Chapter 13
Zane fumbled with the laptop on the makeshift desk in Mabel’s compact car. He didn’t love this little arrangement. He did love being with Mabel; that was the only good part of this assignment.
“Where are we at?” Mabel asked, her cheek dimpling as she looked left and right before crossing the road to start in on the next section of land.
Where are we at? As in you and me?
It was tempting to ask that. Of course, she was talking about the windshield survey, but he wanted to talk about them. About how he felt about her and to reassure her that he would always try to be the man she needed. About how cute she was when she had her retainer in.
Not that he’d actually seen her in the retainer the night before. But he did get to see her in that dress at the wedding, and he did get to hear her voice through the doorbell.
“Okay, so we’re on Vines Road, and we still have the canal going from east to west, and then there’s the Garvin farm coming up?” he asked.
“Yep, 1137 Vines Road. Right there.” She eased the car to a stop on the gravel shoulder and put it in park. Her eyes narrowed as Zane shifted in the seat, trying to pull his big knees up more to support the laptop.
“Okay, look,” Mabel said. “This isn’t working.”
“What’s not working? The candy wrappers lying around?
” he asked, smiling. He closed the laptop and turned to face her…
as well as he could with the gear shift in his way.
“I don’t mind the garbage per se.” He picked up an empty wrapper and waved it in the air.
“I just mind the fact that there’s been chocolate to be had and you didn’t share with me. ”
“Maybe I’ll bring you some tomorrow. It’s the least I could do since you brought me flowers last night.” The dimple danced again. “But, Zane, you’re tall. Very tall and muscular.”
“Well, gersh. Thanks.” There he went again, acting goofy because he didn’t know how to respond when he was paid a compliment.
Her smile deepened. “You know how I insisted on driving when we started this thing? Well, maybe I’ve gotten my driving fix. Maybe we start taking your truck from now on.”
“That would mean you would have to do the paperwork.”
“It’s fine. I can do my share.”
“Well, then, what are we waiting for?” He dramatically pointed down the road. “To my house to get my truck!”
She giggled and waited for him to input the information for the Marvin house and outbuildings before she did a U-turn and sped to his house.
As per the usual in Silver Plum, single thirty-somethings didn’t have a lot of options in housing, but he’d respectfully declined Parker’s offer to live in the loft apartment he’d been renting from Liam, the one several of them had lived in from time to time. Parker and Anjali had her house now.
No, Zane liked his little boxy home out on a long, quiet country road far out west from Silver Plum.
A 1940s bungalow with arts-and-crafts details, he’d bought it after he secured enough for a sizeable down payment.
If he’d actually finished vet school, he could have seen himself living in something much bigger one day, but doing the jobs he was doing now, he figured he was here to stay.
In his driveway, Mabel put the car in park and gazed at the house. “I’ve never seen the inside before.”
“That’s not acceptable at all. Forgive me for being a jerky homeowner before. Would you like to come in now?”
She bit her lip, her golden brown eyes dancing. “Well, yes. But I don’t know. Maybe we should keep working while we still have the light.”
She was right. She was right most of the time. But his heart did a little blip at the disappointment.
“You leave your car here, and we’ll get some of this data tracking done. Then when we run out of light, we can come back and you can get the grand tour.”
As they switched cars, before she got into the passenger seat of his truck, he tugged her close and pressed a kiss to her hair, near the top of her head. She smelled like lavender—clean, fresh, and understated.
Her lips curled in a smile when he moved to see her face.
“Was that okay?”
“Yes, it was.” Her eyes were wistful; the way she looked at him sent vibrations throughout his body.
Before he lost all control and started kissing her lips right then and there, he helped her climb into his truck and closed her door. They sped away from his house, which was at least a half-mile away from any neighbors on all sides.
Ah. The vast space and quiet of Silver Plum.
She sat frowning at the screen as he drove.
“Don’t judge me.” He gave her the side-eye.
“I’m not judging you. Just trying to get a feel for your system.”
“It’s not my system. It’s exactly how it was done in the sample Mack sent me.”
She tossed him a salty grin and began typing.
It was then that he noticed he was almost out of gas. “We have to make a slight detour.” He patted the dashboard. “Betsy here needs some fuel.”
“Betsy? How come I didn’t know you named your truck Betsy?”
“I didn’t name her. The truck was just inherently Betsy.”
He was in rare form. He’d almost kissed her the night before, finally almost given her the kiss they’d always meant to have, and one he wouldn’t run away after like the idiot he’d been before. And now, maybe, if things felt right, they could kiss for real this time.
She harrumphed but then grew still as they pulled into the gas station on Main Street on the outskirts of town.
“My dad’s filling up too.”
Sure enough, Bryce Butler was there, leaning against his beat-up pickup, wearing coveralls. There was only one double pump, so they had no choice but to pull up right across from him. Without warning, Zane’s alarm bells went off, and without realizing it, he let out a sigh.
“Ease up, Dante.” Mabel said, smiling. But her eyes told a different story.
“No one calls me that anymore.” He’d never particularly liked the nickname given to him in high school when he’d been a hothead on the football field or basketball court. Their grade had been reading Dante’s Inferno in English, so the friends had started calling him that.
“I call you that when you’re about to go off.”
He glanced at her from the side of his eye. “I’m not about to go off. But you know I don’t exactly get on great with Bryce Butler.”
To Zane, he’d never been Mr. Butler, or Mabel’s dad. He’d called him Bryce, even as a teen. He couldn’t bring himself to offer the respect of calling him sir or Mr. Butler on account of his warring feelings about his indifference toward his own daughter.
Zane got out of his truck, walked around to the other side, and inserted his credit card. Only then did Bryce look up from his trained gaze on the ground.
“Hi, Zane.”
“Hi, Bryce.” His beef with Mabel’s dad probably wasn’t the best thing. He should give the guy a break. He’d sort of fallen apart when his wife, Collette, died, becoming withdrawn, working eighty hours a week…it was like Mabel lost both parents the day Collette succumbed to viral pneumonia.
Did he have some compassion for Bryce because of all he’d gone through? Yes, he did. But it was Mabel who had suffered. Mabel and her younger brothers. She’d had to become the mom and the dad, for all intents and purposes, at age fourteen, while grappling with her own grief.
To Zane, there were some things he couldn’t forgive and forget.
Mabel rolled the window down and waved. “Hi, Daddy. Remember how I told you I was working on that watershed project? We just had to gas up.”
Bryce’s gaze moved from Mabel to Zane and then back to Mabel again, and he shifted his feet. “You two be careful and drive responsibly now. And, Mabel, don’t forget about your studying.”
Zane’s gaze bored into Bryce’s. “She’ll be great, with her safety and her studying.”
Bryce didn’t say anything, just fixed his dead stare on Zane a moment before undoing the latch on the pump and replacing it on the machine.
Before he drove away, he spoke to them again.
“Several people have been asking me about this water tower repair situation and how you guys are doing on the watershed project. I hope I’m not remiss in telling them you’ll get it done.
I don’t know what we’re going to do if the state rejects your proposal. ”
“You don’t need to worry.” Zane knew his voice held bitterness, and he hoped Bryce got this message loud and clear. “We’ve got it handled.”
Zane finished filling up, and by then, the diatribe in his head had already begun. He didn’t think it was good form to disparage someone’s father. But he also wanted Mabel to know he saw the realities, how deficient her father had become.
They pulled out of the gas station, and he couldn’t keep it in any longer. “Don’t forget about your studying?” Zane’s anger was measured, but his frustration simmered right below the surface. “Does he think you’re still in high school?”
Mabel shot him a look of surprise. “No. He hears me complaining about the NCLEX all the time. He’s just reminding me of my goals.”
“You’re right. But he barely even looked at you except to tell you what you should and shouldn’t do. You’re a grown woman.”
“Yes, I am. He’s…” She sighed and gazed out the window. “He’s been through a lot.”
“Doesn’t give him license to treat you that way.”
“I know. It’s not like I said, ‘Yes, Daddy. Whatever you say, Daddy.’” She bit her lip. “Sometimes it’s better not to react.”
“And sometimes it’s better to respond, from my standpoint.
I had to say something. Besides—” Zane urged himself to think before he spoke.
“You have been through a lot. You’re the one who lost your mother.
You’re the one who had to become the responsible adult in the family at age fourteen.
You got sick and didn’t have a single person to take care of you.
Your dad never even came home from the oil rigs one time when you were in the hospital or when you came home and could barely get up off the couch. ”
Sadness settled in his gut as he remembered how sick she was. He could have lost her that summer. She’d been weak and exhausted. Little appetite, pale face, fingertips so cold she wore knit gloves most of the time. The memories haunted him.
Silence fissured between them. “He had to work, and he sent money,” she said.
“As he should have. You lost your job because of your illness.” He took a deep breath. “I take issue with people who hurt you, okay? I know he’s also hurting. But he’s the father. He needs to step up.”
“Not everyone can be Reverend Jeff Taylor.” She said it quietly.
She was right. Zane was lucky to have the father he did, and his mother, Robyn.
“I have a great father and mother who are still alive and well, thank the Lord. But I have a problem with those who can’t get their ducks in a row to heal themselves.
” He rested his forearm on the top of the steering wheel.
“I’m sorry.” He knew he sounded defensive.
Who was he to talk about healing, especially healing the emotional stuff?
He didn’t understand any of that very well.
Suddenly, he caught one small glimpse into how she felt. He could empathize with her.
Mabel had lost her mother. For all intents and purposes, she’d lost her father. She’d lost him as a series of immature and ill-informed behaviors paralyzed the both of them.
It was a combination that no one should have to go through in this life.
Zane would do everything he could to help her heal.