Chapter Five
Gray
“Grayden…?”
She’d answered the door in a negligee, pink silk hugging pert breasts the tone of caramelized honey. Robe open, the extended length and overall thickness of sugar-brown thighs were on full display as well as how subtle silk could play along the curves of a clearly unsuspecting woman. She hadn’t expected me today.
But she’d invited me.
Alicia had given me back the key Josephine gave to me for emergencies, but I obviously wasn’t going to use it if her niece was still inside the property. I thought I was doing the civil thing by knocking.
I severed my gaze from the view of her thighs and back up.
I barely hit breasts before she closed her robe.
Alicia apparently hadn’t realized she answered the door this way, and under my gaze, she suddenly shied, wrapping herself like a mummy in her silk and pushing strands of hair the color of various golds and browns from behind her back and over her shoulders. Maybe she believed this concealed her better despite the length. Her hair only came to her shoulders.
Full lips pressed together.
“What are you, um,” Alicia started, pushing her hair around again. “What are you doing here?”
I picked up my toolbox from the porch.
“At the bar you mentioned more work done on the house,” I said. “I’m here to get going with that.”
Her lack of argument told me she at least knew the conversation I was referring to, but her squinting into the low light of the day behind me clued me in that something still felt off to her.
“It’s like six o’clock.”
“Five actually,” I corrected, rocking back a little in my work boots. “I’d like to get started as early as possible.”
If I got done even a fraction of what I wanted to accomplish to Josephine’s home and property overall, I’d consider today a job well done. There were things lingering around her home that had been niggling at me for a while. Like I told Alicia at the bar, the elderly woman had been a little stubborn when it came to things that needed to be fixed at her house.
I shrugged. “That is if you don’t mind,” I said, seeing as how I did kind of barge my way in here today. Alicia had never really given me a set time to roll through at that bar.
Perhaps, that explained the deep lines of unsettlement on her face.
I’d seen the expression before, unease… discomfort. She’d seemed displaced in the bar, which was why I had been so shocked to see her in such a place. She’d walked in wearing fancy shoes and a white blouse, a towny only a beer slip away from drenching that silky top of hers.
Alicia’s hands did something similar to a grip action on her robe, again like I hadn’t seen what had been behind it. Her nightgown hadn’t been see-through or anything, but I’d seen people wear more on the beach.
“I suppose that’s fine,” she said, pushing her hand into the crown of her hair. She dropped her fingers. “But I don’t know where anything is so I can’t help you in that department. And if you need anything extra—”
“Not a problem,” I told her, pushing my way into her home. She reluctantly followed her way behind me, closing the door.
I turned to her. “I have all I need right here and if I need anything else I’ll retrieve the resources myself. I’m assuming I have a budget.”
Some of these repairs wouldn’t be free considering the parts and supplies and I had no plans to lie to her about that. My labor I’d do on the house, though. It’d be my gift.
It’d be an honor to a woman who’d been so kind to me.
Knowing that kindness, I passed a look through Josephine’s sheer curtains, my pickup out there.
And my kid in the front seat.
I didn’t take Laura with me on jobs if I could help it, but today had unfortunately not been my choice. She didn’t have school today with Jolene and the other potential set of eyes to watch her…
I gripped my hand on my toolbox. Alicia had wandered off somewhere and I called to her.
“Do you um,” I started, hoping she’d find my voice wherever she was at. “Do you mind if I brought my daughter in? She’s in the truck. She’s eight and won’t be any fuss to you. She’ll probably sleep the whole time I’m here.”
Which was part of the reason I came here so early today. I wanted to outwork my daughter’s sleep schedule. I usually got her up around nine and that gave me a few hours to work.
I was well aware my child should get up earlier than that, but the fact of the matter was getting her up even that early was easier said than done. She slept a lot, my kid. She slept more than I liked.
Alicia’s silence wherever she was had the hairs on my arms standing on high end. It took a lot for me to ask her such a request and she could easily say no.
“What was that?”
Her voice came somewhere in the general direction of the kitchen.
I stepped into the living room, which was closer. I pushed my thumb behind myself. “My kid. She’s in the car. Can I bring her inside? She’s sleeping. I’ll put her in the spare bedroom—”
“Yeah, sure, fine,” she said, voice clearly distracted by something.
But since she said what I needed to hear…
Placing my toolbox down, I sprinted out to my car, a quickness on my heels as I kicked up the rocks and gravel lining Jo’s driveway. Laura was on the passenger side and I gingerly cracked the door.
She fell into my arms with the gentle weight of a child, her smell of sunshine and things like honey bees and summer emanating off her. I’d bottle that scent if I could. I hiked her up, pushing her arms around my neck and letting her rest her chin on my shoulder. Holding her head, I pushed the door of my truck closed with my hip, giving it an extra kick with my boot to secure it closed. Sometimes it needed the extra muscle to close, as I didn’t always keep up with such things.
Holding underneath my daughter’s legs, I took her inside, keeping a look out for Alicia when I crossed the threshold of the house. She may have given me permission to bring Laura in, but I wasn’t going to take my chance by letting Laura actually see Alicia. Her sudden appearance might startle Laura.
And my girl could be easily startled.
I took Laura up to the spare bedroom like I told Alicia, figuring it’d be the perfect place as Alicia was probably staying in her aunt’s room. Upon going in, the sheets were tossed, but that didn’t mean anything. I’d never seen this bed made once when I came over here. I put Laura on top of it, then took off her shoes. I knew where a quilt was in the closet and I grabbed it to cover her. After giving her a kiss on the forehead, I left the room, making sure to close the door quietly. I’d let my kid sleep all she wanted if that made her feel any ounce better. I had no idea what she was feeling half the time.
But I had a notion her incident at the cemetery was an indicator.
Dipping my head, I attempted to block that out as I went down the stairs. My daughter was clearly taking Josephine’s passing hard.
She wasn’t the only one.
Making my way into the kitchen, I found a surprise in a woman wearing lingerie. I wasn’t surprised she wore such things to bed considering her dress at the bar, but I was surprised she was actually still awake and humoring me. She was clearly trying to get her day somewhat started, rooting through pans and other things under the counter.
“You’re not going back to bed?” I asked, allowing her to know I was there by the appearance of my voice. Instinctually, a tiny hand went to a pink silk robe, and I smiled as I came up behind her.
Again, it wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen.
Almost dismissively Alicia passed a look over her shoulder.
“I figured why not,” she said, putting her attention back on the pots and pans. She rooted through them. “I’m up. Might as well start my day.”
I could respect that, and though I didn’t regret my plans to come over, a little guilt settled that I ripped her out of her bad. For that, I figured she was at least owed a cup of coffee from me so I got the pot from under the coffeemaker then went over to the sink to fill it with water.
My hand hesitated at the many bottles in the sink.
Empty, Alicia had cleared out some of her aunt’s best wine in little more than forty-eight hours. I knew because I’d just seen her at the bar and had been well-aware of her arrival only earlier that day.
Not knowing what to make of that, I ignored the bottles and pushed the coffeepot over them, filling it with enough liquid for one.
“Let me get some coffee started for you,” I said, turning off the faucet before pouring the water into the machine.
Dark eyes flashed up at me from the floor.
She sighed. “You’re a godsend.”
I had to admit that’d been the first time I’d been called that. I considered myself personally less of a god and more of something a bit darker most days.
My hands moving, I made the motions to get that coffee for a woman I barged in on this morning. When she got up from the floor and made her way to the kitchen table, clearly waiting, I figured I relieved her of a task she’d been trying to embark on by herself.
Silent, I kept my back to Alicia while the pot brewed, the notes of fresh roasted coffee beans spinning themselves through the air. I’d picked the beans up for Josephine not long ago, thinking she’d like them when I went into the next town over for a job. I had been so quick to buy them and even quicker to get them back to her, my foot heavy on the gas. Little did I know she’d never get to taste them. She’d passed in her sleep that very morning, due to her age I was later told.
It’d been the first time I ever had to use my key to get in.
My lids covering my eyes, I finished the coffee on autopilot, trying not to shake when I opened and poured the single cup for Alicia. She was still sitting at the table when I turned around, and right away, the fact I had an audience settled itself upon me, her gaze drifting up from the broad shape of my back and to my eyes. Perhaps noticing that, she flitted them away, again appearing dismissive about the action before accepting her coffee.
A soft and cool, “Thanks” on her breath, Alicia accepted the cup and I nodded in response, grabbing the fridge handle.
“Cream?” I asked her, knowing there was some in there. I’d been popping back in to do little fixes here and there and kept the fridge stocked with at least that for myself.
“Please.”
Again, I nodded to her, getting the cream and the sugar for her. After placing it down, I started cleaning out the coffeemaker. It was just something I did while I was here. I assumed Alicia watched me again while I did so, the soft heat of lingering eyes I felt in my direction.
She spoke after a while, saying my name.
“So you’re a handyman?” she asked, her voice followed by a slurp of coffee behind me. “Does that take a lot of schooling or…?”
I had never been one for small talk and the condescension of a typical occupational question did nothing to turn me over to that particular type of conversation. I assumed she didn’t really want to know anything about what I did. Asking me about such things was simply easy and made things less awkward for her about me being here in her home.
I figured I’d save her from that.
I’d brought my toolbox into the kitchen and after I put the clean coffee pot back underneath the maker, I retrieved it.
“Not much schooling,” I told her, humoring her as I stood to my feet with the toolbox. “And I’m going to go ahead and get started.”
My job actually didn’t take any schooling at all, something I picked up in a pinch. It was the closest thing I could do for money to what I used to do in my more than nine-to-five. Truth be told I could work up to eighty-hour weeks in my old life.
I now gratefully knew it’d been a half life.
Alicia’s foot touched the floor in my thoughts. She’d had one on the legs of the chair next to hers. Closing her robe though the garment fully covered her, she stood.
“All right. Well, don’t worry about anything. If you need supplies just let me know. I’ll give you whatever you need and as far as payment that’s fine too—”
“No payment required,” I said, dark eyebrows jumping in my direction with the words. “It’s my pleasure. Jo was a friend.”
The fact I’d severely minimized the role the elderly woman had in my life and the life of my kid quite frankly turned my stomach a little. A friend didn’t just sit back and allow you to come into their lives day after day and be at peace with all you could give them—which wasn’t much. I couldn’t give Josephine much, but that didn’t matter. She never asked, not once about why my daughter was so withdrawn and why I never talked about the road that brought us to this small town in Kansas. She just let me come in, day after day and help her with small tasks she couldn’t do herself, the woman playing the piano in her living room while I did.
She sat and played for my mute daughter.
She played without question or reprieve, Laura’s eyes opened while she watched her play on the piano bench beside her. It brought my daughter peace, which was why Jo played. She’d play for hours.
A friend wouldn’t do that. A friend would try but they’d always wonder. They’d always question. The fact of the matter was Josephine Bradley wasn’t just a friend.
She was the epitome of family.
Moving my jaw, I nodded at Alicia before leaving the kitchen. She could keep her money, buy herself a purse or something.
My work took me outside for the better half of the morning, not surprising considering all the work that needed to be done out there. In reality, the entire property needed an overhaul, siding falling off and the roof of the house basically shot. Alicia had a few months at best with that. Whoever the realtors brought in to care for the general landscaping of the house should be fired. They mowed enough to create a partially symmetrical square around the house and didn’t even touch the current state of the trees or overgrown shrubs. It looked like no one had been out here in months.
Standing with my back to the house, I gazed out into the horizon. Josephine’s property line stretched far. I knew because she took Laura and me to walk out there many times.
A smile tugging at my lips, I recalled it had actually been my daughter to take Jo and me out, leading the charge with her run of the temperate land. There was actually a lake out there, an abyss beyond the canopied woods.
I saw my daughter come to life out there, smiling as she actually used to… play.
The pressure behind my eyes I squeezed away, pushing those visions that weren’t my current reality from view. I never once heard my daughter’s voice during those times, but that had been okay. She’d been getting there however slow.
I’d never been affected much by death before Laura came into my life. I lost both my parents at a young age and after their tragic car accident, I motivated myself. I’d be successful, take care of myself, and I had done just that. Then came Laura, her appearance not changing my life like it should have. I had been selfish when I found out I had a kid. Despite the knowledge, I still took care of number one. It wasn’t until I truly feared for her well-being that this fact changed, however late. I changed and because I had, I’d been utterly gutted by Josephine’s death. The difference between Laura and me was my status as an adult changed the ways in which I could mourn. I couldn’t mourn with Laura around for fear it might break her more than she already was.
I checked on her several times that morning, several unnecessary times but several nonetheless. She was still asleep, fine…
I drove a nail into Jo’s shed, securing the wall that no longer hung. If I had it my way, the means, people would be out here getting this whole place turned right side up.
I guess that was the perfectionist in me.
Driving one more nail for good measure, I stood back, the dark hair on my forearm catching sweat when I used it to wipe my brow. Taking a rag out of my back pocket, I used that instead, catching a vision when I returned the rag to my back pocket. Brown eyes widened in my direction, and slowly, Alicia lifted a hand from the kitchen window. She no longer had her coffee in hand, but she was still half dressed from what I could see, the summer breeze blowing about pink material against the swell of her full hips. She had her other hand on the half-open window and I assumed she’d just opened it.
Her fingers moving, she waved at me, her smile stiff before opening the window the rest of the way and escaping my gaze.
Bending back down, I ran my hand down the siding I just secured, the wall of stable wood running smooth under my palm. I knew this, construction and architecture. I knew the science behind it and what a man or woman’s hands needed to do to create art.
I moved away from the structure, not everything that had come into my life I understood so simply. I got this, though. I understood this.
I stared at the house, the breeze pulling sheer white curtains in and out of the window. Smells of femininity, faint and soft like roses in the wind lingered in the air around me and I found my time outside may have been too long.
Must be my mind playing tricks on me.
The temperature rose high even with the early hour already. I was in for a sweltering heat if I didn’t wrap up what I was trying to do soon. I’d stay all day normally.
I looked at the window again, my eyes flashing at a sudden sound. Closing my eyes, my chest felt on the brink of caving and I grabbed onto the shed I’d just finished working on. I needed to hold on for stability.
The heat really was being an angry bitch today. It had to be because no way was I hearing what I thought I heard, the sounds of a piano…
Josephine?
Gripping my head, I was soon squatting, trying to wake myself up or something. She couldn’t be playing, Josephine.
She couldn’t be still alive.
But I felt… her, the essence of her while the notes played in the air. She lingered in the wind as notes soft and incredibly dulcet sounded into the morning. The elderly woman could play like an angel to their harp, easy and natural.
And beautiful.
I hadn’t known so much beauty until she came into our life. I had been surrounded by anger and greed much of my adult life, most of which stemmed from myself. I had no reason to be angry. I had everything back then.
I pressed my hands on the shed, the notes still playing from the house, and suddenly, I found myself lost, the sounds of the piano inside moving through me. So deep, I held my heart. I could feel them there, alive within me.
Something told me I should go find out what all this was about, who was playing the piano inside and why, but I couldn’t make my boots move. I just stayed there, listening and pretending my reality was that of only weeks ago when Josephine had been alive and my life was finally, finally starting to right.
The sudden notes ripped themselves out of me with the abrupt way in which they stopped. They ended too soon and I faced the direction in which I’d heard them, that kitchen window with the white, breezing curtains. I stepped in that direction.
I ran at the sound of a scream.