He pulled the leaves into neat piles and had the front yard finished before Jim made an appearance. “You don’t have to rake my leaves.” He leaned against the porch railing, those overalls and that gray T-shirt ever-present.
“I sure don’t.” Darren leaned the rake against the trunk of a tree and climbed the steps. Jim looked tired, and concern spiked in Darren’s chest. “You okay?”
“Had a bit of bronchitis,” he said, easing into his chair. “You want to carve today?”
“Yes, sir.”
Jim pointed to a basket in the corner. “Make me something nice.”
Darren chose a piece of wood and collected his knife from his glove box. He stroked the blade across the bark, the silence between him and Jim comforting and calming.
“So you’re seein’ Farrah again.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You like that woman a lot.” He wasn’t asking, and Darren had been honest with Jim and Corey before. He didn’t kiss and tell, but he’d used them as a sounding board, asked them questions about falling in love, relied on their support as if they were his parents.
“I’m in love with her.” He just said it right out loud for the world to hear. He hoped she was way back in the boutique, behind the fish tanks, so she didn’t hear.
“Corey was right then.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“She did.” Jim picked up his knife and selected a piece of wood. His shavings joined Darren’s on the porch. “I’m worried about you, bud.”
Darren slowed his knife and paused to look at Jim. “Why?”
“She broke your heart once before, and I can’t watch you go through that again.” The unadulterated love in his eyes made Darren’s chest tight, tighter.
“You’re like a son to me, Darren.” Jim’s knife went swish swish swish against the wood. “I want you to be happy.”
Darren stared at the older gentleman, pure love flowing through him. “You’re like a dad to me, Jim.”
Jim looked up and their eyes met. Darren felt everything for Jim he’d ever felt for his own father. He nodded and focused back on his wood. “She makes me happy,” he finally said, his throat quite narrow.
“You think this time she’ll see it through to the end?”
“She’s not a bad person,” Darren said, the need to defend her strong. “She’s….”
“Broken,” Jim supplied. “I know. We can see it.”
“She’s getting help.” The face he saw in his mind started to take shape. He nicked out a piece of wood for the eye on one side, then the other. “She’s fixing things with her parents, and she’s seeing a therapist every week now.”
She still didn’t tell him much, but Darren had employed every patient bone and cell and blood vessel he owned. It had only been a few weeks since her complete break-down in her kitchen. They never did eat the meatloaf, and he never had mashed the potatoes. She’d come out to the hammock with water pouring from every hole on her face, and he’d held her tight until she’d quieted.
Then he’d stayed for another hour. He’d tucked her into bed, fed her cat, and slipped out like a thief in the night. Problem was,it was his heart that had been stolen that night. He loved her, and he’d do anything to protect her, shelter her, ease her pain.
And he liked being her protector, loved the vulnerability she allowed herself to show only to him. He thought they really could make things work between them, given enough time.
“She just needs time,” Darren said aloud, as much for himself as for Jim.
“And you’ve got loads of that.”
“Yes, sir.” Darren held the face out to examine it. He added a few more lines for the hair and then he held it out for Jim to see. “This is my father.”
Jim stopped his carving and took the whittled face from Darren. He looked at the chin and then sized up Darren’s. “He looks a lot like you.”
“Me and Logan got most of his genes,” he said. “Ben and Sam looked more like my mother.”
