by Eden Butler
Red muttered under his breath but didn’t stick around. He was gone and peeling down the street before the crew could gather what remained of their lunch.
“Miss Warren, we apologize for the delay,” I told Piper, sending her an exaggerated tip of my Stetson that made her grin before I turn to my crew. “I need somebody on that roof before the roofers get here at two.”
“We got you,” Maddox said, slapping the arm of a younger guy that might have been his brother. “Don’t worry about it.”
The crew dispersed and I returned toward the front porch, glancing at Piper when she moved back down the front steps, bypassing a guy that looked to be a delivery driver carrying a brown package, as she headed toward the small cottage near the edge of the property she’d been using to store plants and flowers she’d used as a make shift greenhouse.
With Red gone things should have gone smoother. No one else on the crew seemed to have a problem with me, and he’d always been the instigator when it came to shit talk that I’d overhear walking around the site.
It should have been a good workday. Things should have gone off without a hitch. But you can’t be in a town like Midland, around people like the ones that lived here without pissing someone off. Small towns typically held small minds and Sam Travis was the smallest.
He always was possessive as hell.
“What are you doing, Mescal?” I heard over my shoulder and stood, a drill in my hand.
Sam held the small brown package the driver had delivered under his arm and had a look on his face that told me enough about what he’d seen of me and Red’s run-in. Likely, probably what he’d made of the small smile Piper had given me because of it.
But he was also her business partner and, for some God-only-knows reason, her best friend. If I wanted to finish the job and have another chance at that almost-dancefloor-kiss that left me aching for her, I had to keep things civil with the man.
“Don’t know what you mean.”
He was a dumpy sort, not really out of shape, but not remotely fit. But Sam had a little heft to him that might make him seem like a threat if he got riled up enough. He seemed inching toward that as he stepped to me, his cheeks going red and his eyes narrowing so that I could barely make out the blue of his irises.
“You think I don’t see the game you’re working on her?” His laugh was short, humorless and had a bit I took as a warning. “Give me a break. You and her? It’s never gonna happen so you may as well give up right here and now.”
I knew the look on the man’s face. I’d seen it a dozen times in this town. Disgust. Disappointment. The assumption that I was like my old man: a drunk. A loser. Someone no one could depend on. Someone that couldn’t be trusted. But from Sam, that look went deeper. It meant something entirely different.
“Seems to me,” I tried, gripping the drill between my fingers, “if you’d wanted to change things, you would have, a long damn time ago.”
He didn’t seem to like that. His face paled and he took a step back; eyes widening, shifting like he wanted to make sure no one had heard me.
I took the advantage I had, but wouldn’t be cruel. Not with Sam. “I’m not working some kind of game on her. I promise.” I shrugged, hoping he could see the truth in what I had to say. “I like her. Honestly. That’s all there is.”
Sam curled his top lip and a small twitch worked under his right eye. “You promise? Since when does that matter? How many promises have you made to people in this town? How many of those promises got broken? You promised that judge you wouldn’t mess up after you trashed Mrs. Warren’s office, didn’t you? Then you broke into Tillson’s store. Your promises mean shit.” He stepped to me so close I could make out the scent of coffee and butterscotch on his breath. “But her? Hell no. If it’s the last damn thing I do, you won’t break a single promise to her because I’ll make sure you won’t make any.”
Three weeks later, the roof was done, Sam was still shooting warning glares at me every chance he got, and both Piper and I had kept so busy there hadn’t been time for more than a few passing smiles and one or two words about the projects that needed handling. Not much room for almost-anythings with her so when Evie and Alex sent me a text asking me over to dinner at the small rental they’d scored on the edge of the historic center of town, I saw it as a welcome break.
Widow Shannon had lived in the tiny cottage for as long as anyone could remember and died two summers ago, leaving the place in a mess, and the rent cheap enough that a little clean up and Alex’s skill made it seem like a bargain. I pulled into the drive, my body aching from the week of work I’d put in on Piper’s B&B and my head in a muddle from avoiding the woman herself just to keep the peace on the site. My crew had watched closely, sizing me up, I guessed to see if I was gonna make a move on Piper like Red accused. And, when they weren’t looking away from their work to get in my business, Sam was there, diverting Piper’s attention, making sure there was never a time when we were alone.
I’d decided to keep myself busy and not bother with any of the drama. There was a job I’d promised to do, and now that Alex was back, I’d hand it over to him to get it finished.
But a half hour into dinner, my brother-in-law lowered a bomb, one that I didn’t see my way past avoiding.
“You don’t mind, do you?”
He had a smile like his sister’s, though his wasn’t as sweet. In fact, it was annoying to see it on the man, and I figured it was that dimple in his cheek and the crooked twist of his mouth, so similar to Piper’s that had won my sister over.
I scrubbed my face as Evie handed me another soda, and Alex’s stupid crooked grin got wider. I took a drink, tapping the can when my sister went to walk away. I didn’t miss the dip of her eyebrows or how she lowered in the seat next to me, her expression concerned.
I waved off that worry with a shake of my head. I took my time, looking around the place, taking in the mark of my sister around the small room—how she hadn’t shaken off much of the rodeo kid she’d been. There were still Western influences around the place like the fake cowhide rug under the farmhouse dining table, the horse bits that held curtains away from the window, but there were some hints of the pair of them together, maybe of who they’d be when they shook off their age and the newness of their marriage. The pictures sitting on the hand-scrapped oak mantel were of our grandparents and me and Evie when we were kids; a few of Piper and Alex, some of the bunch of them at a powwow I hadn’t been around to attend. There was a large shadowbox in the front room near the bookshelf I knew Alex had built himself that held the outfit Evie wore the night she won Nationals in Vegas. Still, even I had to admit, as small as the place was, as poor as the pair of them were, it fit them.
“That’s a massive job,” I said, not hurrying with my soda. “And you want me to stay on Piper’s job while you hire a totally new crew to work on a new development two towns over?”
“Hell yeah, I do.” Alex leaned forward, his elbows on the table, feet bouncing against the floor. “We pull this off and we could bid on bigger jobs. Much bigger jobs.”
“Tasso wants to retire,” Evie said, twisting her body toward me. “And…eventually, I want to open a ranch, you know that. I could do lessons and house boarders. It’s my dream.”
“But we need a lot of money for both of those things to happen and small reno jobs here and there and Evie’s gig managing the animal shelter isn’t going to get us there.” Alex leaned back, watching me, moving his hand over his mouth. “You got a problem with Piper’s site? I know she can be a pain in the ass—”
“It’s not her. She’s…” From the corner of my eye, I spotted my sister’s raised eyebrow but ignored it, knowing she probably had a thing or two to say about my interest in her sister-in-law that her husband might not like. “I just want to make sure you’re not…taking on…too much.”
“Well, that’s bullshit,” Evie said, not quieting when I glared at her. “Oh, give it a rest. If he doesn’t see it then he’s blind.”
“Who’s blind?” Alex said, looking between us.
“Evie…” My typical big brother glare didn’t work, and my sister’s laugh got louder. “Shit’s sake…”
“What am I missing?”
“My God, baby…” Evie grabbed Alex’s hand, kissing his knuckles. “You are thick.” She smiled when the man tilted his head. “Piper and Ed…they’re feeling each other. Didn’t you see them at the wedding?”
“I only saw you at the wedding, baby.”
I rolled my eyes at the look Evie gave her new husband and downed a bit of my bourbon when Alex sat up, slipping his hand away from Evie, folding his fingers together before he stared straight at me. No sense in denying anything. I knew what I wanted. Might as well let the man know it too.
I expected him to yell. The look on his face told me well enough that he was surprised, possibly pissed off by the revelation, but I didn’t expect what came next.
“You…you sure, man?” he said, flaring his nostril. “I mean, hell. She’s had that stupid little crush on you since she was fifteen.” He looked at Evie, a smile breaking across his face. “You remember that powwow in Albany? When Ed won the big purse for Fancy Dance?”
“Oh, God, I do!” Evie said, resting her hand on her chest. “Shit, we were babies.”
“Shit, the whole way home she talked about him. ‘Does he have a girlfriend, Evie?’” Alex pitched his voice, imitating a ridiculous version of his sister as a kid. “‘Do you think he’d like me if I was taller or prettier or had a bigger butt?’”
“Damn, I forgot about that,” Evie said, covering her face as she laughed. “She was rotten over you.”
“Man,” Alex said, head shaking. “And now you two…”
“Nothing is happening,” I tried, shaking my head when both of them got taken over by a fit of laughter. “You’re both useless.” The laughter increased when I grabbed my soda and moved out onto their front porch to slip into the small swing at the end of it.
The chain squeaked when I moved, the noise more soothing than the low song of the crickets chirping around the sunset lit sky and I tilted my head back, watching the clouds overhead, ignoring the sound of my sister’s voice as she spoke. She went on laughing and doing whatever bullshit thing it was that made her sound so damn happy.
A half hour later, I discovered what that thing was.
My soda gone and the can on the floor at my feet, I was getting sleepy, resting against the pillow on the swing armrest glancing to my left, past the ceiling, up at the darkened sky, trying to force out the thoughts I’d been having for weeks about Piper Warren and the temptation she’d become. I had no business thinking of her at all. She might not be off limits where Alex was concern, but to this town and the folk in it, I probably was.
But that didn’t seem to be a consideration when the swing stopped moving and I caught a hint of that rosemary and mint scent as it fell over me like a wave.
“You hiding out here?” she said, leaning on the porch rail, her smile easy and so damn sweet it almost made my teeth ache.
“She call you?” Piper would only commit to a shrug then one of those small grins of hers I was finding I liked so much. I let a long, slow breath move out of my mouth as I glanced through the front window, head beginning to ache when I spotted my sister and her husband peeking out through the glass. “Brat,” I called to her, throwing a pillow from the swing at the glass.
“Scooch over,” Piper said, pushing my leg aside to crawl onto the swing. She settled next to me, relaxing shoulder to shoulder, both of us slouching to fix our heads against the cushions at the back, giving us a perfect view of the constellations above. “When we were kids, Alex used to tell me stars were pinholes God made in the sky.”
“You believed him?”
“No,” she said, glancing at me. “But little sisters like to humor their big brothers.”
“Not my little sister.”
“Oh, she does.” Piper moved the swing, her feet against the porch floor, her knee touching mine and I liked the feel of our thighs pressed together. “You’d be surprised the things that we do for our big brothers without them knowing it.”
“Like?” When she didn’t answer, I turned toward her, spotting the grin on her face, seeing how it lowered, how she tugged her lower lip under her teeth. “Piper…”
“Like calling over women they think would be good for them.”
I let the quiet move around us, let the sweet smell of her hair, and her skin perfume the air because it relaxed me. I had no business with her, but I wanted to make Piper Warren my business. That thought scared me more than anything else ever had before.
“I’m not sure Evie knows what’s good for me.”
She turned her head, her gaze moving over my face, cool, composed until I thought my heart would jackhammer out of my chest. Then, Piper reached up to touch my face. Her soft fingers teasing the angles of my cheeks, moving along the slope of my chin. “I’m not sure you do either.”
“And you do?”
“Yeah,” she said, resting her palm against the side of my face. “I think I might.” She pulled me close and that jack-hammer beat was so fast now I got a little fuzzy-headed. “At least,” she said, “I wanna see if I do.”
“How do you…”
“Ed?” she said.
“Yeah?”
“Shut up and kiss me.”
No one was staring now. No one would interrupt and I took my time; a slow, soft movement that put our lips together, a brief press that felt like home and memory and all the good things I thought would erase my sins.
Eddie
Summer
“You were supposed to be done a month ago.” Sam had not let up. The man took every available excuse to complain or bitch about one thing or another, usually something I did, or something he thought I did.
The guy had always been obnoxious, even as a kid; that much hadn’t changed. Now though, he was territorial, and I guess I was infringing on what he thought was his place. But as spring turned those California breezes into summer heat, I found my temper for that asshole getting shorter. Every day he started pissing me off just a bit more with whatever complaint he invented.
Today, it was the siding on the side of the house.
“It should have been covered.” His face had gone purple as he yelled. Got close to indigo when I only watched him, not bothering to react. “The rain wasn’t a downpour and you’re damn lucky. But this is all still sloppy work.”
“I’ll fix the damage. You got my word.” It took everything in me to keep from jerking that asshole by the collar when he laughed at me.
“Yeah…like that means shit…”
The only thing that seemed to calm me on days when Travis was being particularly short to me, was knowing Piper would sneak back on the site when everyone else had begged off for the day to help me finish up odds and ends.
She spent most of her nights at my side, her long hair pulled back in a familiar ponytail that reminded me of the kid she’d been when I first met her, looking nothing at all like that girl to me now. There’d always be sawdust on the ends of her hair or paint stuck to her elbows, but neither one of us seemed to notice much else beyond the work we did together and the laughter that moved between us when we did it.
No one touched us—in the quiet of that old home, as we listened to vinyl records—a good mix from Dolly Parton to Led Zeppelin—on a record player that might have been nearly as old as the Victorian itself. Between all that work and cutting up, there were slow, long looks during the day and slower, longer kisses away from prying eyes that seemed to always be watching us. Small towns breed small minds and we didn’t seem far enough away from either of them. Except for the weekends when the workweek stress became too much. When we’d run away from our lives, from her family and the looks we got anytime we were together in town. When we’d cruise along the coastline trail to try and find the Point Reyes crater. Fierce
“Have you ever been?” she’d ask
ed, her eyes going all wide and eager when I mentioned the hidden amphitheater tucked back beyond Sculptured Beach’s south shoreline.
“Once. When I was a kid. My old man thought bringing me there would somehow make me a man.”
“Did it?”
“You know better than anyone it didn’t,” I’d confessed, shooting Piper a wink I hoped took the sad glint out of her eyes anytime I mentioned my father. “Especially not when I was only eight at the time.”
“We should try to find it.” It was a command I’d followed and we’d stolen away from Midland Grove every weekend for a month out to Point Reyes, to dim some of the ache the heat laid on us, away from the attention we got, from the head shakes and disappointment I suspected ran around in folks’ minds when they spotted us together.
But the tide was never low enough to reach the crater and we had to settle for the lighthouse views, sneaking past the security guards to climb along the steps to the top.
“We’re like pirates,” she’d confessed one Sunday afternoon when the fattest guard of the two manning the lighthouse made his stroll around the base of the structure.
“I don’t know so much about being a pirate.” She smiled against my neck when I squeezed her. “But maybe I could plunder your booty…if you ever let me.” Then Piper squealed, her laughter muffled by my lips when I kissed her.
It was another life we lived out on that beach, away from Midland.
But every Sunday afternoon when we drove home some of the shine from the weekend away seemed to dim and I wouldn’t see much of it again for another week.
Not with the crew throwing long looks my way anytime Piper stepped out of the Victorian to ask me about a timeline or add something else to the reno plan. Especially not when Sam was still doing his best to get between us.
“Hey, Ed,” Piper said, one Thursday around noon, her arms heavy with flooring samples. “You got a second for me to pick your brain?”
