Chapter 14
Joe
Joe didn’t get a lot of visitors to the woodshop. His new apprentice, Miguel. The occasional client. His sister, who could be a pain in his ass.
And now Anne.
She glowed in the middle of the work aisle, bright under the shop lights, all red hair and pink cheeks and orange-laced Doc Martens. He could feel her heat from over by the door and tucked his hands into his armpits to keep them out of trouble.
She was turning in circles like a little kid, her wide, interested gaze taking in everything. He tried to see his space through her eyes: the rows of clamps, ordered by size, the flat, empty surfaces, the simple drawer fronts he’d built himself.
“You’re very…neat,” she said.
Warmth crept up the back of his neck, pleasure or embarrassment. Rob used to kid him about their different work styles. “Sawdust is good for the soul, son. You’re not doing the job if you’re not making a mess.”
Joe shrugged. “Clean as you go, my mom always says. Guess I spent enough time in the kitchen that it stuck.”
Those big eyes turned on him. He tried not to like it so much, being the focus of her attention. “You cook?”
“If you want to call soup and grilled cheese cooking. I can feed myself and Hailey.”
Humor lit her face. “Your mom’s a caterer. Are you telling me she doesn’t feed you?”
“Sure, she does, when she’s home. And the leftovers are great. But sometimes she wants a night off.”
Anne nodded. “The cobbler’s children have no shoes.” He must have looked blank, because she added, “It’s a saying. Like Mom complaining how Dad never did stuff around his own house.”
“Sure.” He didn’t tell her that since Rob’s death, Joe had taken over Maddie’s to-do list, catching up on all those repairs his partner had never made time for.
“So, did your mother teach you to cut the crusts off all your little sandwiches?”
He smothered a grin. “No. But Hailey makes me cut them on the diagonal.”
“Because they taste so much better that way.”
“That’s what she says.”
“I can’t cook at all,” Anne said.
She sounded…not sad. Resigned, he thought, and remembered her comment about burning the chicken. “You never had to learn,” he said. As if she needed an excuse or encouragement or something.
“Because I don’t have a sister to feed?”
“Because you had your dad to take care of you.”
She looked away. “Dad…” Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. “He wasn’t much of a cook.”
He wasn’t much of a businessman, either, but she didn’t need to hear that. Not now. Not from him. “Sorry,” Joe said gruffly.
“For what?”
“Bringing up Rob.”
Her expression flickered, changeable as lake water, sun and clouds chasing over the surface.
“I started it, with that stuff about the cobbler’s kids.
Besides, it’s not like I don’t think about him all the time anyway.
It’s nice to remember him with someone who cares. Mom doesn’t really talk about him.”
That seemed right. Maddie was a doer, not a talker. Like Joe.
Which is why it was a surprise when he heard himself say, “You can talk to me anytime.” Like reminiscing with somebody she’d pretty much dismissed as an asshole would help her get over her grief.
She met his gaze, her eyes wide and shiny. Probably as surprised as he was. For once, she didn’t say whatever was on her mind. But that look punched him in the chest.
Joe cleared his throat, searching for something to fill the suddenly dangerous silence. “Rob was…He was a great guy.” Which everybody knew and anybody could tell her. He tried again. “He taught me a lot.” Like a father, almost. Not that Joe’s dad had stuck around long enough to teach him shit.
She regarded him thoughtfully. “Did you always want to be a carpenter?”
Her boyfriend was a doctor who treated kids with cancer. Anne had left the island right after high school. How could she understand his choice to stay?
“It’s not a competition,” she’d said. But it kind of felt like one.
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“But do you like it? Would you call it your passion?”
He heard the echo of his own question turned against him and hitched a corner of his mouth in acknowledgment. “It’s a living.”
Another pause, different but no less dangerous. Waiting.
“That’s it?” she demanded.
He bit the inside of his cheek, containing his smile. “I’m good at it.”
Her brows twitched together in frustration. “And…?”
She was like Honey with a tennis ball. “I like working with my hands. Fixing things.”
She squinted, like she was trying to see inside his head. “Mm.” Part question, part judgment.
Like his answers weren’t good enough. What did she expect him to say?
He figured she’d drop the subject then. But he hadn’t reckoned on Anne being Anne. She wandered toward the back of the shop, where his current project was waiting for another coat of oil.
“What’s this?” she asked.
He resisted the urge to fold his arms again. “Sofa table.”
She rolled her eyes. “I can see that. This isn’t a repair.”
“It’s from a repair job—the wood is. Paul Knutson needed to replace some horse stalls. I gave him a hand; he gave me the old lumber.”
Her smile flashed. “Found wood.”
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Beats letting it rot behind the barn. Or shipping it to some landfill on the mainland.”
She traced the zebra-like pattern crossing the natural grain. His skin prickled with goose bumps, as if she’d trailed her finger along the line of his forearm or the back of his neck. “It’s beautiful.”
“Band-saw cuts,” Joe said. “A hundred years ago, nobody was paying for smooth planed boards for a barn. The tool marks, the nail pops—they’re all part of the wood.”
Anne beamed. “It’s like the wood is telling a story. If you listen hard enough, it will tell you where it came from. What it wants to be.”
His breath jammed a second because, yeah, that’s what he’d always thought, though he never would have said it. “You’re the one with the words.”
Too many words, sometimes. And sometimes they were exactly what he needed to hear.
She flushed a little. “Not always.” He figured there was a story there, too, but she was already moving on, moving away from him, out of reach. “What else can you make?”
He followed her, drawn like a fish on a line by her enthusiasm. “Whatever the customer wants. Beams, doors, fireplace mantels, shelves. Accent walls are big right now. But it’s not like making furniture.”
She looked back at him, her forehead crinkling. “If you want to build furniture, why are you doing construction?”
She didn’t know, Joe realized.
And it wasn’t his place to tell her. Rob had adored his daughter, and she’d worshipped him right back. He couldn’t say anything that would diminish Rob in her eyes.
He shrugged. “Your dad gave me my start.”
“So, what, now you owe him forever?”
He almost laughed. But it was true enough. “We were partners. It’s my business now. My responsibility to…” He broke off.
“Finish the job?” she suggested.
“Fix things.”
She smiled sadly. “You can’t fix everything.”
He sure as hell couldn’t bring her dad back. Joe was pretty sure Anne had forgiven him for letting Rob go up that ladder. He still hadn’t forgiven himself.
“Yeah, no.” He held her gaze. “But I’m still bound to try.”
“Which is why you got all his stuff.”
What the hell?
“His ‘assets.’ ” She hooked air quotes around the word. “His equipment. His workbench.”
“Right.”
Maddie was a proud woman. Too proud to take the financial help Joe had offered. So he’d taken everything that had any value, anything he could use or sell to pay the bills that had accumulated, to scrape up the cash to buy out Rob’s half of the business.
“Do you still have it?” Anne asked. “His workbench?”
“It’s around.”
“Where?”
Joe gestured broadly. “Here. There.”
Her gaze darted from the reclaimed lumber stacked vertically along one wall to the shelves of smaller wood scraps before fixing with almost painful intensity on his face. He could see her mind working behind her eyes, but the light was gone. Doused.
“Salvage,” she said in a flat voice.
“No point letting good wood go to waste.” He didn’t know what had clouded her face but he didn’t like the change. “Everything okay?”
She waved her hand. “Everything’s good. I’m good. I should go.”
He didn’t want her to leave. Not like this. He missed the way she’d glowed when she first came into the woodshed—her energy, her warmth and enthusiasm. He didn’t know what to say to get them back. To bring her back.
“So, about that desk…” he tried.
She flinched. “It’s fine,” she said abruptly. “It doesn’t matter.”
Which was obviously bullshit. But accusing her of lying was no way to convince her to stay. Joe frowned. “Listen, Anne…”
“Thanks for the tour. I really like your table. Tell Hailey I’ll see her tomorrow, okay?” she said, sidling for the door.
Like she couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
Maybe it was for the best, Joe thought as he observed her flustered retreat.
Kissing her six years ago was a mistake. Starting something with her now was a complication he didn’t need. But watching her walk out the door, he was uncomfortably aware that he’d screwed up somehow.
And he didn’t know how to fix it.