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  Della pursed her lips and cocked them to the side. “Mmm hmmmm. Thought so. Details.”

  “I barely saw her. She wanted me to look at a tire.” I picked up the napkin to have something to do with my hands. Della waited, forcing me to admit that even though the stranger was probably well on her way to Chico, she remained in my thoughts, the dichotomy of her slight frame in her worn work clothes and the no-nonsense haircut that was still feminine in the way she swept it to the side. I pulled my thoughts from her face to the one in front of me. Della had been watching as I replayed the meeting, the brush of my fingers across hers.

  “Should’ve pulled a hose and made her stay longer.” She gathered our trash to one tray and stacked them.

  “Maybe, but we both know that being lesbian in the same town isn’t necessarily the ingredients for a relationship.”

  “You’re still sure about that?”

  “Still sure.” I grabbed our trays and took them to the trashcan. I’d been the one to switch us from meeting for dinner to lunch. After dinner, it was too easy to let the gravitational pull of her bed distract me, but I knew it wasn’t fair to sleep with someone I couldn’t date. I was okay being friends with Della. A pep talk or gossip exchange once a week, I could do. Beyond that, keeping my own company wasn’t so bad.

  Chapter Six

  Madison

  “Well this is certainly exciting, Madison.” Ruth beamed her approval across the rough sketch of the property that I’d drawn as I narrated its possibilities.

  “I haven’t signed anything,” I said, feeling a little sick to be moving from thinking about buying property to actually doing it.

  “It’s a good investment,” Bo said. “You have a solid plan. What about the start-up?” he asked, moving into the logistics.

  “Not being employed doesn’t make me look all that great on paper, but I think I can do ten percent and still have what I need to get the bare bones refurbishing done to open. The place is well situated by a river, so I can offer fishing right away and scope out some hiking trails. Once I have money coming in, I’ll be able to take on other projects, the private cabins I want to put beyond the main house.”

  “Until then, you’ll run it more like a bed-and-breakfast?”

  “More like a small resort with all of the meals factored in. If I set myself up in the office, there are three bedrooms. One has a private bath, and it doesn’t seem like it would be difficult to plumb one more with a half bath. I want enough left in my bank account to take on something like that early. A private bath makes a big difference to a lot of clients.” I wanted to remind them that I had experience, that I wasn’t going into this cold.

  Bo’s pale blue eyes settled on me. They always seemed ghostly to me. I saw how they served him during business negotiations. When he settled his glare on a buyer, they knew Bo wasn’t budging on price. I knew exactly what he was thinking now. A young single girl was asking for trouble renting out rooms in her home so far from town or any neighbors.

  How could I explain that the land called me? It welcomed me as surely as Ruth and Bo had taken me into their home. It stood vacant, waiting for me to make it my own. This was the place that would take away the question of where I belonged.

  That thought swung me back around to the auto shop so quickly I lost my bearings and had to rest my hands on the table for a moment. If Charlie had stayed, it could have been me standing in that garage, only it would have been our house. What would the world have looked like from that porch? I once found a picture Charlie had tucked away in his bedside table of us as a brand-new family. Until now, I hadn’t realized that I had even registered the house. It was merely in the background. I closed my eyes and saw the place as it was when my parents had it. I had no memory of belonging to that house. I wanted to stand where my parents had as if the house behind me were my home. What would my life look like now if they had stayed there, Charlie’s arm around my mom’s shoulders?

  As Charlie suspected, she was still in town. I’d found her easily in the phone book, but I didn’t drive by her place. How many years had it been since she’d lived in the house she’d shared with Charlie and me? Did she ever think about it? I imagined myself growing up with both of my parents. What would it have been like to bring home friends to where you lived with your mom and dad? I wondered if the mechanic’s parents were still together.

  “How much work do you think the house needs?” Ruth asked.

  I shelved the memory of my short talk with the Homecoming Queen and recalled some details from my walk-through. “Quite a bit. Smells like they had a pet that wasn’t housebroken. All the carpet’s going to need to go, but it’s an older place. I’m crossing my fingers that there’s a nice wood floor underneath. It’s been neglected. Everything needs a fresh coat of paint, but I think a lot of what needs to be done I can do myself.”

  “Too bad you’re not a little closer. I’m a good painter.”

  “I’m counting on your help with color. And I don’t think it’s too much for me. Since I’m able to dedicate all my time to it, I should be able to get it looking nice in the next few months.”

  “I worry about you being lonesome up there in the woods, no friends.”

  She said nothing about my mom though I knew she knew she still lived in Quincy. That was all my brain needed to flip the mechanic back to the front burner. “I did meet…” As I was about to describe it all, something made me pause. It was strange enough to have spent the entire drive home thinking about her, wondering if she thought I was a whack job, considering whether she’d been flirting with me. She had been flirting, hadn’t she?

  “You met…” Ruth prompted.

  I worried that mentioning her to Ruth and Bo would somehow jinx anything that might come of our chance meeting. The big white horse flashed through my mind. “There was this great white horse the first time I walked the property. I didn’t see him with the realtor, but I think he’d be good company.”

  “So he doesn’t come with the land?” Ruth asked.

  “When I asked, the realtor said it’s the land and buildings, no stock,” I answered.

  “But you saw this animal on the property,” Bo said.

  I shrugged. “Maybe there’s a fence down between the neighboring property.”

  “That’s something you want to discuss. A neighbor who doesn’t maintain the property line can be a real thorn in your side.”

  “I know.”

  “You don’t need errant stock wandering at will, especially not with the liability they would bring with your guests.”

  I laughed, picturing the calm, wooly horse as a liability. To me, he was the opposite—a draw. I hadn’t expected the realtor to know anything about a horse, but the way she’d frowned and insisted that there had never been an animal when she’d been on the property illogically disappointed me. Eventually, I’d have stock, good bomb-proof riding horses for inexperienced riders. But I couldn’t imagine that being among the priorities of setting up my small resort.

  “You’ve factored in insurance? You’ve talked to a realtor about how much it will take to buy the property, but have you gone through your other costs?”

  I sat back feeling the enormity of the task. Though I could get it functioning pretty quickly, it would take a lot of lean years to get it anywhere near the kind of outfit I’d been managing, and even then it would never be the size of Steve’s place in Oregon. I reminded myself that I’d never wanted such a big place that I’d have to hire and manage a huge staff. Years stretched in front of me, and I saw myself settling into a rocking chair on the wraparound porch to listen to the sounds of the world tucking itself in to sleep before I turned in to my own bed. All the hard work I put in would be mine to enjoy. Nobody would be able to take that away from me. Whether anyone would be there to enjoy the sunset with me wasn’t something I felt I could afford to picture.

  For the moment, what I knew was that the place I had my eye on needed a lot of work, needed me, and I felt prepared to give myse
lf to the task. I knew how to be frugal, how to keep money in the bank by leaning into the work myself. I smiled at Bo knowing that if I asked, they would put in what I needed to get to twenty percent. If I ever needed anything, they’d be there. All I had to do was ask. But then it wouldn’t be mine. “You’re not forgetting that I managed Steve’s place, are you?” I asked. “I know how much cash I need to cover the mortgage until I have income from guests, and I’ve got it. Barely, but I can do this.”

  Bo consulted with Ruth. They didn’t say a word, but I saw the look pass between them, his wanting to know if he should push harder and insist that I let them help and her level gaze that told him to leave it. A strange feeling crept into my gut as I realized the level of connection they had with each other. I’d only ever felt that kind of connection with a place. A place I knew solely from the many stories Charlie and Bo told about Hot Rocks. When the two of them reminisced, it felt like they were talking about another land in another time, one that somehow suited me better. As a child, I dreamed about who I would have been if Charlie and I had stayed in Quincy. Now I had the chance to find out.

  “We want to be your first guests when you’re all set up,” Ruth said.

  I matched her smile with my own, even though what I’d imagined as my future had started an echo of sadness I’d never felt before. I pushed myself to picture having Ruth and Bo as guests. I could make them proud.

  “If you ever get stuck…” she said, not needing to finish the thought.

  “I know. And it’s not like I’m moving out tomorrow. You’re going to have to put up with me through escrow.”

  “We’ll try hard to manage,” Bo said, pushing away from the table. He squeezed my shoulder on his way out of the room.

  Ruth cleared their dishes, and I carried my own to the kitchen. Setting them down on the counter, an envelope with my name on it caught my eye. I picked it up and raised my eyebrows in question.

  Ruth frowned, a mirror of my confusion. I recognized Charlie’s neat, deliberate lettering, but it wasn’t like him to leave something at the house for me. When I’d been little, I could always count on him to walk up on my birthday with a present, and when I was older a card, always the long narrow ones that simply held cash. This wasn’t that familiar shape. I slipped my finger under the lip without consideration, not expecting to find a check tucked inside.

  Least of all one with so many zeroes. In a flash, I set it down on the counter and took a step back.

  Ruth stepped forward, and I watched her expression change when she looked at the amount he’d penned. A series of emotions flashed over her face. I anticipated her disbelief but was surprised that hurt was among the reactions. Now she looked to me for explanation.

  “I don’t know,” I stammered. “I didn’t know he had any money.”

  “The way he’s always worked like a dog, it doesn’t surprise me.” At my confused look, she asked where I always thought he was at night.

  “I thought he had a lady friend he visited.”

  “Listen to you,” she guffawed. “Lady friend. I don’t think I’ve seen Charlie so much as look at a woman as long as I’ve known him. He’s always taken a second, sometimes third job that he can do after the sun goes down here.”

  All those nights I had watched his trailer, I was convinced he was out with someone. As I got older, I invented all sorts of things about that person. I gave her a husband, kids, something that complicated his being able to stay overnight because his truck was always in the driveway in the morning.

  “Is there a note?” Ruth interrupted my thoughts.

  Sliding the envelope out from under the check, I peeked inside and found a small slip of paper, something you’d write a midweek grocery list on.

  I always meant to buy my own place.—Charlie

  I turned it over though I knew the back was blank. Ruth was waiting, but I didn’t hand it over. I tucked it and the check back in the envelope and said simply, “He wants me to put it toward the property.”

  “Well I’ll be.”

  I wished I could go thank him, but I couldn’t even imagine how that would go. If Ruth had given me the check, I would have thrown my arms around her. But Charlie wasn’t there. He was away on a delivery, and wasn’t that the point? Did he think that a huge check equaled us out somehow, made up for the choices he’d made? If he’d been home now, I told myself I would have stormed down and demanded that he explain why we’d left Quincy and why he didn’t want me with him in the trailer. Though the amount eased my anxiety about starting up the guest ranch, as I pocketed the check, I still felt angry.

  Chapter Seven

  Lacey

  I hummed along to the Rolling Stones’s “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” as I puttered on my 1953 Volkswagen Beetle engine that got my spare time between jobs. I learned to drive on a baby blue version of the same make and model, and the day my dad had sold it to a collector, I vowed to have one for myself even if I had to rebuild it from the inside out.

  I spent years scouring junkyards to find authentic parts: a window crank for the passenger door, functional clips for the wind-wings, the turn signal arms that flipped out between the front and rear windows, both chrome bumpers, the gas cap, the rubber accelerator pedal, the steering wheel… The list was never ending.

  I’d acquired nearly everything but the missing horn. Jimmy out at Quincy’s own salvage yard would call if he ever got one, and Martha at the antique shop next door said she always had her eye out when she was out buying. She’d looked so pleased with herself when she’d come home from a trip with a horn from a late ’60s VW that I hated to tell her it wasn’t right.

  I would have bought it and let it go but realized that wouldn’t help me track down the one I longed for. Apologetically, I’d explained how the ’53 depicted the water by the castle with three lines that looked like a bowl instead of the two wavy ones on the one she’d found. She’d made me sketch it out, and it touched me that she carried that sketch with her whenever she went, sharing the fervor I had for having every detail right on my restoration.

  I grabbed a punch and hammer to bend up the tabs on the flat washer to help lock the crankshaft nut on. At least I thought I was using the hammer on the punch. My knuckle screamed otherwise when I smacked it instead. Dropping the tools, I pinched the throbbing hand between my knees. “Sonofa…” Before I could really let loose, a rusty maroon Chevy Nova nosed into my shop.

  Smacking my hand on my thigh, I traded one pain for another.

  I steeled myself when the scuffed black heels hit my drive. Shawneen Golden’s shapely legs followed, and while I wouldn’t call myself a fashion expert, I thought there were rules about what season you could wear a skirt that far above the knee. Or maybe I was thinking about age. While she had to be well into her forties, she dressed like the local high school kids with their low-cut shirts and heavy makeup.

  “Shawneen,” I said, still rubbing my sore knuckle.

  “Honey, this old thing still doesn’t start up for me. “Dennis gave me a jump before he went to work….” She tipped her head back filling my shop with her barking laugh when she realized the innuendo. She dabbed at her eyes with her fingertips. “I did not mean to imply…not that it hasn’t…but you don’t need to hear that.”

  She smiled at me, and I wondered if her act worked on straight men. It clearly worked on her boyfriend Dennis. I gave her a tight smile and tried to get to business. “That’s a brand-new battery.” I knew because I’d replaced it myself. I opened the door to check her light to see if she’d drained the battery by leaving the dome light on.

  Hand on hip, she leveled her eyes at me. “Dennis already checked. I didn’t leave the door open. He said what we need to do is put in a switch, so I can turn off the battery when I’m not driving. He’d do it himself, but…” She turned practiced pleading eyes on me.

  I held up my hand. Dennis raised my hackles. He had his own version of fixing things that had more to do with what was on hand or what he kne
w how to do than what was right for the vehicle. He’d wired the glove box shut instead of tracking down a new clasp, and had installed a button on the dash to turn the headlights on and off when they’d stopped working on the turn signal stalk. “Stop,” I said. “Please do not let Dennis do work on this car. Something is draining the battery. I’ll figure it out. You need a ride?”

  “You’re a doll.” With a big smile, she stepped close and squeezed my arm. Even with all the grease from the shop, her cloying perfume would linger on my clothes, and I’d be smelling it all day. She’d dropped hints that she knew I dated women, and though she had a boyfriend, she behaved like it was her flirting that got her favors from me. However, I was happy to give customers a lift when they lived or worked close, and Shawneen waited tables just down the street at the Chinese restaurant.

  I locked up the shop, leaving my be right back sign up, and slid into the little red Nissan two-door my folks had passed on to me when I started driving. “It shouldn’t take long to find the problem. I’ll give you a call.”

  “Do you think you’ll be able to fix it today?” she asked hopefully.

  It was just past noon. I had a pretty good idea of what was wrong with the car and was confident I’d have it back to her, but I knew that if she was only beginning her shift, she wouldn’t be off until after I closed up shop for the day. Not wanting to volunteer to deliver the car, I addressed her question directly. “You’ve got a parasitic drain. It’s not the dome light, so I bet it’s your trunk or glove box light that’s the culprit. If I’m right, I’ll have her up this afternoon.”

  “Maybe I can get Val to swing me by on my break.”

  I knew her boss wasn’t going to give both his staff breaks at the same time. I tried not to grind my teeth. “I could probably drive it down when I’m finished with it.”

  “Oh, that would be super. Tell me whatever you want on the menu. I’ll get you whatever you want.” Again her voice dipped suggestively.