His father’s presence wasn’t with him when he was in his study. It wasn’t with him in the garage or the living room or the back porch of Maine Lane. Yes, he’d lived there and left his mark behind. The boxes were proof.
But he couldn’t feel him.
Here in the hardware store, within these old plastered walls, he felt him.
Right here, by his side at this scarred oak worktable, in a spiritual way he never believed in before. Would deny should anyone ask. And that feeling came with a bone-deep rightness.
A rightness he’d only felt once before.
With Chloe.
“Well, if you’re looking for something else to do, I heard there’s a dive shop over in Montauk up for sale. The owner is retiring, but he’s got a busy tourist business in the summer. Locals, too. Not so much in the winter, of course.”
He tossed his empty can into the recycling bin, innocently talking out a five-year plan for Jameson as if it were a possibility.
“You could run that in the summer while I manage things here,” he added, then looked sheepish. “If you thought I could handle the added responsibility, that is.”
“You could,” Jameson assured him. Though in what universe this scenario would occur was beyond him.
“Then in the winter, during the off-season . . . geez, I don’t know.” He paused, as if considering Jameson’s various options should hell freeze over. “I guess you could hang out here. Or spend time with your frenemy.”
“She’s not my frenemy.” Because Cade said it like an endearment.
But this doily he was reframing, with more care than he handled live explosives, mocked his firm denial.
“That way you can still be in the water, boss.” Cade smiled as if he’d just discovered Jameson’s personal secret of life. “And without being a storekeeper, you know?”
Jesus. He made it sound ridiculously easy.
Cade might be the smartest kid he knew.
“It’s the best of both worlds,” he said, giving Jameson the hard sell on what his future could be like, should he choose to stay. “And I can still feed my baby.”
When Jameson didn’t respond, Cade grabbed his trusty clipboard and added, “Or whatever,” as if concerned his suggestion might be misconstrued as self-serving.
“You’ll always be able to feed your baby,” Jameson assured him, remembering the worry that came with being the sole provider.
“This is the best job I’ve ever had,” he said in explanation. “I wanna keep it.”
“How many have you had in your life? You’ve only been legally able to work for less fingers than this,” Jameson joked, holding up one hand. “Not including mowing lawns and shoveling snow, because hawking hardware is gonna be better than those any day.”
“I’d shovel pig shit if it meant keeping my kid clothed and fed.”
Cade went back to his duties now that his afternoon break was over. And Jameson stood there, leaning against his father’s worktable, remembering that feeling. The drive to do anything to take care of what was his. Mowing lawns, shoveling snow, shoveling shit. Going to war.
Buying a dive shop.
In the town he vowed to never step foot in—much less reside in—again.
With the woman he vowed to destroy one day as she destroyed him.
But he forgot one important factor when planning Operation Destroy Chloe, and it meant mission failure before it even launched.
He still loved her.
And because, ironically enough, he never had to shovel pig shit, he hated her too.
Pulling an envelope out of a locked drawer in the back office, Jameson handed it to Cade. “Your paycheck for the week.”
Reliable to a fault, he’d put in four days of steady time, showing up early and leaving only when Jameson kicked him out late in the day, locking up behind him.
“Umm, boss? There’s, like, way too much money in here. And it’s in cash.”
“The grocery store doesn’t take twenties anymore?”
Walking back to the table, he put the finishing touches on the frame, adding sturdy wire to the back so it would hang securely.
All while Cade pondered that cash.
“I think it’s the law that you’re supposed to pay employees with a paper check. Withhold money for taxes and pay that amount to the government, along with some greedy dude named FICA? That seems more legal-like.”
Laughing, Jameson held up the frame, assessing his work.
Not bad. Not as good as the original frame, but he was rusty. Hadn’t fixed a small appliance, held a finishing hammer, or cut a custom piece of glass in ten years.
Hadn’t made a wooden frame in ten years.
Not since he made the one lying broken in the trash can, a personal request from his mother. She thought the gift would mean more to Chloe if he had a part in making it. She thought wrong.
Chloe valued nothing he made. They made.
“It’s a one-time cash payment, Cade, for temporary services. If the government isn’t happy, they know where to find me. Considering I spent seven years doing Uncle Sam’s dirty work, I think they’ll let it slide.”
“It’s still too much money. This is what I would make in a month, not a week.”
Feed your baby. Clothe her. Hold her. Cherish her. But saying it wasn’t necessary. Cade was allowed his rights.
“Back pay,” Jameson said instead, ending further discussion.
There would be another envelope for Cade at the end of business Monday. When he locked the doors to Maine Hardware for the last time, handing the keys over to the broker he hired earlier in the day. And there’d be no discussion about the dollar amount then, either.
Because it would be higher.
Because Jameson remembered that feeling.
Wished he still felt it.
The doily was a voodoo doll in disguise.
It had him doing things he shouldn’t do. Thinking things he shouldn’t think.
Like grabbing take-out cheeseburgers.
Like researching Montauk dive shops.
Christ, she better have that bottle of bourbon handy because he needed some goddamn sense drilled into him. And since he was still within a hundred miles of Chloe Morgan, sense was nowhere to be found. That called for mind-altering substances.
One problem.
If her nipples were showing, he was a goner.
“I’m only here to get my bourbon,” he announced by way of a greeting, spying her through the screen door of the carriage house.
Her back to him, she stood in the middle of the room, staring at the dresser. The empty wall above the dresser specifically, a lonely nail stuck in the center, missing the item it once held.
“Chloe?”
Lost in thought, he said her name twice before she jolted, whipping around.
“Geez!” A hand over her chest, she laughed self-consciously. “How long have you been standing there?”
Long enough to notice how sad you look. Inherently sad.
The same sadness he saw that late May day she came knocking on the front door of Maine Lane with a sweet smile and a dozen congratulatory white chocolate cherry cupcakes in hand.
“Happy high school graduation,” she said shyly. And changed his life forever.
For the better, for sure.
Then the worse.
“Looking for this?” He held up the frame with one hand, a bag of food in the other.