by Kim Law
Cal shook his head, so she let it drop. It was enough to know the two of them weren’t so different from each other, after all.
They began to talk then. About everything, but about nothing at all. Each told funny stories from different jobsites over the years, a tale or two about something goofy one of their friends had done, but neither ventured anywhere close to forbidden territory. As they swapped stories, Jill ended up shifted on the bench so that she could steal glances of him as he spoke. Cal had always had a way of capturing her attention, whether it was with his quick wit, his charm, or simply the strength in how he carried himself, and she found that nothing about that had changed. He had her attention now, whether he wanted it or not, and though she knew she shouldn’t be enjoying the moment as much as she was, she also couldn’t stop herself.
He cut a quick look down at her during a break in a story, and caught her watching him, and she grinned with guilt. Busted.
“Want to tell me what you’re thinking?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Probably just as well.” He picked something out of her hair. “You’re likely plotting revenge on me for tricking you into following me to the park tonight, anyway.”
“Probably.” She chuckled. But she knew he hadn’t tricked her. He’d been legitimately upset, and she’d authentically wanted to help. Even if her brand of helping only meant being with him.
She shifted so she couldn’t watch him anymore, elbows once again on the back of the bench, and tilted her face to the night sky. It was beautiful out there.
Water lapped gently near their feet. “Ever seen Aunt Blu drunk?” she asked.
She thought Cal might fall off the bench the way he jerked in his seat. “I can’t imagine Blu drinking, much less being drunk.” He turned to her. “How did you get her drunk? And when?”
Jill grinned, but kept her eyes on the sky. “We make her play whiskey rummy. She has game night at the house at least once a month. When there are no girls around, one of us often calls rummy before Aunt Blu can choose another game. She’s horrible at cards.”
“And the whiskey?”
Jill chuckled softly. “When someone gets rummy, everyone else takes a shot.”
“That’s brutal.”
“It’s fun.” She closed her eyes and felt the falling dampness whisper across her cheeks. “And it’s one of the things in my life that I most look forward to. Not because of the drinking, but the fact that Aunt Blu quits worrying about teaching us or taking care of us for a while. On those nights, she’s just one of us.”
She could sense Cal nodding in understanding. “I was happy to hear the three of you had come back,” he told her. “She missed you.”
Jill was certain she had. Though she, Heather, and Trenton had only been foster daughters, Jill now understood that in a way they’d taken the place of Blu’s own children. They’d filled her need to be a mom. Their ages had been similar to Blu’s girls’ when the girls had died, and they’d always picked at each other—same as any other sisters would do.
And then they’d all left her.
“We missed her, too.” Jill blew out a breath. “Though I had no idea how much until I came home.” She cracked open her eyelids and peeked at Cal. His dark gaze was on her. “She misses you, too.”
His brows lifted.
“You were always around,” Jill continued. “Always a part of the family she’d replaced.”
Blu had a nephew who’d been sent to prison not long after she’d opened her home to others. He’d been found guilty of killing a man. It had broken Blu’s heart when Trey had been locked up. He’d been like a son to her. To Gerry, too, before Big Gerry’s death.
“When I finally came home,” Jill began, and then she cut off her words and intentionally broke eye contact. When she’d come home, though she’d been unaware of it at the time, she’d severed the relationship between Blu and Cal.
It had never occurred to her the two of them had stayed close during her absence, but then she’d run across Aunt Blu’s box of hand-carved saints. After getting hired to work at Bluebonnet Farms, Cal would carve out a different saint of the Catholic Church for Blu every Christmas. From a young age, he’d liked to make things with his hands. Both furniture as well as carvings, and he’d been good at it. There had been only four statues when Jill moved away, but they’d been displayed with pride in the corner of Blu’s china cabinet. Jill hadn’t thought about those figurines when she’d come home, but earlier this year, she’d been helping with spring cleaning, and she’d unearthed the box of them. Only, there had been sixteen saints in pristine condition, all tucked safely away in tissue paper.
Jill had questioned Aunt Blu about them, and while Blu admitted she and Cal continued exchanging gifts every year, she also kept the carvings put away so they wouldn’t upset Jill. Additionally, Blu had confessed that Cal used to visit her at least once a month. Until Jill had come back home.
“You should visit her,” she said now. “I know you used to. You didn’t have to stop.”
“I felt like she was yours,” he explained. “Like I shouldn’t get in the way of that.”
Jill nodded. She understood that, just as she’d gotten why Aunt Blu had kept her prized gifts from Cal hidden away. But Jill shouldn’t have allowed that to continue after she’d discovered them. She needed to rectify that. “Go see her,” she told him. “I know she’s always meant a lot to you.”
He didn’t respond at first, but finally he nodded, his eyes registering his gratitude. “Thank you for that. And I will.”
He motioned with his head. “Should we head back?”
“Probably.”
Jill got to her feet, and they strolled side by side the way they’d come in. No one else remained in the park, and singing insects, along with the water trickling over the rocks in the stream, made for a peaceful way to end the day. When Cal’s fingers brushed against hers, she thought about that moment earlier at the house when he’d taken her hands in his. It hadn’t even occurred to her, at first, to pull away.
He glanced down at her now. “Thank you for following me out here.”
She nodded in reply. He hadn’t asked her to come with him, but at the same time, she’d understood that he’d hoped she would.
“And for setting your anger aside long enough for us to take a walk.” He winked with his words. “This was nice.”
She smiled. “Yes, it was. And thank you for the hot dogs.” She bowed her head in a tiny curtsy, but then she shot him a crooked grin. “But don’t worry. I’ll find my anger again tomorrow.”
Both laughing, they made the turn toward the bridge as one, and as they walked under the trees that would empty them out of the park, she held her breath in a manner similar to when she’d been a child and her mother would drive over railroad tracks. She didn’t make a wish as she would have done back then, but she did appreciate the too-short moment of seclusion they’d had inside the park.
The second they cleared the trees, however . . . there was Len. Capturing the moment.
Neither of them broke stride or so much as glanced at the man—or the sound guy following them with a boom mic. They made a right on the other side of the bridge and headed for the houses, and as soon as they were out of earshot, Jill stepped in a little closer. “We totally should have asked for more money to do this show,” she whispered. “I had no idea how popular we would be.”
Cal tossed his head back and laughed, and they finished out their walk, both of them with smiles on their faces.
Chapter Eleven
“Let go of anger, and see what life can bring you.”
—Blu Johnson, life lesson #66
“I call that one.”
Cal glanced toward the door of the Buffalo Nickel, eyeing the woman his buddy Travis had just indicated was his, and silently acknowledged that Trav could do worse. The woman looked to be in her early twenties and wore a skintight red minidress with a zipper running the length of the front, oversized gold hoo
ps, and fuck-me heels. Chances were, she didn’t intend to go home alone that night. Might as well go with Travis.
“That one’s already taken,” Pete added from beside Cal.
“And how do you know that?” Travis asked, and Pete pushed back from the table.
“Because I’m taking her.”
Laughter followed Pete as he went after the woman, the tableful of men both ribbing Travis and encouraging Pete. The group of them had decided to take the Friday night to wind down. They all either worked directly for Cal or subcontracted for We Nail It from time to time, and each of them had been on the Cadillac project at some point over the last three weeks. It was straight down the middle of the road to the finish line, and they could all do with letting loose for one night. Cal included.
It had taken exactly two steps into the bar, however, for Cal to realize that he wouldn’t be relaxing at all that evening. Because his gaze had landed on a head of inky-black hair . . . that had been far too close to Doug Caldwell.
Cal took a drink of his water and cast a glance toward the back booth.
Yep. Still there. Still smiling.
Still making him want to show her that Doug wasn’t the man for her.
No wonder the twenty-five-year-old had declined Cal’s invite for the night out. Doug already had plans.
“Another round, boys?” their server asked. She smiled at Cal as she stopped at his elbow. It was Cinco de Mayo, and the bar was in full swing, but given that his wallet was open wide, their table had yet to find themselves wanting for alcohol.
“Make it a double.” A couple of the men raised their voices to be heard over the crowd.
Cal acknowledged the order with a nod of his head. Nothing for him, but he’d spring for another round for the table.
The server disappeared, and Cal watched as Doug talked Jill onto the dance floor for the third time. Heather and Len went out with them—they’d been occupying the other side of the booth with Jill—and as the music in the bar thumped out a popular pop hit, Cal thought about the night Jill had come over to the Cadillac House. There’d been music playing then, too. And she’d danced.
Nothing like the gyrations she had going on at the moment, though.
His back teeth ground together when Doug’s hands landed on the top curves of Jill’s hips. Doug didn’t pull her in close, though. Or maybe it was Jill who didn’t allow it. Either way, the touch was too much. Cal looked away. He couldn’t watch Jill with another man, no matter what he’d told himself for the last decade. And he certainly didn’t need to be present the night she finally decided the time had come to “get out there” again.
He’d asked her about dating the other day, but even though she’d avoided his question, he’d known the answer. She’d dated no one for the last five years. Or if she had, the guy hadn’t lived in Red Oak Falls. He’d watched for it. For a long time. It had been none of his business, and he’d been well aware of that fact. But that hadn’t kept him from keeping an eye out for her. Or wondering who filled her bed at night.
Yet in all that time, he’d never once seen her with another man. And though he’d had no right to care—the thought had pleased him way the hell too much.
The server showed back up with a tray of drinks, and after distributing them to the waiting hands, she also put a shot glass down for Pete. Pete hadn’t made it back to the table, though, and Cal spotted him in one of the darker corners of the bar. With the pool table at his back, Cal’s friend worked like the champ that he was, no doubt trying to talk the woman in the fuck-me heels into kicking those heels off under his bed tonight.
He’d likely succeed, too. The ladies were big fans of Pete’s.
Cal’s eyes landed on Jill once more, and he wondered how Doug was doing with his mission. Cal hoped he crashed and burned.
“What’s on tap for next week, boss?” Jacob asked as he changed seats and squeezed in next to Cal. Jacob was an eager twenty-two-year-old who would one day turn out to be a heck of an employee. He just needed to quit being such a suck-up first.
“You really want to talk work tonight, Jacob?” Cal motioned to the growing crowd. “Ask a woman to dance, why don’t you? Buy one a drink. Heck”—he motioned to the shot of tequila sitting next to him—“take Pete’s and hand it out. He’s not going to need it.”
The younger man seemed to sense Cal’s mood and backed off—quickly returning to his original seat—and Cal found himself eyeing the shot of tequila himself. Maybe he should down it.
If his father were there, he would. Just because he could.
His irritation swelled to full bloom then. His father had shown up in his head more times in that week alone than he had in the last year, and Cal had the woman on the dance floor, currently dancing with a man who was barely more than a boy, to thank for that.
He shoved Jill from his thoughts yet again and slid the shot of amber liquid over in front of him. Tequila had been his liquor of choice the night his dad had gotten the call to pick up his only son at the hospital. Friends had dropped Cal off, passed out drunk, at the emergency room, before hightailing it out of the parking lot. Thankfully, after the hospital staff had dragged his inebriated ass inside, they’d chosen to call Cal’s father instead of the police.
Cal had been fifteen that night, and the conversation the following morning had not been a pretty one. It had also only encouraged Cal to drink more. Why not? he’d thought. His dad didn’t give a shit about him, anyway. Neil Reynolds had been more worried about “what people would think” than about why Cal had been drowning himself in a bottle in the first place.
Hell, if Cal were to drown today—bottle or not—his father would likely still be more concerned about people’s perceptions.
Someone stumbled on the dance floor, a whoop going up as several others were taken down with the offender, and Cal slowly turned his gaze to follow the action. It wasn’t the same area where he’d last seen Jill—but he knew who he’d find there.
Rodney Reynolds got tugged back to his feet as Cal watched, blowing the ordeal off as he always did. “No big deal. I just tripped. Let me buy another round.”
Everyone returned to their partying ways, accepting the free drink from their favorite supplier, and Cal pushed the shot of tequila back over to Pete’s seat. Cal hadn’t had a drop of anything since the first night he’d had to go rescue Rodney. It worried him, how much his uncle drank. It had worried him for years. But Rodney seemed to be heading for a really bad place these days, and the speed at which he was getting there was only accelerating.
Cal had no idea what else he could do for the man, other than continue to try to hide the problem. He took note of how many pairs of eyes were currently turned on his uncle, though, and accepted that Rodney’s issues hadn’t been hidden in a long time.
He also had the thought that Rodney wasn’t quite as different from his brother as Cal had always imagined. Neil Reynolds cared about himself, work . . . and anything more than Cal. But then, Rodney would sell his only nephew up the river for a pint of Wild Turkey.
It made Cal wonder how different he was from the two of them.
He looked at Jill again. He’d certainly dumped her in a fast hurry when a choice had to be made.
Pete and the woman wove their way back through the crowd, stopping at the table long enough for Pete to hand over the shot of tequila to the brunette. As she tossed it back, Pete leaned in toward Cal. “You okay if I get out of here?”
Cal shot him a confused look. “Of course. Have a good time.”
Pete nodded. “But I’m not asking if I can leave, so much as if I need to stay.”
Cal had no clue what he was talking about, and then Pete shifted his gaze until it locked on Jill.
Ah. Pete had been watching Cal watch Jill.
“I’m good,” Cal assured the other man. He nodded toward Pete’s date. “You go.”
Pete’s gaze flicked to the woman, who was currently undressing him with her eyes, and when she caught Pete looking, her
lips began to curve. They continued their upward tilt, her gaze heating at the same degree that her red lips teased, until all conversation at the table came to a halt. And even though Pete paused in thought along with the rest of the men, he eventually pulled himself together enough to turn back to Cal.
Cal watched as his friend reset his mind from no-strings-hot-sex to worry-about-my-friend, and he appreciated the effort he knew had gone into it.
“I don’t want to get a call from the sheriff.” Pete kept his voice low.
“And I guarantee that you won’t.”
There’d been a handful of teenage fights Pete had to pull him out of back in the day, but through all of it, the sheriff had never once been involved. He wouldn’t be called tonight, either. No matter how much Cal might want to pummel the redhead’s face.
Pete finally gave a nod of acceptance, then tossed a two-fingered salute to the rest of the table, and as he and the woman exited through the front door, Cal returned his attention to the back booth. The sheriff wouldn’t have to get involved tonight, because Cal had another weapon at his disposal. If Doug Caldwell so much as thought about crossing the line with Jill, Cal would simply fire his ass.
“Another turn on the dance floor?”
Jill blatantly eavesdropped on the other side of the booth as Len tried to wheedle Heather back onto her feet. Len was a dancer. And a charmer. And if Jill didn’t know how difficult it was to get Heather to play, she might think the big man stood a chance tonight, whether he had fifteen years on her or not.
But as it was, the night was quickly rolling to a close.
“A few more minutes to recover?” Heather begged. “You’re too much man for me, Big Red.”
Len growled with the nickname, while at the same time, he caught Jill listening in and graced her with a wink. She ducked her head and smiled. Len might be her temporary pain in the butt, but their almost constant closeness had caused them to form a budding friendship.
“If I were to guess,” Jill added, once again looking at Len, “I’d say you’re too much man for most women.”
