“Hey!” She saved whatever it was she was working on, shut the laptop, and scrambled to her feet. “When did you get back?”
He gestured down the hill, over the heads of the crowd, to where his truck was parked jauntily in the road. “Just pulled in now.”
“Silly me. Should’ve heard that thing coming. I’ve been a bit busy.”
He threw a look of regret at the barn. “Hate to say it, but you look way too pleased. The people are talking.”
She grinned, but he got the feeling she was reining in her true pleasure. As she leaned closer, he saw how sleepy she was, even underneath the projected alertness. “Because everything’s taken care of,” she whispered.
“See, now even I’m starting to see you with matches and a crazed smile.”
“No, no.” She waved the hand that still held her phone. “I mean that I’ve fixed things. Hemmertex landowners have agreed to let us rent their land, and I’ve called in a few favors. New tents, new tables, new signage, they’re all on their way.” She wiggled the phone, then playfully hit him in the shoulder with it. “And you make fun of me for having it on me all the time. This thing is going to save the games, you know. I need to go tell Sue.”
Jen walked off, leaving him in a sort of wondrous daze. He watched her gesture excitedly to Sue, who just looked squinty-eyed back at the woman who was telling her that she had it all under control, that everything would be all right. Sue merely nodded. Jen never faltered.
He wanted to walk right over to those two women who’d bashed and speculated about Jen and set them straight, tell them all about what Jen had just done. How she’d probably been dragged from her bed before the sun—a hysterical phone call from Sue, most likely—and had been working her ass off for hours to fix it all for the benefit of people she barely knew and who didn’t appreciate it.
Except that Jen would probably hate that. She’d want her actions to speak louder than any of his words could possibly do. She’d want to prove herself. So he just stepped back and watched.
Watched as Jen turned away from explaining to Sue, and finally let her frustration show at still not being able to get a positive reaction from the mayor. Only Leith could see Jen’s face, the tightening of her lips, the pained squint of those jewel eyes. Only Leith saw her hold a hand to her stomach as though she might be sick.
As Jen bent over to gather her computer and purse from where it sat in the grass, the movement of bright orange caught his eye. Mayor Sue was on the move, weaving in and out of her people like a chieftain after a particularly intense and bloody battle. She was rubbing the backs of some people, patting children on the head, and clasping hands with others. Nothing too unusual for the woman who loved Gleann perhaps most of all, except for the fact that he could read Jen’s name on Sue’s lips. And when the mayor gestured to Jen, there was satisfaction on her face. A little bit of surprise. Perhaps even . . . pride. Sue was many things, but inauthentic wasn’t one of them. She was just slightly prickly and sometimes difficult to please.
He considered pointing out to Jen that it seemed she had impressed Sue, but then Sue turned around and the moment was gone. He knew Jen would never believe it had happened.
“So, what now?” he asked as Jen straightened.
She jammed fingers into her hair, unknowingly snagging some of it free from the rubber band and making it even messier. There were a few sun-damage freckles sprinkled on her shoulders; he didn’t know if they’d appeared in the past ten years or if they’d always been there and he’d just never noticed.
“Now?” She glanced sheepishly at her pajamas and flip-flops. “Coffee. And likely clothes.”
“What about sleep? Your eyes are closing.”
She looked at him as though he’d suggested giving the State of the Union in clown makeup and a feather boa. “But that’s what the coffee is for.”
When she started to eye him in a serious way, he knew her quick-firing brain had switched from thinking about the smoking barn to how they’d parted three days ago. He knew this because her expression softened with exactly the kind of pity he’d wanted to avoid.
“Well”—he took off his Red Sox baseball cap, scrubbed through his hair, and then repositioned the cap—“I’ve been driving since midnight so I’m gonna hit the sack.”
“Okay.” The pity disappeared, which shocked him. She’d always been good at picking up hints, but not necessarily as good at heeding them if they didn’t fit into the direction she wanted to go. “Talk to you later?”
He knew what she meant by “talking,” and he still nodded, because he’d knowingly thrown wide open the door into his mind and allowed her to take a good long look inside.
Now that Sue had made the rounds with her reassurances, the flashing lights on the fire trucks had been turned off, and the big hoses were spraying down the last of the barn ash, the townspeople started to dissipate. He wouldn’t have to mow anyone down to get his truck back to 740 Maple.
Jen called his name when he was halfway to his truck. He turned around. “Yeah?”
“Thank you for the albums. They helped. A lot. I don’t know if I would’ve been able to get all this done this morning if I hadn’t seen them.”
Her smile was so warm that it melted a bit of his fear over having let her inside the house.
“Good to hear it,” he said, and finally escaped to the safety of his truck.
Chapter
11
Leith watched Duncan Ferguson do a killer hang power snatch with a massively weighted bar. After heaving the bar from its resting place on the mat, then jumping into a squat and thrusting the bar high over his head for the second time, Duncan let the bar drop. The guy with the shaved dome and neck rolls blew out breaths in big puffs and stepped back, looking incredibly pleased with himself, as he should be. That was some serious weight.
“Shit, man,” Leith said from where he sat on the edge of the incline press, shaking his head in a half laugh. “You’re in sick shape. Want to come over here and spot me on this twenty-pounder?”
Duncan ran a towel around the back of his thick neck. “Only ’cause I kept it up. Why’d you stop training?”
Leith consistently worked out, but he wasn’t following the insane lifting regimen he used to and that Duncan still subscribed to. Duncan was shorter than him, but thicker and more compact. Back in the day, Leith spanked him on the field, consistently out-threw him. Looking at Duncan today, Leith was pretty sure Duncan would wipe the grass with him. All right, he’d admit it. It bothered him. It bothered him a lot. He’d thought that competitive edge had died when he’d stopped throwing—had tried to convince himself it no longer existed, at least—but it was still there, burning just under the surface. A low pulse of a whisper that said, You can take him.
Leith just shrugged. “You pro yet?”
“Nah. Still amateur class A. Some great competition out there. Pushes me, you know?”
Leith rose, loving how his thighs felt tight, his arms a little shaky. Using the weights he kept in Mildred’s garage didn’t match an honest workout with someone stronger.
“Hey, thanks for the call this morning.” Duncan held out his hand and Leith slapped it, turning it into a hearty handshake. “Good to hear from you. Been a while.”
“Yeah. Sorry about that.”
Duncan held up his taped fingers. “’S’okay, man, I understand. Sorry to hear about your dad. I know that sounds shitty a few years after the fact.”
Leith waved off his friend, as he’d gotten so good at doing.