CHAPTER FOURTEEN FALLON #2
Looks like her patience has worn out, and I only have so much time to work with the sugar overload before it wears out and she morphs back into her usual demonic Tinker Bell self, fluttering around town, sprinkling glass shards and stardust on people.
I reach into my bag and pull out my notebook and a pen. Looking between the two of them, I take a deep breath. “Sawyer’s going to help us with the renovations.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Jaz tosses her hand up in the air.
The exact reaction I was expecting. If she wasn’t sugared up, her switchblade would have most likely been flipped open and thrown like an axe across the room—straight into a wall.
“Because he was able to lay a floor down once? I don’t think we need Julia disrupting our solid workflow. ”
“Jaz, first of all, we don’t have a solid workflow, and secondly, he used to be a contractor. We could really use his help.”
“Uh-huh, and have you seen any of his work?”
“He’s the one who fixed the bench, picnic tables, and horseshoe pits,” I say with a lift of my chin.
At a snail’s pace, Jaz turns her head so she’s looking Sawyer in the eyes.
I mentally prepare myself for whatever is going to fly out of her mouth.
She might be sugared up, but she’s still unhinged.
With a tilt of her head and a careful poise to her shoulders, she asks, “You’re the one who fixed Sully’s bench? ”
The mixture of fear and satisfaction contradict each other in Sawyer’s eyes. “Yeah,” he says, his voice strangled.
She lightly draws circles on the table, emulating a mob boss calculating when he will strike with his bazooka.
Kablam-o , rocket to the face. No mercy, the stovepipe has spoken.
“And you were the one who did the picnic table area? The same area that made my friend cry because she was so happy to have the spot where she used to cross-stitch with Grandma brought back to life?”
Well, she didn’t have to mention the crying aspect. Jeez. My cheeks flame.
Sawyer glances at me. “You cried?”
“Not relevant,” I answer, looking away.
Jaz shifts, crossing one leg over the other, an undeniable power move that keeps her in control of the conversation. “And you’re the one who fixed the horseshoe pits that Tank was raving about the other day?”
“He was raving?” Sawyer asks with a smile. “That’s good to know.”
“Don’t you dare smile at me.” Jaz jabs a finger at him. The gesture shoots Sawyer back in his chair, and he blinks a few times.
And here’s my cue to step in. “He’s very good. He also refinished the handicap-accessible cabin for my dads.” I open my phone to a picture of the cabin that I took this morning.
Dubious, Jaz takes my phone with a roll of her eyes and stares at the picture for no longer than five seconds. She gently sets the phone down and slides it back to me on the table. As she keeps her eyes on Sawyer, her lips twist to the side for a moment. “I don’t like you.”
And here I thought the proof of his work was going to open her mind, help her see Sawyer from a different angle. But the girl knows how to hold a grudge.
“But...” She pauses. “Unfortunately, you do wonderful work.” Sawyer cautiously smiles. It flits between a nervous pull at his lips and a frown, his lips performing a cancan of expression as he tries to read Jaz. “This pains me, but fine, he can help us.”
Not that she had a choice in the matter. But having her grudging approval will make the whole process much smoother.
She points a finger into the air. “But this doesn’t mean we’re friends, you hear me?”
Sawyer brings his cup of coffee to his lips. “Don’t worry,” he says over the rim. “Fallon and I established last night that we’re not friends. I wouldn’t expect any less from you.”
“Good.” Jaz flips my notebook open with one finger. “Now that we have all of that established. What’s the plan?”
A delightful compromise to a very unpredictable union. Julia the Runaway Groomsman, forgetter of my face, blind date disaster, now assisting us in the makeover of Canoodle Cove Cabins. I take a deep breath. “Well, it’s time to tackle some cabins.”
“Oh my God, there’s a mouse turd in your hair,” I say, pointing in horror at Jaz’s platinum-blonde locks.
“What?” she shrieks. Like the Tasmanian Devil, she spins in place, screeching. “Get it off. Get it off.”
Arms flailing, she transforms into a blur, a whirl so strong that no proper defense could subdue her thrashing jazz hands or her chest-high knees. She spins, she ducks, she dives around the outside of the third cabin we’re working on.
“Don’t just stand there.” Her scream is decibels too high, one octave shy of only being audible to dogs. “Get it out. Get it out. Get it out!”
I approach across the grass with caution, my glove-clad karate-chop hands my only defense. “I can’t when you’re flailing like that. Stop moving.”
“If I stop moving, the turd will implant itself.”
“That is not a thing!” I yell, swatting at her head with my work glove.
“I saw it on the Discovery Channel.”
“You clearly were not paying attention.” I swat again, but she dodges my glove. “Jaz, stop moving so I can help you.”
“Ahhhh!” she screams, shaking her hands over her hair. “Why is it still—”
Thwack.
Plop.
Jaz stills as if she’s been struck with a bullet, straight to the heart. She blinks, her expression dazed, and then, like a freshly cut pine, she timbers down to the grass. In shock, I glance up to find Sawyer standing over her, pillow in hand, looking just as shocked as me.
Did he just whack her with that pillow?
From the way his hands shake as he stares down at the confused Jaz, I’d say yes.
Fear steals my breath as I stand ramrod straight, anticipating the worst. A cacophony of threats, brimming on Jaz’s tongue, ready to be unleashed. I can feel it.
May the forest be with you, Sawyer; hell hath no fury when it comes to Jaz.
With a shake and a shudder, Jaz gains her bearings as she recovers from a brutal TKO, her opponent a simple cotton-filled headrest.
My hands twisting in fear, my gaze flits between her and Sawyer. Sawyer stands still, pillow lowered, stunned that he just walloped Jaz across the noggin. Jaz, a worthy adversary, grapples to regain her composure.
After a few moments of silence—and an array of nervous swallows—Sawyer clears his throat.
“Uh, the turd has been extracted from your hair... via stuffed fabric bag.” He holds up the pillow.
“And, uh, I would be willing to smack you again, if you ever find yourself in another predicament such as this.”
Ooooh, I hate to be crude, but my butt clenches as I await the impending outpouring of unbridled acrimony.
The air stills.
The birds flee from the trees, sensing Hades splitting the ground and erupting like lava to the earth’s surface.
And, in the far-off distance, a baby’s wail breaks through the stark silence.
Do you smell that? Homicide lurks around the corner. The victim? A six-foot-two, ignorant outsider attempting to claw into the good graces of our town’s demagogue.
Her eyes meet his.
Her lips part.
I pray for the children in the town, hoping they aren’t exposed to Julia’s shrill cry of defeat...
Here it comes...
Brace yourself...
**WINCES**
“Thank you,” Jaz says, calmly.
Rationally.
And I’m not sure if I should check her pulse or be frightened for my life.
“Thank you?” I ask, and I don’t know why.
Maybe because for the last half hour, Jaz has been doing nothing but complaining about ripping carpets from the three cabins we’re working on.
Yes, perhaps during our first cabin, we might have run into a cockroach that was so large that it actually waved its little leg at us from the corner, startling us to the core.
And maybe in the second cabin, we stumbled over a series of carpet stains that could have either come from a waterfall of coffee that was never cleaned properly or... a covert murder of a woodland creature. Either way, I thanked the renovating gods for the gloves on my hands.
So yeah, fecal matter in the hair after unearthing a mouse nest in cabin three, I guess it qualifies for a reality check.
“These carpets have drained me of my disgust for Julia,” Jaz says, defeated. “And it’s only been an hour.” She looks up at me. “Was Sully cleaning any of these cabins?”
“I guess not as well as he should have been. I’m surprised we don’t have any bad reviews. With the amount of foreign matter we’ve found while tearing the carpets out, you’d think there would be a few unhappy customers.”
“Then again, everyone always loves Sully,” Jaz says, still sitting on the grass. “You can’t compete with his grumpy charm.” She lets out a deep sigh. “You can’t hate me for what I’m about to say.”
“Say what?” I ask as Sawyer sets the pillow down and walks back over to the cabin, probably thanking his lucky stars he just skirted death. Head drawn down, he continues to feed the carpet through the cabin door. He doesn’t seem to ever stop.
“I can’t possibly help out anymore until I take a shower and confirm that all fecal matter has been removed from my hair.”
Even though being down a set of hands won’t be ideal, I can appreciate her need to bathe. If the shoe was on the other foot, I would be ducking my head under a hose, washing my head with the high-powered garden nozzle.
“I understand.” I reach down and help her to her feet. “Do you think you’ll be back?”
“I’ll bring lunch. Tacos from Nine Juan Juan work?”
“That works for me.” I call over my shoulder: “Sawyer, tacos for lunch—you good with that?”
“Yup,” he says with a grunt as he pushes the carpet out of the cabin and onto the grass.
“I should help him.”
Jaz puts her hands on my shoulders. “Godspeed.”
She takes off, her power walk rivaling Sunday mall walkers getting in their steps for the day.
I walk through the now-cleared doorway and into the cabin, where Sawyer is on the floor, pulling staples from the ground with a pair of pliers. “Can I help?”