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Gus’s wisdom reminded Matt that he wasn’t in this alone, that despite Gus’s death while Matt served in the desert sands of Iraq, he’d never be alone again, not in spirit anyway.
“You bought this house?”
The reality of the recent transaction tightened his neck, his look. “I bought the subdivision.”
“All of it?” The kid’s air reflected his mother’s again, a shadowed starkness making Matt feel like a crusty headmaster, cold, cruel and crotchety.
The cold part was accurate, his wet clothes and the brisk wind a chilling reminder of what was to come. He met the kid’s eyes and nodded. “All of it. Yes.”
“But, Mom—”
“Stop, Jake. It’s all right.”
“But—”
“I said stop.”
The kid’s baffled look made Matt feel like scum, but why? Why should it matter if…
“You bought Cobbled Creek?”
A new voice entered the fray.
Matt swung around.
Three older men stood at the back door opening, backs straight, heads up, their posture definitely not at ease.
Military men, despite the paunch of one and the silver hair of another.
The man in the middle stepped forward, drew a breath and extended a hand. “I’m Hank Marek.”
The name sent a warning bell of empathy. Hank Marek of Marek Home Builders, the now-defunct contractor that started this project over two years ago.
Matt wasn’t a sympathetic person by nature. He’d hard-scrabbled his way up the ladder of success despite illegitimate beginnings followed by a fairly miserable upbringing, but coming face to face with the man who lost his dream so that Matt could have his, well…
He hauled in a breath and accepted Hank’s hand. “Matt Cavanaugh of Cavanaugh Construction.”
The older man’s face revealed nothing of what he must be feeling inside, the loss of his work, his livelihood, his well-designed subdivision the victim of overextended loans and the burst of the housing bubble.
The other men stepped forward, concerned.
Hank moved back, nodded and directed a look beyond Matt to the woman and boy. “There’s stew just about ready and the temperature’s supposed to dip lower tonight before coming back up tomorrow. Jake, can you help me fire up the wood stove?”
The boy scowled Matt’s way, scuffed a toe, huffed a sigh, then trudged past Matt, the dog trailing behind, their mutual postures voicing silent displeasure.
“Callie? I’ll see you at home?”
“I’m on my way, Dad.” She pivoted, her mud-slicked heel tipping the move.
Matt started to lean forward to stop her fall, but she managed to right herself despite the wet floor and the mud. High, flat, wedged heels marked her departure with a tap, tap, tap as she hung a right turn at the door. She strode up the drive to her car, the soaking rain deepening the pathos of an already melodramatic situation.
Matt watched her go, then headed to the back door opening. The older men and the boy trudged in measured steps across the banked field, faded flag stakes symbolizing the wear and tear of waiting through too many seasons of sun, wind, snow and rain.
Matt watched their progress, his brain working overtime, the reality hitting him.
Hank Marek lived alongside the subdivision he had tried to create in the beautiful hillside setting, the curving road nestling the homes in the ascending crook of the Allegheny foothills.
It was that eye for setting that drew Matt to the initial showing, then the ensuing auction, his appreciation for the timeless, reasonably priced and aesthetically pleasing housing, a plan that not only fit the terrain but added to it, a rarity.
But he had no idea Hank lived in the quaint, small farmhouse on the main road, just steps away from the sign labeling Cobbled Creek a community of fine, affordable homes.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, muttered a prayer that combined a plea for understanding and a silent lament that he might be following the foolish imprint of the older man’s footsteps, and headed to his truck, the cold, soaking rain a reminder that winter loomed, and he had an amazing amount of work to do in a very limited time frame.
Which was probably something he should have thought a little more about before papers were signed and money exchanged, but the delayed closing was the bank’s fault, not his. Matt understood the time constraints he faced, but God had guided him this far. Someway, somehow, they’d get these sweet homes battened down for the winter.
As he crested the rise to his truck, the woman’s car backed toward the roadway, a wise decision on her part. Mud-slicked shoulders weren’t to be trusted in these conditions, and when she curved the car expertly onto the road, then proceeded to the farmhouse beyond, he recognized the meaning behind Hank Marek’s words.
The woman and the kid probably hated him for who he was and what he’d done. On top of that, they appeared to live across the street from where he would take over Hank’s dream because he was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.
The hinted headache surged into full-blown reality, a niggling condition spawned from a really nasty concussion while fighting in Iraq, a grenade explosion too close for comfort. But if occasional bad headaches were his worst complaint after a double tour in the desert, he really had no complaints at all.
Dad’s dream is gone.
Callie steered the car into the drive, angled it between the catalpa tree and Tom Baldwin’s classic Chevy, then headed inside, determined to put on a happy face despite what just happened. The smell of Dad’s stew reminded her of how often her father had been there for her, supportive, honest, caring and nonjudgmental.
Returning that respect was imperative now.
The men trooped in, their footsteps heavy on the back porch. Callie pulled out a loaf of fresh-baked Vienna bread crusted with sesame seeds, placed it on the table and settled a plate of soft butter next to the bread, her mama’s custom because cold butter seemed downright unfriendly.
Right now a part of Callie felt unfriendly, but not to Dad and the guys. Or Jake, her beautiful son, her one gift from a sorry attempt at marriage to a fellow soldier.
Hank dropped a hand to her shoulder. She looked up, sheepish, knowing he’d see through her thin attempt at normalcy. “It’s okay, Cal. He’s young. Looks competent. And he must have the numbers behind him because the bank signed off. Those homes need someone now, not next spring when things might look better for us.”
He was right, she knew that; she’d been handling his books for three years, and truth be told she did as well with a nail gun as she had with an M-16 and a computer spreadsheet, but—
“The important thing now is to save the houses. I’m hoping Matt Cavanaugh and his crew can do that.”
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
Hank had personally planned that subdivision to honor her mother, the name reminiscent of her mother’s childhood home along the shores of Lake Ontario, the quaint family cobblestone a salute to artisans of old. Hank had been determined to carry that classic neighborhood warmth throughout Cobbled Creek, his plans lying open on a slant board he’d erected at the back of the family room. He didn’t glance their way now, and neither did she, the thoughts of all that time, effort and money gone in the blink of an eye, a slash of a pen.
Hank lifted the stew pot onto the center of the table. Tom and Buck grabbed bowls, napkins and utensils, the old-timers a steady presence at the Marek homestead. Jake put The General on the back porch and shut the door. He ignored the dog’s imploring whine and triple tail thump, a sure sign The General would rather be curled up on the braid rug alongside the coming fire, but the smell of wet dog didn’t rank high on Callie’s list.
An engine noise drew her attention to the north-facing kitchen window.
Matt Cavanaugh’s black truck sat poised at the end of Cobbled Creek Lane. Sheeting rain obscured her vision, but something about the truck’s stance, strong yet careful, imposing yet restrained, reminded her of the man within, his shoulders-back, jaw-tight stance just rugged enough to say he got things done. His dark brown eyes beneath short, black hair hinted Asian or Latino, maybe both, his look a mix that defied the Celtic last name. She’d faced him almost eye-to-eye in three-inch heels which put him around five-eleven, not crazy tall, but with shoulders broad enough to handle whatever came his way.
She refused to cry, despite the disappointment welling inside. Stoic to the end, she’d been practicing that routine for years now.
Too long, actually, don’t you think?
Callie pushed the internal caution aside. Survivors survived because they manned up, took the shot and stood their ground. Four years in the military taught her how to draw down the mask, put on the face, pretend disinterest as needed.
“Great bread, honey. Thanks for picking it up.”
Callie turned, flashed the men a smile, laid a gentle hand on Jake’s shoulder and nodded. “You know I’ll do anything to keep you boys happy. Any word on when this storm’s going to let up?”
Jake took her lead, such a good boy, so much like his grandpa. “Supposed to be nice tomorrow, Mom.”
“Perfect.” She smiled, ruffled his hair and sank into a seat alongside him. “We’ve got to finish the front of the house while we can, get it cleaned up so we can decorate for Christmas. We’ll save cleaning the gutters—”
“Again?”
Callie sent Jake a “get serious” look and nodded. “Yes, again, they’re filled with leaves and maple spinners. You know we can’t leave them like that for winter.”
“We don’t want ice damming that porch roof again,” interjected Hank.
Tom took up the thread, his face saying he’d play along, pretend everything was all right. “I remember Callie up on that roof last winter, luggin’ that smaller chain saw, cutting through the ice.”
“Bad combination of events, all around,” agreed Buck. “To get that much snow, then warm up just enough to get a quarter inch of ice. Rough circumstances.”
“But nothing we couldn’t handle,” Callie reminded them all. She’d used the short chain saw to hack through the pileup, pretending she didn’t recognize the risk of being on a roof bearing thousands of pounds of unwanted ice, chain saw in hand. The roof’s shallow slope helped steady her, but that flattened slope caused the initial problem, the lack of height allowing snow to gather and drift beneath the second-story windows.
“Exactly why we used steeper roof pitches on the subdivision,” Hank reminded them. His expression said he was determined to face this new development like he handled life, head-on. “Quick water shed is crucial in a climate like ours.”
“It is, Dad.”
“Right, Grandpa.”
Mouths full, Buck and Tom nodded agreement, pretending all was well, but Hank’s old buddies were no fools. Faced with the new realization that Hank’s dream was in someone else’s hands just beyond the big front window, Callie was pretty sure that nothing would ever be all right again.
Chapter Two
“What do you mean you’ve got no crew?” Matt asked his roofing subcontractor the next morning. “I can’t do a thing until we get these places under cover with good roofs. We’ve got water-damaged plywood to replace, it’s November and I need the crew you promised today. Not next April.”
Jim Slaughter, the owner/manager of Slaughter Roofing and Siding sighed. “I’m tapped out, Matt. Fewer housing starts and reroofs. I’m filing for bankruptcy restructuring and hoping I can keep my house so we’re not tossed out on the street. I had to let the guys go.”
Matt’s marine training didn’t allow temper tantrums or bad vibes, even though he was tempted. “Who else might be available?”
Jim went silent, then offered, “You’ve got the Marek family right there, and Hank is friends with Buck Peters. They’ve all done roofing.”
Ask the guy whose dream got yanked out from under him to finish that dream for someone else? Matt didn’t have the callousness to do that.
Did he?
Matt eyed the farmhouse across the way. A ladder leaned up against the front. While he watched, the woman came out of the house with a bucket. She climbed the ladder, the unwieldy bucket listing her to the right until she settled it on the ladder hook. She pulled out a large green scrubbie and began washing the faded paint systematically, until she’d extended as far as she could, then she climbed down, shifted the bucket and the ladder and repeated the process despite the cold day.
A scaffolding would be so much easier. A power washer? Better yet.
He clenched his jaw and shook his head internally. “Another option. Please.”
“I’ve got nothing. Literally. There aren’t a lot of roofing contractors close by and making time for your job would be hard with a clear schedule. For anyone with jobs lined up, getting yours in would be next to impossible and a lot of people let their crews go from November to March because of the holidays and the weather. I was hoping to hold out, but the closing took too long.”
It had, through no fault of Matt’s. Bankers didn’t comprehend weather-related restrictions and rushed work meant shoddy work.
Matt didn’t do shoddy. Ever. He inhaled, eyed the house across the street and released the breath slowly. “If I get help, can you crew with them?”
“If it means fighting my way out of this financial mess, I’ll work night and day,” Jim promised.
“Can we use your equipment?”
“Absolutely.”
Matt made several futile phone calls, carefully avoiding people who wouldn’t give him the time of day for good, if old, reasons. And while plenty of construction workers were laid off, most had left the area, unable to survive on nonexistent funds. Half the remaining subcontractors were the type Matt wouldn’t trust with his hammer, much less his livelihood, and the others were too busy to take on a huge project like Cobbled Creek.
Matt eyed the Marek place again and squared his shoulders, determined to find another way. He took two steps toward his truck, then gave himself a mental slap upside the head.
Jim made two very important points earlier. Was Matt willing to risk his investment on the possibility of bad workmanship?
No. His intent was to implement the appealing design plan that drew him initially. Of course it was less than beautiful now, and that had steered other developers clear. But Matt saw the potential and was determined to watch this pretty neighborhood spring to life under his guidance.
But rot problems would continue if the homes sat unroofed for another winter, and in the Allegheny foothills, rough weather came with a vengeance. He could complete inside work between now and spring, but outside endeavors were dictated by conditions. Lost time meant lost money, an unaffordable scenario to a guy who’d just invested a boatload of his and Grandpa’s money into this venture.
He pivoted, then headed across the front field, his gaze trained on the house facing him, uncertainty and determination warring within.
Callie strode into the house after her lunchtime waitressing stint and came to an abrupt halt when she saw Matt Cavanaugh seated at their kitchen table, sipping coffee like he was an old friend. A heart-stopping, good-looking old friend.
Except he wasn’t.
“Callie, Matt needs some help.”
Callie bit back a retort, trying to separate the tough-as-nails guy before her from the situation that wrested her father’s dream out of his hands.
Nope. Couldn’t do it.
She moved past the table, set a couple of plastic grocery bags on the counter and headed for the stairs. “I’ll leave you men to your discussion.”
“It’s a family decision, Cal.”
Callie swallowed a sigh, one hand on the baluster, her feet paused, mid-step, then she shielded her emotions and faced them, albeit slowly. “About?”
“I need a work crew for roofing,” Matt explained. His deep voice kept the matter straightforward and almost a hint detached, as if this wasn’t about as insulting as life could get because he was talking about roofing their homes, their dreams, their project. “Jim Slaughter’s run into bad times, he had to let his crew go and you guys know how crucial it is to get these houses roofed.”
Hank nodded. “It broke my heart to see them sitting unprotected. Uncovered.”
Callie knew that truth firsthand; she’d lived, breathed and witnessed her father’s depression. His Crohn’s disease had contributed to the ruination of what could have been a beautiful dream, a feather in his cap. She’d prayed, promised, cajoled and bullied God and this…
She swallowed a sigh, eyeing Matt, trying to look beyond the tough-guy good looks, the steel gaze, the take-charge attitude so necessary in a good contractor.
