Building a Family

by M. K. Stelmack

  “Oh, okay.” A frown creased Lindsay’s forehead. “I don’t know if it means anything, but when I got in, I heard voices downstairs. One of them was a man’s voice. I thought Ariel was watching TV. She called out when I entered the house, and I told her it was me. I went straight to your room after that. I didn’t hear any more voices but I wouldn’t have from the other side of the house, right?”

  As you know, I wasn’t the only one in the house last night. Uh-huh. Time for round two of interrogations. “Definitely a man’s voice?”

  “A male voice, anyway. Like I said, it could’ve been a show. I’m not sure.”

  Except Ariel didn’t have a TV and she always used earbuds with her phone, even when she was alone. “Okay. Thank you.” Connie had her hand on the door handle before common decency kicked in. “How are you doing?”

  Lindsay shot a look at her boy and said with great cheer, “Fine. Thank you for asking.”

  “Oh, that’s nice,” Connie replied with equal heartiness. “Let’s keep in touch.”

  “Yes, let’s.”

  They waved goodbye under the bright porch light, and as the lovely red door closed, the little boy said, “Mom, you should’ve asked her where Dad is.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  ARIEL WAS WHERE Connie had left her, on the couch but with no kids, earbuds in. Connie flicked them out.

  “Hey!”

  “Kids in bed?”

  “Where else would they be?”

  “Who was with you last night?”

  “Uh, she was your friend.”

  Connie activated mother mode—hands on hips and a sharp tongue ready to cut through lies. “You are in a very vulnerable position right now, Ariel. I wouldn’t push it if I were you.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, you do. My friend heard a man’s voice. Who was it?”

  “She heard wrong.”

  Lindsay had suggested that possibility but Connie could smell Ariel’s deception like a hastily extinguished cigarette. She was covering up for herself and for the guy she was with. Ariel said she didn’t have any friends, girls or boys. And she hadn’t brought anyone home, despite Connie repeatedly inviting her to do so.

  “Not a man, then. A boy?”

  “Not a boy.”

  “Back to a man. Who—” The identity hit Connie like the taste of sour milk. “Trevor McCready.”

  Ariel was not quick enough to hide her guilt, and Connie ran with her instincts. “The scumbag came to the house, didn’t he? He knew I’d be away at the wedding.”

  “I didn’t invite him. He showed up. What was I supposed to do?”

  “You were supposed to slam the door in his face, and then call me. Here, give me your phone. I’m calling Trevor.”

  Ariel scrolled through her phone list and handed it to her without a word. Did Ariel regret not slamming the door in Trevor’s face? Not that her cooperation mattered. Trevor was apparently not in the mood to take calls, even from teenagers he was taking advantage of. Ariel stared up at the ceiling in a good presentation of boredom.

  On the sixth ring, his voice mail kicked in. “Hello, Trevor. Connie here. I understand you’re not taking calls from this number because Ariel has already contacted you, warning you that I know you were with her last night and that you’ve taken my engagement ring.”

  Ariel’s boots hit the floor, boredom dropped for indignation. Connie pushed on. “You’re not dragging Ariel or me into whatever you’ve got yourself caught up in, you understand? You are to stay away from her, her school and my home. You go against me, and I will have all kinds of law coming at you.”

  Connie ended the call, her hand shaking. She was beyond tired, far worse than after a hard shift at Smooth Sailing. Then, her shins hurt, her bones hurt and her right eye twitched. Now, it was all this plus a hollowness in her gut.

  She tossed the phone at Ariel. “I’ll deal with him and the ring tomorrow.”

  There was, however, one thing she didn’t want to put off. Connie drew a breath, not sure she had the strength for the answer... Man, what her mother had gone through to raise her. She sank to the couch beside Ariel. “Did Trevor try anything with you?”

  Ariel screwed up her face. “No! Gross. He’s, like, your age.”

  Connie was too relieved to feel insulted. “He’s three years younger but he doesn’t moisturize as much as he should. What did you two do then?”

  Ariel leaned over to brush something invisible off her boot, her hair hiding her face. “He brought me a cupcake. For my birthday.”

  Her birth— Of course, she was born in April. Her first birthday without her mother. Connie groaned. “I’m so sorry, Ariel. I completely forgot... The wedding...” That explained Ariel’s grumpiness. Sweet sixteen and no one had wished her a happy birthday.

  She placed her hand on Ariel’s back. “I’ll make it up to you. You could’ve told me, you know.”

  Ariel shrugged and her back rippled under Connie’s hand. “You were busy. We all were. It was just...Trevor remembered, was all, and I’d only mentioned it to him once. Anyway, my birthday was just an excuse for him to yammer on about his latest, greatest plan and you. Real boring topics.”

  “Latest, greatest plan? For stealing a ring, maybe? You fencing drugs for him?”

  “I’m not selling, I’m not buying. So long as you keep me, I won’t.” Ariel turned her face away. “And I don’t know about your stupid ring. Not like I’d get in the way of you marrying Ben, anyway. It’s win-win.”

  Win-win? Connie fell back against the couch. “Since you’re so interested in my relationship status, you should know that Ben withdrew his offer of marriage.”

  She might as well have injected Ariel with adrenaline. The girl leaped to her feet and began pacing, the motion lulling for Connie’s tired eyes. “Oh, no, he’s not. He’s not getting out of it this time.”

  “I agreed with him, Ariel. It was—” Connie searched her brain, which was already powering down, for the right word “—mutual.”

  Ariel snorted. “He can’t get rid of me. He’s my father.”

  Connie figured her exhausted brain had slipped into a dream zone, the surreal space that exists during drifting off or waking, when images and words of the day collided with scenes from the past. Right now, for instance, Ariel was mixing up Darth Vader’s famous lines with something about why Ben couldn’t get out of marrying her. “Okay,” she mumbled.

  “Mom told me before she died. She’d blocked the whole thing out of her head, but toward the end, she did some therapy. She’s sure it was Ben.”

  Ben and Miranda? But—

  “Why was she so sure?”

  “We both turn our heads the same way or something, and we’ve got the same eye color.”

  This had to be a dream. Connie closed her eyes, ready to give in to it.

  Ariel’s voice came loud and undeniable at her ear. “Ben knows. I told him.”

  No. This did not fit into any vision of her Ben. Her head came off the couch. “What? When?”

  “The day I skipped school I went to see him at his workshop. He denied he was my father but—” she gave a dramatic pause “—he didn’t deny that he’d slept with her.”

  Connie sat in the dark, in her brother’s house, listening to a sixteen-year-old ruin her life. Ben. The best man ever.

  “I asked for a paternity test but he said he wasn’t doing it.”

  No. Not her Ben, not the guy who never forgot to pick her up from work, who had practically taken care of himself since he was ten. He’d never deny his responsibilities. He would not not do it. “I’ll talk to him, okay?” Would she ever.

  Ariel bit her lip, a tooth worrying her lip ring. “If you don’t marry him but he’s my father, what happens then? Who do I live with?”

  Ben had read Ariel right. She wante
d a family. Ben, too. Only not one with her.

  * * *

  IT FLEW IN the face of all her girlieness, but Connie loved the smell of McCready’s garage: the loamy smell of oil and grime with its overlay of metal and the added metallic tang of paint. Loved it, though she preferred the wood scent. And its feel. Ben could make wood feel like skin.

  She didn’t dare touch a thing in McCready’s garage. He had a low tolerance for anybody in it. But since Trevor, his brother, was not picking up and she didn’t know where he was holed up these days, she had no choice but to track the bear to his den.

  He was bent over his workbench, which was littered with bit and bolts from what she assumed was the Harley parked next to him. He cast a glance her way when her booted heel clicked on his cement and then returned to his work. She said nothing and waited for him to acknowledge her. A highly irritating ritual, but that was how McCready operated.

  She waited as he fiddled with parts. She waited while he blasted the silence by revving the bike’s engine until the pipes were a vibrating blur. She waited as he polished tightly coiled metal. A shock, maybe?

  She waited until she thought she might as well pick up the kids from their playdate with another family and try this another day when McCready leaned against his bench, still polishing the thing that could be a shock. “You still being here means it’s important.”

  Finally. “I need your help.”

  “Figured you weren’t here to offer it.”

  “It involves your brother.”

  Silence. Was he waiting for her?

  “I have reason to believe that he stole my engagement ring.”

  McCready squinted at the coil and polished on.

  “Trevor was trying to get the sixteen-year-old girl in my care to sell drugs at the high school, and I found out that he was at my house the other night. Then I discovered the ring has gone missing.”

  “A ring went missing off your hand?”

  “No. It wasn’t on my hand. It was in a box on my coffee table.”

  “Why was it in the box and not on your finger?”

  “Because I’d not yet accepted the proposal.”

  “What does it look like?”

  “Not a clue. I never saw it. Diamond, I assume.”

  McCready snorted. “There’s a big ol’ diamond ring in a box and Connie Greene couldn’t be bothered to sneak a peek? Hard to believe that.”

  “Yeah, well, by the time I got around to it, there was nothing to see.”

  “If you never saw the ring, what makes you sure it was there in the first place?”

  “Who proposes with an empty box?”

  “How would I know? I never met the guy.”

  Connie drew in a deep breath of metal and oil and open roads. “Look, it’s Ben, okay?”

  “The girl could’ve taken it.”

  “No. Ariel has no reason. Trust me if I say her life is easier if I wear the ring.”

  “Why would Trevor take it?”

  “Me. He wants payback for the beating he took last summer. This is all part of it, I’m sure.”

  McCready grimaced. He straightened into a force bigger than Ben or Seth, Luke or Derek, or any man she’d ever served. He set down the coil and said, “I’ll deal with it.”

  Her skin prickled at the way he said that. Calm and easy, as if he had nothing better to do than press on his brother to return a lady’s engagement ring. “You don’t have to,” she said. “Just point me in his direction, is all.”

  He took one step toward her. “I said I’d deal with it.”

  Connie stepped back. “Thanks. I’ll...go now.”

  His silence followed her out.

  * * *

  BEN WAS PAINTING the living room walls of Connie’s house—or his, whichever—when there was a knock on the door loud enough to bust it down.

  He couldn’t see who it was from where he stood, so he had to set the roller in the tray, carefully, collapse the extendable handle, carefully, remove his gloves sticky with heat, carefully, and step across the drip sheets, carefully, before he could make it to the front door.

  It was McCready. He filled the open door frame, causing a man-made eclipse. “Connie here?”

  “No,” Ben said. “And I wouldn’t say otherwise even if she was.”

  McCready grunted. “I have what she wants.”

  Ben wiped the sweat from his paint gloves on his jeans. “You’re not the first man to think that.”

  McCready grunted again. “Mind if I step inside?”

  Ben let him in, because McCready wasn’t the kind of guy who would stay outside if he wanted in, anyway. Once he’d maneuvered his body into the front entrance, McCready reached inside his jacket pocket and held up, between his thick thumb and forefinger, the engagement ring. “She lost this.”

  Ben fought the urge to make a grab for the delicate jewel that had ridden in the man’s pocket, probably along with lint, knives and chewing tobacco. “I suppose there’s no point asking why you have it.”

  “She could tell you.”

  “She never told me that she’d gone to see you, so I doubt it.” They hadn’t spoken or texted all day, which was not unexpected but it felt strange, as if he was forgetting to do something.

  McCready shrugged, which looked more like he was dealing with an itch between his shoulder blades than responding to Ben. “The thing is, the temporary owner of the ring claims she has something of his.” He gave another roll to his shoulders, and his muscles cracked like splintering wood. “One hundred pills, to be exact.”

  Ariel and her drugs. Dragging her bad business into Connie’s home. Wait until he got ahold of her. Ben nodded at McCready’s index finger, where the ring was now tight on the first knuckle. “Keep it.” As if they both didn’t know that was already going to happen. “I’ll see to it that his...stuff is returned. You okay with me coming by with it?”

  “Not for you to get involved.”

  Connie must’ve told him they weren’t engaged. “Since I own this house and there’s a good chance the pills are on my property, and because that ring belongs to me, I’d say I’m involved.”

  McCready rotated his head to glance around at the renovations. “You own this place?”

  No papers had yet been signed, but there’d been no change to the understanding between Connie and him, either. “We have an agreement.”

  “How much you planning to sell it for?”

  Where was McCready going with this? Ben did some rapid calculations and fired off a number.

  McCready nodded. “Property’s nice. You know if the town will allow a triple garage in the back?”

  Ben answered, and they went back and forth like that until Ben finally had to say, “Thing is, McCready, I don’t really intend to sell.”

  McCready shrugged. “Just keep me in mind should things change.” He crooked his ringed finger. “She seemed pretty determined to get this back.”

  “I guess she felt it was important.”

  “If she got me involved, she must’ve thought so.”

  Ben couldn’t resist asking, “She owes you a favor now, I take it?”

  McCready’s mouth thinned. “She’s been good to me.”

  What kind of good could Connie have done this biker?

  “Some people,” McCready said, “don’t last pass their warranty. Others are built to last.”

  Was this some kind of biker philosophy? And what exactly had this situation to do with Connie’s expiry date?

  McCready slipped the ring back in his pocket and opened the door for himself. “We can both agree,” he said on his way out, “that Connie’s built for this ring.”

  “Tell her that,” Ben advised the closed door.

  * * *

  QUARTER PAST THREE that afternoon, Ben zipped his truck around the corner out of
eyeshot of the house and locked the front door to make it seem that he wasn’t there. He didn’t want to give Ariel any reason to avoid coming into the house, and if he knew her at all, an empty house was the most inviting trap of all.

  Sure enough, at 3:42, he heard the lock turn and he rose from the bar stool in the kitchen to meet her, his socked feet silent on the smooth floor. She’d sluffed off her backpack and was leaning against the door, eyes closed, face smooth, lips moving as if in prayer. Ben almost felt something other than deep abiding annoyance with her.

  “Hey, Ariel.”

  Her eyes snapped open, and her expression reformed into its usual Goth scowl. “What are you doing here?”

  And he was back to his usual annoyance. “Renovating, in case you haven’t figured that out.”

  She pushed off the door and climbed the stairs. “What’s the point now that you and Auntie Connie aren’t getting married?”

  Ben leaned on the top post, blocking her. She stopped on the step below and bugged her eyes out at him. “Excuse me.”

  Ben knew she was running on fumes. There was no hungrier time than immediately after school. It was universal. Twenty years on, just seeing a school bus in the afternoon made his stomach growl. He’d eaten a muffin and a coffee while waiting for her.

  He didn’t move. “For one hundred pills, I will.”

  She rolled her eyes. “English, Benji. English.”

  “Your buddy, Trevor, took the ring. No surprises there. You hand over his drugs and he’ll give back the ring.”

  Her eyes shot side to side. “You talked to him? When?”

  “A message was relayed to me.”

  “Who?”

  Ben thought of McCready, of his size and of where his loyalties lay. “Not for you to know.”

  “I don’t have any drugs.” She retreated down the stairs. “I’m going to my room.”

  “Sure,” Ben called after her. “Begin your search there. Holler if you find anything.”

  Ariel hit the landing. “I’m not doing a thing.” She started down the short flight to her bedroom.

  He followed her. “Then I will.”

  It was her turn to block his path. “Stay out of my room.” She grabbed his arm. He stopped and stared her down until she released it, then he continued on, Ariel close behind. She pushed past him to reach her door first and slam it in his face.