Chapter 13 Brady
Brady
“Hey, man, thank you so much for doing this.” Leith Wilkes reached out to shake my hand.
“No problem,” I responded. I wasn’t planning to make a Sunday delivery, but after my literal naked run-in with Collins in the apartment this morning, I needed to get out of there.
I thought that being away from the scene of the crime would make it easier not to think about her eyes scanning my entire body or how warm her skin felt when it was pressed against mine.
So far, it wasn’t working. It took effort to focus on talking to Leith.
He’d inherited his family farm, Wilkes Farm—which was the only large farm in Sweetwater Peak—a few months before I moved here.
Wilkes was the source for most of the produce in our grocery store, and in the summer, they hosted the farmer’s market.
His father had passed away a few years earlier, but his mom, Trudy, wasn’t ready to pass the farm on right away.
A few weeks ago, Leith got a new puppy and apparently, that puppy had mistaken Trudy’s favorite chair for a chew toy. Leith reached out to me to fix it, which I was happy to do. Positive word of mouth was always good for business.
Honestly though, even without the puppy, the chair needed a little love.
It was showing its age—thinning fabric, broken springs inside, and deteriorating padding.
I replaced everything and was even able to match the original fabric, which took some strategic sourcing that Collins figured out.
Dammit. There she was again. Go away, Collins.
Anyway, I steam-cleaned the parts that were still in good condition, shined up the wood legs, and it looked as good as new.
There was something special about making old things shine again instead of just getting something new.
The materials, the aesthetic, and the history of an older item couldn’t be replicated.
Chairs like this one were meant to stand the test of time, as long as they were taken care of, and I liked being the person that was taking care of them—making sure that they stuck around as long as they could.
This train of thought sometimes led me to a place I didn’t want to go—back to Jackie. The woman who liked all new things all the time. It wasn’t a bad thing or any sort of character flaw, but it wasn’t for me.
“Wow,” Leith said as he helped me lift the chair from the back of my truck. “This looks incredible—way better than it did when I left it with you. I thought you said you might have to change out the fabric.”
“Collins traced the original fabric back to a Wyoming mill, and they mailed us everything they had,” I explained. “It was more than enough, so if your mom wants anything else done with it, let me know. I’ll save it for you guys.”
Leith gave me a confused look. “Collins? Collins…Cartwright? She’s back here?”
“Yeah,” I said. “For a little over a week now.”
The shock on Leith’s face was crystal clear. “That’s…interesting,” Leith said. Normally, I’d let it go. I wasn’t the world’s chattiest guy. Don’t get me wrong, I was polite, and I liked to talk to people I liked, but I didn’t know Leith well enough to like him.
But I wanted to hear more about Collins.
“Is it?” I asked. We lowered the chair all the way to the ground, and I straightened up.
Leith nodded. “She’s kind of…elusive. When she comes back to town she goes in and out like a ghost through a wall.” Huh. I wonder if he knew how dead-on that description was. “She’s always been that way, though. Growing up, I always thought she was mysterious—even as a seven-year-old.”
“How can a seven-year-old be mysterious?”
Leith shrugged. “Maybe it’s just as opposed to Clarke.”
“Yeah, they seem…” I thought of the best words to use. “Pretty different” is what I settled on. It struck me then how hard it would be growing up with someone you would inevitably be compared to all the time—for both of them.
“Oh, they are,” he said. I didn’t know if I liked how well he seemed to know Collins—especially because I’d heard that Leith was a flirt and had found himself recently single.
Was there a history there? And why should I care?
“Collins just marches to the beat of her own drum. She comes off pretty standoffish, but not in like a mean way, I guess. She’s a hell of a photographer, though. Have you seen any of her work?”
“No, I haven’t,” I said honestly. I was certainly curious about it, but it felt like a weird invasion of privacy to google her while she was sleeping twenty feet away from me.
“She took a film portrait of my dad while we were in high school—part of a series she was doing for art class. It captured him better than my own eyes. My mom chose it for his funeral program. Help me carry this chair inside, and I’ll show it to you.”
“Sure thing,” I said. Leith and I lifted the chair again and started making our way toward his front door. It wasn’t heavy, just oddly shaped, so it was easy for Leith to keep it steady with one hand while he pushed the door open.
“Where are we headed?” I asked.
“Just around the corner to the living room,” he said.
When we set the chair down, a black-and-white photograph hanging on the opposite wall caught my attention.
I’m not sure how I knew that it was the one Collins took—especially because it was one of many photos on the gallery wall—but I felt in my bones that it was hers.
“Is that…?” I trailed off, nodding toward the photo. It was pretty big, well over a foot tall and half as wide.
“Yeah.” Leith nodded. “It’s good, isn’t it?”
Even though I knew that I’d never seen this photo before, it felt familiar—nostalgic almost. It made me miss someone I’d never met.
The photo was from the chest up, and Leith’s dad was slightly off center—enough that you could see a piece of the Wilkes Farm sign behind him.
The cowboy hat he was wearing was a little off-kilter, and he had a toothpick hanging out of his mouth—even though he was smiling just enough that I could see the gap between his two front teeth.
“It’s…yeah,” I said. It was way better than good. “She took this in high school?” Now I was even more curious about what her work looked like.
“Mmm-hmm.” Leith took a few steps forward, so we were in line with one another. I didn’t realize I’d gravitated closer to the photo. “It’s exactly how I want to remember him, too. I don’t think I’ve ever thanked her for it. Can you do that for me?”
I nodded. “I will.”
“You know, there were only fifteen people in our class growing up, and Collins and Clarke were the only girls in it until their friend Sadie moved to Sweetwater Peak in high school.”
“Woof,” I sighed. “I can’t imagine what that must’ve been like for them.”
“Well,” Leith said. “The one thing they have in common is their absolute inability to take shit from anyone, so”—Leith laughed a little—“they were fine.”
“That sounds about right,” I said.
Leith opened his mouth to say something else and then closed it again. “You’re, um, you’re close to Clarke, too, right?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know if we’re close, but the entire Cartwright family has been really good to me since I moved here.”
“Right, got it.”
“Why do you ask?”
“I, um, just texted her about something earlier this week, and I haven’t heard back from her.” Now that was interesting. Clarke was on top of her messages—she didn’t let them pile up like I now knew her sister did.
“I’m not sure I’ll be much help there.”
“Yeah, yeah, for sure,” Leith said as a little black dot ran into the room and jumped right into his arms.
“Is this the culprit?” I nodded at the black Lab puppy in Leith’s arms who was doing its best job at trying to bite off his fingers.
“Yeah, this is the little demon—Bill.”
“Bill?” I asked.
“I’m not very creative.” Leith shrugged. “And I think he kind of looks like a Bill.” I reached out to scratch Bill’s head, and he pushed his head into my hand.
And then immediately tried to bite my fingers.
“Dammit, Bill,” Leith whined.
“He’s cute,” I said. “But keep that little bitey motherfucker away from that chair.”
“Will do,” Leith said. “Thanks, Brady. How can I repay you?”
“Tell your friends,” I said.
“Done.”
—
On my way back to the shop, I saw a familiar figure walking along the side of the road. I rolled the passenger window down and slowed the truck to a stop.
“Hey,” I called to Collins. “Need a ride?”
“Depends,” she said. “Are you clothed?”
I gave her an annoyed look. “You can see me.”
“Not all of you,” she said as she stepped closer to the truck. “You could be Winnie-the-Pooh-ing it in there.”
I leaned over and pushed the passenger door open. “You’re ridiculous.”
She smiled a little. Even with the sarcastic jabs, she seemed…off.
“How are your parents?” I asked.
“Fine,” she said as she buckled her seatbelt. “Everyone is fine. What did you get up to today?”
“I delivered that chair to the Wilkeses.”
“Wow, look at you, working overtime,” Collins said in a way that I think she wanted to be playful, but it sounded hollow. “Did Trudy see it, or just golden boy?”
“Is Leith golden boy?” I asked, and Collins nodded. “Just golden boy, then,” I said. “He was, um, very interested to know you’re back in town.”
Collins gave me a look that said she didn’t believe me. “Leith couldn’t care less about me, Brady.”
“Did you guys…”
I didn’t even finish my sentence before Collins cut me off. “God, no,” she said with a shudder. “Clarke’s adolescent crush on him was exhausting, though.” I’d never heard her say her sister’s name with bitterness like that.
“Did you know that the Wilkeses have the portrait you took of…” Shit, I didn’t actually know Leith’s dad’s name.
“Wilder?” Collins asked, surprised.
“Is that his dad?” Huh. Wilder Wilkes was quite a name.
“Yeah. That’s him. Wow. I took that when I was like sixteen,” she said. “I didn’t even know anyone had a copy of it.”
“It’s really good, Collins,” I said. “It’s hanging in their living room. Leith told me they used it for Wilder’s funeral program.”