topic of conversation today,” Joe murmured, “so Ashley will know soon enough. I’d rather it came from me. What’s going to happen when her husband shows up for dinner and finds me here after hearing the news in town when he stops for gas or something?”
Wilson dipped his spoon into the tea and began to stir the syrupy liquid, giving Joe his chance at adding a little sugar to his own glass.
“Well, now, if he did show up, it’d be a miracle.”
He stilled. “Come again?”
“Her husband’s dead. Got killed before she found out she was pregnant. One of our boys to go join his Maker in Iraq.”
Joe’s empathy for her loss warred with a surge of relief and protectiveness. She wasn’t married.
But she still wore her wedding band.
Which meant…what? That she still loved her husband? Wasn’t finished mourning him? Wasn’t interested in anything but finishing her house?
It didn’t matter. Regardless of who told her the truth, Ashley would know about his record eventually and then he’d be out of her life. Long before he ever got the chance to get to know her. He cursed softly.
“Every swear word costs money in this house,” Wilson informed him. “Ashley don’t want Max repeating ’em since he’s startin’ to talk so she came up with something called a swear jar.” He leaned forward. “I say plenty when the boy ain’t around to hear ’cause it pays for the good stuff.”
Almost afraid to ask, Joe frowned. “Good stuff?”
The old man glanced behind him to the room beyond, his gray head cocked to an angle. From within the living room, he heard Ashley talk to her son as though reading him a story.
The husky, happy sound touched a place in him long buried.
Wilson waved a hand and motioned Joe closer. “You know—good stuff. Cookies, ice cream. Popcorn. Once a month she empties the jar and buys treats with it, but when they’re gone they’re gone and we don’t get no more until next time.” Wilson shook his head and shot Joe an nettled look. “She’s a stubborn one. Says junk food rots the innards.”
Joe sat back in his chair with a chuckle. He finished off one sandwich and picked up the other. “I’ll remember that.”
“Anything you partial to? Oreos? Little Debbies? I like ginger snaps myself. With vanilla ice cream and caramel syrup on top.”
Still smiling, Joe shook his head as he finished off his second sandwich and drank the last of his tea. He gathered up his dirty dishes and carried them to the sink. “Whatever you like is fine. Anything’s good when you haven’t had it for such a long time.”
Anything was good after being confined so long. New and different. Everything tasted better, had more color. Smelled good. Things had changed while he’d been incarcerated and the limited access with the outside world he’d had at the halfway house and working on the various job sites hadn’t prepared him for everything.
Like the grocery store where he’d tried to get a job to help stock. It was huge, one of those new super stores versus the little mom-and-pop places that had been around when he’d been sentenced.
Then there was Ashley Cade and her son.
Absolutely nothing could have prepared him for being out of prison a day and suddenly finding himself under the same roof as the mother and child.
* * *
ASHLEY SMOOTHED her fingers over her baby’s soft forehead and simply enjoyed the peace that came with holding her son in her arms.
“What do you think, Max? Think we might’ve finally found someone to help us?”
Max blinked up at her, his little hand tapping the bottle.
“Guess we’ll see, huh? We’d be pretty silly if we didn’t give him a shot, but don’t worry, I won’t take any chances. No, I won’t. Because this is our future and your daddy paid a high price for it.”
Max latched onto her finger where it held the bottle up for him and squeezed as though he understood her words, her sadness.
“I miss him, Max. He always knew how to make me smile, you know that?” She laughed, her memories sliding backward in time faster than she could adjust. She closed her eyes and rested her head against the back of the rocker as she moved them to and fro. “Hmm, I stopped our story not long after your daddy came to the home to live, didn’t I?
“Well, there was this girl. Her name was Sarah Peters and she was pretty and blonde with pasty white skin and big blue eyes. Everyone talked about how quickly she’d be adopted in spite of her age. A family was coming who wanted to meet all the girls so they paired us up and took us into a room two at a time.” She made a face. “Yeah, I got Sarah. Lucky me, huh? So we were waiting outside when Sarah went on and on about how nobody would ever want me after they saw her. I got so mad and so upset I forgot all about the people wanting a little girl and pushed her down. Sarah made a ruckus and I knew I’d get in trouble so I left, which was exactly what she wanted.
“You know what happened next? Well, your daddy came after me. He looked right at me and said, ‘Get your butt back in there before you lose your chance at getting out of here.’” She smiled down at Max and earned a smile in return. Formula leaked out of the side of his mouth and she caught it with the burp cloth covering his chest. She began rocking again.
“Then he wrapped his grubby, scrawny arm around me and kept yelling at me while he pulled me back inside. Boy, was he mad. Not because I’d pushed Sarah down but because I’d let her cause me to miss out on a chance at being adopted. Attitude is everything,” she said, mimicking Mac’s tone. “Attitude is everything.”
She smoothed her forefinger over Max’s dimpled knuckles. “I didn’t know it then but now I think about that day and realize your daddy liked me. Because he cared enough to want me to be adopted even though he’d have been sad if I’d left.”
Max stared up at her, blinked drowsily in response.
“And even though your daddy’s not here now to help us,” she continued as she pulled the now empty bottle out of his mouth and sat him up on her lap to burp, “we’re going to succeed because that’s what he’d want for us. That’s right. He loved us so much and he’d want us to be happy, Max, so—”
A prickling sensation slid over her and she turned her head, startled to discover Joe stood in the doorway watching her, one shoulder propped against the casing. How long had he been there?
“Sorry. I didn’t want to speak up and chance waking him,” h
e murmured.
“He’s not asleep yet.”
Obviously uncomfortable, Joe glanced over his shoulder into the kitchen behind him. “Wilson ordered me in here because he said time was wasting and you’d want to be the one to show me around.”
Max let out a burp that rivaled a volcanic eruption, but more surprising was the sound of Joe’s deep chuckle. What was it with guys and bodily functions?
“Good one, Max.” She kissed his cheek and neck a couple times as she carried him over to the crib. “Hopefully a full tummy and no sleep will make for a long nap.”
She lowered Max to the mattress and snuggled him up with his favorite stuffed toy and a light blanket, aware of Joe behind her in the doorway.
“There you go. Go to sleep, bugaboo.” She smoothed her hand over his head. “Behave for Grandpa Wilson and have good dreams.”
Ashley turned and faced her handyman with a self-conscious sigh. Back to business. “Okay, well,” she said, forcibly pulling herself from the past and her memories of Mac and focusing on the overwhelming job at hand, “the most important thing needing fixed is the roof. I’m sure you noticed the water spots in the kitchen? Once the roof’s taken care of, the damage from the leaks needs to be repaired. I already know some of the Sheetrock will have to come down and I thought while we’re at it, the pipes and wiring should be checked out just to be safe. The other major job is updating the kitchen, but the rest of the house mostly needs only minor repairs. I’ve got a list already made up.”
With one last glance down at a sleepy Max, she crossed the room and ignored the way Joe seemed to jump back a step to get out of her path. In the kitchen she asked Wilson to keep an eye on Max and grabbed her ongoing list from a drawer.
“Thought maybe you might’ve at least fixed some pudding for dessert.”
She shook her head. “Sorry, Wilson. Maybe tonight.” She read over the list to remind herself of what all needed to be done while the old man grumbled about not getting his sweet tooth appeased.
She turned and reentered the living room. “Here’s the list,” she said softly, noting Joe now stood over the crib. “I’m not sure where to start after the roof’s fixed though. Maybe you can figure out a better order of things.”
When Joe didn’t respond or step near, she looked up. “Joe?”
No response. Frowning, she edged a step or two to one side to get a better view of his face and gasped. He looked…pained. Devastated?
She crossed the room in an instant and after seeing for certain Max was okay, she laid her hand on Joe’s arm. He flinched.
“Is something wrong?”
He shrugged, his face pale. “No. Nothing.”
“Are you sure?” she pressed. “You’re staring at Max like—”
The expression on Joe’s face hardened to one of careful indifference. “Where did you get that crib?”
She looked down at where Max lay. His little mouth now moved rapidly in a sucking motion, his eyes closed. Just above him, on the head of the wooden crib, someone had painted an angel hovering over a sleeping baby, protecting and loving. Guarding. She liked to think the angel was Mac, watching over his son.
“I took it from one of the rooms,” she whispered. “The books said it’s best if children have normalcy in their routine and with me working so much, I put Max in the crib here during the day so Wilson can keep an eye on him, and in his crib in the nursery at night.”
“The crib was part of my father’s things. He made it for…me.”
“Oh.” She swallowed, uneasy. “I’m sorry. I thought it was Wilson’s. He sold me the furnishings with the house and I didn’t realize— He never said a word when I brought it in.”
“Forget it, it’s fine. It’s a beautiful piece of woodwork and it should be used.”
“Maybe with permission, but when you saw it you probably thought—”
“Forget it,” he repeated, his voice rough. “I was surprised, that’s all. Where’s that list?”
She held the paper out and without a word, Joe took it and walked away. He continued on into the kitchen and passed Wilson along the way. Ashley hesitated in case Wilson needed her help getting positioned in his recliner after being up on his feet so long, but once Wilson’s slippered feet were propped up on the footrest, his clicker in his hand and his glasses perched on his nose, she told herself to quit stalling.
Joe stood looking outside the kitchen door, but he glanced over his shoulder at her as she entered the room, his expression closed and devoid of the many emotions she’d seen moments earlier.
“What rooms have water spots?”
“The far corner here in the kitchen. And also the bedroom above where the roof lines meet. I haven’t seen any others, so hopefully the problems are confined even though the whole roof definitely needs to be replaced.”
He nodded, his hand on the screen door. “I’ll go check it out. Those clouds rolling in don’t look good so the rest of the list and tour will have to wait.”
“There are tarps in the truck, passenger side.”
Ashley watched him leave the house, antsy, uneasy, wanting to help. And wondering why a baby crib bothered Joe so much.
* * *
ONCE HE’D CALMED DOWN, Joe came to the realization it wasn’t seeing the crib that had upset him—it was seeing Max in the crib.
One minute he was standing in the doorway waiting for Ashley to return and the next, he was staring down at the baby boy, frozen and panicked because he wasn’t sure if Max had closed his eyes and fallen asleep—or stopped breathing.
So much for the CPR class he’d taken in prison.
Job or no job, staying here wasn’t a good idea.
“Joe?”
Ashley’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts and he turned, surprised to find her balanced on the ladder instead of on the ground below.
“What can I do?”
He finished securing the tarp into place, all the while thinking there weren’t many women in the world who’d climb up on top of a house in the midst of a brewing storm to assist her hired help repair a roof.
“Nothing, get down!”
The wind whistled through the trees and grew stronger with every passing second. It had already sprinkled and thunder rumbled in the distance. There was such a charge to the air, Joe knew it was only a matter of time before the clouds really opened up.
He eyed the loose shingles that had already pulled away from the tar paper beneath and frowned. No way were they going to make it, but there wasn’t anything he could do about them now.
“You can’t do this alone,” she shouted back from where she crouched near the ladder. “Let me help! It’ll be faster if we work together!”
Head low, he scrambled across the roof toward her and tossed a hand up toward the sky. “Look, Mrs. Cade, I don’t mean any disrespect but you’ll get hurt! Go back inside and see if there are any tornado warnings!”
She blinked at him, her eyes widening even more. “And leave you up here? No! Let’s fix that tarp and we can both get off this roof! Look, I’m sorry about the crib, okay? I’ll get another as soon as I can, but I can’t afford to lose the only handyman willing to work for me and what I can afford to pay him so stop being stubborn and let me help you!”
Joe raised his brows at her tone, but one glance told him the storm was nearly on them and he’d wasted precious time arguing with her.
He’d gotten the first tarp in place with no problems, but the last one over the bedroom was tricky because it needed to go on the back part of the house where all the angles V’d together. And with the wind blowing against him, he couldn’t anchor the sections into place without help.
Joe locked his jaw and ignored the urge to order her inside again. So he did the next best thing and made his bossy boss sit on the tarp with her legs outstretched to keep her from falling while holding the tarp down.
He handed her some of the rope he’d found on the porch and showed her how to thread the rope through the grommet rings unti
l he had enough to descend the ladder and tie the tarp to cinder blocks on the ground.
The outward facing side covered, he made several more trips up the ladder with more cinder blocks to hold down the rest, and all the while Ashley crawled along the roof on her hands and knees, her glorious rear end in the air.
Joe ignored her as best he could as he carried the last of the blocks up the ladder and joined her midway across the roof. He helped her fan out the heavy-duty blue plastic until it met the base of a windowless wall. While she held it in place, he anchored the tarp.
“Will it hold?”
“Yes—now go!”
Rain streamed down and pelted them with sharp needles of water as the wind kicked up yet another notch. Thunder rumbled directly overhead. They’d pressed their luck too far as it was, and Joe knew it. This wasn’t a normal storm. Someone somewhere had a tornado on their hands. He just hoped it wasn’t about to descend on them.
Balance was precarious for both of them as they made their way down the rain-slickened plastic toward the ladder. Joe held onto Ashley’s arm to steady her, but found the help went both ways when his boots lost traction.
Lightning snapped, the flash illuminating the purple-darkened sky and giving their position on the roof an otherworldly quality.
“Let me go first so I can help you if you—” His boot slipped again and Joe lunged into a crouch, instantly letting go of Ashley so he wouldn’t take her with him. He slid down the roof, grappled for something to stop him, then managed to grab onto a block and find a foothold almost simultaneously.
If Ashley had planned on arguing, his slide silenced her. He looked up to see her on her butt trying to edge down toward him, concern apparent in her wide-eyed stare. Joe gripped the ladder and carefully swung himself around. He descended a few rungs, then waved to her to get on. Ashley glanced up at the sky, squared her shoulders.