by Sophia Renny
Audrey shook her head. “He might love her, but what I saw between them wasn’t a passionate love, Willa. It was more like friendship.”
“Well, what’s wrong with that?” Willa protested. “I’ve read that passion fizzles. Relationships built on friendship have a higher success rate. The average—”
“Don’t start spouting statistics, hon,” Collette pleaded. “This isn’t some textbook we’re looking at. This is Joe we’re talking about. The man you love.”
Willa emitted a scoffing sound. “How can I possibly love him? I only met him three weeks ago. That’s not logical!”
“Logic has nothing to do with it,” Mercy said. “Look at me and Don. He’s bald and tends to smell like cheese. But I still love him. Where’s the logic in that?”
Shirley giggled.
Collette leaned forward, her face earnest. “Joe spoke hardly a word during the entire meal. Except for when you first arrived, he didn’t look at you once.”
“Well, there you go,” Willa said flippantly. “He didn’t look at me because he’s not interested in me.”
“Bullshit,” Mercy said primly.
“He stops coming to the jobsite, and you’ve been miserable all week,” Collette observed. “Something happened between you two. Tell us.”
“I can’t.”
Audrey placed her hand on Willa’s knee. “He could barely keep his eyes off of you when you were at my place last weekend. When you looked up, he’d glance away. Do you know that when you left, he stood on the corner and watched you until you were out of sight?”
“He wouldn’t have done that with Sylvie there,” Willa said, disbelieving.
“She’d come back inside to ask me about a bracelet.”
Willa lowered her eyes from their inquisitive faces. She pressed her palms to her warm cheeks. “You don’t understand,” she whispered. “He’s known Julia all his life. He’s a good man. He made a commitment to her, and he’s going to keep his word.”
“What has he told you?”
Slowly, grudgingly, she told the girls what they didn’t know yet. About the fire that had killed his parents, Joe dropping out of college, the sacrifices he had made to take care of his brother and sister, the way Julia and her parents had stepped in to help, how Julia had always been there for him.
“Well, this all suddenly makes more sense now,” Collette said when Willa finished. “This is why I felt something wasn’t right. I’m glad I listened to my gut and pushed Tony to invite them to the breakfast. I had to see those two together before I knew for sure.”
“Explain,” Audrey ordered.
“The way I see it, hon,” Collette said, giving Willa a level look. “Joe marrying Julia is just another example of him sacrificing his true desires in the name of taking care of his family.”
“He’s doing what he thinks is the right thing, the expected thing,” Shirley chimed in. “Because that’s what he’s always done. And it will end up killing him.”
Willa pursed her lips. “I didn’t realize you were all licensed psychiatrists.”
Audrey shook her head firmly. “We’re women who’ve been on this earth over twenty-five years longer than you have. We’ve seen a lot and learned a lot. And we see a man who’s going to make the biggest mistake of his life unless we do something about it.”
“He’s made his choice,” Willa persisted. “You have no right to make it for him.”
“It’s not just Joe we’ll be helping,” Mercy said, ignoring Willa. “It’s Tony, too.”
“You saw it, too?” Shirley asked gleefully. “I only caught that one look he gave her when she was whispering in Joe’s ear.”
“I picked up on it the instant they all sat down at the table,” Audrey said. “Before Collette and Willa arrived. Mercy was talking with Joe. Tony pulled out Julia’s chair and put his hand on her shoulder. Just a quick touch. But there was something in his eyes. She gave him a scolding look.”
“Poor Tony,” Mercy said. “It appears to be one-sided.”
“She probably still thinks of him as a boy,” Audrey agreed. “Her eyes were only for Joe.”
“I don’t know,” Shirley mulled. “I got the feeling that Julia is more in love with the idea of love and that spectacular wedding she’s planning more than she’s in love with Joe. The way she went on about her dreams and her wedding...”
Willa held up one hand. “Wait. Are you all suggesting that Tony is in love with Julia? In a romantic way?”
Audrey nodded. “He looks at her the way Joe looks at you.”
“That’s impossible. Tony implied to me that she’s like a sister to him.”
“Maybe he’s seen her that way until only recently,” Audrey speculated. “Maybe he still doesn’t know that his feelings go deeper.” She clasped her hands under her chin, a pleased, scheming look in her eyes. “What these boys have needed all these years are some wise aunts to guide them in the right direction. Oh, don’t give us that worried look, Willa. We won’t get into their business, just maybe give a gentle little nudge here and there. I can’t wait to see how this all plays out.”
Chapter Nine
The phone rang on Sunday night just as Willa was placing a sheet of cookies in the oven. She’d spent the remainder of the weekend perfecting a gluten-free recipe. She’d already invited Shirley to come over on Monday to try them out.
“Do you have any plans for this Tuesday?” Veronica asked without preamble.
“Nothing major.” Just another day of keeping busy so she wouldn’t think too much about Joe. “Why?”
“Sam and I will pick you up at nine o’clock. We’re meeting Steve over at Joe’s shop.”
“Joe’s shop?”
“His cabinet shop. It’s in a section of their warehouse a few blocks away from their office.”
Willa sat down at the kitchen counter, all her senses on high alert. “Why are we going to his cabinet shop?”
“He’s made some progress with the wall unit. I want you to see what he’s done.”
“I want to be surprised at the final reveal.”
“You will be surprised with the final result. We’re just going to have you take a look at what he’s done so far, make sure he’s heading in the right direction.” Veronica’s tone brooked no arguments. “This is an important part of the narrative, Willa. Sam’s put together the storyboard for most of the episode, and this segment will be key.”
“Does Joe know we’re coming?”
“Of course. I spoke with him a few minutes ago. Steve is going to shoot an interview with him before we arrive so Joe can bring everyone up to speed on your bakery project. I don’t mind giving your new business a plug. I’m a big supporter of entrepreneurial women. And I know our viewers will like that, too.”
Willa sensed the authenticity behind Veronica’s obvious flattery. She hesitated. “Are you sure Joe is okay with this?”
Veronica sighed. “I’m really beginning to wonder if there’s something going on with you two. He asked me the same thing about you. But the bottom line is this: I’m the field producer. I’m accountable to network execs who will chew my ass out if I don’t deliver the story they’re looking for. And—if you read the fine print on your contract—it essentially says that what I say goes.” Veronica’s voice turned coaxing. “Besides, Willa, this will be good for Joe, too. I want to establish him as the furniture and cabinetry expert on this series. This is the first shoot we’ll be doing inside his shop. Of all the things we discussed during the audition process, designing and building furniture was the one thing that man was passionate about.”
“Hello, Willa.”
“Hello.”
She wondered if she was the only one who heard the apology and frustration behind Joe’s camera-ready smile. She gave him a practiced smile of her own and a brief handshake.
He was wearing jeans and a cotton plaid shirt in shades of turquoise and gray. He had the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing tanned, corded forearms, lightly coated with
dark hair. The top two buttons of his shirt were undone, baring the intriguing hollow where clavicle met breastbone. His face was clean-shaven. He looked tired. Signs of stress lurked around his eyes and mouth.
She pressed her lips together and glanced away from him, forcing her eyes to look around the large shop space.
There were two plywood work tables, a table saw, shelving and pegs stocked with various hardware items and tools she wasn’t familiar with. There was a compressor in one corner and what appeared to be a spray booth occupying the entire back wall. Long racks along the left-side wall were filled with sheets and boards of wood.
Something draped with a furniture blanket sat on the floor between the two work tables. There was an unfinished, rustic-looking bench on one of the tables. Wood clamps secured the curved seat to the trestle legs.
The room smelled of fresh sawdust and carpenter’s glue and Joe’s pleasing male scent.
“This is nice,” Willa said, speaking for the camera as she walked towards the bench. “Did you make this?”
Joe came to stand beside her, his body mere inches from hers. He ran the palm of his hand along the surface of the bench. “Yes. This top piece here I pulled out of an old barn in Coventry. This was a section of the flooring. It’s hickory. You can’t find hickory boards in this width anymore. This came from a tree that was over one hundred years old.”
Her eyes followed his hand as it traced the grains of the bench seat. Without conscious thought, she placed her hand on the bench, just a few inches away from his. The wood was cool and rough beneath her palm. “It’s beautiful,” she praised. “Is everything you build made from old wood?”
“Reclaimed wood,” he explained, a trace of pride in his voice. “Yes, I spend a lot of my free time researching and finding salvaged wood throughout New England. I’m a big believer in reusing and repurposing.”
“It’s environmental engineering in a way,” she noted, giving him a meaningful sideways glance.
His hand moved a hairsbreadth away from hers, his pinky finger slowly stretched out until the tip barely touched the tip of her pinky finger. “Yes,” he said under his breath, his voice hoarse.
There was a long pause. Willa could hardly breathe. Joe appeared to be having the same problem. Finally, he cleared his throat and removed his hand from the bench. “I’m glad you came over today,” he said in his normal voice. “Come and take a look at what I’ve done with the wall unit so far.”
He stepped over to the blanket-draped item. “I thought you’d like to have some kind of office space in the kitchen. You know, a place for a computer where you can look up recipes, or write down your own. Tony and I modified the layout to allow room for a built-in desk with a hutch.”
Steve moved closer with his camera. Willa took a calming breath. “That sounds great. Right now I’m using my kitchen counter for a desk. I’m constantly shoving things out of the way. It would be great to have a permanent place for my notes and recipes.”
Joe slowly pulled the blanket aside. “This isn’t finished yet, but you might recognize a few things.”
A deep pang of emotion squeezed her heart as she took in what Joe had created for her. He’d used the right-hand set of drawers from the wall unit as a desk pedestal and modified one of the other drawers to fabricate a pencil drawer. The wood top had a similar grain but was unfinished.
“Right now I’m mixing different stains together to get the exact match,” he explained, showing her a narrow board with blocks of different stain colors on it. “I’m pretty sure the original stain color was fruitwood, but it’s darkened through the years. It takes years and years to get that beautiful patina on the wood, so I don’t want to refinish the pedestal. Unless you’d like a different color?”
“No,” Willa said softly. “I want to keep it just as it is.” She looked Joe straight in the eyes. “This is perfect. I can’t wait to see the final product.”
His eyes gleamed. His mouth curved in a smile that conveyed both relief and masculine satisfaction. “You like it then,” he concluded, his voice soft, searching.
“Yes. Very much. Thank you.”
There was so much more she wished she could say. Like how surprised and pleased she’d been to learn he had his own cabinet shop. Or how she liked the way his face lit up when he talked about what he’d built and where the wood came from. Or how she wished he’d run his hand across her skin the same way he had caressed the hickory bench. Most of all, she wished she could tell him how much she missed talking with him, being with him.
But she couldn’t say any of those things. So she just gazed up at him, hoping her unspoken words weren’t written on her face.
“Cut,” Veronica said. “Good job, guys.”
In the car on the way back to Conimicut, Veronica was practically in raptures over the shoot. “It couldn’t have gone better if it was scripted,” she said. “And, Willa, you’ve absolutely transformed in front of the cameras.”
“What do you mean?”
“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but on the first couple of shoots you came across as very…stilted. After I reviewed it with the editors, we decided to rely more heavily on voice-over narration for those sections. Something changed at the demolition shoot, and today you were almost completely natural.”
“Thanks. I guess.”
Either Veronica didn’t hear the sarcasm in Willa’s voice or chose not to hear it. She continued at full throttle. “I was right about the theme for this episode, wasn’t I Sam. It’s all about new beginnings, fresh starts. We’re not just renovating a house, Willa. We’re renovating you. Sam, are you writing this down?”
“Yes, Veronica.”
The remainder of the week dragged. Willa wasn’t needed at the house. In fact, Tony told her, they were almost to the point where he didn’t want her coming into the house at all. He wanted as much of the remodel as possible to be a surprise.
“We need to do one more day of furniture shopping, in case Veronica didn’t tell you. There are a couple more sponsors we still need to hit. I also want to swing by our warehouse so you can go through your aunt’s furniture and decide if there’s anything you want to keep. Joe said he might be interested in buying whatever you don’t want and repurposing it. I can fit that in for next Monday. Does that work for you?”
“Sure.”
They were standing at the bottom of the apartment stairs. Willa had just returned from her weekly grocery shopping, and Tony had shouted from the house for her to hold on a second.
He was covered in sheetrock dust. A tool belt was slung over his lean, jean-clad hips. She found herself wondering how Julia could remain so completely oblivious to this handsome, charming man’s appeal. This train of thought led her to other questions that had been bothering her.
“I enjoyed meeting Julia the other day,” she said carefully. “She seems like a nice person.”
Tony’s entire face smiled. “Collette told me the same thing. Yeah, Julia’s a sweetheart. You’d think she’d act like a spoiled princess the way her mom and dad raised her. But she has a good heart.”
“So… Do you look at her as a mother figure?”
The smile vanished. His face reddened. He cleared his throat. “Never. I was a first class asshole during my teenage years, remember? I took out a lot of anger and frustration on her. I made it very clear to her that she was never going to replace my mom. I was taller than her, even then, so mostly I treated her like she was my little sister. I teased her a lot, not always in a nice way. She hated that. I was the only one who ever got her riled up.”
Willa gave an astonished laugh. “I can’t picture her getting mad about anything.”
“Oh, she has her moments. But only with me, strangely. When I was a senior in high school, my uncle came to stay with us for a month. He was on leave from a tour of duty in Afghanistan. He caught me sassing her one day. He hauled me out to the backyard and smacked that sass right out of me.” He gave a rueful shake of his head. “Julia watched
the whole thing, but didn’t say a word. She just stood there on the back porch, crying her eyes out. I swore right there and then that I’d never do anything to make her cry again.”
And there it was. The love that the girls had seen. His eyes glowed with a soft light as he reminisced about that day. Willa found herself on the verge of asking him if he was in love with his brother’s fiancée, but bit her tongue. Maybe Audrey was right. Maybe Tony still didn’t realize how he truly felt about Julia.
“Does she live with Joe?”
“No.” His tone turned abrupt. “Joe, Sylvie and I still share the house we grew up in. It was the economical thing to do, especially with how tough things have been in this state for the last few years. It helps that the house is a three-decker. We all have our own space. Anyway, Joe wasn’t comfortable with her moving in. And her parents still live next door. They’re a bit old-fashioned. Julia lives in an apartment above her office in Providence.”
Relief washed through Willa. She’d been imagining Joe and Julia sharing a home together. Sleeping in the same bed every night.
“She seems to be very excited about the wedding,” she said. “But she didn’t say anything about their plans for after the wedding. Will they buy a house together? Or will you and Sylvie move out?”
Tony looked at the ground, kicked the toe of his boot in the dirt. He crossed his arms over his chest. His expression became increasingly more morose as he spoke. “Joe hasn’t discussed it with us yet. Whenever Julia comes over to the house, all the conversation revolves around the wedding, the ceremony, the reception. She does most of the talking.”
“I think that’s normal for a bride-to-be, isn’t it?”
He lifted his head, giving her a direct look. His sudden grin seemed forced. “Between you and me, Willa. I liked the way Shirley did it. Quick and easy, no fuss. Do you think Julia would go for that?”
Willa took the question in its literal sense, her brain attuned to the undercurrent of seriousness beneath Tony’s teasing facade. “I guess it would depend on how much she loved the man who was asking.”
