Her mood, giddy one moment, swung drastically at the knowledge that he’d probably run as far and fast as possible after last night’s intimacy. He wasn’t the type of man who could handle closeness like that. And yet…she thought of the way he’d accepted her late-night comfort, and a wave of affection ran through her. Yes, she wanted to help him, but it was more than that. So much more.
She finally drove home, wondering, unsure, excited, worried. And then she was there, and his truck wasn’t. It wasn’t until she caught sight of the bare, new boards in her front steps that she let herself hope he might have decided to stay.
* * *
It was Clay’s third trip to Blackwood BigValue Hardware, and the clerk—probably the owner, judging from his age and attitude—laughed right in his face as he pushed through the door.
“Just closin’ up for the night, son,” the man said. “You forget somethin’ else?”
“No, sir. Just switching projects.”
“Done with those steps?”
“Everything but the paint.”
That elicited an impressed pursing of the man’s lips, which gave Clay a burst of pride.
“Smart to let it cure first. What you got goin’ now?”
“Thought I’d start on the clapboard.”
“Whoa. You takin’ the whole thing down?”
“No, just a bit. Here.” He placed a rotten board on the guy’s counter.
“Gettin’ smarter, ain’t we?”
“Yep. Slow learner. But it sinks in eventually.”
“Got some of this out back in the lumberyard. How much you need?”
“’Bout a dozen.”
“Where’d you say this house is?”
“Didn’t.”
“Wouldn’t be Dr. Hadley’s place, would it? Over on Jason Lane?”
Before Clay could answer, the man went on. “Nice woman, the doc. Down at the IGA one day, and she come up to me at the register and tole me I needed to go and see someone, what with the spot I had right here.” He pointed at the top of his shiny, bald head. “Saw me that day. Cut the dang thing out and all. Turned out to be a melanoma, and we caught it good and quick. Darn good woman, that doc.”
He eyed Clay in a way that wasn’t quite as benevolent as it had been before, the big wad of snuff in his cheek making him look like an angry chipmunk. An angry, old chipmunk. “You take good care of that house, now,” he said, but the subtext was obvious. Replace house with woman and the man was warning him clear as day.
After he’d loaded everything into the back of his truck, Clay went back inside to pay. Halfway to the register, his eyes landed on a bag of heavy-duty zip ties. He threw those onto the counter and waited as the man rang him up.
As he reemerged onto the sidewalk with the old man, Clay let his eyes take in the town around him. Closing time. The people of Blackwood were headed home for the day—like Whos in Whoville. The poor fuckers had no idea. No idea.
A few feet farther up the walk, a door opened, and three figures emerged. Clay recognized two of them instantly as the little shits who’d attacked George his first weekend here, but it took them a bit longer to notice him standing there. Beside him, Clay felt the energy from the hardware store guy—nervous, edgy, and clearly unhappy. Everything shifted when the punks caught sight of him and stilled, frozen like deer in the headlights.
“Going somewhere?” he asked, almost smiling at their reactions—the fear, the hatred, the childish bravado.
“No, sir” came the reply, finally, and the three kids turned to walk away, fast.
“Great day,” said the man beside him. “You wouldn’t be the one who beat the crap outta those two the other night, would you?” When he didn’t answer, the hardware store man spat a long, brown stream of saliva into the gutter before going on, looking Clay up and down through eyes that had grown distinctly friendlier. “Git on now, son. See you tomorrow.”
The man’s words followed Clay to his truck, and he whistled—actually whistled aloud—on the short trip home. It wasn’t until he was about halfway there that he realized he’d started thinking of George’s place as home. Christ, he was in trouble.
When Clay pulled up to George’s, her car was there, and the house was open.
