Lucy McConnell's Snow Valley Box Set

by Lucy McConnell

  It didn’t take long to install the floor joists, and soon they moved on to the decking.

  “Have you used this material before?” Chet asked as he knocked on the Trex board. It did appear flimsy under his strong hand.

  Mercedes bristled. “We use it all the time in Boston. It holds up well against the snow and it doesn’t have to be stained.”

  Chet considered her answer, and Mercedes turned away. She didn’t want to argue about it. Besides, he shouldn’t care; it was her porch, not his.

  “Then why did we buy stain?” asked Aiden.

  “For the frame and joists. They’ll need to be protected. But, before we do that…” Mercedes pulled a black marker out of her back pocket. “We need to sign it.”

  She wrote her name and the date on the inside of a floor joist. “The names won’t show, but this is an O’Shay family tradition.” She finished with a flourish. “Your turn.” She handed the pen to Aiden, who took his time drawing an old fashioned handsaw and writing his name inside. He turned to Mercedes looking for approval, and she offered him a fist bump.

  Aiden passed the marker to Chet, who simply wrote his first name. “This reminds me of a program I saw once on Ancient Egypt. Did you know they found graffiti in the pyramids?” Chet asked.

  “They did?” Mercedes pointed at the board. “Last name and date, please. This is for history.”

  Chet bent over and wrote while he talked. “Yeah, a couple of years ago they sent a robot camera into one of the places they thought was just a dead end and got back images of writing. They think it was the names of the people who worked on the temple.”

  “That’s awesome.” A horrible thought crossed Mercedes’s mind, and she turned to Aiden before she missed her opportunity to warn him. “Don’t draw on stuff at school.”

  Aiden held up both of his hands. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  She flipped back to Chet, a question burning. “Does that mean the slaves that built the temples were literate?”

  Chet looked surprised at her question, or maybe he was surprised that she cared about the pyramids. “They could at least write their names. Some of them had to be knowledgeable in writing because they inscribed the outsides of the tombs and such. But there are theories that the Egyptians, not their slaves, did the actual building.”

  “True.” Mercedes gave him a smile. Chet’s broad knowledge base was a good match for Mercedes’s. “How’d you know that?” she asked.

  Chet rolled a nail between his fingers. “I read it somewhere.”

  “Like in National Geographic?”

  Chet dropped the nail. “Yeah.”

  “I love Nat Geo. My dad has a subscription.” She laughed. “He has to hide it until he’s done reading or Cat and I take off with it.”

  Aiden shook his head. “You guys are geeks.”

  “Thank you.” Mercedes gave him a little bow. “Geeks rule the world.”

  “No way.” Aiden bumped her with his shoulder.

  “Yes, way. Who do you think invented the computer? The cell phone? The internet? Geeks.”

  “No.”

  “Yeah huh.” Mercedes countered.

  Aiden looked from one to the other as if he expected them to take it back. Mercedes decided not to push the point too much.

  Chet caught her eye and gave her a smile that let her know he agreed with what she’d said, and it made her forget why she had a drill in her hand. After a moment, she remembered that she was supposed to be screwing in the stair treads. Why did she keep spacing out when Chet was around? It made her angry at herself.

  Using her anger, Mercedes finished the stairs in record time.

  “I like the way the material holds together; very smooth,” said Chet as he finished setting his last screw.

  Mercedes relaxed. He may not have been convinced that Trex was the best choice, but he’d given it a fair shot and then admitted it was good.

  The sun was still high in the sky thanks to the long summer days. Mercedes offered the guys a drink and they all went around the house to the back door. “I wish I had more to offer than a drink and some cookies. Cat was supposed to make dinner tonight, but she must be all caught up in kneading dough or something.”

  “I could eat cookies for dinner,” said Aiden.

  Mercedes reached up and brushed the sawdust off Aiden’s hair. He stepped away and shook like a dog, sending up a cloud.

  Chet laughed.

  “You’re not much better.” Mercedes brushed Chet’s shoulder and then down the front of his shirt, getting rid of the accumulated dust. Chet’s hands reached out as if he were going to place them on her waist, and Mercedes paused. She lifted her chin, and when their eyes met, the whole atmosphere charged with sparks that raced across Mercedes’s skin.

  Was she stepping into his arms or trying to stay out of them? Chet was an enigma, this man who shod horses and talked of Egyptian temples. Life would never be boring with him around. She dug her fingers into the hair on the back of his head. Chet closed his eyes and leaned in.

  Aiden cleared his throat dramatically, and Chet and Mercedes jumped apart.

  She looked down at her hands as if they’d betrayed her, then hurried into the house and let the screen door slam behind her.

  Get. A. Grip.

  Pressing her cool fingers to her warm face, she worked to calm her racing heart. She’d had butterflies around a guy before, but Chet took things to a whole new level. This was ridiculous. She was ridiculous. She determined she needed to feed the two of them and get them out of her house before she did something really stupid—like fall for the guy.

  Aiden put his hand up to stop Chet from following Mercedes through the back door. “Dude, what was that?”

  Chet shook his head. “I’m not sure.”

  “Are you into her?” Aiden asked, his voice eager.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Dude, you are so into her.” Aiden offered him a fist bump.

  Chet put up his hands. “Calm down. This isn’t high school.”

  Aiden deflated.

  Chet felt bad for minimizing him. “I might kind of be interested…”

  Aiden’s head came up.

  “But I’m pretty sure she’s not interested in me, so let’s just drop it.”

  “She was totally checking you, Uncle Chet.”

  “She was?”

  Aiden jerked his chin. “Totally. Come on. I’m starving.”

  This time it was Chet who stopped Aiden. “Not a word,” he warned.

  “Dude, I’m cool.” Aiden squared his shoulders and went in first.

  Chet hesitated a moment, wondering if it was possible that he’d misread Mercedes. Would she … could she be interested in him? He’d certainly felt something when she was close, like he was wearing a shirt full of static electricity. He’d almost put his hands on her hips and pulled her in. All day they’d been working together, guessing the other’s needs and predicting their movements. When she’d picked up one end of a board, he was there to get the other. When he needed a level, she handed it to him before he asked. He thought it was just because she knew what she was doing, but now he wondered if it was more than that.

  He hurried into the kitchen, hoping his tardiness wouldn’t make things awkward. Aiden was already into the cookie jar on the table, and Mercedes was leaning into the ancient fridge. How that thing still worked was beyond him.

  “We’ve got soda, milk, orange juice, cranberry juice, or water,” she told them.

  “Milk,” answered Chet and Aiden at the same time.

  “It goes best with cookies,” clarified Chet.

  “Agreed.” Mercedes pulled the milk out of the fridge and three glasses from the cupboard.

  “Hey, leave some for the rest of us.” Chet nudged Aiden, who had a handful of cookies.

  “What? There’s tons.”

  Chet gave him a look, but Mercedes said, “He needs to eat a lot; this is dinner.” She handed Aiden a plate. “Don’t tell your mom all I fed y
ou was cookies; she’ll think I’m a bad influence.”

  “They have oatmeal in them.” Aiden smiled.

  “That’s exactly what I told myself when I ate them for breakfast,” said Chet. He took a big bite of a cookie and smiled.

  Mercedes rolled her eyes as she handed out glasses of milk. The sound of tires on the gravel driveway brought her head up. She threw a panicked look at Aiden. “It’s your mom!” They were going to get caught eating cookies for dinner.

  Aiden shoved two more cookies in his mouth and downed the entire contents of his glass.

  Mercedes hurried to the front door with Chet close behind. She stepped out on the porch and Chet came up behind her, close enough that their arms brushed and his skin buzzed.

  Cat and Whitney inspected the new porch.

  “Looks great,” Cat grinned. “You guys got a lot done.”

  Whitney frowned. “I thought I told you to build a railing,” she said to Chet.

  Mercedes jumped in to defend him. “I got to looking at the floorboards and they were in bad shape. We ended up tearing the whole thing out and starting from scratch. The railing shouldn’t be too hard. Cat and I can do it tomorrow.”

  There was a loud yell from the kitchen, followed by Aiden calling for Chet and Mercedes.

  They ran in to find water shooting in all directions as Aiden used his hands to try and stop the spray from the broken faucet. Chet grabbed a dishtowel and jumped in to help deflect the stream.

  “Turn it off!”

  “I tried; the knob broke!” Aiden yelled back.

  Mercedes dropped to her hands and knees and squeezed between the two, forcing her way under the sink. After a few seconds more, the water trickled off. Chet backed away from the sink with his hands out, just in case it went off again. Aiden moved and Mercedes scooted out from under the cupboard. Her back was soaking wet, and her hair dripped. Darn it all if she didn’t look beautiful when she was half drowned.

  Aiden wiped the water off his face and Chet shook out his hands. Whitney and Cat stood in the doorway, staring at the three of them like they were a pack of wild animals invading the kitchen instead of the rescue crew diving in to save the day.

  Aiden handed Mercedes the knob to the faucet. His eyes were huge, like he couldn’t believe what had just happened. “It just came off.”

  Mercedes took one look at the knob in his hand and started to laugh.

  Poor Aiden. It would be him who broke the sink.

  “I guess we owe you a faucet too.” Whitney’s sigh was chock full of memories of all the other things Aiden had broken over the years. He wasn’t a klutz. On the contrary, he had a lot of natural grace, especially on the football field. He just had bad luck.

  “At this rate ...” Mercedes wiped at her eyes. She’d laughed so hard she’d cried. “You’ll end up buying us a new house.”

  “Aiden Michael Bauer, I swear you are a disaster waiting to happen.” Whitney put her hands on her hips.

  Mercedes looked at Aiden with fondness. She waved her hand. The kitchen sink was no big deal. Truth be told, she’d trade a hundred sinks for a kid like Aiden. He was priceless. “It’s not his fault this place is falling apart. There’s a reason we came out to fix it up.” Mercedes moved to get up and both Chet and Aiden offered her a hand.

  “I guess he’ll be back tomorrow to help fix the sink.”

  “That would be great. I’m sure it was just a broken washer or a rusted bolt.” She smiled at the two of them and let them help her to her feet. “If you want, I’ll wait to finish the railing until you get here,” she said to Aiden.

  “Yeah. I’d like to see how it comes together.”

  “Great.”

  Water trickled down her face and Chet brushed it away. He didn’t think about what he was doing until his fingers touched her velvet cheek. He pulled his hand back quickly, hoping to avoid another air-crackling moment with more witnesses.

  “I should get going.” He took a step back and bumped into Aiden. “I have to … um … feed the horses.” He looked around the room. The fastest exit was out the back door. “Thanks for dinner.” He glanced at the cookies he hadn’t had a chance to eat and earned a knowing grin from Mercedes.

  “I’ll help,” said Aiden. “Mom, will you pick me up at Uncle Chet’s?”

  “Yeah—try not to break anything while you’re there.” She stopped him for a hug, and he gladly accepted it. Whitney might come down hard on the kid, and Aiden did try her patience, but she loved him like crazy.

  Chet hurried out to his truck.

  Aiden hopped in the passenger seat and Chet fired up the old engine.

  “Are you coming back tomorrow?”

  Chet considered it. “I wasn’t invited. You were.”

  “Mercy would have asked you if you hadn’t run off so fast.”

  “I don’t think so. She got kind of angry when I …” Chet stopped before he could say “almost kissed her.”

  “She wasn’t angry at you.”

  “How could ya tell?”

  Aiden shrugged. “I don’t know. I just can. She wasn’t yelling at you or anything. It’s more like she’s a horse that’s been whipped and is skittish.”

  Chet slammed on the brakes and they both flew forward. “You think she was abused?!” His hands gripped the steering wheel, twisting the leather cover.

  “Not whipped like that.” Aiden slid back in the seat and put on his seatbelt. “I mean, she got dumped or something. Her heart is, I don’t know, fragile.”

  “Huh.” Chet pressed the gas. He didn’t know what Mercedes’s life in Boston was like. For all he knew, she could have been married.

  “You should ask her out.” Aiden placed his hand on the dash to brace himself in case Chet slammed on the brakes again.

  “I don’t know if that will work. She doesn’t seem like she wants to date.” He flashed back to his humiliation in the IFA parking lot.

  “Then come over tomorrow.”

  “I think I’ll give her some space.”

  “That’s a bad idea, Uncle Chet.”

  Chet thought it was a brilliant idea. He would take his time getting to know Mercedes and not scare her off by asking her out again. When she was ready to date, he’d be there ready to ask. “Why?”

  “A girl that pretty won’t be single for long.”

  Chet felt a weight settle in his gut.

  Sam had already made a go for her, and there were several other guys in town that would take one look at Mercedes and want to snatch her up. Aiden was right, but Chet had no idea what he was supposed to do about it.

  Chapter 12

  After Chet and Aiden left, Mercedes cleaned up the water in the kitchen while Cat and Whitney brought in two loaves of homemade wheat bread, some pulled pork for sandwiches, and a container of potato salad.

  “Thanks again for the cooking lessons. I can’t wait to try it on my own. Maybe one day I’ll start a blog—like the ones Mercedes reads all the time about life in the country.”

  Whitney smiled. “It’s no big deal. I was making it anyway.” She put her arm around Cat. “It’s nice to have another girl in the kitchen. My boys are great, but I sure loved having someone who would listen to me go on and on about activating yeast.”

  They shared a laugh.

  Mercedes was happy that Cat had a good afternoon. The smell of fresh-baked bread filled the small kitchen, and her stomach rumbled. If she was hungry, she could only imagine how hungry Chet and Aiden were. She felt guilty for working them right through dinner and then only giving them a few cookies. There was more than enough food; perhaps she could sneak some down to Chet.

  Mercedes fished the truck keys out of her overalls and offered them to Whitney. “Thank you so much. I don’t know how we would have gotten everything here without the truck, and ...” She paused, being careful to say this right. “Aiden was a huge help. He worked hard and listened to instructions. I’m grateful he was here today.”

  Whitney’s eyes softened. “You don’t k
now how nice it is to hear that. He’s a good kid, but it’s a different world than I grew up in—sometimes I feel lost trying to help him stay on the Straight and Narrow.” She paused. “And he’s so darn sure he’s got a handle on it all, it makes me want to scream.”

  “Well, you’re obviously doing something right. I’d take five just like him any day.”

  Whitney wagged her finger. “Be careful what you wish for!” She took the keys and Cat walked her to the door.

  While she was out of the kitchen, Mercedes loaded a plate with two sandwiches and a huge helping of potato salad. She put several cookies in a zip-top bag and met Cat in the hall. “Can I take the car? Chet forgot ...” Her mind went over the possibilities. “A couple of his tools. I want to run them up to him.”

  “Sure.” Cat handed over the keys and went to the kitchen. “I’m going to write for a while. Take your time.” Cat’s tone implied that she knew Mercedes was giving her a pathetic excuse to see Chet again.

  Mercedes grinned, letting her know that yes, she was looking for a reason to see the guy, before hurrying out the door. As she sat in the driveway, waiting for Whitney’s truck to pull into Chet’s place, collect Aiden, and then travel on up the road, she wondered why she was so anxious to see Chet. The experiment worked: Chet had inspired her to want to paint again. The need had tugged at her while they were building and she’d had to put it off. She wanted it back. And the only way she knew how to get it was to be with Chet. So, she was off to his ranch with another plate full of food and a prayer that this would work.

  Balancing the heavy plate on her lap wasn’t easy on the bumpy road, but she managed to keep everything where it was supposed to be.

  The barn door was open, so Mercedes headed that direction first. The sound of metal on metal clanged rhythmically through the air. There was a pause, and then the noise started again. Mercedes peeked in the barn.