“I know, but I’m out there anyway, taking pictures.”
“You stay out of it.” His tone brooked no argument and his eyes, sunken farther into his head than they should have been, sent her a glare that could have cut through steel. “I mean it.”
“Don’t worry about Thomas Fitzpatrick.”
“I’m not concerned about that old buzzard, but I sure as hell want my job back!” He let out an angry puff of indignation. “And now the bastard has the gall to invite us to an engagement party for his daughter!?
?? Weldon glared at his wife. “We’re not going. Not unless I get my job back!”
Thelma’s lips pursed. “Don’t be rash.”
“I’ll be anything I damned well please, and I sure would like a smoke!” He started coughing then settled back on the pillows. “It’s hell to get old, Carlie-girl.”
“You’re not that old, Dad.”
He smiled. “What’s that they say—it’s not the years, it’s the miles? Damn it all anyway.”
Carlie sat down and held her father’s work-roughened hand. She wanted to set him straight about his job and his health, to beg him to take care of himself, to ease his mind about his finances, but the arguments forming on her tongue went silent when she saw the nearly imperceptible wag of her mother’s head, cautioning her that it would be best to let the subject drop.
“What’ve you been doing?” Thelma asked, turning the conversation in a new direction.
Carlie spent the next hour talking about her job, avoiding mention of the logging company and keeping Ben’s name from the discussion. The less her family knew about her tenuous relationship with Ben, the better. She stayed another forty-five minutes with her folks, but felt more than a little depressed when she was leaving. Her father had refused to be jollied into a good humor and her mother was obviously worried about him.
“He’ll be better in a few days,” Thelma said, hope in her voice as she held open the screen door for her daughter. “The physical therapist says he’s improving much faster than they’d expected.”
“It’s his will of iron,” Carlie replied.
“We’ll just have to give him time to get used to all this. It’s new to him, you know. And he’s worried that we might have to move into something a little cheaper, something with only one level.” Thelma sighed and leaned on the door. “It’s not as bad as he makes out. We’ve saved all our lives, and we have a little nest egg. Unfortunately, your father thinks it’s the size of a hummingbird egg and he thinks we need an ostrich egg.” Thelma managed a thin smile. “Things’ll get better.”
“I’ll stop by tomorrow,” Carlie promised as she dashed through the rain, sidestepping puddles on the way to her Jeep. She rammed the rig into reverse, turned around and tried not to let her father’s depression settle on her shoulders. It was times like these when she wished she had a sister or a brother to share the load. She envied Rachelle and Heather. Even though they’d fought like cats and dogs while growing up, the bond between them was deep and when the family had split up, the two sisters had rallied together.
Carlie stared through the raindrops gathering on the windshield and flipped on the wipers. Even Ben had Nadine, a sister who was as stubborn as he was bullheaded. Though Kevin was dead and their family had been ripped to shreds, brother and sister were still friends, still staunch allies.
Nadine’s marriage to Hayden Monroe had been a strain on the relationship, but it seemed as if Ben was now grudgingly accepting his new brother-in-law.
Carlie blew her bangs out of her eyes as she thought of Ben. Despite everything she’d told herself about protecting her heart, about avoiding him because he was trouble with a capital T, about staying away from a man who was as dangerous as a loaded gun, she still found excuses to be with him.
He’d called and invited her to a movie. She’d accepted and though the picture had been dull, they’d laughed about it together. They’d met for lunch in Coleville twice in the past week and they’d even bumped into each other at Fitzpatrick Logging where Ben had been contracted to restore some of the company buildings that needed work. Thomas had told her not to take any photographs of the buildings until Ben’s crew had given the offices a “face-lift.”
They hadn’t so much as kissed since the night she’d found him in her apartment, hadn’t even touched. Nor had he surprised her again in her own home. She’d met a couple members of his crew, subcontractors hired to update the plumbing and wiring, others who were scheduled to paint and refinish the floors, but Ben himself hadn’t been around and she was surprised at the disappointment she’d felt that he hadn’t bothered to stop by.
“That’s the way you wanted it,” she told herself as she got home and unlocked the door of her apartment. Shrugging out of her coat, she dropped her purse on the floor before sifting through her mail. Bills. Receipts. Advertisements. Investment opportunities. And one handwritten envelope with the return address of Fitzpatrick.
Her own personal invitation to Toni Fitzpatrick’s engagement party, which was slated for the weekend of February fourteenth, near Valentine’s Day.
Wonderful. Another way to remember romance and the celebration of love. She tossed the invitation onto the counter and watched the raindrops sheet down the window over the sink. Would Ben be invited? If so, would he bother to attend a formal party? Even though he worked for Fitzpatrick, there was no love lost between Ben Powell and Thomas Fitzpatrick, the man who had a stranglehold on the town of Gold Creek.
Time would tell.
* * *
BEN SLID THE finished blueprints across the kitchen table. “Voilà.”
While his crews were out hauling debris and preparing the site for Nadine’s cabin, or scraping the peeling paint off the old Hunter house or checking the wiring, insulation and roofing at Fitzpatrick Logging, he’d put in hour after hour at the computer. Finally, after his rough draft was complete, he’d met with an architect-friend again, made sure that the building was as sound as it was eye appealing, then made the final revisions to his plans.
Nadine, her green eyes twinkling, slowly unrolled the plans. As she looked at the front elevation of her new cabin, she shook her head. “This is a little more elaborate than I had in mind.”
“Hayden insisted on his input, as well.”