Chapter 3
Three
When doctors deliver a big baby, they should take a picture with it like a fish.
—Mable to Cody
Mable
“Hello, Ms. Mable. What’d you bring us for breakfast today?”
I walked into the huge room of blue-collar workers, and didn’t feel a single ounce of worry.
These men were the best of the best.
They would protect me with their lives.
There were about twenty huge, hairy, muscular, not-so-muscular, rough and somewhat scary men waiting for me at the door.
I pointed at the car. “There are three more huge bags in the car.”
I wasn’t sure how it’d turned into my job to cook for these crazy men once a week, but it was turning out to be a hella lucrative business for me.
In the beginning, it’d started out as me just sharing a few cookies with the crew when I had them to spare.
But if anyone had spent any time around men, you knew that they were whiny when they didn’t get a piece of the pie, so to speak.
So I’d started bringing more.
And more.
And more.
Until now, they paid me a hefty penny to cook for them once a week.
Every week, the men contributed some money to a jar in the corner of the room. I’d take that money at the end of the week, and Monday morning I would come in with some goodies.
Those goodies had become a tradition, and now I was cooking up a storm Sunday night and early Monday morning to bring in delicacies that these blue-collar men would devour the moment I walked through the door.
Today, I’d made skillet queso, all portioned up into individual containers, so they had their own and didn’t have to fight it out over who got more.
I’d also made breakfast burritos with chorizo, brisket and corn.
A fruit salad. And so many cheese Danishes that they would have enough to take home to their families.
“Oh my god,” Jesper, the biggest and scariest of the group, said when he saw the Danishes. “These are my favorite!”
Jesper lifted the box from my hands and took the food to the table.
I walked to the corner of the room and dumped my bag into the seat that I usually occupied as we waited for the big boss to come in every morning and tell us what the plan was for the day.
The men were busy chowing down when said boss, Big John, came in.
Big John wasn’t his actual name. His actual name was Curtis, but when he’d first started working here, he’d saved a collapsing mine by using his body to stop a support from collapsing totally. He’d saved several people and he’d been coined “Big John” due to the popular song by Jimmy Dean.
Sadly for him, he’d never been called anything else since, and that was apparently twenty-five years ago.
Big John came into the room and walked right to the food, joining in with the rest of the crew.
Me being the only woman, at first I was hesitant with all the men.
But now they treated me like one of the guys, and I was fairly sure that they didn’t even see me as a woman anymore.
I was more of an annoying little sister that was “asexual” in their eyes.
“All right!” Big John said around a mouthful of burrito, white cheese dripping down his bushy beard that he paid no mind to.
“Today we’re working in the yard. Probably tomorrow, too.
Wednesday we’re moving equipment to the newest site.
We’re going to be covering for the sister company starting Thursday. ”
Generally, the company that I specifically worked for only did job sites and construction work.
Things like that. The sister company was generally only used in conjunction with a billion-dollar luxury log home business.
They cut down their own trees—something that had to be done by hand due to the nature of the terrain—milled their own logs.
Built the homes. Cleaned up the sites that the homes would be built on.
They were responsible for all the richy rich peoples’ homes from start to finish, and they had the cushier of the jobs.
“Why are we there and not them?” I wondered aloud.
“Because several of that crew refuse to work without better pay. The crew’s out of commission for a few weeks until they can find new operators or come to an agreement.” He looked at the room at large. “If you go to them, I’ll never forgive you.”
The men laughed. “Never, Big John. We only have eyes for you.”
That was a lie, really.
We loved Big John, but the sister crew was the crew to be in.
They had better hours. Better equipment. Better safety measures. We got all the cast-offs. The old equipment that didn’t work as well anymore. The shitty jobs. Working with the new guys.
We pretty much trained the crew, and then they stepped up into the new positions with the other company for better pay and a better work environment.
Not saying that working with my company was bad.
It wasn’t.
But it would be nice to have heated bathrooms like the other crews had, and not have to travel a hundred miles a day to go to work while the other crew got to stay within fifty miles.
A text came through on my phone, and I absently read it without thinking too much into who it was from.
Unknown:
Hey, I think I have your dog. He was dumped at the end of my road, and he’s been living with me ever since.
I screeched in excitement, causing everyone to stop what they were doing and look at me.
“Someone found Brawny!”
Cheers sounded.
Brawny had been like a mascot here.
Everyone felt the hurt when he’d gone missing.
He hadn’t come out on the jobs with me, but when we’d work in the yard, I’d bring him and leave him in the office.
“Who has him?” Jesper asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It was a text.”
“Call him,” Jesper suggested.
So I did, while twenty men stayed quiet waiting to hear the news.
“Hello?”
The voice, like raspy, sex on a stick, sent a jolt of awareness through me.
It also had a familiarity to it that I couldn’t quite place.
“Hey.” I barely contained my tears. “You have my dog?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I work a lot and didn’t think about the dog being registered with a microchip. Thought he was dumped. Had a friend look into him for me a few days ago, and we found you on social media. Since I don’t have it, I hadn’t thought to look.”
I was trembling. “Can I come get him now?”
“I’m at work,” he sounded apologetic, and hesitant. “I can bring him into town after I get done, though.”
“When and where?” I gasped.
“You live near Sawtooth?”
Relief shot through me that he was close. “Bear Pass.”
“I can bring him to you, but it won’t be until around seven. If you can meet me in Sawtooth, it’ll be earlier.”
I fist-pumped the air and repeated my earlier statement. “When and where?”
“Ever been to Meridian?”
I couldn’t stop the instant lip curl.
Several of the guys chuckled at my reaction.
They knew my instant dislike for that place.
“Yeah.”
“There at three.”
“I’ll be there,” I said excitedly.
When I hung up, I couldn’t stop myself from jumping up and down in excitement.
Several of the guys joined me, and we had a mini girl-out for a few long seconds before I settled down.
“Good news, Watts,” Big John said. “Now, let’s get to work. It’s a maintenance day.”
Everyone grumbled but did as he suggested.
And for the next seven hours, I counted down the seconds.
Nerves all but forced me to stand as I waited outside the gates at the Meridian Country Club in my usual attire.
Today I was wearing a skin-tight AC/DC shirt that’d seen better days—I hadn’t had time to go home to change—and my well-loved tan work pants that clearly showed that I worked outside. My boots were oily and covered in hydraulic fluid from today’s maintenance work.
My hands had oil and grime all over them, permanently etched there after working with my hands instead of in gloves. And I had so much dirt underneath my fingernails that I’d be cleaning them out for days.
But nothing could hide my excitement as I all but bounced on my toes.
Two-fifty-nine.
Just as three o’clock hit, an older model Ford diesel pulled into the parking lot and parked at the back. A pristine Ford that looked like it was coming right off the factory lot, only in the nineties instead of 2026…
My heart leaped into my throat when a brown head that I knew so well poked out of the door that the driver had opened.
The driver, a large man wearing a blue flannel shirt, reached in and clipped on a leash and urged the monster down out of the truck.
The truck door slammed, and I didn’t know who to look at first.
My gaze automatically chose my baby love, Brawny, though.
But I did notice that the man holding the leash was also the same man from a few days ago.
The one that I’d run into after having it out with my sister and mom.
My heart, however, was truly focused on one thing and one thing only.
“Brawny!”
My baby’s head snapped up so fast that he tripped on his own feet.
He started running before he’d had a chance to really process, but the man’s hold on the leash stopped him from going much farther than the lead would allow.
The man, however, did jerk as he forced the dog to wait.
My poor baby.
I hurried across the parking lot, and the man barked at me to stop.
“Don’t move!”
I came to a stop at the sudden, forceful sound and blinked at him owlishly.
That’s when a car sped past, making my heart pound.
I felt my cheeks heat.
“Sorry,” I murmured when he started toward me. “I was excited.”
“I can see that,” the man muttered as he got closer.
I dropped down to my haunches when Brawny was close and threw my arms around his neck.
He howled in delight, kissing me and loving me just the way he used to do.
“Oh, Brawny Boy,” I cooed as he covered me in so much slobber that it dripped off my nose. “I’ve missed you so.”
The man waited patiently for our reunion to finish before he said, “Sorry for yelling at you.”
I looked up at him, Brawny’s tongue still licking away at my face, and said, “Oh, I understand. I should’ve looked. I was taught that when I was three.”