A few minutes passed in silence as they ate, neither of them making eye contact. The barbecue had lost its flavor, and she picked at the remainder. A change in subject was the only way to salvage the lunch.
“What’s the story with the woman we met outside? Marigold, was it?”
His sigh filled the space with sadness. “Her husband, Dave, has been sick. Cancer. Dave is one of the good ones, you know? Always there to lend a hand.”
“What kind of work does he do?”
“Contractor. Handyman. Jack-of-all-trades sort of stuff. He helped Wyatt and Jackson renovate the loft in the barn.”
“Has he been out of work for a while?
“Too long from what I’ve heard.”
“What do you mean?”
“He has limited health insurance and the cost of his treatments and his hospital stays have nearly crushed them. They’re surviving on Marigold’s salary. I’m not sure how much librarians make, but it can’t be enough to put two kids through college on top of the hospital bills.
“That’s terrible.” Ella’s issues seemed quaint in comparison. No wonder stress and sadness had shadowed Marigold’s smiles.
“So you relax with business journals in the evening?” Mack’s head tilted as he studied her.
“Actually, I relax with TV in the evenings. Reading business reports is part of my job.”
“Which is what exactly? Besides playing mechanic at my garage.”
She let a long breath go through her nose, deciding whether or not to rise to his bait. It seemed their truce was a tenuous one. “I’m an investor. In your garage, but other ventures as well. I also dabble in stocks.”
Mack sat back in his seat. “Did you learn all that from Trevor?”
Resentment a decade in the making bubbled up from where it had lain dormant since she claimed her independence. “No. Not from Trevor.”
In fact, if anything, Trevor had learned from her. He was a decent real estate agent, his old family name and charm offensive selling more houses than his skill. It was Ella who’d expanded their fortunes with instincts honed by a voracious appetite for business knowledge. The harder she studied and worked, the more money she made them. Except Trevor had taken all the credit, and she’d let him. But no more.
Ella raised her chin and met Mack’s gaze. “I was the brains behind Trevor’s business. I decided when and where and how much risk to take. I was the reason for his success.” She waited for him to scoff or laugh or dismiss her.
Instead, he nodded. “That doesn’t surprise me.”
“It doesn’t?” She voice sailed high. Mack’s simple unquestioning confidence in her made her insides jostle as if realigning to a new set of natural laws.
His brows lowered, and he made a scoffing sound. “My only surprise is that you didn’t leave his dumb butt and strike out on your own years ago.”
Mack wouldn’t understand the crippling doubt Trevor had planted and nurtured in the years of their marriage. Away from Trevor, Ella had a hard time understanding why she’d stayed as long as she had too. Would she have left if Megan hadn’t wedged between them? It was a question she didn’t want to examine too closely. The reality was she had escaped and she didn’t take her freedom for granted.
“Does this mean you’re welcoming my involvement with the garage?” She tensed. The plastic spork she held snapped in two.
“Hell no. I’ll buy you out as soon as I’m able.” Mack balled up his napkin and tossed it on his empty plate. “You ready to head to the hardware store?”
The switch from the intense to the mundane gave her whiplash. She stood. The small restaurant was packed, yet it had felt like she and Mack had been in their own world. “What are we picking up?”
“Sheet metal. Pipes. Welding supplies.” Mack stacked the plates and tossed them into the trash can.
As Mack collected the to-go order, Ella stepped outside. The wind caught her ponytail and whipped her hair around her neck. She took a deep breath of clean air chilled off the river. Downtown Cottonbloom was a throwback to another time.
There was an honest-to-God quilting store on the Mississippi side called the Quilting Bee. The top of a giant sign shaped like an ice cream cone peeked from around a corner. This weekend maybe she would explore her adopted town instead of staying holed up alone in her big house reading real estate prospectuses.
Mack didn’t seem to be in any hurry to get to the hardware store. He set the bag of pork plates on the hood of the truck and ambled across the street to where flower stalks waved in the wind, the buds on top closed and protected. He picked up a stone and skipped it across the water.
“Did you love the river as a kid?” she asked.
“What’s not to love? It offered trouble and excitement when we were kids. Rope swings. Fishing. Wading upriver. It’s a wonder none of us drowned.”
“Sounds like you and your brothers got up to a bushel of fun.” Nostalgia sliced through her.
She and her brother had gotten up to some no good too. Grayson had always made sure she didn’t get too wild and crazy though. Other brothers would have gotten annoyed with a little sister chasing after them every free moment, but Grayson had never made her feel like she was a pest.
“We did. What about you and your brother?” Mack asked.
“He was the best. Four years older than me, but it felt like more. I guess because he looked out for me until he left.” She swallowed and focused on happier memories. “He had an old red Jeep with rusted-out floorboards and no top. Taught me how to drive when I was twelve out in a fallow field across from our house. It made me feel so grown-up.”
She still dreamed about bouncing through the field in a red Jeep with Grayson by her side, both of them laughing as she grinded the gears before finding the right one. Sometimes she was a twelve-year-old girl again, and sometimes she was grown. Grayson never aged though. He was forever eighteen.
“He’s the reason, isn’t he?” Mack’s voice barely registered over the wind and water.
She didn’t pretend to not understand what he meant. “Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me all this to start with?”
“Would you have listened? Would you have cared? Honestly, I questioned my sanity after the New Year’s Eve party and almost reneged on the deal. If you haven’t cottoned on yet, I know next to nothing about actual mechanics.” She shot him a look from under her lashes.
He stroked his dark beard, his frown giving him a pensive, worried look. “According to my family, I have the tendency to overreact, and the big reveal that you’d bought Ford’s stake was a shock, to say the least.”
“I thought Andrew had already told you.”
“Nope. He wanted to make the sale as painful as possible for us. Not all that surprising though, considering the bad blood between Wyatt and Tarwater over Sutton.”
That explained Andrew Tarwater’s gleefulness when she’d expressed interest in buying Ford’s share last fall. It wasn’t about closing a deal, but revenge. “I thought it was a straightforward business deal. I’m sorry about how it went down.”
“I appreciate that. And I’m sorry I haven’t been as welcoming as I could have.” Alongside his begrudging tone was a fair amount of sincerity.
“Wow. You’re making me feel all warm and fuzzy, Mack. What’s next? A fruit basket?”
“Har-har.” He hooked his thumbs in the back pockets of his jeans, putting his flexing biceps on display. She tried not to stare. “This doesn’t mean I’m not working hard to gather the capital to buy you out though. Bottom line: Abbott Garage should be owned by Abbotts.”
“Fair enough.” A week ago—heck, even a day ago—she would have dug in and fought him, but with the new understanding between them came a tentative friendship she was unwilling to destroy with a few thoughtless words. Anyway, just because he made an offer didn’t mean she had to accept it. The upper hand was hers.
They walked back to the truck. Instead of circling to the driver’s side, he reached
around her to open the passenger door.
“I could get used to this new and improved Mack.” She swung herself into the seat. He handed over the bag of food.
“Yeah, well. Aunt Hazel would invoke my middle name if she saw me acting ungentlemanly out and about in Cottonbloom.” He shut the door and made his way around the truck.
As they clacked over the bridge to Mississippi, she asked, “Do you not like your middle name? Boliver, isn’t it?”
He shot her a look, half amused, half embarrassed. “It’s better than Wyatt and Jackson’s. Elkanah and Jedidiah respectively. But it’s not so much the name as the way Aunt Hazel invokes it. When I was little, I thought she was part swamp witch.”
“That’s one way to keep a pack of wild and crazy boys in line. Let them think you’re a witch.” She laughed at the picture he painted. “Witch Hazel.”
Mack joined in. The sound resonated throughout the truck and into her chest to jumpstart her heart. She had never heard him laugh before, had she? No, definitely not, because she would have remembered the smoky, whiskey flavor of the sound. It was something she could fast become addicted to.
This newfound territory they’d wandered into might prove even more dangerous to her sanity than his antipathy. Before now, a small part of her brain could admire Mack’s hotness without any repercussions or temptations.
All right, so it wasn’t only her brain that acknowledged the way he filled out a pair of jeans, and the way his arms stretched the sleeves of his shirts. As her inappropriate thoughts about him skid out of control, she squirmed on the leather seat.
They pulled into the hardware store lot. The building had a rustic-looking storefront a half mile from the cute, artsy section of downtown. Trucks and work vans littered the lot and acted as gathering places for men on their lunch break. Mack drove to where a loading dock jutted out with an open garage door to the inside of the shop. He backed the truck in.
“Wait here.”
She ignored him and hopped out. Since she was spearheading the change over to the new software to track invoices, she needed to become familiar with what the shop regularly needed and how diligent Mack was in keeping track of purchases.
He glanced over his shoulder, his eyebrows lowering and a frown marring his features. A little thrill zipped through her. Not good. Even his irritated face registered as attractive now. It was even sexier than his laugh. She imagined him looming over her looking big and bad and doing big, bad, naughty things to her body.
She grabbed a sheet of sandpaper off the display to her right and fanned herself with it. What was wrong with her? A shift from not totally hating each other into outright lust was like going from reverse to fifth gear and caused havoc with her internals.
Instead of staying on his heels, she allowed him to continue on to the front to talk to the manager while she wandered over to a display of antique tools. She leaned over and squinted, trying to read the inscription, but her glasses were back at the garage.
“It was used to jack up buggies and wagons to fix busted wheels. I remember my daddy having one in his shed. Not that I remember horse and buggy days. I ain’t quite that old.” The man who’d sidled up next to her chuckled, drawing laugh lines around his eyes. “You new around here, young lady?”
“I moved down from Jackson around a year ago, but it’s my first time at Benson’s. My name’s Ella.” She stuck out her hand, which he took in a dry, boney grasp.
“I’m Delmar Fournette. Lived in Cottonbloom, the Louisiana side mind you, all my life. Suppose at this point, it’s where they’ll put me in the ground. Not yet though.” He winked, and she couldn’t help but return his smile. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you worked here.”
“I don’t. I just never pass up an opportunity to help a pretty lady.” Too much tease resided in his face and voice to take him seriously.
“I’m actually waiting for my…” Not “friend.” Certainly not “boss.” What was Mack? “… partner to finish getting his order filled.”
Delmar craned his neck to look down the aisle toward the loading dock. “Well, I’ll be. You here with Mack? Are you the lady who bought Ford’s share of the garage?”
“I am and I am.” She failed to keep the defensiveness out of her voice.
“Hazel was telling me all about it. I heard you’re shaking things up over there. Good thing, I’d say. Ever since their daddy died, those boys have been spinning their wheels, stuck in grief.”
Ella shifted so she too could look down the aisle at Mack. He lifted metal sheets on top of a pyramid of pipes in the bed of his truck. He stopped to say something to a man helping him before raising the hem of his shirt to wipe his forehead. She was too far away to see the details, but even the hint of dark hair and a flat stomach was enough to quicken the flurry of her makeshift fan.
Mack bypassed the steps, hauled himself up on the loading dock like he was exiting a swimming pool, and strode toward her. His frowning intensity sent her back a step before he transferred his attention to Delmar.
“Why am I not surprised you’d corner the one pretty girl around? What would Miss Leora have to say?” The tease in Mack’s voice spoke of a long, comfortable friendship with Delmar, and a true smile banished any lingering darkness.
Delmar made a scoffing sound. “She takes me as is. Plus, she knows I’m true-blue to her. How’re things at the shop?” He glanced between them, his curiosity palpable.
“Fine. You should come down and play us a tune like in the old days.”
“What do you play, Mr. Fournette?”
“Mr. Fournette was my daddy. Call me Delmar. Mostly the mandolin, but I’m a fair hand on the fiddle. I didn’t think any of you boys inherited your daddy’s love of bluegrass.”
“I’m developing an appreciation.”
“Glad to hear it.” Delmar glanced up at the clock on the wall, two screwdrivers acting as the hands. “Lordy, is that the time? I’m overdue on the river for some fishing.”
They said their good-byes, and Ella followed Mack to the loading dock. Bypassing the steps once again, he used a hand and jumped down with a grace she envied. If she attempted such a move, it would result in a busted butt.
“Delmar seems like a character,” she said over the clang of the supplies in the back once they were back on the road.
“A character with a capital C. He’s a Vietnam vet and was a confirmed bachelor until he started stepping out with Ms. Leora, a straight-laced, extremely proper spinster from the Mississippi side. Everyone is wondering if they’ll make it official.”
“Why mess with a good thing? Marriage isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” Ella estimated she was still an eon away from being able to move past the bitterness when she discussed marriage in any shape or form.
“After meeting your ex, I can understand the attitude. Honestly, I one hundred percent agree.”
“Has some woman stomped all over your heart?” She shifted to stare at his profile.
“Not since Tammy Woolcott dumped me for the quarterback right before the homecoming dance my junior year.” The corner of his mouth curved up. Tammy’s defection hadn’t resulted in true heartbreak.
She dug deeper. “You have one brother married and the other one getting ready to take the plunge. Are you seriously against marriage?”
He raised the shoulder closest to her. “I wish the best for both of them, of course, but marriage never brought any happiness to my pop. Or us kids. Only heartache.”
She sputtered some inanity before saying, “Yeah, but what if—”
“Why are you arguing with me? I agreed with you.”
She sat back and stared out the passenger window. Why was she arguing with a view that lined up with hers? Disquiet had her tapping her heel. She had her reasons to dislike marriage, but dangit, it bothered her that he was equally jaded.
Before she could examine the root of her unease, they pulled up to the garage. Wyatt met them
in the parking lot to take the food, his demeanor altogether grumpy. “Geez. I thought you’d left us to starve to death.”
“Sorry,” Ella called.
“Ignore him. He gets hangry.” Mack smiled, but it was a melancholy one. “Before he and Sutton hooked up, he would wander over to my place most nights and mooch food. Which didn’t bother me, except when he complained I wasn’t moving fast enough in the kitchen.”
Ella guessed neither Wyatt nor Jackson had time for dinner with Mack anymore. She glanced over at the house that stood a stone’s throw from the shop, wanting to tease his sadness away. “I’ll bet you still sleep in your old room in a bunk bed.”
It worked. She got brief chuckle out of him. “I upgraded to a king bed and knocked a wall out to make a decent-sized bedroom.”
The words “king bed” and “bedroom” sent her imagination on a pleasurable jaunt down Inappropriateness Lane. She flapped the front of her shirt to dissipate the sudden heat flushing her. “I’m going to get back to work. Thanks for introducing me to Rufus’s barbeque.”
He nodded and turned to unload the truck. Before the part of her that wanted to pull up a chair and watch him bend over and lift heavy things gained traction, she retreated to the relative safety and solitude of the office.
Except the afternoon proved his office was far from safe. It was a danger zone. A minefield. A series of jolting sexual eruptions every time he meandered in and out of sight. She might as well have been wearing a shock collar.
She pushed away from the computer to stretch her legs and get some air as Mack walked in the office door. “I’m taking a break if you need the computer.” She pointed past him.
“Thanks.”
She stepped left as he stepped right. Then, they repeated the move to the other side. She smiled. “We’re dancing.”
“Maybe if we were in middle school.” The corner of mouth ticked up enough to verify the playing field had changed drastically over the course of the day.
“I can’t imagine you dancing at all.”
“Why is that?”
“Because dancing implies fun.”
He made a humming sound and rubbed a finger over his lower lip. “You don’t think I’m fun?”
Set the Night on Fire Page 8
