Chapter 4
PRIDED HIMSELF
The next night, Clay was just coming out of his bathroom when his phone rang. He looked at his watch, saw it was close to seven and he’d been working since seven this morning.
Up before five, he’d lifted weights in his basement for an hour, took care of some work emails and other office shit he hated to handle, then went to the mill before his staff showed up.
He saw his sister calling and grabbed it. “Gale,” he said. “What’s up?”
“Hi to you too,” Gale said. “I heard you hired Meri.”
“Meri,” he said. “Who are you talking about?”
“Meredith Banks,” Gale said. “The wedding planner resume I sent over to you. Mom said you hired her.”
“She goes by Meri?” he asked. Why hadn’t she told him that?
“Clay,” Gale said. He knew that tone. She was losing her patience with him. “Did you not know who that was?”
What the fuck was she talking about? “It was a resume,” he said.
“I don’t know. I talked to her for ten minutes, maybe.
She just about did a face plant walking in the door in her shoes, then freaked out over a damn fly.
I hope she’s not like that around clients, but I don’t have time to look for someone else. ”
Not like anyone was even answering his ad.
His sister’s laughter wasn’t helping matters either.
“Oh, my God. She hasn’t changed a bit. I haven’t spent a lot of time around her in years.”
“You know her?” he asked.
“Clay,” she said. “Meri Banks. She was my best friend until she moved in ninth grade. I get it, you were gone by then and older, but you can’t tell me you don’t remember her. She was at the house all the time for years prior.”
“Seriously?” he asked more to himself than his sister.
He prided himself on being aware of everything going on around him and yet he didn’t recognize one of his sister’s closest friends.
It all hit him now.
The little girl who was always running from bugs and insects. They lived on a farm. They were everywhere but never bothered you if you didn’t bother them.
If she wasn’t running from bees and flies, then she was skinning her knees or getting grass stains on her clothing from always losing her balance and falling.
One day she showed up in glasses and he assumed that was why she constantly ran into things.
“I can’t believe you didn’t remember her. I thought she was going to break her neck when she almost fell out of the tree house that one day.”
A nightmare he’d had a few times in his youth.
Gale and Meri running to the tree house, then rushing up it before his younger brothers Ash and Blaze. Gale got up it first, he moved closer from where he was mowing the lawn, not trusting Meri.
Good thing because she got to the top, lost her balance on the rung ladder and fell backwards.
Ash, Blaze, and he all raced forward, but he got there first, catching her in his arms before she knocked him on his back.
“Christ, she doesn’t look like that anymore. And she goes by Meredith. At least she didn’t tell me otherwise.”
“I’m still getting used to calling her Meredith. I’ve got to work on that. I just thought you would have realized who she was.”
“No,” he said. “As you said, it was years ago. She had thick glasses on top of it. She doesn’t now.”
“Corrective eye surgery,” Gale said. “I asked her that too. She did it years ago. I remember she used to break her glasses all the time and couldn’t get her finger in her eye for contacts.”
“That sounds more like it.”
“She’s sweet. I can totally see her doing this. She’s always been one of those happy ever after people looking for love and romance.”
“Nothing like my baby sister,” he said.
“Nor my older brother. We’re jaded.”
He didn’t think he was jaded. It had more to do with a woman not putting up with his military career. He didn’t blame them. It’s not an easy life.
Since he’d been home, he hadn’t had time for anyone outside of his family. Not that he was looking.
“Whatever,” he said. “I hired her. Mom talked to her yesterday and sent her a bunch of stuff. I’ll catch up with her at some point, but Mom can deal with it.”
“Come on, Clay. You wanted the barn for this and it’s part of it.”
He didn’t need the guilt on his shoulders. “No. You wanted it just as much. I was happy to have it be something more laid back only for the hard cider. Nothing like weddings and events like it turned out to be.”
“And look at the money you’ve made off of it so far,” Gale said. “You know it. It’s growing the family business for Mom and Dad.”
“I don’t want to give Mom any more work and we know Dad is less equipped to handle weddings than me.”
“Who are you kidding? Dad loves being the bartender,” Gale said.
His sister wasn’t wrong. Though he had to admit he didn’t like that his father was on his feet for so long.
His parents told him to back off, that his father knew his limits.
He had no choice but to believe them. Just like they believed in him when he told them what he wanted to do to the failing farm.
Sure, apple picking was great. Hayrides and the pumpkin picking. But it was seasonal and wasn’t making enough to carry them year round like it had in the past.
His mother was holding it together in the cafe, and even then, that was slower in the colder months.
Now, the Ridgeway name would be associated with something else.
“I guess,” he said. “As long as he doesn’t overdo it. Anyway, you should have told me it was your friend.”
Maybe he would have softened his tone a bit more.
Now he was embarrassed over the way he spoke to her. Even acted.
But he’d seen her getting out of her vehicle in that dress.
Soft flowers, delicate material.
Long flowing hair past her shoulders, the wind flickering fingers through it.
High-maintenance women were the bane of his existence.
He loved how they looked, hated how they acted.
Immediately he thought he’d be employing one and they’d butt heads.
Instead, he just hired his sister’s klutzy friend that he’d lost count of the number of times he’d saved as a child and twice yesterday.
If you can count killing a fly once. Maybe half of one.
So one and a half times yesterday.
“Why?” Gale asked. “Were you a dick? This isn’t one of your military buddies.”
“I was me.”
“Which means you were a dick,” Gale said, laughing.
“Whatever,” he said. “I hired her. Looks like she’s got a lot of ideas. She came with enough of them.”
He’d flipped through quickly. He wasn’t looking for details, but a feel.
He saw the vision she tried to create, the overall flow. Nothing stood out as haphazard or stiff.
It wasn’t as if he had to like the person doing the work, only the clients did. Or at least until they were done with their wedding.
“She’s always been creative. Very happy. She loves her job.”
“Yet she wants to do this?”
“It’s not a sustainable career in this area and she’s very family oriented. She’d never leave,” Gale said.
“Those are her choices. As long as she can manage them both, how she does it, is up to her.”
“That’s right. She has summers off when it’d be the busiest for weddings anyway. It gives her the best of both worlds.”
“It’s done now and one less thing for you to squeeze in there unless you want to help her out.”
“I might,” Gale said. “But I’m swamped. You know how to reach me if you need a hand.”
“I do,” he said. He disconnected the call after that, then opened his fridge door to look for dinner.
Leftover pizza, sandwich meat, and a container of lasagna his mother gave him yesterday.
He wasn’t fussy and didn’t care if he ate the same meal three days in a row. Food was food and anything was better than when he was in the military.
And that meant more than the grub he was served.