Old habits were hard to break, and keeping to himself was his oldest habit of all.
Chapter 3
On Friday morning Jayne went outside, strolling to the edge of the road before turning back to face the house. It was barely seven o’clock, but she’d been up more than an hour and she’d finally done all she could to improve the inside of the house. Today, with its promise of sunshine and warm weather, she would work on the outside.
The grass in front needed mowing—after she’d dragged off those nasty rugs she’d tossed out the day before. Of course, she didn’t have a lawn mower, but she could buy one. She’d noticed some bulbs poking up their heads in what had once been flower beds, so she intended to weed around them to give them a better chance. And she hadn’t needed more than a look out the back windows to see that there was a small jungle there. She wanted to clear it before she lost Lucy in there.
Behind her a sharp whistle sounded. She watched as Cameron and Diaz came flying from the woods, leaped the fence and disappeared inside. She didn’t get even a glimpse of their master.
She returned her attention to the house, thinking about paint and shutters and repairs, and only vaguely noticed the closing of a door, the revving of an engine. As the old pickup drew nearer, though, she couldn’t help but wish she’d done more than drag her fingers through her hair. A little makeup would have been nice, along with a T-shirt that hadn’t seen better days long before Greg had tossed it her way. Not that she was looking to impress anyone.
Listening to the truck, she calculated when to turn and give a neighborly wave. Tyler didn’t return it. But fifty feet past, the truck lurched to a stop, and he backed up until he was beside her. Leaning across, he rolled down the window. “I can take those rugs to the county dump in the morning.” His tone was brusque, and his expression matched.
“Thanks. I was wondering what I’d do about them.” Not true. In her thoughts about the rugs, she’d gotten only so far as getting rid of them—not how.
The truck rolled forward a foot or so before stopping again. Tension rolled off him in waves, from his scowl to his clenched jaw to his fingers on a death grip around the steering wheel. “I can fix that bottom porch step, too.”
She wanted to tell him, thanks, but no thanks. She could hire someone to do that for her or get how-to instructions from the Internet and fix it herself. But fixing it herself was liable to lead to more extensive repairs, and anything she didn’t have to hire out was money that would last just a little bit longer. Without a steady income, that mattered.
“Thanks. I’d really appreciate that.” As long as he was being accommodating—more or less—she went on. “Is there a place in town where I can buy a lawn mower and a weed trimmer?”
For a long moment he was still, then with a rueful shake of his head he removed a key from the ring in the ignition and offered it to her. “This goes to the door around the corner from the workshop. Everything you need’s in there.”
She backed away a step. “I can’t—What if I break something?”
“You know how to use a lawn mower and a weed trimmer?”
“Yes, but—”
Impatiently he held the key a few inches closer.
With reluctance Jayne held out her hand, and he dropped the key in it. “Thanks.” She seemed to be saying that a lot. She wasn’t comfortable with being so beholden to someone, especially someone who was begrudging about his generosity.
“I’ll get the stuff for the step today.”
She nodded, and so did he, then shifted into gear and drove away.
In her line of work, heroes often had tortured pasts. What would Tyler’s be? An unhappy upbringing? If so, it didn’t seem to have had the same effect on his sister. A broken marriage and broken heart? When she’d asked if there was a Mrs. Lewis, his answer had been blunt, to the point, but all his answers were blunt and to the point. Some tragedy that had happened between his teen years and the time he’d isolated himself up here?
She rolled her eyes. If she wanted to fixate on a hero with a tortured past, there was one inside the house on her computer, just waiting for her to resolve the big conflict that was keeping him apart from his heroine. Tyler wasn’t a character and he wasn’t a hero—at least, not hers.
After finishing her coffee, she went inside to check on Lucy, still asleep in the smaller of the two bedrooms. Her daughter gave a soft sigh, then snuggled deeper into her covers as Jayne backed out of the room. She would probably sleep another hour, maybe two. She wouldn’t even know that Jayne had left her to go down the road to Tyler’s.
She found the door the key fit on the north side of the barn. It was wide and opened into a large, clean storage room. The lawn mower was pushed into a space apparently built for it, with a shelf above for the gas can and a few quarts of oil. The trimmer occupied a shelf nearby, with another gas can, more oil, extra line and the owner’s manual. Other shelves and nooks held a chain saw, an edger and a lightweight utility cart, and Peg-Board on the walls was filled with hand tools, work gloves and safety glasses. There was even one small shelf that held bug repellent.
Tyler Lewis was one seriously organized man.
She loaded a variety of tools into the cart, pushed it outside, then locked up again. With the key deep in her jeans pocket, she headed back to her own house. There, she checked on Lucy once more, then pushed the cart around to the edge of the overgrown backyard.
Clearing it was a daunting prospect. Where to begin?
The author in her answered: begin at the beginning. She revved up the trimmer and began clearing the tall weeds in an ever-widening arc, uncovering rocks, logs and a fifty-gallon drum Edna had apparently used for burning trash.
Despite the early-morning chill, sweat coated her skin, along with grass clippings clinging to every exposed surface, when she cut the engine.
“Well, she doesn’t look like a city girl today, does she?”
Jayne spun around to find Lucy, looking like a sleepy doll in her nightgown, and Rebecca standing next to the cart. “Good morning,” she said, shoving damp hair from her forehead, then brushing at the grass flecks that clung to her hand.
“You’re working bright and early,” Rebecca remarked. “I thought I’d bring you a treat from the diner. Our cook makes the best sticky buns in three counties and has the blue ribbons to prove it. Don’t tell me you’ve already eaten.”
Jayne’s stomach answered with a loud growl as she pulled off the safety glasses. “I’ve only had coffee. Sticky buns sound wonderful.”
“What’re you doing, Mom?” Lucy asked. “You woke me up with all that noise.”
“I’m cleaning up this mess.”
Lucy gave the slightly improved yard a doubtful look. “You’re gonna need help.”
“And you are help. Isn’t that lucky?”
“The three of us can have it clean in no time,” Rebecca said as she led the way back around the house.
Jayne was startled. They were talking about a lot of hard, dirty work. “I appreciate the offer, but you have your own work.”
Rebecca waved away her response as she sat on the top porch step, where a large bag waited. “I’m the boss. I can take off whenever I want. Besides, I’ve done this sort of thing before. I helped Tyler clear the land for his barn. When is he coming over to fix that step?”
Slowly taking a seat one step down, Jayne asked, “What makes you think he is?”
“Because I know my brother. He’ll tell you he’s not neighborly, but the only one he’s kidding is himself. If not for him,