Better Than the Best

by Amabel Daniels

  That damn hat. The woman with the gray SUV? She landed him on his ass?

  “You can’t fucking destroy my house.” He stood quickly and took the sledgehammer back, furious he had been so dumbstruck by her to let her retrieve it in the first place.

  “Porch. We’re standing on a pathetic porch. That’s the house. And it’s called demolition, not destruction.” She stuck her hand on her hip and held the other out. “Give it back.”

  Will threw it into the yard. “I don’t care how much he screwed you, whatever bullshit he said or how much he cheated on you. You can’t attack a fucking house!”

  He couldn’t believe it, but at the same time he could. He’d seen Clay hitting on her at the beach just before he’d moved on to Daisy and the others. Right in front of her eyes. Sure, she was pissed because Clay had moved on. He was a player. But she had to be the craziest woman he’d met yet.

  She studied the distance with confusion. Probably off her meds.

  “You know John?” She almost whispered it.

  “Who the fuck is John?”

  Randy pulled up and the alarmed expression on his face was unique. Confusion, fear, and concern. Will clenched his fists with his muscles nearly shaking. This stupid woman was going to smash Matt’s first woodwork because she was dumped?

  “Who the hell are you?” She stepped closer. Will looked down at her, puzzled at her bravado. Last he checked he was six feet and two inches of 210 pounds of hard lean muscle. She couldn’t be more than five-four and a hundred pounds. He looked at her breasts again. Okay. Hundred ten. He wasn’t barbaric enough to personally harass a woman, but did she really think she had anything on him? Talk about naïve.

  She glared right back at Will as he got stuck in her eyes. Blue-green. Not green enough to be common, not blue enough to be pretty. Something more like breathtaking. They grabbed him.

  “Will. Hey. What’s going on?” Randy jumped out of his car.

  “Who’s this?” she demanded of Randy as he raced up the steps. “Is he…” She crossed her arms, nodding her head. “You were the jerk at the diner.”

  “Like you were any nicer—”

  “Got too hot running with all the hair?” She cocked her head to the side, studying his shaven face.

  He clamped his mouth shut, disliking her close scrutiny as much as her sass. “Where is he?” Will directed his yell at Randy. “That dumbass brings this crazy woman here and pisses her off because he found something better and now she’s ripping apart the fucking porch!”

  “What do you care about the porch?” Blue-not-quite-green sparked at him. “And go get the sledgehammer.”

  “What?”

  “You threw it out there. Go get it. Randy, what’s going on? Is he drunk? Clay said he’s the town drunk.”

  Drunk? Will’s mind reeled, but he hadn’t had anything for almost two days.

  “Will, she’s living here,” Randy said. “We’re going to—”

  “Why’s he freaking out? What’s it to him?” She narrowed her eyes at Will when she caught him glaring at her.

  “She’s been renting the apartment.” Randy tried again to explain.

  “What?”

  “You’re in the hole, man. I had to get you some more money in the account. The apartment was sitting there and you weren’t doing anything with it. I thought it would be easy cash to help you out.”

  Will wished he’d told Randy about the savings account. Now this woman was living in Matt’s place. His stomach turned to stone. He and Matt playing games in the front room. Parties. Poker. Memories hit him hard. It was the closest he had come to the house since he returned to Churchston. Pain kept him from even looking at the building when he drove home some days.

  “Let me guess. You’re the landlord.”

  He faced her. Well, at least she caught on fast.

  “Will, this is Kelly Newland.” Randy began his introduction as they stared each other down. “Kelly, this is Will Parker.”

  “Did I ask you to rent the place?” Will ran a hand through his hair, not wanting to look at her or Randy. Her eyes, he couldn’t stop. Eyes the portal to the soul? It was a scary thought because her soul seemed to want to kick his soul’s ass.

  “No. Jesus Christ, Will, you need the money.”

  He stepped away and leaned his fists on the railing.

  “Don’t.” She stepped forward and Will eyed her with fury. How could this pint-size woman come in here and take over the last of Matt…

  She held her hands up in truce and shut up, and he leaned down on the railing only for it to give way. He caught himself and slowly walked back to her. Strangle? Choke?

  “Not like you would have listened to me.” She didn’t budge. Crossed her arms. Chin up defiantly. “The wood’s all rotten. It’s a safety hazard. Seeing you’re an absentee landlord, you haven’t known the difference.”

  A motor sounded on the drive and Clay’s truck pulled up.

  “You had no right renting the place out,” Will yelled at Randy over Green Day on the radio. He imagined she had changed it all. The memories of Matt, gone forever.

  He turned and pointed at Kelly. “You can’t demo anything on the house.”

  “Clay!” She threw her gloves to the rotten porch floor, her attention past him, not giving him a second of her time. “Dammit. I knew you’d screw it up.”

  “Sugar, you wanna talk about screwing—”

  “Shove it, Clay.” Kelly stepped to the edge of the porch. “I told you to write it down.”

  “What?” Clay came up towards the steps and cast a disapproving frown at Will. “How do you know I screwed up? I gave the attendant the list of lengths you wrote down.”

  She crossed her arms and shook her head.

  Will tuned out Randy’s explanation about renting the apartment, finding Kelly to be more intriguing.

  “Was she sexy?” Kelly said.

  Clay grinned. “Oh yeah, sugar. Almost as hot as you in this little tool-belt get up.” He landed on the top step and reached out to pull her by her pocket. “You’re still my favorite, though.”

  Kelly smacked his forehead. “Pressure-treated. Pressure-treated.” She had cupped her hands around her mouth to enunciate. “Pressure-treated.” Clay’s face fell.

  “You’re a sorry little fool. One whiff of a woman and you’re stupid. Dammit, Clay.”

  Speechless, Will followed her as she went to the truck for a closer inspection of the wood. Women cooed to his former friend and only employee. Clay had women kissing, smiling, begging, pleading. Never had Will witnessed a female scolding him.

  “Wood’s wood, sugar.” Clay argued. “It doesn’t make a difference.”

  Biting back a smile, Will remembered Matt’s exact mistake. He had made the same erroneous purchase, hence, the rotten wood now.

  “Yesterday it was baby, now you’re on to sugar. Leave it at my name or I’ll tell everyone I meet you’ve got the smallest dick in the world.” She paused and concentrated with a hand up. “Then again, half the world has already seen it to know. Please, no. I don’t want to know. This will rot. If we use this, we’ll have to prime it and paint it to protect it. More work than I planned on. Hawks play at seven.”

  Clay set his forearms on the wood hanging out the bed. He gave her a sad pout. “How the hell do you know all this?” he asked as if he could win back her favor.

  “My brother.” She rubbed the back of her neck.

  “I thought he wrote for a magazine.”

  “Also known as a journalist. That’s Wade. Sean’s the contractor.”

  “How many brothers do you have?”

  “Enough to kick your ass if you piss me off.” She smirked and Clay sighed.

  “Oh, don’t waste your puppy face on me. I’m immune. Come on. It’ll take longer now since we have to do all the finish work.” She started back for the house and stopped halfway to spin and face the men. “Of course, if we have the landlord’s permission.”

  Will matched the challenge in
her eyes, admiring her at the same time he despised her. With a blank face, he shoved his hands in his pockets.

  “The sledgehammer?”

  She wanted him to fetch for her? When hell froze over. Will walked to his truck and drove home.

  With a new person living in Matt’s old space, Will recalled his solo homecoming.

  After the explosion, he had been stabilized and shipped to Landstuhl. He endured one week of pain in Germany before he was dismissed to San Antonio. His time in the Marines had been officially complete with his injuries. It had been another seven months until he left SAMMC for a VA rehab hospital in Columbia. He hadn’t been able to even fathom living in the duplex he once shared with Matt, and had moved into the stone house by the woods instead.

  The stone house was an abandoned work-in-progress, a mess from years of neglect and decay. He had confined his living space to one bedroom, the living room, the kitchen, and a bathroom. Two-thirds of the house had never been touched. It had been his only option since he owned the land courtesy of Matt’s will.

  Will had known Delores was upset her son had left the duplex and stone house to him. Matt had bought the land with his trust money and Delores was never pleased her precious son wanted outskirt land. Salt in the wound that Matt had given the despicable land to the one person Delores would always deem despicable himself.

  Will hadn’t planned to make the rest of the house habitable since such goals fell under long-term ideas. He was stuck on day-to-day survival until he was stronger.

  Never before had he even cared about the land. He had the stone house, which was nothing more than shelter. He had the beach for runs. And the duplex, he had noticed on his return Clay had moved in there. He had never given another thought to what happened otherwise.

  But that day, he did think. And for the first time in over a year, he discovered he had a clear vantage of the duplex’s front porch. As he waxed his bike in his drive, he had a hard time refraining from casting a glance to the group working on the rails. For the first time in over a year, he realized his curiosity in his new neighbor dimmed his constant brooding and depression.

  A further distraction from his sour mood came with a call from Fred. Towing vehicles wasn’t his primary service, but since he had the means to do it, he occasionally accepted the assignment.

  “Where at?” He cradled his cell in the nook of his shoulder and screwed the wax tin shut.

  “Alley coming off of Dixie.” Fred yawned on the other end.

  “Whose vehicle?” Will pushed his bike into his garage. If it had been Eric calling in the favor, he would have hung up. He never minded Fred. A common sense and no-nonsense man, Fred was a decent sort of law enforcement and as a Churchston local, he had never displayed frank hatred at him since the war.

  “Bartender at Alan’s. Jaycee.”

  Will scratched his chin as he entered his truck. “Wasn’t she busted for possession?”

  “And selling. Got out last season but she just came back in town. You gonna come pick it up?”

  “Nothing else to do.”

  “I’m heading to urgent care with the victim. She’s a tourist and doesn’t know where to go. Whiplash. Her car can stay there since it ain’t in the way.”

  Will didn’t check the progress on the porch as he drove by to the garage. After he parked his personal truck and revved the tow-truck, he headed for the scene of the accident.

  In a bad mood and too-tight denim that suffocated and spilled over her fake tanned muffin-top, Jaycee didn’t acknowledge his arrival other than to bitch at the fact he took too long. At her side, Daisy sympathized her woes.

  “So he goes, ‘I didn’t know you were coming back.’” Jaycee stuck a cigarette on her lower lip. “Fucking dipshit. I told him I was gonna come back to this hellhole after I was out.”

  Daisy shook her head. “He’s a fucking old moron.”

  “So I say, ‘Alan, what the fuck.’” Jaycee sucked in a deep hit. “I mean, I told him I was coming back someday. He goes, ‘I heard you had a job in the city.’ Well, yeah, I thought dancing was gonna be it. Make a shit-ton of cash and stuff, you know.”

  “What happened with that?” Daisy studied a zit with her compact.

  “Oh, they had it out for me. Damn bitches lied to the manager. Said I was stealing their tips. I wasn’t stealing. They were taking my dances. Fucking hoes would lure my clients away, so it was technically my money in the first place, you know whadamean?”

  Will left them yammering on the sidewalk as he backed the truck up. In the peace and quiet of the driver’s seat, he inhaled deeply. The air in the cab was stale with remnants of exhaust and WD-40, but it was better than the funky perfume the women had polluted the alley with. When he exited the truck, they were still griping.

  “That sucks.” Daisy grimaced as Will released the chain on the bed.

  “And then the one ho jumped me after work and, you know.” Jaycee hitched up her too-small shorts. “I had to watch my back. I didn’t need no more violence bein’ on my record again, but she was a mean ho.”

  Daisy shook her head. Metallic clinks chipped as the chain lugged Jaycee’s car onto the truck. Will wished the whine of the winch could have been loud enough to drone out the whine of the wench.

  “So, anyhoo, I asked him who he hired. He points out some blonde bitch who was carrying out some deliveries.” Jaycee stubbed the cigarette out. “So I go after her and tell her she ain’t needed no more. Mick still works there, I’m back in town now. Alan don’t need no more help than us.”

  “She’s working for Burns, too. Some big-city girl. Her husband dumped her or something other,” Daisy said.

  “Oh yeah? Huh. So she asked Alan if he wants her help and he nods like a pathetic old dirt bag. I tell her nut-uh, fat ass, I’m taking my job back. Tell Alan he better let me back or else. So new girl sets the boxes down on the ground and gears up like some Jackie Chan, holds her fists up like some motherfucking kung fu freak. Says she don’t take shit from deadbeats. Tells me I ain’t gonna threaten old fart Alan when she’s around. Now old Alan gets all fussy and scaredy-cat about it all and he says I can work part-time. Only in the bar. Blonde bitch will do the deliveries.”

  With Jaycee’s car on his truck, Will scribbled the essentials on the form and shoved it at her.

  Jaycee snatched the paper from his hands without a glance at him, continuing her complaints to her pal. “Mick tells me she’s some black-belt shit. Black belt, gold belt, I don’t give a rat’s ass. I’ll tell you what, girlfriend, blonde bitch better watch her back.”

  Chapter 8

  “Penny for your thoughts.” Randy nudged Kelly’s elbow as she sat on the hut countertop. He had stopped by for small talk and Clay had stopped by to window shop the bikini-wearers on the sand. As Junior played hacky sack with his teeny-bopper girlfriend, Allison, Kelly’s mind wandered. For a change, it wasn’t the sadness claiming her brain.

  “Why did he freak out?” Three days after Will had exploded on the porch, she still didn’t understand the intensity of his reaction. Sure, he had some anger management issues, one of those alpha males who had to be consulted for permission for everything in life. But over a porch rail?

  Randy took a deep breath, then cleared his throat. Kelly grimaced. There was a high probability she wasn’t going to like what he’d say.

  “He was close friends with our old buddy, Matt Downs. Will, Matt, Clay, me, we all hung together. Since we could walk. Well, Matt and Will figured out in high school they were best friends. They lived here together before they went into the Marines. Both went in and only Will came back. He didn’t take Matt’s death well.”

  Kelly nodded. And post-trauma, too. It didn’t escape her notice he almost jumped when Clay had slammed the wood-laden tailgate. “It was just a porch railing.”

  “Matt went to school for carpentry. He made those railings before the first semester started. They put them up when Matt bought the townhouse. Will must have had some sentiment in them.�
�� Randy kicked the stray ball back to the teens. “I’m sorry, Kelly. I should have told him I rented Matt’s half. I didn’t mean to go behind his back, but he’s not easy to deal with.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “He’s having a rough time of it.”

  “Bullshit,” Clay said. “He’s an asshole. Plain and simple.”

  Kelly finally understood why Clay had scowled near Will. He must get the brunt of it all, having to see his former friend was gone and a jerk replaced him.

  “Anyway. I should have told him you were living here.”

  “Not like he’s noticed for near three months now,” she said.

  “True. But that way he could have come to terms with it and not blown up at you.”

  Kelly bet Will would have blown up at her in some capacity or another. He was simply an angry man. Post-trauma or not, he had anger in his genes. If not anger, something else equally fierce.

  “And I’m sorry I didn’t explain your landlord is kind of—”

  “An asshole,” Clay finished for him.

  Kelly stood up and stretched her legs. She retrieved a disinfectant spray bottle and headed for the used kayaks. “It’s alright, Randy. I grew up with wrestlers and quarterbacks and they drank, too. I’m not scared easily.”

  “He’d never hurt you. He’s not…” Randy held a zoned-out gaze across the street.

  “He’s not mean,” Junior spoke up. “He’s an asshole. But he’s not mean. More secluded. He doesn’t want anything to do with anyone, is all.”

  “Was he hurt in the war?”

  Randy nodded, but didn’t go into detail. Kelly pursed her lips and sprayed the first kayak. “Sounds like you guys lost two friends.”

  “We care about him. But there’s nothing we can do.” Randy dug his hands in his chino pockets and studied the sand.

  “What about his family?”

  Junior choked on a cough and no one answered. She checked their faces with curiosity.

  “He doesn’t really have any,” Allison said.

  Kelly frowned. “Orphan?”

  Randy cleared his throat. “His dad was a drunk and died when Will graduated high school. He wasn’t really there much.”