Chapter 17
Decorating Duty
Crack.
Boom.
Boom.
I clutch my keys in a fist as I slowly creep through the hallway of the Old Cabin towards the ear-splitting noise coming from the kitchen. Today is Saturday. The crew isn’t here, there are no cars parked outside, and I refuse to let myself think it’s some sort of ghost burglar.
It’s a raccoon. It has to be. I must have left a window open overnight or something, and a wild animal got in to rummage through my garbage can.
Would a raccoon make such loud noises? No, it must be a bear. No need to freak out, I’ll just take a quick look, see what it is, then sneak back out and call animal control–
My breath catches as I round the corner.
I’m met with the sight of Miles’s bare back as he kneels on the floor of the kitchen with a huge metal mallet in his hands.
The toned muscles in his shoulder blades are more defined as he swings the hammer onto the floor, breaking the brittle boards with a loud crack.
Calm down, Katie, you’ve seen Miles shirtless plenty of times.
But not like this. Not for a long time. Back then, he wasn’t covered in tattoos like stamps on a postcard of his life.
I’m dying to ask about them. What they all mean, if they mean anything at all.
When he got them. If he has any others. It seems like every time I see him, I notice a new one.
Like the small sparrow on his shoulder blade I’m staring way too intently at right now.
“What the fuck are you doing, Autry?” I fold my arms over my chest.
He halts immediately, mallet raised up in the air. Our gazes lock as he looks over his shoulder at me. His expression goes from startled, to confused, to warm and I almost melt into the broken floor on the spot.
“What do you mean?” He turns around, setting the mallet gently on the already crushed floorboards.
I gesture to the gaping hole in the floor in front of him. “I mean what are you doing here on a Saturday crushing my floor to bits?” He laughs, brushing off his hands. He’s still only wearing jeans, boots and a baseball cap turned backwards on his head. “And put a shirt on, would you?”
“Why,” he smirks, “Is this bothering you?”
I roll my eyes as he grabs a red t-shirt from the countertop, shaking out sawdust from the material before he pulls it over his head. Air fills my lungs with relief now that I can focus.
“I’m here on a Saturday,” he starts, walking over to the doorway I’m standing in, “because I told you I’d fix your floor and I have a cattle ranch to run on the weekdays.
The floorboards are more rotted than I thought they were, so I figured I’d have to demo this part of the floor. That’s a whole-day job.”
“And I told you that you didn’t have to fix the goddamn floor,” I counter.
“The goddamn floor needs fixing, Mac. If you want to help, grab a crowbar and start pulling.”
He turns around, grabbing the mallet again. Help? I guess I could help him. I’m wearing construction clothes anyway, since I was heading over here to paint baseboards in the first place.
“Fine, I’ll demo the floors with you. Just please, keep your clothes on this time.”
“I won’t make any promises,” he smiles, handing me some earplugs and safety glasses. The yellow-tinted ones we keep around for the crew.
It takes most of the day to knock out all of the brittle, rotting floorboards in the kitchen.
Miles was right, they are in bad shape. We get into a good rhythm– me pulling up the nails and Miles knocking them out.
Whoever built this floor in the first place did it well, some of the boards are pretty stubborn.
The very last ones are the hardest. They’re tucked underneath the cabinets just enough we can’t use Miles’s big mallet to knock them out of place.
“Hang on,” he says, running back to his tool box. When he returns, there’s a smaller rubber mallet in his hands, bright orange and filled with some sort of bead that sounds a little like a rain stick when it moves.
“Hold onto the board here, and I’ll tap it up from the other end,” he says.
I nod, taking a hold of the wood board with my gloved hands. Miles carefully taps on the underside of the board. It lifts up a bit more each time he hits it.
“It’s working!” I say. The board comes loose with a small thud against the cabinet above it.
We gather the tools, brush most of the dirt and sawdust off ourselves, then collapse on the porch swing cushions. My chest heaves, sweat plastering my hair to my shoulders and neck.
“I don’t think I’ve worked that hard on a demo in years,” I say.
Miles laughs with a nod. He’s not nearly as tired as I am. All that ranch work sure comes in handy I suppose.
“I’ll grab us some drinks,” he offers, standing up. “What do you want?”
“Water is fine.”
My phone buzzes with a notification in my pocket. I groan, moving to the side just enough to pluck it out. The screen lights up with a news notification, pulling another groan from my chest.
This can’t be good.
I have notifications on for any time either of my parents’ names are mentioned, as well as MacPherson Enterprises. Usually it’s a press release of some sort for the company, but this time my mother’s name stares back at me in a headline.
Florence MacPherson Announces New Project in Wyoming
I skim through the article enough to get the gist. She’s been interviewed by a local paper about her new project she has worked so hard on. They ask her about the construction, her plans for the area, and how she came up with the idea to expand to Jackson Hole.
Her answers drip with entitlement and power. Each one carefully crafted by her team. My name isn’t mentioned once.
“There wasn’t any ice, but it’s probably cold enough from the fridge– hey, what’s wrong?” Miles returns with two of the mason jars we have been using at the cabin filled with water. His brows furrow with concern as he searches my face.
I force a smile and take the glass from his outstretched hand. “Nothing, just work stuff. It’s not a big deal.”
“What is it?” He asks again, sitting on the porch swing next to me.
“It’s just my mom,” I say. I pause, taking a long drink of water as he waits for me to continue. “She was interviewed for a newspaper and she basically took credit for this whole renovation, including the idea to come up here to Jackson in the first place.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope.” A dry, humorless laugh escapes my throat. I trace my fingers over the sparrow design sewn into the cushion of the swing. “It’s nothing new, I just have to get used to it.”
“That’s bullshit.” I glance up at Miles, but he’s already looking at me with a wild look in his eyes. “You’ve worked your ass off on this place, and for what? Someone who hasn’t stepped foot in it the entire time to take credit for it? No way.”
“There’s not much I can do about it, it’s already done.” I sigh, slinking back into the swing.
“You’ve got to get that article taken down,” he says.
“Even if I could do that, she’d just do another interview with a different paper. It’s useless. My team knows the work I put in, that’s all that matters. It’s always been like this with them.”
A flicker of something softer lights up his gaze. “Always?”
I nod. “When I was younger, after they sent me away, they’d bring me back once a year for their Christmas party to show off for their friends.
All of their rich friends who look for reasons to bring each other down.
I’d have to pretend I was off at a boarding school all year, and that I was happy to be back to visit them for the holidays.
They’d dress me up in some dress I hated and cart me around the party until I got too tired, or said something sarcastic, then they’d send me away again upstairs where I’d sit and wish I could go back to my Aunt Millie faster. ”
Miles sighs, raking a hand through his hair under his hat. “That’s fucked up.”
“Yep,” I pop the “p” and take another sip of water. “It only took me three years of that to realize it wasn’t going to change. They weren’t happy the first year I didn’t show up, but at least I didn’t have to hear about it from them in person.”
“I can’t imagine not wanting to be around my parents for the holidays. That must have been so lonely,” he says.
I wave him off, “I had Aunt Millie. And Hazel. It sucked, but I’m better off now. Now when they do this type of thing, I’m less and less upset every time.”
“Still…” he mutters under his breath.
“What are the holidays like on a cattle ranch? Snowy, I assume?” I ask.
“Yeah, definitely cold,” he chuckles. “My mom goes crazy for Christmas. We cut a Christmas tree from the back acres of the ranch every year for the living room, and she has artificial trees for every other room of the house. It takes about a week to set up. But it’s worth it.
Ever since my dad had his stroke, winters have been harder.
Luckily, we have Parker now as foreman so it’s a bit off my back.
I try to help her decorate when I can, now that she spends a good amount of time taking care of Walt. ”
“Have they always loved Christmas?”
Miles smiles as if he can see happy memories playing on a loop in front of us.
“Yeah, pretty much. My mom is from Colombia. She moved to the US as a teenager to work for the national park and spent her first winter in Jackson Hole working in a tourist shop that was dedicated to just Christmas. Ornaments, trees, lights, you name it. She must have bought half of the shop.”
“Sounds like a fun place, is it still around?” I ask. My knee bumps into his. Somehow we’ve inched closer without me noticing. The deep brown of his eyes almost sparkles as he catches my gaze on him.
“No, they went out of business years ago. Probably when my mom had too many Christmas decorations to buy any more,” he says.
“That’s too bad,” I shrug. “I was thinking of a year-round Christmas theme for the Old Cabin.”
“Shut up, Mac,” he nudges my shoulder with a laugh. I can’t help but smile back. I love his laugh. On the rare occasion it slips out.