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But today it felt...wrong. It was one thing to fix a roof at the end of its days, but another to profit off struggling folks, insurance notwithstanding. It wasn’t like Mel to feel so excited about making money off the misfortunes of others, yet he’d been raring to go from the second his feet hit the floor. Hadn’t it occurred to Mel that they’d have to work harder at a job Seth had long ago lost interest in?
Maybe that was it. Maybe the problem was him, not Mel.
Him lying awake, thinking about a nameless widow and her scared kids, instead of how to make himself some real money.
At the outdoor menu board, he placed the order. “One large coffee, dark roast, one cream.” Then he drew breath and let it rip. “Extra-large iced cappuccino. Half the ice. Double the sugar. Whipped cream. Caramel and chocolate swirl. Spoon, no stirring stick. And twenty Timbits. At least four need to be cream filled. None with icing sugar.”
To the clerk’s credit, she didn’t ask him to repeat it. Memorizing Mel’s morning order was probably part of national training to work at the chain.
Seth checked his mirror again. Mel was trotting over to another truck in the queue. Ron’s Siding read the lettering on the truck door. He and Ron had exchanged plenty of customers over the years. Seth rolled up the line and opened his Facebook to see pictures of golf ball–size hail in town and north, a grainery toppled south, a horse struck dead by lightning east eight miles.
And one person dead. Frederick Stephensson. Struck in the head by a hailstone the size of the baseballs Seth had tossed around last night. His niece had posted the news, and it had been shared and shared again until it was now in Seth’s feed. Seth didn’t know him.
But he knew the brother, Stephen Stephensson. He was the one who’d hired his dad to roof his house. The roof his dad had fallen from and broken his spine.
Now, twenty years later, there had been another death out there.
Seth was overcome by a sudden urge to get out. Get out of the truck, get out of the line, get out of the work piling up like the vehicles behind him. He pressed his fist to his temple. He started, stopped. Three more vehicles. Start, stop. Two more. Keep it together, Seth. This line will end, you won’t be trapped forever.
At the take-out window, Mel hopped back into the truck. “Isn’t just the town,” he said as he flipped open the box and examined the donuts.
“Hail’s flattened everything between here and Pete’s. Broke three windows and took out his wife’s garden. Ronnie said there isn’t a stalk of grain standing between here and his place. Some storm. Get this, they’ve both had calls this morning, people needing repairs done. Ronnie said we should keep in touch, work together. This could go big. You get any calls?”
Seth shook his head and swung out of Tim Hortons onto the street to Tim-Br-Mart. “Frederick Stephensson’s dead. You hear that?”
Mel stopped with his spoon of whipped cream halfway to his mouth. “Really?”
“Hailstone to the head. I saw it on Facebook.”
Mel stared out the windshield. “Isn’t that something?” He brought the spoon to his mouth. There must’ve been something revelatory in it because he smacked his lips and said, “You know, Stephensson’s roof will need redoing. Especially now that he’s selling.”
Seth braked the truck so hard Mel had to scramble to keep his donuts and drink. “What’s got into you? The guy has just lost his brother by an act of God. Two deaths out there and all you can think about is how to profit off him?”
Mel stared back as if Seth were the crazy one. “I don’t know where old Frederick died but it wasn’t on the farm. The two of them moved into town last winter. The farm’s been on the market ever since.”
Well. Mel would know. “At any rate, I will never get up on that roof again. Got it?”
In answer, Mel took out a cream-filled donut but didn’t start to eat it. “I was already thinking with all the extra work this summer we could buy a place. And if Stephensson sells—you know, him and Dad—”
So this was why Mel was so excited to make money. Their dad had once planned to buy the Stephensson place and was actually doing the roof at cost as part of the negotiating price. Twenty years on, Stephensson, for whatever reason, was only now selling...
Seth hit the gas with enough force for Mel to once again grab his food.
“Yes, I know about him and Dad. I’m not buying a place. Especially that one.”
Mel righted his food and spoke more softly than he had in a long time, “Didn’t mean you. I could. But it would be ours, you know that.”
That hurt. Hurt worse because Seth knew Mel was trying to be nice about it. After their mother died six months ago, Connie got the house, Mel got the money, and Seth got enough money to bury her. “Fact is,” Seth said, “the last thing I want to do is tie myself down to one more responsibility.”
Up ahead, he could see a truck turn into the lumber store. “How early do you have to be to get a jump on the day?” Seth said, hoping the question was enough to change the topic for Mel. Usually his half brother would’ve taken the bait but today he said, “What do you want?”
Not this. Not fixing old, broken, warping, leaking, crumbling roofs. Where you were exposed to whatever drops from the sky—bird poop, snow, rain, waves of blistering heat. Roofs that, once laid all new and solid, would be taken for granted until replaced two decades later—the time it takes for a baby to grow to an adult. Where one wrong step on the job can pitch you over the edge to injury—or worse. Where the only alternative is to wear a harness that ties you down, lets you swing like a monkey in a cage.
Seth parked the truck alongside two others and switched off the engine. “I want whatever I want, whenever I want.”
“Yeah, well, don’t we all? You need to be more specific.” Mel shook the donut box. “Which one do you think is cream filled?”
CHAPTER FOUR (#u2f1dd2b2-3011-5f2c-ac7f-2306b161c122)
ALEXI SAT WITH the kids in a semicircle in front of her, still in their pajamas, on or in their sleeping bags. She was divvying up the three remaining juice boxes, a small bag of plain potato chips and two slices of pizza from last night’s delivery among them. Breakfast. That and their bottles of water she’d filled from the outside tap.
She’d have to find a way to cook food today. Maybe she could get the fire pit working. If, she stretched a kink in her neck, she could get her body working first.
“Amy. Bryn. You share the apple juice. Amy, you go first.”
Amy took the box and gave a suck and swallow. Good enough for Bryn, who stripped the box from her hand and sucked it flat in four gasping gulps.
Amy kicked him with her prosthetic foot. She purposely used that foot when she wanted to avoid feeling the pain she was delivering. “Bryn! You were supposed to share.”
Alexi closed her eyes, stinging from lack of sleep. She’d kill for a coffee. “Amy. I know you feel wronged but kicking won’t make it better.”
“Yes,” she said, her eyes fixed on Bryn. “It does.”
“Well, I was thirsty,” Bryn said and raised his finger. Matt and Amy groaned. Once Bryn started ticking off arguments on his finger, he had to use all five before he’d stop. “Second, I couldn’t see the bottom so I didn’t know to stop. Third, it’s hard to stop when you get started. Fourth, fourth...”
Alexi handed Matt the second box. “Here. Share this with Callie.” He took it and smiled at her. A wide, relaxed smile she hadn’t seen for a year. Her breath caught. What had brought this on? Last night, he seemed so sad and tired...and small.
“You look happy,” she commented.
He jabbed the plastic straw into the box and held it out for Callie to sip first. “Yep. I am happy.”
They heard the front door suddenly open, followed by heavy footsteps.
Finally, the landlord. Except wouldn’t she have knocked? Alexi hadn’t thought to lock up last night after moving back inside. And from the kitchen it was impossible to see down the stairs to the entrance. It could be anyone. The kids stared at her like owlets.
“Hello?” A man’s voice.
“Seth Greene!” Matt jumped to his feet with the juice box and ran for the top of the stairs. Amy and Bryn followed, while Callie vaulted into Alexi’s arms. Alexi pulled herself to her feet and limped after them.
Seth stood there, looking up at them. In jeans and a T-shirt and wearing heavy boots, he looked ready for work. He also looked annoyed, his jaw tense, his gaze fixed up and away as if counting backward.
“You should’ve knocked first,” Bryn pointed out.
Seth still looked as if he were counting as he explained, “Habit.”
Perhaps it was falling unconscious on a wood floor or lack of liquids or the weight of another day starting bad, but he made no sense. His presence made no sense. She hefted Callie up higher on her hip. “It’s habit for you to walk into other people’s places without knocking?”
Seth tilted his head to where she stood a little off to the side at the half wall. His eyes narrowed, neither looking nor not looking at her.
“I lived here once,” he said.
“You did?” Matt said. “Cool!”
Seth turned to Matt, and his expression softened. Matt, in turn, smiled back. Alexi felt a flutter of panic. No way did she want Matt getting any false hopes about a man who’d no intention of sticking around. A man she didn’t want sticking around. She stepped behind Matt, put her hands on his shoulders.
“Strange you didn’t mention that yesterday,” she said.
His gaze rose past Matt to hers. “Wasn’t important yesterday. Thing is, I got some time this morning. Thought I’d come over and help. To be more specific,” he continued with an odd spitting emphasis on the last word, “I thought I’d see if I could get the water inside working for you. I know which hoses go where.”
Matt twisted to look up at her with his old happy grin. “That’d be awesome, wouldn’t it, Mom?”
No. It wouldn’t. “Thank you, but this is a problem the landlady needs to deal with. I’m not sure how it will affect our agreement if you come in and fix it.”
But come in is exactly what he did. He walked up the stairs, stepped into the kitchen, no doubt taking in the sleeping bags. He moved to the living room and strolled down the hallway, checking out the bathroom and bedrooms as he did. All the baseboards were gone and the floors were stripped to the wood, baseboards included.
He returned to where they stood in a tight group. “Your landlady already affected your agreement.”
“Yes, and so she should be the one to deal with it. I don’t want you involved. Though again, thank you.” Could she be any clearer?
“What are you going to do in the meantime? You can’t live in the tent.”
How did he know about that? The phone on his belt rang. He glanced at the screen. “Need to take this. Hello, Greene-on-Top.”
From Seth’s side of the exchange she gathered someone was inquiring about getting a roof repaired. Bryn and Amy dashed back in the kitchen and reappeared with pizza and juice boxes, resuming their place as if her conversation with Seth was a TV show they didn’t want to miss. Matt took three short sips from his box and handed the rest to Callie, his eyes on Seth the whole time.
After the call, Seth started to type a message. A good opportunity to get him turned around and out the door.
“Looks as if you’re busy from the storm,” she said. “I don’t want to keep you. I’m sure something will work out.”
He reattached his phone to his belt. “How do you figure that?” He looked at her, grimaced and glanced away, doing that looking while not-looking thing. Was there something on her face?
She was shifting Callie in her arms to check when Matt piped up. “But, Mom, the landlord won’t talk to us. Your phone is dead, anyway. And we can’t afford to fix it.”
Alexi felt her face grow hot. It was bad enough that a stranger knew she couldn’t afford a repairman, but that he had to learn it from her kid was even more shameful. It meant she couldn’t hide her poverty from her own kids.
“And Seth Greene offered to do it. This is the right thing to do.” He squared to her. “I feel it in my gut.”
Her own gut screamed something else. If Matt had got it in his mind that Seth was who they needed—heaven help them all. She needed this man out of her house now. But how? She couldn’t even call the police. And what did it matter? He was chummy with them, anyway.
He pointed to his temple. “What happened to your head?”
What? She touched her forehead and discovered a huge bump and, as she felt more carefully, a cut. Dried blood flaked onto her fingers. That explained his odd way of looking at her.
“I guess it was a hailstone. I—I was out getting the sleeping bags.”
“You didn’t know you got hit?”
“I felt something. It was dark. It didn’t hurt, really. I thought it was rain, not blood.” Why was she explaining this? She felt the wide eyes of the kids on her like bright bare bulbs. Why hadn’t they said anything? “It looks worse than it is, I’m sure. I bruise easily.”
“What were you doing in a tent with a storm forecasted?”
“It was my fault,” Matt interjected. “I suggested it because the place stunk so bad.”
“You suggested it, not decided it. Therefore, it’s not your fault,” Seth said.
Which implied it was hers. “You’re right,” she said, her voice squeaky with frustration. “I should’ve checked. It—it was a good thing it worked out as well as it did.”
Seth stared at the bruise on her head as if it were an enormous, hideous wart. “Why is your phone dead?” he said, jumping to another deficiency.
“The battery ran down and she can’t find the charger,” Matt explained.
Were there any more ways to display her incompetency? “I’m sure it’ll show up,” Alexi said.
Seth tipped his head down the stairs. “It’s in the box by the front door.”
There were ways. “I—I forgot that I’d brought it in.”
“I’ll go get it,” Amy said, running down the stairs.
“I get to plug it in,” Bryn said.
Callie slid down about to follow, then reconsidered and wound her arms around Alexi’s left thigh. Matt didn’t budge, and there was no subtle way of dismissing him.
Seth turned to her. “I hate—no, loathe—home renovations. Frankly I’ve got better things to do with my time.”
And she had better things to do than hear him gripe. “Then get doing them.”
Matt gasped, but she was beyond caring how rude she was. Could he think any less of her, anyway?
Seth merely shrugged. “I was until I saw your busted tent from the roof I was on. And I saw the roof here I’d put on three years ago, banged up but still good and I’d wondered why you’d chosen a tent over it. Then I remembered you saying it stunk inside and then I wondered if you got the water running. I’ll be making plenty from this storm. I figured I’d take a few hours to help out before it gets crazy. Like Matt said, it seems like the right thing to do.”
So. He saw her as a charity case. A victim in need of services. Exactly what she’d been for a third of her life. From age seven to the day she turned eighteen, she’d lived in foster care. Only when she’d married Richard had she been someone else. A wife. A mother. A full member of society. With him gone, she’d reverted to her childhood status.
Except now she had four children under her care. Their well-being, not her pride, was what mattered. As for how Matt’s proximity to an adult male would play out, well—well, no water was also a complication she’d have a hard time explaining, too.
She swallowed. “Okay, I do need help. I accept your offer. Thank you.”
“Yes!” Matt jabbed his fist in the air and tore into the kitchen, shouting the news to Amy and Bryn. The solid pressure of Callie disappeared as she broke away to join her brothers and sisters.
Seth grimaced at her swollen temple, and she touched it self-consciously. “A man died last night from a hailstone,” he said quietly. “Him and my dad...knew each other. So when I see you like that—” He broke off. “It can end so fast.”
Old familiar pain, the never-healing bruise on her heart from Richard’s death, swelled inside her. No, this was not the time, not the place and definitely not the person. She looked him in the eye. “I know that.”
He went still, then worked his jaw from side to side, shifted on his feet. “I don’t think I caught your name.”
He hadn’t? Had they overlooked introductions yesterday with everything happening? No, she’d learned his name and then not extended him the same courtesy, the man who’d brought Bryn back, kept her day from crossing into a living nightmare. Now he was here again today, willing to help someone he didn’t know the name of from the goodness of his heart. His grumpy heart, but still...
She dropped her hand from her temple to hold it out to him. “Alexandra Docker. Alexi, for short.”
