Chapter 10
“Meredith,” Samson said, staring up at me from the side yard. “What the hell are you doing up there? I think the guys you’re paying to do that can roof all on their own.”
I waved at him with my baby blue hammer. “I know, but this is really fun!”
My father came walking up and stood next to Samson. He shook his head. “You get her down. If I tell her she has to get down, she’ll sleep up there.”
It was a gorgeous day and I’d been enjoying helping put the new roof on. The workmen didn’t seem to mind me much. They’d even taken time to show me what to do. Not one of them laughed at my hammer either, scoring them major points with me.
My father lifted a box. “These came to my place. I’m guessing it’s the curtains you ordered. Why do you need new ones? You just bought some.”
I didn’t dare tell him the truth. I’d spent the last two days avoiding Landry, going out of my way not to see him because I was embarrassed by what had taken place between us. “Ooo, can you put them on the kitchen table?”
“Yep.” He nudged Samson. “Get her down.”
“How?” Samson asked, shielding his eyes from the sun. “Mer, you’re going to kill yourself. Get down.”
“You suck the fun out of everything,” I said, sticking my tongue out at him. I turned and returned to what I’d been doing, ignoring my brother. As the sun rose more, so did the temperature. I slipped my tank top off, leaving me in a bikini top and cut-off jean shorts.
All the men on the roof stared at me with wide eyes. I looked behind me, wondering what was wrong. Nothing was there.
“Meredith, get down!”
“Why are you yelling?” Landry asked from below.
I tensed at the sound of Landry’s voice.
“Because my crazy sister is up on that roof helping.”
“She’s what?” Landry questioned, concern in his voice.
I peeked over the edge and flashed a smile. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“Shouldn’t you be down here?” he countered.
I rose, standing on the edge of the roof. “I tried to explain that I’m enjoying this.”
“Jesus Christ, Mer!” Samson shouted. “Put your clothes back on!”
I glanced down at myself. “I have on clothes. Tell him, Landry.”
Landry’s jaw was hanging wide open.
Samson put his hand out, trying to cover Landry’s eyes. “Stop staring at my little sister like that.”
Pulling Samson’s hand down, Landry continued to watch me.
“You’ve seen me naked before,” I said, shaking my head. “Many times, if I’m not mistaken.”
Samson rounded on him. “When the hell was she naked with you?”
“Ha, explain that one to him. I dare you.”
Landry blushed.
“Meredith, down. Now,” my brother repeated.
“You’re acting like I’ve never stood on anything this high. In truth, I’ve been much, much higher than this.”
“Yeah, with a fucking Olympic-sized pool under you. Not the ground.”
“Not true. Had I fallen off the diving board, I’d have struck the side of the pool. That wouldn’t have been fun.”
“Get down.”
“Keep yelling at me and I’ll do a handstand here.”
Samson gasped. “Don’t you dare! Dad! Get out here and get your daughter down.”
“You suck,” I said, sticking out my tongue again.
Landry cleared his throat. “Mer, come on down here or I’ll come up and get you.”
“You don’t like heights,” my brother said to him.
“I know, but I like the idea of her falling off even less.”
Taking pity on Landry, knowing full well the man would come up for me, I shoved the hammer in the hook on my jean shorts and made my way to the ladder. I climbed down it quickly and one of the workmen whistled for me.
He tossed my tank top to me and I caught it with one hand. “Thanks!”
Samson and Landry came around the back, where the ladder was, just as my father stepped out into the backyard from the porch.
“Meredith,” my father said, “why is it I’ve had to lecture you on things I didn’t have to tell your brother who, by rights, should have been the one doing things like that. He’s a boy. You’re not. Enough said.”
Grinning, I pulled out my hammer. “I know I’m not a boy. Look at my hammer. It sparkles.” I’d glued little plastic jewels to it.
He closed his eyes a moment and shook his head before he stepped forward and kissed my cheek. “I love you. Try not to kill yourself, all right? I’m old. My heart can’t take it.”
“Dad, you’re fifty-five. I think you’ve got some juice left in ya, buddy. Stop making yourself out to be eighty.”
“Yeah, well, there are days you age me rapidly.”
“Dad,” Samson said, “make her put that top back on. The guys are looking at her. Hell, Landry’s even gawking at her chest.”
My father put a hand on Samson’s shoulder. “Son, from the minute she was fifteen and joined the swim team, I’ve had to get used to the idea my daughter runs around in swimsuits and men look at her.”
“That is not a swimsuit,” Samson countered. “It’s dental floss. I’m sure if there were bottoms to it, they’d be no more than a string.”
I unbuttoned my jean shorts and dropped trou then and there. The bottoms were boy-cut.
“Meredith!” Samson yelled, coming for me.
Laughing, I stepped out of my shorts and ran like hell from him, toward the beach.
He grabbed my shorts and shirt and raced after me. “Put your damn clothes back on. Don’t make me shoot every one of these guys for looking at you.”
“Daddy, Samson’s being mean and bossing me again,” I said in a sing-song voice.
My father laughed. “Some things never change. Samson, leave your sister alone.”
Samson was faster than me and caught hold of me, tossing me over his shoulder and carrying me back onto the grass.
“Put me down.”
“No.”
“Daddy!”
My father laughed harder. “Samson, put your sister down. You’re bigger than her. You could hurt her.”
“Bullshit,” Samson said. “Natasha told me that Mer got into kickboxing while in the city. I’m thinking my sister could take me.”
We all knew that wasn’t true. Samson had been in Special Forces. He was deadly. “Daddy, Samson said a bad word.”
My father laughed so hard he coughed. I couldn’t see him because I was facing the lake while Samson faced Dad.
“Put me down, I’m getting a head rush.”
“Nope.” Samson chuckled. “Make me, Punky.”
I hated that nickname and he knew it.
“Samson, you asked for it,” my father said.
I wiggled uncontrollably, leaving him no choice but to release me. On my way off him, I grabbed his t-shirt, pulling it up and over his head. He rarely was seen in public without a shirt. I knew why. Because of all his tattoos. He’d gotten them while in the service.
My brother was ripped. No one could deny that. He tried to grab his shirt, but I ran with it, waving it in the air as I did. Tribal-like tattoos covered his upper biceps, and I knew already that he had a massive dragon with a tiger forming a yin yang-like look on his back, going from shoulder blade to shoulder blade.
He pointed at me. “When I get my hands on you, I’m gonna toss your skinny ass in the lake.”
I gasped, shaking my butt. “My ass is not skinny. Wait. Oh, thanks. Yeah, my ass is skinny!”
He snorted and made a move to come at me. I hopped back into the thick sand and smiled innocently at him.
“You are trouble, through and through, Punky.”
“Stop calling me that. I hate that nickname.”
“I know. But you reminded us all so much of Punky Brewster growing up that we couldn’t help but give you the name. She was odd too.” He tried to grab his shirt, but I darted away, this time anticipating his next move. I scrambled down and rolled, coming up behind him, leaping on his back. We were like two little kids in the sand.
Laughing, Samson carried me piggyback all the way up to our father. He stood there and I stayed on his back.
“Dad, I told you to have her committed when she was ten and wouldn’t stop wearing that Zorro mask for the summer. Did you listen to me? No.”
My father teared up, and I stared at him.
“Dad?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”
“I worry about you, Mer. That if something happened to me, you’d have no one to take care of you. But I see it in Samson. He’d watch over you.”
I eased off my brother’s back. “Is something wrong? Are you sick or something?”
“Nope. But I think about these things. I don’t worry about Samson getting by. He’s a survivor by nature. I think all his time serving only added to that. But you, Mer. As independent as you think you are, you’ve always had someone there, guiding you when need be.”
“I have not.”
He offered a soft look. “First it was me. Then it was Samson when you were old enough to go out and play with him. Then it was Phillip. He carried that torch for years.” My dad teared up more. “When things ended between the two of you, I thought you’d stay home with me for good. You didn’t. You took off to the city. Natasha was there to help keep you grounded. Then she’d tell me about some feller named Brice and how he sort of watched over you too. It calmed my nerves some. Now I have you back in town and I find myself worrying again.”
I bit my lower lip.
“Mer, don’t get that look, sweetheart. I don’t mean anything bad by it. You’re a dreamer. And you’re so young. You’re just a baby, really, yet you’ve done so much. I shouldn’t have let you skip those grades or started you early. I shouldn’t have let you go off to college when you were barely sixteen. And I sure the hell should not have okayed you getting engaged when you were nineteen.”
Landry looked confused. “Wait, how old are you?”
“She’s twenty-five,” my father said in a hushed voice.
“I thought she was in her thirties.”
“Ouch,” I said.
He cleared his throat. “That’s not what I meant.”
I lifted my brows. “I’ll be twenty-six in two months.”
Samson put his arm around my shoulder and hugged me. “Dad, stop worrying about her all the damn time. You don’t see it, but I do. Mer is a lot stronger than you think. You know what she lived through. You know full well the sight of that nursery would have had most people throwing in the towel and lying in a ball, crying nonstop. Not, Mer. Life gives her lemons, and she paints them blue and adds sparkles to them. It’s just how she is.”
“You saying you don’t worry?” my father asked. “Seems to me, you’ve been patrolling this street a hell of a lot more than you used to, and correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t your men doing it now too?”
Samson blushed. “Maybe. Well, it’s a big house, and she’s all alone in it. What if someone broke in? I know Landry is close, but what if he didn’t hear her screaming? What if she needed help, but none of us knew?”
I sighed. “Guys. Can we not make me feel like I’m too little to live alone? Please.”
“Maybe if I didn’t find you on a roof with five guys, in a bikini top, using a blue sparkly hammer,” my brother said.
“See. You suck the joy out of everything.”
“Mer, this is serious.”
“Have either of you stopped to think that had my life not taken an unexpected turn, I’d have already been living here, in this very house, for about four years now?”
“You wouldn’t be alone,” Samson said. “Phil would have been with you.”
“I don’t know about anyone else,” I huffed, “but I’m reassured. Thanks for that.”
Landry snorted, and I stepped closer to him. “Can you tell them this is far from a high-crime town or street?”
“Don’t you pull me into this,” he said, his hand finding the small of my back. “I’m not about to get on the bad side of both your dad and brother.”
“So, you agree with them?” I stared up at him.
He shook his head. “No, but that’s beside the point.”
“Not really. You’re more objective.”
My brother made an odd sound. “He’s the least objective one here when it comes to you, Mer.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
I’d have commented further, but a young kid carrying a huge thing of daises came around the side yard. “Uh, is there a Meredith here?”
“Present,” I said.
He looked at me and nearly dropped the flowers.
Samson groaned. “I told you to put more clothes on. And who is sending you flowers?”
“No clue.”
Landry watched me closely.
The flower kid came over and handed them to me, staring at my chest the entire time. He rushed off and tripped, nearly falling as he goose-necked around to see me.
“Well, who are they from?” Landry asked, something off in his voice.
I handed them to my brother to hold as I took the card from them. “I don’t know, but whoever it is, they guessed my favorite flower.”
“Those better not be from Phillip. I heard he’s asking about you a ton,” Samson said, his voice hard.
“They’re not.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he is a roses kind of guy. Doesn’t matter that I don’t care for them. He’s all about the roses.”
I opened the card and narrowed my gaze positive I was seeing things.
“Well?” Landry asked.
I held the card up for Samson to see.
He even appeared shocked. “Sherman? As in the Sherman you told me about last week?”
“I only know one Sherman, so yes.” I grinned as I read the card that thanked me again for helping him through the day all those years ago.
Samson snorted. “PS—my eldest son wishes for me to tell you he is a complete dumbass. His words, not mine. Lunch at my house this week, no excuses. We’re overdue for a walk.” Samson turned the card. “His number is here, Mer. You going to call him?”
“Not today,” I said, thinking about the past.
“Why not?” Landry questioned.
“Because in three days, it will be the anniversary of his wife’s passing. I think he might like a friendly call on that day.”
“H-how do you know that?” Landry seemed shocked.
“I can’t forget something like that. I told you already he had a huge impact on my life. Uh, question. How in the world did he find me?”
“Maybe Brice told him how to reach you,” Samson suggested.
“Could be.” I grabbed Landry’s hand and smiled wide. “Can you help me with something for him? I’d do it myself, but I don’t think it would be safe to eat.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“I’d like to bake him something. It doesn’t matter what. He told me he missed the smell of his wife’s baking. That regardless how much money they had or how many people worked in their home for them, she still insisted on baking as often as she could. I guess she was a great cook too. I’d like to bake him something and take it to him on Friday. If you’re busy, Natasha can help me. She’s great in the kitchen too.”
Landry simply stared down at me, looking like he might actually shed a tear or something.
Samson lifted the flowers higher and squinted at Landry. He lifted a brow and then pointed at him. “You’re…”
Landry nodded.
“He’s who?” my father asked. “And who is this Sherman? Are you dating him?”
“Depends on who you ask,” I said with a laugh. “His oldest son might argue I am, but no, Dad, I’m not. He’s a good man who was there for me on my very first day in the city. I’d wanted to cut and run about an hour after I started my job. I wanted to run home and hide in this town. Sherman talked me into staying, into finding myself again and not letting what happened with Phillip dictate how the rest of my life would be.”
“He also gave her a necklace that looks super expensive,” Samson said.
I gasped. “Oh, crap. Can you help me get that out? I want to give it back to him.”
Landry put his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sure he’d rather you kept it. Tell him what you did with it, I bet he gets a kick out of it. I’m guessing, from the way you described him, his wife would have done something similar.”
“Listen to Landry, Mer,” Samson said. “This nagging feeling in my gut tells me he’s right.”