Baby, Come Home

by Stephanie Bond

  A lot, she conceded silently.

  Marcus cleared his throat. “I suggest we get our notes together for the conference call.”

  Amy was happy for the diversion. She booted up her laptop and retrieved project notes she’d already made and questions she had for the Preservation Society representative. As they compared notes among themselves, Kendall was perfunctory, and she remained aloof, as well. They both addressed Marcus more than each other, except when they disagreed.

  “I think you should invest in a two-lane construction bridge here,” Amy said, pointing to a narrow portion of Timber Creek south of the covered bridge site. “That will allow us to work both sides of the creek and provide an alternate route for emergencies. And later, for bringing heavier loads to and from your recycling plant. I’m thinking something fast and strong, like prefab steel.”

  “That’s not in the budget,” Kendall argued. “Besides, I thought you said you could design this covered bridge to withstand commercial loads.”

  “I can,” Amy said, her ire rising. “But a construction bridge will cut assembly time of the new bridge in half.”

  “So you can leave even sooner than you’d planned?” Kendall lobbed back.

  Amy’s anger sizzled as they glared at each other. The ringing of the telephone broke the moment.

  Marcus glanced at the handset. “Can you two call a truce until we wrap up this phone call? Remember, these people are giving us money. It would be nice to present a united front.”

  Amy and Kendall exchanged brooding glances, then took seats opposite Marcus, their body language stiff. When Marcus answered the call and made introductions all around, Amy pushed down her emotions, and went into presentation mode. She’d worked with preservationists before and spoke to their concerns and motivations. They were delighted to hear the original blueprints for the bridge had been “located,” and ran down a list of forms they would need before releasing the grant money.

  “Who is the primary construction contact?” the representative asked.

  “I am,” Amy and Kendall said in unison, then frowned at each other.

  “Actually,” Marcus said with a deceptively mild tone as he glanced back and forth between them, “I am. Please send those forms to the attention of Marcus Armstrong. Thank you for your time.” He pushed the disconnect button, then presented both of them with a flat smile. “I need a covered bridge in twelve weeks. Work it out.” He stood and retrieved a coat from a peg, then walked out.

  When the office door banged shut, Amy pursed her mouth. “I thought you said we could be professional.”

  “We can be,” he said, his jaw set stubbornly…so much like Tony. “I guess that means we’ll have to agree to disagree.”

  “We’re very different people,” she added.

  “Always were,” he confirmed.

  His comment stung, but she preferred the truth to fantasy.

  “But I’m starting to see the wisdom in building a construction bridge,” he said.

  Amy met his gaze. So she could leave even sooner than she’d planned.

  “Who knows,” he said casually, “maybe we could cut assembly time down to ten weeks.”

  “Or even eight,” she offered.

  He nodded. “I’ll get a crew on it tomorrow.”

  “Good,” she said.

  “Good,” he said.

  11

  For the next couple of days, Amy concentrated on updating the Evermore Bridge plans to support the deadweight of the bridge itself, along with the live weight of whatever vehicles and loads would be transported over it. She added expansion joints to allow for the extreme temperature swings here in the mountains, and steel crossbeams that should, if ever tested, withstand the forces of an F4 tornado in the unlikely event a similar disaster ever befell the town again. Reinforced concrete in the center of the stacked-stone piers would keep the bridge rooted more securely, and strategic openings near the roof would allow wind to pass through the bridge rather than buffeting it side to side.

  She sat on a boulder overseeing the site where workers were deconstructing the piers as carefully as possible to preserve the stones to be used again. The rock and concrete abutments that supported the bridge where it met land and water were in surprisingly good shape, but would be shored up with reinforced concrete. A crew was building walls to divert creek water away from the abutments to allow the area to dry before the pouring could begin.

  When Nikki Salinger had first arrived in Sweetness, the workers had balked at being treated by a “female” doctor, so Amy wasn’t sure what her own reception would be. But thus far, the workers had been responsive to her instructions and respectful of her authority. She had to admit, it was satisfying to return to a place where she was once a nobody, now a somebody. A somebody in the position to give orders.

  Amy shivered deeper into her fleece jacket and studied a diagram of the proposed lattice truss roof system on her laptop, also more fortified than the original.

  If only people could be reinforced so easily—a buttress here, a bracket there—to support their deadweight and live weight. The encounter with Marcus had left her shaken and feeling as if time was closing in for her to tell Kendall about his son. But considering how aloof Kendall had been since their conference call, she was starting to think there was never going to be a right time.

  And Tony was being uncommunicative, his sporadic phone calls leaving her more concerned than secure. The worrisome flip side of telling Kendall was revealing to Tony his father’s identity. He’d asked about his father a few times when he was younger, but Amy had always been vague, never revealing Kendall’s name, for which she was now glad. Tony was technologically adept and might’ve attempted to locate Kendall before she was ready.

  Amy squeezed her eyes shut. Who was she kidding? She would never be ready.

  But this seemed like a particularly precarious time to dump something so life-changing on Tony. It would be better to wait until he’d finished the quarter at the military school and was back home, in more familiar surroundings. If she told Kendall after the bridge project was complete and he wanted to see Tony, he could visit them in Broadway.

  She exhaled slowly, her breath a white cloud in the cool air. Yes…that seemed like the best plan.

  The whirring sound of a tractor approaching caught her attention. After years on jobsites, she could recognize just about any kind of machinery. She closed her laptop and shaded her eyes against the bright sun. Kendall’s broad shoulders were silhouetted in the driver’s seat. Even at this distance, he made her heart pound faster. The tractor moved slowly, pulling a flatbed trailer. Stacked on the back were the thick timbers and wooden parts she recognized from the Lost and Found warehouse.

  She stood and watched as he pulled the load off to the side of the road onto a level area, close enough to be handy to the work site, but still out of the way. He expertly parked the bulky trailer, and Amy found herself admiring the fact that even though he’d probably been the boss on most jobsites, it was clear he could hold his own with the workers. He shut off the tractor engine. “Is this spot okay?” he shouted to her.

  “Fine,” she called back.

  He jumped down and walked to the rear to unhitch the trailer.

  She enjoyed watching him move his big, athletic body. She idly wondered if making love with him now would be different than before.

  Not that it was bad before…

  She pushed aside those wayward thoughts as he strode toward her in mud-spattered jeans and boots and a heavy red flannel shirt…with pink sweater fuzz all over it. She bit down on the inside of her cheek—he’d obviously been nuzzling with Rachel again.

  He came to a stop before her. “Marcus wanted me to tell you the Preservation Society okayed the blueprints this morning.”

  “That’s good news.”

  He didn’t offer commentary. “Our fabricator is delivering the metal for the construction bridge tomorrow morning.”

  “That was fast.”

&n
bsp; “I thought fast was what you wanted.”

  Amy bit her lip. “That’s right.”

  His mouth tightened. “It’s a short span and the parts are standard, so they had what we needed. Anyway, while the fabricator is here, he’s going to pick up lumber for the covered bridge, and a materials list to take back with him. So we need to determine which of these reclaimed pieces we can use.”

  His brusque manner straightened her back. “Are you offering to help me?”

  He gave a curt nod. “The clock’s ticking.”

  “You won’t be missed?” she asked.

  He squinted. “By who?”

  She reached forward and picked a pink ball of fuzz from his shirt, then let it fly away in the breeze.

  He shifted and his face turned as red as his shirt.

  Amy’s phone rang. She pulled it out and glanced at the caller ID: Tony. The fact that her son was calling while she was talking to his father made her blood pressure spike.

  “I need to get this,” she said to Kendall. “Excuse me.”

  She walked away a few steps and answered. “Hi, sweetie. This is a nice surprise.”

  “Hey,” came the sulky reply. “How’s Hicksville?”

  “Fine,” she said patiently. “What’s new with you?”

  “Can you come and get me?”

  She gripped the phone tighter. “Is something wrong?”

  “Yeah,” he said, “I’m bored.”

  She relaxed and kept her voice steady. “We talked about this. I have to be here for a few more weeks, and you have to be there for a few more weeks. We can get through this, right?”

  A labored sigh sounded over the line. “I guess so.”

  “Good. I have to get back to work, but call me tonight, okay?”

  Another sigh. “Okay.”

  “I love you.”

  “Love you, too,” he mumbled, then hung up the phone.

  Amy disconnected the call with a fond smile, then turned back to Kendall, who was staring at her. She panicked, wondering if he’d overheard any of her conversation. Her mind spun back over the phone call, trying to remember if she’d said anything that would make him suspicious. They stared at each other, and she swallowed hard, waiting for him to demand an explanation.

  His mouth tightened as he jerked a thumb toward the load of recovered timbers. “Let’s just get this done.”

  “Okay,” she said, exhaling with relief. “If you start looking for numbers, I’ll pull up the blueprints.” She opened her laptop and retrieved the old and new blueprints in side-by-side windows. “Ready when you are.”

  He climbed up on the trailer to stand among the pieces, then crouched to inspect a timber on the end. “Fourteen.”

  She found the corresponding piece on the old blueprints. “It’s a crossbeam.” Then she checked the updated blueprints to see if that beam would have the same dimensions. “Yes, we can use it if it’s in good shape.”

  He took off his heavy work gloves and ran his hands over the length of the smooth wood, then picked it up with a grunt and turned it over. The amount of effort it took for a strong man like Kendall to lift one of the pieces gave her renewed fear and respect for the ferocity of a storm that had left the sturdy covered bridge little more than a pile of pickup sticks.

  “This piece needs to be sanded,” he announced, “but it’s solid.”

  “Good. Except that crossbeam is now number…eighteen.” She reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out a small bottle of spray chalk. “This should do until we can burn or chisel the numbers into the wood.”

  While Kendall marked the piece, she deleted it from the materials list.

  “Next,” he said, “is…thirty-five.”

  They methodically worked through each of the two dozen pieces of wood and over a dozen pieces of wrought iron stacked on the trailer. It was tedious work, but in the end, they were able to salvage more than half of the pieces. And sometime during the rapid-fire back and forth, voices had softened and body language had eased.

  Amy caught Kendall’s gaze. “I guess we can work together pretty well if we try.”

  “I guess so.” He looked like he wanted to say more, but he didn’t.

  She was getting used to the beard and mustache—it suited him. Unbidden, the thought slid into her mind that it would feel good to be kissed by him. All over. Suddenly her fleece jacket was too warm. She casually unzipped the front to let in cool air, but was further unnerved that he seemed riveted to the movement.

  “I’ll get Marcus the updated materials list,” she said unnecessarily, then cast around for an intelligent work-related question. “Do you know what kind of turnaround we’re looking at with the fabricator?”

  “A little longer than usual because of the metal parts, probably a week.”

  A week was still very good. Glad to have her mind back on the project, Amy asked, “Are they reliable?”

  He nodded. “We’ve worked with them on every modular building in town. When they deliver, every piece is inspected and checked off the materials list before they leave the site. Then it’s just a matter of putting together the puzzle pieces.”

  She gave a little laugh. “Right…child’s play. I have to warn you, building a bridge is a bit more complicated than putting together a prefab building.”

  He chewed on her comment. “I know that.”

  Those questions she’d never asked him—the exciting projects he’d worked on…without her. “So you’ve built a bridge or two?”

  “Or three,” he said mildly. “Nothing as ambitious as this one, of course.”

  “Same here,” she admitted. “In fact, I’d have to say this is…” She tapered off, afraid to reveal too much about the emotional attachment she felt to this bridge.

  “Special?” he prompted.

  All of the memories they’d made there together, most likely the place where they’d conceived their son. She simply nodded.

  Their gazes locked and the moment stretched on. Finally Kendall cleared his throat and nodded toward the workers standing in the creek bed. “So how’s it coming?”

  “Fine for now. How about at the other site?”

  “I was just going up to check. Hop on and I’ll take you with me.” He smiled. “Just like old times.”

  The smile almost did her in—it was Tony’s smile, the one he gave her when he was trying to talk her into saying yes. Now she knew why she could never resist it. She remembered riding on a tractor with Kendall around his parents’ place, just to keep him company when he plowed or bush-hogged a pasture. Along the way, they would stop and take advantage of any soft pile of hay or shady tree. It was almost embarrassing to think back on. Such a rural thing, courting on a tractor. And she’d loved every minute of it.

  But she wasn’t that girl anymore.

  “I’ll pass,” she murmured. “I want to get this materials list to Marcus and render the specifications for the fabricator.”

  If he was disappointed by her response, he didn’t let on. “Suit yourself.” He turned and walked away, then looked back. “I almost forgot—Colonel Molly asked me to tell you to stop by when you have a chance.”

  Amy was immediately suspicious. “Did she say why?”

  “Nope.” Then he grinned. “Good luck.”

  Amy opened her mouth to call after him and say she’d changed her mind about going with him, but was stopped by the sight of his backside in work jeans that were worn in all the right places. She was feeling too vulnerable right now to be pressed up against him on the tractor, with everything vibrating and throbbing and bouncing around.

  Amy closed her eyes and sighed. Colonel Molly was the lesser of the two evils.

  12

  Amy stopped by the construction office to print the materials list for the covered bridge for Marcus and to launch the rendering program that would provide exact specifications for each piece in the updated blueprints. The fabricators would use the specs to cut each part of the bridge to precision, and number them fo
r assembly.

  To her great relief, Marcus was strictly business and didn’t bring up anything about Tony or her talking to Kendall. But she knew from his arched eyebrows and tight-lipped answers that the subject was simmering just beneath the surface. Individually, the Armstrong brothers were a force to deal with, but together, they were formidable. Family came first. And she knew Marcus well enough to know he wouldn’t let a blood relation—especially a male blood relation—escape from the fold.

  Deep down, it was what she feared the most, Amy admitted. That once Tony found out about his heritage, he would choose his father—and this place—over her.

  This place, she thought as she walked down the main street toward the dining hall, this place that seemed to put barbs in the people who lived there and hold them down, hold them back, draw them back. The name of the town was so deceiving. Sweetness. It sounded simple and idyllic, yet in her experience, it had been anything but.

  Amy reluctantly returned smiles of people she passed. Some faces were becoming familiar to her, which spooked her a little. She didn’t come here to become part of the community, she was strictly a temporary contractor.

  She walked into the dining hall and her stomach growled, reminding her she hadn’t yet had lunch. Not that the gray mystery meat patties looked very appetizing—Nikki had told her a food revolt was on the horizon—but she needed some type of fortification.

  “Amy!”

  She looked up to see Nikki walking toward her, carrying an empty tray. “Hi, Nikki.”

  “Good to see you. How are things going?”

  Amy nodded and smiled. “On schedule.”

  “I wish we could talk, but I have to get back to the clinic. How about dinner tomorrow evening at the boardinghouse?”

  Amy hesitated.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t invite Kendall,” Nikki said, then added, “unless you want me to.”

  “No, no,” Amy said, holding up her hand. “But don’t exclude Porter. I’d like to get to know him better.” In case her son would be spending time with him in the future.