2. Henry #2
“Can’t you just be happy he’s on track again? He was never going to work in the shop with me forever; we both knew that.”
To his surprise, she agreed. “Okay…you’re right. Now, can you please just think about meeting with me? It’s important I see you, Henry, face-to-face.” Henry heard her draw in another raspy breath. “I’ll even come to Beverley.”
Absolutely not, Henry thought. Long-buried feelings for her aside, he couldn’t think of one good reason for her suggestion, other than to cause strife.
Torturing him with agonizing phone calls wasn’t enough anymore, evidently.
“If this is about getting back in our son’s life, you are on your own.
Other than that, I don’t see any good reason for us to be in contact anymore.
” His phone beeped with an incoming call from his brother.
Great, now he had an excuse to get off the phone.
“If that’s it, I have to go.” Despite her pleading not to, he hung up to take his older brother’s call.
“Hey, George. You’ll never guess who just called—”
“I don’t have to, since I was standing next to Dad when the Ice Queen called him first. I don’t know what’s wrong with our old man.
Says he’s always had a soft spot for her.
” Melanie had gravitated to his dad, William, from the minute she and Henry had arrived in Clover Lake almost forty years ago.
“Anyway, I figured, as usual, she’d call to mess with your head. ”
“Right as always. I don’t hear from her in practically two decades, but now, over the past few months, she suddenly needs to talk to me? Makes me think about getting a new phone.”
“Nah, don’t do that. Just block her.” Easy for his brother to say, since he’s never been in Henry’s shoes. “So, are you leaving your shop soon?”
George, who had bought the shop in Clover Lake from their dad over a decade ago, closed at the same time as Henry but routinely left earlier, mainly because William still did most of the office work. “Yes, I was closing everything down when Mellie called.”
“Mellie, huh?” George’s tone was worried, and Henry cursed himself. “I haven’t heard you call her that in years. Do I need to be worried?”
Henry protested, “No, not even a little bit! It just slipped out,” he assured George. “You actually won’t believe what she wanted.”
“More than likely to cause her brand of turmoil, but don’t tell me over the phone.
Just get your ass to Huron and fill me in then.
” Huron? What was his brother talking about?
All Henry planned to do tonight was grab some takeout from La Hacienda, go home, and watch Jeopardy.
Maybe start on his new project in his woodworking shop. “Don’t tell me you forgot!”
Ugh, Henry groaned, realizing that the State Fair had started a couple of days ago and remembering that George had gotten them tickets to the John Fogerty concert the minute they had gone on sale months ago. Was that tonight? “Listen, I don’t think—”
“Bullshit. I mean, you’re right, you don’t think, especially if that involves you having any kind of fun,” his brother chided.
“You were excited when I got these tickets.” Right, but that was before a frustrating call with his ex topped off an exhausting week at the shop.
“Come on, Henry,” George implored. “You don’t work tomorrow, unless you’ve decided that working seven days a week is the key to a better life.
Come out, let your hair down, have some fun.
” His brother sang a few lines from “Bad Moon Rising” terribly off-key.
Knowing George wouldn’t let up until he agreed, Henry said, “I need to run home and clean up first.”
“Please. You’re not only the better-looking brother but also the cleaner one.
You have ten minutes, then your ass better be in Huron in an hour, which will leave us enough time for the beer garden before the show starts.
” With that timeline, Henry actually had fifteen minutes, since Huron was only about half an hour’s drive from Beverley.
Parking would be the question once he got to the fairgrounds, but Henry could use a good walk, maybe work off his annoyance with Melanie.
Forty minutes later, he was strolling up to the beer garden outside the grandstand and carrying a foot-long corn dog when two beefy hands grabbed his shoulders. “Dammit, George, you almost made me drop my supper!”
After looping an arm around his shoulders, his brother laughed and bit off a decent-sized chunk of the corn dog. “Well, lucky for both of us that didn’t happen.” He lowered his voice. “Look, there’s something I need to tell you-”
“Hi, Henry,” Nora, George’s wife, called from the chislic stand several feet away.
Chislic, bite-sized pieces of meat (Henry was sure it was lamb, for Nora) fried and then sprinkled liberally with garlic salt, was the state food of South Dakota and his sister-in-law’s favorite.
Her auburn hair caught the light from the fading sun, and he waved to her.
“Hey, Nora—” He stopped when he noticed who stood next to her. He faced his brother. “What is DD doing here?”
“Well, that’s what I was trying to tell you—”
“When? When were you trying to tell me? Because it sure as hell wasn’t on the phone earlier.
” It was bad enough that DD’s daughter and his son were in love and would more than likely be married one day.
Well, that wasn’t bad, he corrected himself, because Henry loved Effie.
Loving and compassionate, she was everything her mother was not.
That wasn’t fair either, Henry supposed, even if DD did have the honor of being the first woman to break his heart.
Still, she certainly hadn’t been the last (or the worst).
Searching for DD’s husband and not finding him in the general area, it dawned on Henry that he hadn’t seen the man in over a year, when he’d brought their Mustang to his shop for a maintenance check. “Where’s Burnside?”
“I don’t know,” George shrugged. “Nora said something about him needing to rest. I guess the old man has been having some health issues.” Burnside, DD’s second husband, was at least a decade older and originally from Ohio.
Though he’d lived in South Dakota for over twenty years, after marrying DD, the man had done little to fit in with her world.
“Anyway, do you remember I got us a VIP table down front? It seats six?” Okay, it was coming back to Henry now—his brother and Nora, his sister Beatrice and her husband Brian, and Henry and…
no one, as usual. He raised an eyebrow at George, who explained, “I thought Josh or Liam would take the last seat, but your son is too busy moving in with Effie, I guess. And my son is all torn up over some woman he met in New York.” Henry nodded.
When Josh had recently returned to New York to tie up the loose ends of his life and career there, Liam had accompanied him.
According to what Josh told him, he and Liam were supposed to go out for drinks one night in the city, but Josh got hung up in Brooklyn with Tess and Sam.
Instead of meeting up with his cousin, Liam met a woman at the bar, and despite knowing nothing about her (including her name), he spent the night with her.
And fell hard. Henry knew all too well how a woman could change the course of one’s life.
George shrugged. “Anyway, DD is all upset about Burnside, understandably so, and Nora invited her to join us. I’m sorry.
I would’ve told you sooner, but I only found out about her coming along tonight after I talked to you.
You know how Nora is about her best friend.
” And Henry knew how George was about his wife—he never refused her anything. “She made me pick up DD on the way.”
Shaking his head, Henry assured George, “It’s fine.
I’ll let you buy me a drink to make up for it,” he said, trying to assure them both that he was, indeed, fine.
But he wasn’t, not by a long shot. The brothers met up with the women at the entrance to the beer garden, and before entering, an inexplicable sensation coursed through him.
He glanced up at the Ferris wheel, watching it slowly spin, and a woman in one of the buckets caught his eye.
With hair a lustrous dark brown, there was something familiar about her, and even though he couldn’t quite make out her features, he gasped as if punched in the gut.
Forgetting DD, erasing his earlier conversation with Melanie, his hungry gaze locked with hers.
“Henry?” George’s voice forced Henry’s eyes back to his brother. “You ready to head in?” He wasn’t, but when his eyes searched the Ferris wheel, she was gone.