6ߨo she dum Ss it on me that she’ s got a boyfriend,” T ravis said. It was four hours later and he was covered in sweat, grime, and those plastic foam packing beans that someone was going to hell for inventing. T ravis had told Joe the story of how he and Kim had met as children, and one thing had led to another until he was telling much more than he’d intended to. While he talked he had single-handedly unloaded what seemed to be hundreds of cartons and crates of tools and supplies. That there were no shelves to put them on didn’ t seem to bother Joe Layton in the least. But then he just sat in a big leather chair with a clipboard and checked of f whatever T ravis opened. Joe had let his disgust be known when T ravis didn’t know a Phillips screwdriver from a flat head. “My daughter knows—” Joe started again. According to him, his daughter could run the world. “Yeah, well I know how to hire a mechanic to ke ep the machines running,” T ravis had at last snapped. That seemed to release something inside him and in the next minute he was talking about Kim. “I don’t get it,” he said as he pulled some electrical tool out of a box. It looked like a plastic wombat. “Router ,” Joe said. “Look in there for the bits.” Travis bent over into the box, foam beans sticking in his hair and wiggling their way down into his T -shirt. He couldn’ t help thinking of the Frankenstein movie. “It’ s alive! It’ s alive!” “What don’ t you get?” Joe asked. “I came to this town to see Kim. W e were great together as kids. I mean, she was just a little girl and I was close to puberty , but still . . . I helped her with her jewelry . I wonder if she’d have that shop of hers now if I hadn’ t—” “Liar!” Joe said loudly . Travis pulled his head out of the carton. Packing beans stuck out all over him. “I beg your pardon.” “You came here to see your mother about me.” Travis’s mouth opened, but no words came out as he stared at Joe. “Don’t look so surprised. Y ou look like my Lucy , talk like her . Did you two think I was so stupid that I wouldn’ t see the resemblance?” “I . . . W e . . .”
“You want to check me out,” Joe said. “It’ s what a good son would do. Lucy is a prize worth protecting. But I warn you, boy , if you tell her that I know who you are I’ll show you what a chain saw can do.” Travis blinked a few times. His mother had made him swear not to tell Joe about her , and now Joe wanted T ravis not to tell her that he knew . “You find those bits yet?” Joe growled. “No . . .” T ravis said softly , still staring. “Then get busy!” Joe said. “Y ou expect me to look for them?” Travis bent back into the carton, found two more boxes, and pulled them out. When he came up, he looked at Joe in speculation. Where did they go from here? he wondered. Joe marked of f the items T ravis held up. “So you came here to see if your mom had gone crazy when she said she wanted to marry some nobody that owned a hardware store.” Since that was pretty much the truth, T ravis gave a curt nod. “And you thought you might as well see Kim, since you were in the same town.” “I saw Kim first,” T ravis said, feeling defensive as he cut open another carton. “Only because the wedding was going on and you got sidetracked.” “I told you too much,” T ravis muttered. “What was that?” Joe asked. Travis turned to him. “I told you too much. Y ou know too much. Y ou see too much.” Joe chuckled. “That’ s because I raised two kids on my own. The things I went through with my daughter! Joey was no problem. When he started staying in the bathroom too long I handed him some condoms. I didn’ t have to tell him anything. But Jecca! She fought me every inch of the way . So who’s your dad?” Travis caught himself before he blurted out the answer . Could he trust this man he barely knew? But there was something about Joe that engendered trust. The expression “salt of the earth” had been created just for him. “Randall Maxwell,” T ravis said. For a second, Joe looked shocked, scared, impressed, horrified. But then he recovered himself. “That explains everything,” he said. “So you came here to see if the New Jersey guy was after your mom’ s money .”
“More or less. She’ s still married to him.” T ravis looked hard into Joe’ s eyes. “The divorce is going to be brutal. Y ou think you can handle that?” “If I get Lucy all to myself in the end, yeah, I can handle that.” Travis didn’ t try to contain his smile. “I’m a lawyer and—” “And here I was beginning to actually like you.” Travis groaned. “Don’ t start on me and no lawyer jokes. I’ve heard them all. How did we go from my problems to yours?” “It started with you lying to me. Y ou came to see your mother , not Kim. You left that girl alone for all those years, then you came back here for something else, accidently saw the girl you left behind, and now you’re whining because she has a boyfriend she might marry . What did you expect? That she would stay a vir gin and wait for you? Y ou got any brothers or sisters?” “No to every question. What is this thing? The egg of some extinct species?” “Orbital sander . You didn’ t expect Kim to wait for you?” “No I didn’ t, but then I did know—” He bent back into the carton to pull out sandpaper disks. “Did know what?” “A bit about her life.” “You’ve been stalking her?” Joe asked, his voice full of horror . Travis refused to answer that. It would take too much explaining and he didn’t want to have to defend himself. “When are you going to get shelves?” “They’re in those big boxes over there and you’re going to put them up.” “No, I’m not,” T ravis said. “If you need help and can’ t afford it, I’ll hire —” “With Maxwell’ s money?” “I have my own,” T ravis said, glaring at him. “Where’d you get the money to buy all this?” “Thirty years of hard work—and a mortgage on my house in New Jersey . Not that it’ s any of your business. If you’re so in love with Kim, why are you here with me now? Why aren’ t you courting her?” “Should I be making her do back bends in public?” T ravis asked, his eyes narrowed. Joe grinned. “Heard about that, did you? Lucy can pole dance. I tell you, she can—”
“Don’t!” Travis said sternly . “Understood,” Joe said. “The problem seems to be that you don’ t know how to court a woman.” “You’ve got to be kidding, old man. I’ve done things with women you’ve never even heard of. One time—” “Not sex, boy! The only sex that matters is if you make the woman you love happy . You can do a threesome with half a dozen gor geous dames, but if the one you love ain’ t smiling at you over breakfast, you’re a failure in the sex d epartment.” Travis stood still as he thought about that, and it made sense. He bent back to the box but then straightened up again. “Just so you know , a threesome is with three people, not half a dozen.” He went back into the carton. “Make her need you,” Joe said after a while. “Not want you, but de ep down need you. Whether it’ s to give her a foot rub at the end of the day , or to fix the kitchen sink, find an empty place in her life and fill it.” “Does my mother need you?” T ravis asked in curiosity . “She can hardly thread those sewing machines of hers without me.” Travis smiled at that. Since they’d first visited Edilean his mother had sewn, and she’d never had trouble threading anything. Joe seemed to understand his smile. “Okay , so Lucy pretends she can’ t thread the ser ger or change the needles. But she gave me pointers on filling out the form for the mortgage application. She even told me what to wear and what to say when I went to the bank. She helped me order everything in here, and she and Jecca picked out all the colors of paint and tile. Lucy made the curtains.” “Sounds like you need her more than she needs you.” “That’s just it!” Joe said. “She needs me and I need her . We’re twisted.” “Intertwined,” T ravis said. Joe narrowed his eyes. “Y ou may have been to school more than me, but I got the woman I’m in love with.” “You have a point. What am I supposed to do with these pieces of metal?” “I’m going to show you how to use a screwdriver .” “My life is at last complete,” T ravis muttered and picked up a socket wrench.
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“Hello,” T ravis said softly as he opened the door that led to Kim’ s garage. She was bent over a sturdy workbench, looking through a lighted magnifying glass at something that appeared to be made of gold. “I don’ t mean to intrude, but I wanted to apologize for yesterday evening.” “It’s okay,” Kim said without looking up. “No, it wasn’ t. I was rude and . . . I guess I just feel protective of you, that’s all.” “You and Reede both,” Kim said under her breath. Just what she needed, two brothers. Travis was looking about the lar ge room at all the equipment. There were de ep shelves full of boxes, a couple of what looked to be microwaves, a large safe in the corner , a desk with a computer beside a foot-tall stack of fat folders, and three workbenches filled with more tools than Joe had. “This is some workshop,” he said. “Y ou need all this to make jewelry?” “Everything in here. In fact, I need a drafting table, but I don’ t have the room, and it would get dirty .” Travis thought that what she needed was some natural light. There were three little glass panels in the big garage door and one small window on the far wall. It was night out, but he’d like to see the stars. Kim glanced up at him and did a double take. “What have you been doing all day?” “I went to Joe Layton’ s place and ended up unpacking boxes for him.” “You have . . .” She touched the side of her head. Reaching up, T ravis removed three foam beans from his hair . “Damned things are all over me. Joe made me swe ep the floor and flatten boxes before I left.” He went to the chair by the desk and dropped down on it. “I wasn’t this tired after I climbed Mount Everest.”