“Oh god, don’t even joke about that,” I say with a rueful laugh. “Not with everything else this family’s got going on.”
“Tell me about it,” he says, his eyes squinting playfully and his mustache twitching. One thing I love about this family is its dark humor. It’ll get us through everything.
I shrug. “Maybe Thomas did it and didn’t tell you.”
Dad studies me for an uncomfortably long moment. “Yeah,” he says. “Thomas must have done it.”
He doesn’t believe that for a second. He knows I’m lying. We both know Thomas has neither the skill set nor the will to work on the cabin. No offense to my brother, but his gifts lie elsewhere.
“Anyway,” he says. “Better head back and see if your mom needs anything.”
I nod. “She’s had her breakfast and done her daily rehab exercises already. She’s in her favorite chair watching a Hallmark movie, all set for a game of Scrabble whenever you’re ready.”
He nods and gives me one of his signature salutes and turns the engine back on.
I wave goodbye and watch him head back up toward the house.
It’s not until I’m down at the main gate—where exactly zero cars are lined up waiting to get in—that I realize something.
Dad was out before sunrise.
Grak is not in the cabin.
Then who is in the wood shop?
Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no!
Dad’s wood shop!
I run after him, and I don’t stop to catch my breath. This is an unusual feat for me, a person who’s never considered herself a runner. When I reach the wood shop, the snowmobile is parked outside, and the machinery inside is still whirring away.
My heart in my butt, I stumble through the thick snow to the open door on the far side, totally unprepared for how I’m about to explain this situation to my dad. How does one explain to a man like my father that a giant, green stranger has helped himself to his precious and costly equipment?
My dad is going to kill someone.
I brace myself for what I’m about to find there.
Chapter Ten
Grak
Someone throws open the sliding door of the wood shop with a loud bang.
I look up from the table saw, where Ron is showing me how to cut the size planks he needs to fix one of the stalls that the horses kicked a hole into.
Ron was indeed surprised to find me in his wood shop, just as Ginger had predicted.
But he wasn’t angry.
I told him I was a friend of Ginger’s. He was taken aback, but then, when he saw the work I had done to replace the baseboards and wainscoting in the cabin, he seemed impressed.
Ginger is acting strange.
Breathlessly, she stumbles into the woodshed. “Dad,” she gasps. “I can explain everything.”
“You ought to explain why you never told me you had a gamer friend who knew woodworking,” Ron says.
A strange look comes over her face. “You’re…you’re not freaking out?”
