Mack had helped himself to fresh coffee and cupped his other hand around his mug as he slipped into the rocking chair beside Jethro. He stared at the sunrise. “So, Medal of Honor?”
Jethro glanced at him. “It’s just something that happened.”
“It’s who you are.”
“It’s what I did. Who I am is how I live every day.” He leaned over. “What do you think of this?” Jethro slid his notebook over to Mack’s lap, a hand-drawn sketch of the inside of the new and improved Jethro’s.
Not a bad drawing either. “Is this the brick wall along the inside of the building?”
“Yes. Let’s turn the bar so that it runs the length of the building. We’ll add a few more flat-screens behind the bar and lengthen it, but that’ll give us a full view of the patrons and the patio.”
Jethro leaned over and pointed to a space in the back. “We’ll put a stage here, for open mic nights. That way the crowd will have to go all the way to the back to hear the music, and leave room for more restaurant guests in the front.”
“And big picture windows here?” Mack ran his finger where the wooden wall had been, the one they’d cleared yesterday. The second floor had been held up by massive steel beams, which had survived the fire.
“I want those kind of doors that open to the outside, onto the patio. Bring the outside in. Maybe we’ll even move the open mic out there in the summertime.”
Mack looked up at Jethro, whose eyes shone. Nothing of quit in this guy. “You need to get this drawn up by an engineer so we can get an estimate.”
“No need. It’s all up here.” Jethro tapped his head.
“Still, a blueprint helps. So I know how to build it right.”
And yes, Mack had said that deliberately, but why not?
He wanted to stay. To help. And maybe even let himself fall in love with Raven.
Shoot, last night had been…well, it could have been a fiasco, the way he hadn’t responded to her kiss. But she hadn’t mentioned it the entire ride home, and Jethro had been in the kitchen with a cold cup of coffee, waiting to talk repairs when they came home.
He wanted to belong here, to this town. And maybe even to this family.
Jethro grinned at him, then slapped the notebook on his knee. “What’ya waiting for? Daylight’s burning.”
An hour later Mack found himself standing on the sidewalk, hot coffee in a travel mug in his hand, surveying the burned shell of the pub in the morning light, seeing Jethro’s vision.
Yes, tall windows with Jethro’s painted on the front, and that long copper bar shined up and expanded. The big copper beer tanks along the back, with a glass wall separating the brewery from the pub. A wooden stage, the cement floor washed and restained, and those tall windows overlooking an expanded patio area.
Raven got out of her car and came up beside him. “The pastor of our church just texted. He’s coming over with more volunteers to help today.”
“Good,” Mack said and took a sip of his coffee. “We have a lot of cleaning to do.”
She wore a black T-shirt, her hair up, and short shorts with hiking boots, and looked about twenty-one years old.
He felt forty, or older.
Maybe that was the reason he just couldn’t seem to let his heart move in her direction. He probably had fifteen years on her, at least.
Raven looked past him, and he turned to see a Caravan drive up, a few people climbing out of it.
One of them arrowed straight for him, early thirties, wearing a smile, a clean blue T-shirt, and a pair of work pants.
“The pastor?”
“Caleb Brown. He’s young, single, and energetic.”
Indeed. Mack met Caleb’s hand. “Hey.”
“Quite the thing you did the other night, Mack—hope it’s okay if I call you Mack?”
Mack had a crazy retort in his head, something like, Go ahead and be creative. It didn’t matter what he called him.
But maybe it did. Especially if he was truly embracing Mack Jones.
“No problem, Caleb.”
“Jethro is a beloved member of our congregation. Put us to work.” Caleb glanced behind him, and Mack noticed a number of other vehicles had pulled up. Helpers were emerging from their cars, many of them retrieving brooms and mops from their trunks, all of them in work attire.
Huh.
“Such a shame. I’m glad he’s rebuilding. He makes the best Reuben sandwiches,” Caleb said. “And I like to watch the game here, sometimes.”
Mack just nodded. “Today’s project is to clean the smoke off the massive brick wall.”
“I’ll see if I can rustle up some gloves, masks, and brushes,” Raven said. “And I’ll put a call in to the Shelly Hardware Store to see if they can mix up some TSP solution for us.” She walked away as she pulled out her cell phone.
“What a tough break.” Caleb turned to stare at the building. The fire had eaten away the wooden exterior of the building on the sides and the front as well as charring the second-story apartment. The remainder of the building was made of cement, having been a former Mobil gas station and later a used car dealership. Mostly it was sooty and dirty and needed a good scrub so that they could get down to figuring out what was left.
“Jethro’s had a number of bad breaks in his life. Coming out of Desert Storm should’ve been enough, but then his wife gets cancer and dies. He lost Ace shortly after I arrived here. Such a man of faith, even in grief. And now this.”
Caleb looked at him. “You saved a pillar of the community when you went into that fire after him, and we’re all very grateful.”
Mack didn’t know what to say. Instincts had driven him into that building.
The instincts of someone accustomed to running into trouble.
Except maybe he did have an answer. “Yes, well, Jethro is a good man. He sure helped me out.”
Pulling out a pair of gloves from his pocket, Caleb said, “So, where are you from? Jethro says that you just sort of showed up one day.”
Mack also donned his gloves and headed toward the building. “Seattle. And before that I think I did a lot of traveling.”
Caleb raised an eyebrow. “You think?”
Mack laughed, and it sounded a little too high even to his own ears. “I mean yes, I did do a lot of traveling.”
They entered the building. Without the charred beams, the place just looked dark and sooty, the floor black, the walls shadowy. Smoke embedded the core, and although he hadn’t really noticed the smell before, now it lodged inside him, something oddly, even painfully, familiar.
So, a criminal engineer firefighter.
Caleb was looking around at the wreckage. “I suppose Jethro has big plans for this place.”
“Yes. He stayed up late last night drawing and coming up with a plan.”
“It’ll be beautiful,” Caleb said. “Probably better than before. That’s what fire does. It burns away all the chaff and stubble down to the core, and only then do you see what it’s made of. See its true strength and value.”
The words nudged something inside Mack, and he looked at Caleb. “‘See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.’”
Caleb frowned. “Isaiah 48:10. I didn’t know you were a man of the Bible.”