by Pamela Morsi
“What?” Karly asked.
Mazy looked up realizing she’d been lost in her own thoughts.
“Sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “True love never runs smooth.”
“True love?”
Mazy felt herself blushing. “I don’t know. Maybe. It’s complicated.”
“Anything worth having always is,” Karly pointed out.
“At least things are going better at work.”
“And you made that happen,” Karly said. “Word is getting around how you are actively trying to help those in financial trouble. It takes folks longer to believe good things than it does bad things, but people do change their minds, even in Brandt Mountain.”
“It would be nice not to feel like a pariah,” Mazy admitted. “But work is going better because Tad has quit being mad at me.”
Karly’s jaw dropped. She closed her mouth, but her eyes continued to be wide with disbelief.
“Seriously?”
Mazy nodded. “Yeah, he’s being very nice actually. Helpful. I never thought I’d say this, but I think we can have a perfectly reasonable working relationship.”
“So, he’s been angry, vengeful and lying about you for fourteen years,” Karly pointed out, “but now after, like, fourteen days, everything is hunky-dory.”
“I know it sounds a little crazy,” Mazy admitted. “I talked to him at the basketball game. He said he’d forgiven me a long time ago.”
“He didn’t need to forgive you. You needed to forgive him.”
“Well, yeah, of course,” Mazy said. “But we know that I was to blame as much as he was. Maybe I was to blame more. He was dating someone else and I shouldn’t have pursued him.”
“Is that what your doctor told you?”
“No, not really.”
“Then don’t you dare believe it.”
32
Watching Tru work out the details of the shelves was a lesson in patience that Eli shared with his dad.
“It’s so tempting to jump in and do it myself,” he admitted. “The kid has been working for three days on something that would take me less than a half hour.” Eli chuckled. “I can’t even imagine what it must have been like for you to have to watch both Clark and I muddle around until we figured things out. But it is the best way to learn. I only help him when he truly needs it. And that’s pretty often. I swear, Dad, I don’t think the kid held a chisel before Mazy brought him here. But he’s interested and I think he’s learning.”
He’s father gazed at him intently. It was the only indication that he understood what was being said.
“We’re using French cleat for his shelves. When I called them that, Tru said it sounded like some kind of condom.” Eli laughed aloud. “I told him that it works pretty much the same way. We seriously cover up the part that matters.”
He shook his head, still chuckling.
“He’s a real good kid, Dad,” Eli continued. “I think you’re going to like him. Mazy has made a lot of mistakes, but Tru isn’t one of them. He’s smart and thoughtful and funny. There is not one dollop of that Driscoll arrogance and guile. Tru is as straightforward as a hammer. It was probably a lucky break that Driscoll didn’t snap Mazy up when he had the chance.”
Eli was thoughtful for a long moment.
“Things are going good with Mazy, I think,” he told his father. “Truth is, I thought it was going to be harder than it is. When I started, it just killed me to be mean to her. But now, I kind of like it. She’s always available and I always get my way. It’s not really a bad deal at all.”
His dad couldn’t comment.
“I’m thinking that maybe she was right all along. I was too soft, too nice. As it is now, when I do her the smallest kindness, it’s like a gift. She’s so grateful. A guy could really get used to that. I am getting used to that.”
Eli laughed. His father’s face was stoic, but the look in his eyes had changed. Eli simply discounted it as tiredness.
He was whistling by the time he got back to the shop. With a quick stop in the basement he’d retrieved his lovingly packed lunch. He had taken to inviting Mazy over earlier in the evening and then asking her to cook for him. She was nearly as good at it as her mother. And there was the added benefit of having her clean the kitchen while he watched TV. Last night he’d even had her do his laundry. She’d given him a shocked look, but she’d done it.
So he was getting cooking, cleaning, laundry and the best sex of his life. All the companionship he’d ever longed for with the one woman he had always wanted.
Who needs heaven? He’d found it here on earth. And all it took was a bad attitude and some nasty behavior. He was no longer worried about keeping it up—it was starting to be fun.
Maybe he wouldn’t even marry her. Why should he? She’d try a lot harder to please him if she wasn’t sure where she stood. Wives took things for granted. Everybody said so. And lots of them try to tell their husbands what to do—he just had to look at Sheila and Clark to see that. Eli had no idea how Mazy might be as a wife, but she was the kind of girlfriend who took orders.
Of course, he’d always wanted to be her husband. And he always thought it was wrong for her to take that crap from guys. Maybe it was even wrong for her to take it from him. Was it?
Hey, he reasoned, he was being the kind of jerk she liked. It wasn’t what he had wanted for her, but it was what she wanted. He was doing this for her. She ought to be grateful.
“Yeah, grateful,” he said aloud.
And he was grateful, too. Being a bad dude definitely had its benefits.
When he got back in the shop, Clark was talking on his cell phone as he worked on dovetail cuts. Eli didn’t know which was worse, that his brother would try multitasking with something so easy to mess up or that he wasn’t even ashamed enough of his sloppy practice to try to hide it from his brother.
“Who are you talking to?” Eli’s question and snappy tone came straight from the bad-dude persona he’d recently cultivated.
Clark looked up, startled. “Uh, Jimmy Ray.”
“Tell him you’re on the clock and you’ll call him later.”
Eli walked past him toward his own workbench. He heard Clark making excuses to get off the phone. Eli was surprised. He hadn’t raised his voice, he hadn’t gotten angry or threatening. He’d simply said what he was thinking, what any boss would be thinking, and his brother had complied.
Eli could almost have laughed at how easy it had been. But he did not. Instead, he returned to dry fitting the pieces of the music cabinet. He’d selected his veneer and was eager to get the cabinet pegged and glued so he could begin the process.
He worked silently across the room from his brother for several minutes before Clark spoke.
“Is Dad doing okay?” he asked.
Eli glanced up. “Yeah, he’s the same.”
Clark was nodding.
“How are things going with Mazy?”
“Good. Everything’s going good.”
It was quiet again, but it seemed less deliberately so.
“I was probably wrong about Driscoll,” Clark told him after a minute. “And you’re right. It’s none of my business. I won’t be sticking my nose in again.”
“I believe you,” Eli answered.
“Just so you’re not mad about it.”
“No, not at all.”
“Great, great,” Clark told him. “And the kid seems to be working out okay, too.”
“Yeah,” Eli said. “I like him a lot. He’s not afraid to learn. He’s pretty much putting together the shelves for the coffee shop on his own.”
Clark nodded. “The kid’s smart and he has you for a teacher.”
Eli shrugged off that compliment.
“So, we’re taking down that chestn
ut paneling this weekend,” Eli said. “Do you want to show up to help us?”
“Me?” Clark chuckled humorlessly. “Why should I help? I don’t even drink coffee. Charlie is just too lucky. He does absolutely nothing and you walk in and discover a fortune hanging on his walls. I wish something like that would happen to me.”
It occurred to Eli that something very similar had happened to Clark. He’d never worked anywhere except the family business. Although he and Eli had drawn the exact same salary, Clark had never managed to save a nickel. When he’d married Sheila and they started a family, it was Eli’s savings that had bought Clark’s half of their parents’ house. It was Eli’s loan that had purchased his brother’s share of the business. A lot of people might have thought it a great stroke of good luck that Eli had not only been willing to buy Clark’s share, but had the money to do it.
However, he didn’t point that out.
“Well, if you’re not down there helping, then you’re free to pick up the slack for me.”
“Pick up the slack? What slack?”
“You’ll need to get Dad up and get him his shower,” Eli said.
“What? Me? I don’t know how to do that.”
“What’s to know? I wait until about ten, after he’s rested from breakfast and morning meds. Then I put him in the shower. I scrub him up, rinse him down and get him dressed.”
Clark was shaking his head.
“But Sheila and I always come over in the afternoon.”
“Well, you’ll have to come over by yourself in the morning,” Eli said.
“I’ve got the girls’ soccer team.”
“One of the other dads will have to be the coach that day.”
“Eli, I’m not really good with this kind of stuff,” he said. “You’re so much better at it.”
“It’s not a question of who is better or worse,” Eli answered. “He’s your father, too. I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. It’s my day off and it’s your turn.”
Clark’s brow came down. “Now wait just a minute.” His tone was threatening. “Where do you get off telling me what to do? You may think you’re the boss around the shop, but nobody orders me around on my day off.”
Eli felt the muscles in his back tighten all the way up to his neck. His teeth clenched. He had never “ordered” his brother around. More typically that was Clark’s routine. But today, Eli was in exactly the mood to take him on.
“I don’t think I’m the boss around here. This is my business. I am the boss. You work for me. And I don’t keep you on here because you’re my brother. You’re a capable woodworker. If you weren’t I’d let you go and hire somebody who is.” Eli deliberately relaxed his jaw. “By the same token, if you’re not happy working here, you can hand in your notice, like any guy anywhere, and walk away. That’s one of the perks of working for somebody else.”
Clark’s eyes were wide with disbelief and shocked into silence.
“But job or no job,” Eli continued, “Dad is the father of both of us. He’s raised us, loved us and been responsible for us. These days, he needs us. We have to do right by him. Both of us have to do right by him.”
Eli raised his chin determinedly. “The way it looks to me, you’ve not been doing your share. Every day, twice a day, you see me spending time with him, caring for him, while you’re sitting on your butt pretending you’re not obliged. Yes, I know you’re married. Yes, I know you have a family. But that doesn’t give you a pass. Dad is your family, too. And you are going to start acting like a son to him.”
Eli exhaled a huge puff of air that somehow felt as if a great weight had disappeared from his shoulders. He no longer felt angry, simply resolute.
33
When Saturday showed up it felt as festive as any holiday. Tru was excited about the role he was going to play in the renovation of Local Grind and Mazy found his enthusiasm irresistible. It had been barely two months since he’d sat sullen and silent in the passenger’s seat as she’d driven away from the life that was familiar and all the friends he knew.
He was hardly recognizable as he explained with enthusiasm about the use of tools.
“It seems like the power saws would be the most fun,” he told her. “’Cause they’re loud and dangerous and stuff like that. But the planes...ah, Mom, you’ve just gotta feel it. You peel off that thin layer of wood like you’re slicing through butter. It’s so...so...well, it’s really something.”
Mazy nodded. Tru was eager to explain all the tools to her. Every gouge and rasp was an adventure. Every task and method prime for sharing. The explanation of the physics of cleat shelves had come, she was sure, directly from the words of Eli Latham. And she’d loved the sound of it on Tru’s lips.
Eli himself arrived so early that Beth Ann insisted on feeding him hotcakes.
“Really, I’ve already had a big bowl of cereal,” he told her.
Beth Ann waved away the refusal. “A working man needs a breakfast that will stick to his ribs.”
Mazy was pretty sure that with all the syrup her mother poured over Eli’s plate, his meal would be plenty sticky.
He eyed Mazy across the table as she lingered over a cup of coffee.
She couldn’t resist grinning back at him. At moments like this she felt so intimate with him, so connected. As if their time together wasn’t simply having sex, but sharing a life. She got these little glimpses of what they could be together. What they could have.
But then the reality of their relationship would come crashing back in. Everybody knew Eli was a nice, kind guy. He always had been. He always would be. But many times, when it came to her, he was neither nice nor kind. It was hard to avoid the fact that sometimes he treated her as thoughtlessly and as callously as any guy she’d ever been with. She didn’t understand it. He had always loved her. But it seemed sure that he didn’t love her anymore.
“Is something wrong with the coffee?” The question came from Beth Ann.
“No, it’s fine.”
“You had such a look on your face.”
Mazy shrugged. “Just thinking.”
“I’d hate to be what you were thinking about,” Beth Ann teased.
“Everything’s loaded,” Tru announced as he tromped in through the back door. He looked impatiently at Eli. “Are you going to eat forever?”
Both Mazy and Beth Ann scolded him for his manners, but Eli laughed.
“Last bite,” he said as he shoved nearly half a pancake in his mouth.
Mazy donned her jacket. The morning was surprisingly mild.
The truck was idling in the driveway. Tru let her in and she slid across the seat to sit next to Eli.
He smiled at her before turning his attention to the windshield. Then he hesitated.
“Tru, did you bring the measuring tape?”
“Measuring tape? Isn’t there one in the toolbox?”
“I think I took it out,” Eli said. “Could you run and grab one for me?”
“Sure.”
The metal door creaked as he opened it. Then with a slam, Tru was gone.
Eli turned to Mazy and pulled her into an embrace. His lips came down on her own. It was a sweet and tender kiss. His mouth gently pulling at hers as if he wanted to draw her in more closely than human form allowed.
“Mmm,” she responded when there was once more distance between them.
“I couldn’t resist,” he told her. “I like the look of you over breakfast. I could hardly wait to get you alone.”
She laughed. “Are you telling me that this was a premeditated kiss? You sent my son off so you could get your lips on me?”
He smiled. “If only it had been a little more premeditated, I would have hidden every measuring tape in the shop.”
Eli pulled her close one more time, as if he couldn
’t get enough.
“Thanks for doing this,” Mazy said.
“Kissing you?”
“Helping Charlie and teaching stuff to Tru. He’s pretty excited.”
“I’m pretty excited, too,” Eli told her. “But then I usually am when you’re this close to me.”
Mazy grinned at him. “Do you want me to sit farther away?”
“Want? I want you to sit on my lap, but it’s probably difficult to drive that way.”
She liked him like this. Funny and playful. She gave him another little peck on the mouth. He responded by resting his forehead against her own.
“I have one whole wonderful day stretching out in front of me and I’m spending it all with you,” he said.
“Me and my son and half the population of Brandt Mountain,” she pointed out.
“Details,” he said dismissively. “When you’re around everyone else fades into the background.”
“Pretty words.”
“And pretty much true,” he said as he kissed her again.
Mazy understood the sentiment, even if she didn’t believe him. She was the one who got so caught up in her infatuations that she couldn’t think straight. Eli seemed to always know what he was doing.
The passenger’s-side door creaked open.
“Got it!” Tru announced as he set a big red-and-black plastic measuring tape on the dashboard.
The two adults quickly moved apart.
“I saw you guys kissing,” Tru told them. He leaned forward slightly and smiled very deliberately at Eli. “Don’t make me have to get rough with you.”
“Tru!”
Eli chuckled. “Message received,” he answered.
Despite his threatening words, Tru’s enthusiasm for the day had not diminished. When they arrived at the coffee shop, Charlie already had the place open. He and Alice had moved all the tables to the center of the space and had set up a serve-yourself coffee urn.
