It wasn’t as if he was a beloved favorite son in Harmony Valley. His return might make it hard on his younger brother Joe, the bridegroom, who’d only just begun to earn acceptance in town. He and his brothers had been hellions as teenagers—cutting class, speeding through streets on deafening motorcycles, wearing black leather jackets instead of the school colors. Vince could use his misspent youth and consideration toward Joe’s tentative standing in town as a excuses not to go. But they would only be excuses.
His real motivation for not wanting to go to the wedding? There were things he hadn’t told his brothers. Secrets he’d kept for years about their mother leaving. Those secrets. They sat on his chest when he couldn’t sleep at night, clambering to be free.
Sleep-deprived, Vince blinked at the blazing sun. He had the case of Jerry’s auger motor open and was cleaning the spark plug because the hunk of junk wouldn’t start. Pretty soon, Jerry was going to be wondering why Vince wasn’t setting fence posts. Soon after that, Vince might lose his patience and tell him his equipment sucked. If Jerry took offense to that Vince might admit why he’d applied for a job with Jerry in the first place. After that revelation, it was a toss-up as to whether he’d quit or be fired.
Secrets. They were dangerous to his family’s happiness. Nothing had turned out the way he’d once hoped it would.
He’d left Harmony Valley sixteen years ago, fresh out of high school, determined to find his mother. She’d had a three-year head start, but he recalled she had family somewhere in Texas. He’d needed to know if she was okay and if the decisions he’d made the day she’d left had been the right ones. He’d located her in Sugar Land, Texas, outside of Houston. He’d located her, but he’d never contacted her. Not directly. Though he kept tabs on her all the same...thanks in part to Jerry.
Out front, a truck door creaked and slammed. Harley.
She was trouble. She still saw stars when she gazed at the night sky. She’d earned a degree in architecture, only to give up after what she’d called a colossal failure.
She’d failed once? Boohoo. She needed to learn that life required a strong backbone and the ability to pick yourself up after you got knocked down, no matter how many times it happened.
And yet, looking back, he’d enjoyed his time with her. They’d clicked. After a few weeks of dating, he’d asked her to go to Waco for a weekend. They’d taken the home tour and visited the showrooms of that famous designer. They’d eaten great Tex-Mex. They’d walked along the river and he’d kissed her beneath a rambling oak. And then they’d driven by Baylor University. One conversation thread had led to another and Harley had confessed she’d graduated from Rice in Houston. She was an architect!
She was an architect working as a laborer?
Vince had gotten mad on her behalf. He’d lectured her about how privileged she was to have the opportunity to go to college. He would’ve liked to have been a mechanical engineer, but his high school grades hadn’t been that hot. And Harley had just thrown her chance away? It made no sense.
She’d told Vince he’d never had to stare down the face of ruin, forced to admit defeat. She’d told him to take her home.
And that had been the end of dating Harley O’Hannigan.
Vince shoved the spark plug home. The heat was rising even though it was only midmorning. Digging post holes and setting them in concrete was going to make for a shirt-drenching day. Vince had heard one of the big airlines was hiring aviation techs and mechanics at the airport. Better pay. Better working conditions. But no—
“Vince.” Harley appeared as she always did for a job site—jeans, T-shirt, braid. She carried a bucket with her tiling tools and a manual tile cutter. She set everything down near the outdoor kitchen on the deck, frowning at her next project.
He’d been relieved she’d turned him down for the wedding. After the way things had ended between them, he never should’ve asked her in the first place. “How’s that bump?”
She reached up to touch the back of her head. “Better.”
He resisted the impulse to see for himself. “And how goes the tile saw repair?”
“Worse.” Harley came to sit nearby, a light sheen of sweat on her forehead. “I’ve been thinking about your brother’s wedding.”
The humidity in the air pressed in on Vince.
“Is it a formal affair?” she asked.
“It’s outdoors and I’ll have to wear a suit. Does that qualify as formal?” Whatever the answer was, he hoped she hadn’t reconsidered being his date.
“That’s not too formal.” She smiled the way a woman does just before she says yes to something she isn’t exactly thrilled about agreeing to.
Reflexively, Vince smiled back. And then he remembered he’d changed his mind about taking her.
“Since you’re in a bind—”
“A bind?” Normally, Vince was slow to anger. Not today. Today anger shot through him like nitrous oxide, making him talk faster, grip the auger harder. “I’m a grown man, not some kid looking for a prom date. I can walk into a wedding alone.” Or, even better, not go at all.
She tucked stray strands of golden hair behind her ears and avoided looking at him. “But you did ask me.”
“And you turned me down!” There was no reason that should poke at his pride, but it did, the same as her assuming he was in a dateless bind.
“And now...” Her gaze wound around to meet his and her lips made a slow turn upward. “I want to propose a new deal for us.”
The muggy morning air suddenly became too thick to inhale. Vince was a man, after all, and Harley was a beautiful woman proposing something.
“Go on,” he rasped when he should have said, “No go.”
“I’ll...I’ll be your plus-one—” Harley couldn’t hide the desperation in her voice “—if you fix my tile saw.”
Air moved freely in and out of Vince’s lungs again. This wasn’t a personal proposition. “Couldn’t find anyone to fix it?”
“Not for anything less than the price of my firstborn.”
She was as boxed in as he was.
A part of Vince was intrigued, the way he was always captivated by things not working how they should. The saw wouldn’t be easy to fix. No telling what kind of damage was inside until he took off the outer casing.
Another part of Vince was reminded that he enjoyed Harley’s company, their quick banter, their obvious chemistry. The bargain wasn’t completely out of the question.
He ran a hand through his hair, wondering what their relationship would be like today if they’d never talked about higher education and college degrees.
“Well,” he said gruffly, “we can’t have you selling off your firstborn.”
Harley’s cheeks pinkened from more than the sun and she looked away. “I’d need the saw before we leave on Saturday.”
“That might be a stretch.” It was Tuesday. “What if I need to order parts?”
She considered this with the same deliberation with which she ordered from a menu. “Could they arrive while we’re gone, so you could fix it first thing when we return?”
Again, the feeling that he shouldn’t take her to Joe’s wedding gripped him. Vince fiddled with the screw on the auger motor hood, not looking at her. “Can you really afford to miss a week of work?” That seemed unlikely given she couldn’t afford to repair or replace her saw.
“Jerry owes me a couple days off and I’ve lined up some side jobs.” She’d put thought into this. She hadn’t asked him on a whim.
Unless