The Next Always tibt-1 Page 3

  She got lucky with the timing, and headed across with a wave. She tried to remember the last time a man had asked her to go dancing and meant it.

  She just couldn’t.

  The Montgomery Workshop was big as a house and designed to look like one. It boasted a long covered porch—often crowded with projects in various stages—including a couple of battered Adirondack chairs waiting for repair and paint, for two years and counting.

  Doors, windows, a couple of sinks, boxes of tile, shingles, plywood, and various and sundry items salvaged from or left over from other jobs mixed together in a rear jut they’d added on when they’d run out of room.

  Because the hodgepodge drove him crazy, Owen organized it every few months, then Ryder or Beckett would haul something else in, and dump it wherever.

  He knew damn well they did it on purpose.

  The main area held table tools, work counters, shelving for supplies, a couple of massive rolling tool chests, stacks of lumber, old mason jars and coffee cans (labeled by Owen) for screws, nails, bolts.

  Here, though it would never fully meet Owen’s high standards, the men kept at least a semblance of organization.

  They worked together well, with music from the ancient stereo recycled from the family home banging out rock, a couple of floor fans blowing the heat around, the table saw buzzing as Beckett fed the next piece of chestnut to the blade.

  He liked getting his hands on wood, enjoyed the feel of it, the smell of it. His mother’s Lab-retriever mix Cus—short for Atticus—stretched his massive bulk under the table saw for a nap. Cus’s brother, Finch, dropped a baseball squeaky toy at Beckett’s feet about every ten seconds.

  Dumbass lay on his back in a pile of sawdust, feet in the air.

  When Beckett turned off the saw, he looked down into Finch’s wildly excited eyes. “Do I look like I’m in play mode?”

  Finch picked up the ball in his mouth again, spat it on Beckett’s boot. Though he knew it only encouraged the endless routine, Beckett snagged the ball, then heaved it out the open front door of the shop.

  Finch’s chase was a study in mad joy.

  “Do you jerk off with that hand?” Ryder asked him.

  Beckett wiped the dog slobber on his jeans. “I’m ambidextrous.”

  He took the next length of chestnut Ryder had measured and marked. And Finch charged back with the ball, dropped it at his feet.

  The process continued, Ryder measuring and marking, Beckett cutting, Owen putting the pieces together with wood glue and clamps according to the designs tacked on sheets of plywood.

  One set of the two floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that would flank The Library’s fireplace stood waiting for sanding, staining, for the lower cabinet doors. Once they’d finished the second, and the fireplace surround, they’d probably tag Owen for the fancy work.

  They all had the skills, Beckett thought, but no one would deny Owen was the most meticulous of the three.

  He turned off the saw, tossed the ball for the delirious Finch, and noticed it had gone dark outside. Cus rose with a yawn and stretch, leaned against Beckett’s leg for a rub before wandering out.

  Time to call it, Beckett decided, and got three beers out of the old shop refrigerator. “It’s oh-beer-thirty,” he announced and walked over to hand bottles off to his brothers.

  “I hear that.” Ry kicked the ball the dog dropped at his feet out the open window with the same accuracy he’d kicked a football through the goalposts in high school.

  With a running leap, Finch soared through after it. Something crashed on the porch.

  “Did you see that?” Beckett demanded over his brothers’ laughter. “That dog’s crazy.”

  “Damn good jump.” Ryder wet his thumb, rubbed it on the side of the bookcase. “That’s pretty wood. The chestnut was a good call, Beck.”

  “It’s going to work well with the flooring. The sofa in there needs to be leather,” he decided. “Dark, but rich, with lighter leather on the chairs for contrast.”

  “Whatever. The ceiling lights Mom ordered came in today.” Ryder took a pull of his beer.

  Owen took out his phone to make a note. “Did you inspect them?”

  “I was a little busy.”

  Owen made another note. “Mark the boxes? Put them in storage?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Marked and in the basement at Vesta. The dining room lights—ceiling and sconces—came in, too. Same deal.”

  “I need the packing slips.”

  “They’re on-site, Nancy.”

  “We’ve got to keep the paperwork organized, Jethro.”

  Finch trotted back in, dropped the ball, banged his tail like a hammer.

  “See if he’ll do it again,” Beckett suggested.

  Obliging, Ryder kicked it out the window. The dog sailed after it. Something crashed. Intrigued, Dumbass wandered over, put his paws on the sill. After a moment he tried crawling out.

  “I’ve got to get a dog.” Owen sipped his beer as they watched D.A.’s back legs kicking and scrabbling. “I’m getting a dog as soon as we get this job finished.”

  They closed up, and taking the beer outside, spent another fifteen minutes talking shop, throwing the ball for the indefatigable Finch.

  The cicadas and lightning bugs filled the strip of lawn and surrounding woods with sound and sparkles. Now and again, an owl worked up the energy to hoot mournfully. It made Beckett think of other sultry summer nights, with the three of them running around as tirelessly as Finch. With the lights on in the house on the rise as they were now.

  When the lights flicked on and off, on and off, it was time to come in—and always too soon.

  He’d wondered—and worried a little—about his mother, alone up here in the big house tucked in the woods. When his father had died—and that had been hard—the three of them had basically moved back home. Until she’d booted them out again after a couple months.

  Still, for probably another year, at least one of them would find an excuse to spend the night once a week or so. But the simple fact was, she did fine. She had her work, her sister, her friends, her dogs. Justine Montgomery didn’t rattle around in the big house. She lived in it.

  Ryder nodded toward the house where the porch and kitchen lights—in case they came back in—and their mother’s office light shone.

  “She’s up there, hunting on the Internet for more stuff.”

  “She’s good at it,” Beckett said. “And if she didn’t spend the time, and have a damn good eye, we’d be chained down doing it.”

  “You do anyway,” Ryder pointed out. “Mister Dark but Rich with Contrast.”

  “All part of the design work, bro.”

  “Speaking of which,” Owen put in, “we still need the safety lights and exit signs for code.”

  “I’m looking. We’re not putting up ugly.” Beckett stuck his hands in his pockets, dug in on the point. “I’ll find something that works. I’m going to head out. I can give you most of tomorrow,” he told Ryder.

  “Bring your tool belt.”

  He drove home with the wind blowing through the truck’s open windows. Since the station he had on reached back to his high school days with the Goo Goo Dolls, he thought of Clare.

  He took the long way around, driving the back roads in a wide circle. Because he wanted the drive, he told himself, not because that route would take him by Clare’s house.

  He wasn’t a stalker.

  He slowed a bit, scanning the little house just inside the town limits, and saw that, like his family home, her kitchen lights were on—front porch and living room, too, he noted.

  He couldn’t think of an excuse to stop in, not that he would have, but …

  He imagined her relaxing after a full day, maybe reading a book, watching a little TV. Grabbing a little downtime with the kids tucked in for the night.

  He could go knock on her door. Hey, just in the neighborhood, saw your lights on. I’ve got my tools in the truck if you need anything fixed.

  Jesus
.

  He drove on. In his entire history with the female species, Clare Murphy Brewster was the single one of her kind who flustered and flummoxed him.

  He was good with women, he reminded himself. Probably because he just liked them—the way they looked, sounded, smelled—the strange way their minds worked. Toddler to great-granny, he enjoyed the female for who and what she was.

  He’d never been at a loss for what to say around a woman, unless it was Clare. Never second-guessed what he should say, or had said. Unless it was Clare. Never had the hots for without at least making an opening move. Unless it was Clare.

  Really, he was better off with somebody like Drew’s sister. A woman he found attractive, who liked to flirt, and who didn’t make him think or want too much.

  Time to put Clare and her appealing boys out of his brain, once and for all.

  He pulled into the lot behind his building, looked up at his dark windows.

  He should go up, do a little work, then make an early night of it and catch up on some sleep.

  Instead, he walked across the street. He’d just do a walk-through, check out what Ry, the crew, and the subs had gotten done that day. He wasn’t ready for his own company, he admitted, and the current resident of the inn was better than nothing.

  In Clare’s house, the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers waged war against the evil forces. Bombs exploded; Rangers flew, flipped, rolled, and charged. Clare had seen this particular DVD and countless others in the series so often she could time the blasts with her eyes closed.

  It did give her the advantage of pretending she was riveted to the action while she worked on her mental checklist. Liam sprawled with his head in her lap. When she peeked over, she saw his eyes were open, but glassy.

  Not long now.

  Harry lay on the floor, a Red Ranger in his hand. His stillness told her he’d already passed out. But Murphy, her night owl, sat beside her—as alert and as fascinated by the movie as he’d been the first time he’d watched it.

  He could, and would, remain up and revved until midnight if she allowed it. She knew damn well when the movie ended, he’d beg for another.

  She really needed to pay her personal bills, finish folding the laundry, and throw in another load of towels while she was at it. She needed to start the new book she’d brought home—not just for pleasure, though it was, but because she considered reading an essential part of her job.

  Thinking of what she’d yet to check off that mental list made her realize she’d be the one up until midnight.

  Her own fault, she reminded herself, for letting the boys talk her into a double feature.

  Still, it made them so happy, and gave her the joy of spending an evening snuggled up with her little men.

  Laundry would always be there, she thought, but her guys wouldn’t always be thrilled to spend the evening with Mom watching a movie at home.

  As predicted, the minute good vanquished evil, Murphy sent her an imploring look out of big brown eyes. How odd, she thought, he’d been the only one to inherit Clint’s color, and genetics had mixed it with her blond hair.

  “Please, Mom! I’m not tired.”

  “You got two, that’s all for you.” On the rhyme, she flicked his nose with her finger.

  His pretty face with its pug nose and dusting of freckles crumpled into abject misery. “Please! Just one episode.”

  He sounded like a starving man begging for just one stale crust of bread.

  “Murphy, it’s already way past bedtime.” Now she held up a finger when he opened his mouth. “And if that’s a whine about to come out, I’ll remember it next movie night. Come on, go up and pee.”

  “I don’t gotta pee.”

  “Go pee anyway.”

  He trudged off like a man walking to the hangman’s noose while she shifted Liam. She got him up, his head on her shoulder, his body boneless.

  And his hair, she thought, the thick golden brown waves she loved, smelling of shampoo. She carried him to the steps, and up, and into the bathroom where I-don’t-gotta-pee Murphy sang to himself as he emptied his bladder.

  “Leave the seat up, and don’t flush it.”

  “I’m s’posed to. You said.”

  “Yes, but Liam has to go. Go ahead and get into bed, my baby. I’ll be right in.”

  With the dexterity of experience, Clare stood Liam on his feet, held him upright with one hand, lowered his pj shorts with the other.

  “Let’s pee, my man.”

  “’Kay.” He swayed, and when he aimed, she had to guide his hand to avoid the prospect of scrubbing down the walls.

  She hitched his pants back up, would have guided him to bed, but he turned, held his arms up.

  She carried him to the bedroom—the one intended as the master, then laid him on the bottom of one of the two sets of bunks. Murphy lay in the other bottom bunk, curled up with his stuffed Optimus Prime.

  “Be right back,” she whispered. “I’m going to get Harry.”

  She repeated the routine with Harry, as far as the bathroom. He’d recently decided Mom was a girl, and girls weren’t allowed to be in the bathroom when he peed.

  She made sure he was awake enough to stand upright, stepped out. She winced a little as the toilet seat slammed down, waited while it flushed.

  He wandered out. “There’s blue frogs in the car.”

  “Hmm.” Knowing he dreamed vividly and often, she guided him to bed. “I like blue. Up you go.”

  “The red one’s driving.”

  “He’s probably the oldest.”

  She kissed his cheek—he was already asleep again—walked over to kiss Liam, then turned and bent down to Murphy. “Close your eyes.”

  “I’m not tired.”

  “Close them anyway. Maybe you’ll catch up with Harry and the blue frogs. The red one’s driving.”

  “Are there dogs?”

  “If you want there to be. Good night.”

  “’Night. Can we get a dog?”

  “Why don’t you just dream about one for now.”

  She gave her boys, her world, a last glance as they lay in the glow of their Spider-Man night-light.

  Then she went downstairs to start work on her mental checklist.

  Just after midnight, she fell asleep with the book in her hands and the light on. She dreamed of blue frogs and their red driver, purple and green dogs. And oddly, she realized when she woke enough to shut off the light, of Beckett Montgomery smiling at her as she walked down the stairs at her bookstore.

  Chapter Three

  Clare pulled into the gravel parking lot behind Turn The Page at nine. Since her mother had the boys for the day—God bless her—Clare had time to work in the quiet before Laurie came in to open. Shouldering her purse and briefcase, she crossed over to the back door, unlocked it. She flipped on lights as she went up the short flight of stairs, through the room where they stocked sidelines, and through to the front room of the store. She loved the feel of it, the way one section flowed into the next but remained distinct.

  The minute she’d seen the old town house just off The Square, she’d known it would be her place. She could still remember the excitement and nerves when she’d taken that leap of faith. But somehow, investing so much of the lump sum the army provided to the spouses of the fallen had made Clint part of what she’d done.

  What she’d needed to do for herself and her children.

  Buying the property, creating the business plan, opening accounts, buying supplies—and books, books, books. Interviewing potential employees, working on the layout. All of the intensity, the stress, the sheer volume of time and effort had helped her cope. Had helped her survive.

  She’d thought then, and knew now, the store had saved her. Without it, without the pressure, the work, the focus, she might have shattered and dissolved in those months after Clint’s death and before Murphy’s birth.

  She’d needed to be strong for her boys, for herself. To be strong, she had to have a purpose, a goal—and an incom
e.

  Now she had this, she thought as she went behind the front counter to prepare the first pot of coffee of the day. The mom, the military wife—and widow—had built herself into a businesswoman, a proprietor, an employer.

  Between her sons and the store the hours were long, the work constant. But she loved it, she mused as she made herself a skinny latte. She loved being busy, had the deep personal satisfaction of knowing she could and did support herself and her kids while adding a solid business to her hometown.

  Couldn’t have done it without her parents—or without the support and affection of Clint’s. Or without friends like Avery, who’d given her commonsense business advice and a wailing wall.

  She carried the coffee upstairs, settled down at her desk. She booted up her computer and, because she’d thought of Clint’s parents, sent them a quick email with new snapshots of the kids attached before she got to work updating the store’s website.

  When Laurie came in, Clare called down a good morning. She gave the website a few more minutes before dealing with the rest of the email. After adding a few additional items to a pending order, she headed downstairs where Laurie sat at her computer behind the low wall.

  “Got some nice Internet orders overnight. I—” Laurie cocked her brows over chocolate brown eyes. “Hey, you look great today.”

  “Well, thanks.” Pleased, Clare did a little turn in the grass green sundress. “But I can’t afford to give you a raise.”

  “Seriously. You’re all glowy.”

  “Who isn’t in this heat? I’m going out, getting my tour of the inn, but I’ve got my phone if you need me. Otherwise, I’ll probably be back in thirty.”

  “Take your time. And I want details. Oh, you didn’t send in that book order to Penguin yet, did you?”

  “No, I thought I’d do it when I got back.”

  “Perfect. Some of these orders take us down to one copy of a couple titles. I’ll give you the deets before you send it in.”

  “Good enough. Need anything while I’m out?”

  “Could you box up one of the Montgomery boys?”

  Clare smiled as she opened the front door. “No preference?”