The Hero's Redemption

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Now the apartment was dated, to put it kindly. The refrigerator was harvest gold. There was no dishwasher. The showerhead had corroded, the fiberglass walls of the shower showed small cracks and the toilet and sink were both a sort of orangey-yellow that might also qualify as harvest gold. The apartment was at the absolute bottom of her list of needed updates, however.

Heaving the garage door open, she mentally moved a remote-controlled opener a few notches up on her list.

The workbench probably hadn’t been put to use in decades. Unfortunately, the tools she located obviously hadn’t, either. Rust was crumbling the teeth of a handsaw. The pliers might work, but the blade of the shovel had long since separated from the handle. The rake lacked some tines, and the clippers... She squeezed with all her might and nothing happened except a shower of rusty dust.

Along with the smaller tools, drawers contained tin cans filled with miscellaneous screws, nuts and nails, a hose nozzle, a couple of mousetraps and some object that looked like a branding iron. Very useful.

The lawn mower... Well, if she could ever scythe the overgrown grass, weeds and blackberries down into something that resembled a lawn, she would need a new mower. This one was destined for the junkyard.

Today, she decided, hardware shopping she would go. Hi-ho, the derry-o...

And if she was lucky, the store would have one of those bulletin boards covered with business cards advertising useful people like electricians, plumbers and handymen.

* * *

USUALLY, SOMEONE IN a hardware store would buy a particular tool. Clippers with a longer handle than the ones she had, say. Or replace a shovel.

As he waited for the elderly man leaning on the counter to quit gossiping, Cole Meacham idly watched the woman pushing a cart. She barely hesitated over her choices. Far as he could tell, she bought one of everything. Who didn’t have the basics?

Her, evidently. She had to be a new homeowner.

He watched out of curiosity, but she’d caught his eye because she was a woman—and appealing. Long hair somewhere between red and blond, caught up in a messy bundle on the back of her head. She was too thin for his taste—although he wouldn’t swear his taste had remained in cold storage and therefore unchanged—but long-legged and still curvy. A baggy denim shirt hid enough of her breasts to leave him wondering—

A brusque voice had his head snapping around. “Done with that application?”

“Yes, sir.”

In this small-town hardware store, the manager had been running the cash register while chatting with his customers. A notice in the window had said Help Wanted. When Cole asked about the job, the guy had hardly glanced at him, but handed over an application.

Filling it out had taken Cole a whole lot longer than it should have. His hands had shaken, and sweat beaded his forehead and trickled down his spine. All those little boxes. Some of them he could fill in, some he couldn’t. He had no current driver’s license. The employment history made him clench his teeth. He either had no recent jobs to list—or he admitted what kind of jobs they’d been. Where they’d been.

But inevitably he came to the question he dreaded, the one asking whether he’d been convicted of a felony crime. It never asked if he’d committed a crime. He marked “yes,” as he had on all the other applications he’d filled out these past days. Lying wasn’t an option; employers could, and would, do a criminal background check before offering a job. Cole’s father always had.

The manager bent his head to read Cole’s application, revealing a small bald spot on the crown. Waiting without much hope, Cole stared at it. Behind him, the wheels of a shopping cart rattled on the uneven floor in the old building.

He saw the exact moment when the man reached that “yes” mark. His eyes narrowed and he looked up. “How long you been out?”

“A week.”

Shaking his head, he crumpled the application and tossed it toward what was presumably a trash receptacle behind the counter. “Don’t need to know what you did. Can’t have an ex-con working here. Now I’ll ask you to be on your way.”

Cole nodded stoically and turned to find himself face-to-face with the woman he’d been watching. Of course she’d heard. He didn’t let himself see her expression or what would be shock and distaste in her eyes. He said a meaningless, “Ma’am,” and walked past, taking the most direct route to the front door.

Outside, he turned left and walked twenty feet or so, until he was no longer in sight through the hardware store windows, before he stopped. He flattened his hands on the wood siding and allowed his head to drop forward.

Maybe he’d have to give up on this shit town. West Fork. He’d refused to stay anywhere near the penitentiary on the east side of the mountains. The Greyhound bus had taken him to Seattle. Overwhelmed by the city, he had hitched north, looking for a smaller town he could handle, one that seemed friendly.

He made a guttural sound. Friendly. What a joke. He needed to move on, but why would the next town be any different?

“Excuse me.”

At the sound of the voice, Cole whirled, his right hand balling into a fist. He never allowed himself to be unaware of his surroundings.

It was her. The woman from the hardware store. Green-gold eyes widened and she retreated a step, making him realize his lips had drawn away from his teeth and every cord in his neck probably showed. It took him a couple of deep breaths, but he managed to straighten, and he outwardly relaxed even if his heart still raced.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “You startled me.”

“That’s all right.” She studied him. “I heard. In there.”

Cole schooled his face to blankness. He didn’t say anything.

“I’m wondering what kind of job you’d consider. And what you know how to do.”

He stared at her. What did he know how to do? That was what she’d said.

“Because, well, this wouldn’t be long-term, but...it might tide you over for a while, and I really need someone. That is, if you know anything about yard work or basic construction. Like building porch steps or scraping siding.” Pink crept into her cheeks, as if his blank expression was getting to her, making her babble. “Not that scraping siding takes any experience or skill, I guess.”

“I can build porch steps.” His voice came out rusty. Was she offering him a job? “And scrape and paint. And yard work?” He shrugged. “As long as I know what’s expected.”

“If you’re interested, I can pay ten dollars an hour, maybe up it once I have a better sense of what you can do.”

“Is this...a business?” he fumbled.

She shook her head. “I inherited an old house from my grandmother. It’s...well, not falling down, but in need of a lot of work. Since it’s spring, I thought I’d start with the exterior and yard. It’s a mess.”

“You have a husband or...?”

“Nobody. And my spirit is willing, but I’ve never done this kind of work. I need help—someone with muscle and at least some know-how.”

“I can provide that.” He still sounded like he had a hairball caught in his throat, but she’d taken him by surprise. No, more than that. Was she nuts, hiring an ex-con she knew nothing about to work on her house? With apparently no man around to protect her?

His conscience kicked in. “You did hear. I just got out of prison.”

Here was where she’d ask what crime he’d committed. But once again, she surprised him. “How long were you in?”

“Ten years.”

She blinked. “You said you’ve only been out a week.”

And he felt like a toddler abandoned in the freeway median. Everything whizzing by, with him too terrified to move.

“Yes.”

“Do you want the job?”

His throat almost closed. Even a day or two of work would give him the means to eat for a week. He had nothing to fall back on. Ten years ago, he’d spent every cent he had on his defense.