Mending Her Heart

Catherine expected him to add “so now you much be rich” or some other childish leap of logic.

Instead he added, “…because you’re Gram’s real granddaughter. You’re not like me. I’m just her pretend grandson.” Longing filled his eyes.

Her heart melted in her chest at the child’s earnest statement. “Thank’s for reminding me of that. I had Abigail as my gram for a long time.” She reached out to touch the boy’s silken hair. “You’re a very sweet boy, Charley. Thank you.”

Will cleared his throat. “Charley, get this mess out of sight, will you? You can set up in the kitchen.” As Charley busied himself on the floor, Will took Catherine’s arm and led her into the sunroom off the main living room.

“Are you okay? Any puncture wounds from your battle with the soldiers?”

When she shook her head, he continued. “You’ll have to excuse Charley. He and Abigail really clicked when he came to live with me. He asked her if he could call her ‘Grandma,’ but she told him her favorite grandchild in the whole world called her ‘Gram’ and that he should, too. He has the same first name as her husband and she liked that. I hope you don’t mind.”

Mind? How could she mind an orphaned child, a child like she had been, seeking love?

“Charley came to me so eager for affection and Abigail liked having a child in the house. Frankly, Charley was fascinated with Abigail, and I took advantage of the fact. With his mother gone, Charley hasn’t had many women in his life and he adored her.”

“That’s fine, Will. He’s adorable. In fact he…” She’d almost said “looks a lot like you,” but stopped herself.

She didn’t even want to hint at the fact that Charley’s uncle was pretty adorable himself.

Chapter Five

The next morning the phone rang before Will had had his first cup of coffee. That alone was ominous.

“Hello?” he growled into the phone, hoping to frighten off whoever was calling.

No such luck. His sister-in-law Sheila’s voice came across the line. “How’s Charley?”

“Fine. Just like he was yesterday—and the day be fore.”

Will had to keep reminding himself that Sheila cared about Charley, too, even though she was making life miserable for everyone else. Maybe if she’d had a few kids of her own, she wouldn’t be so dead set on having Charley. But Charley wasn’t a toy for Sheila to play mother over…. Will reeled at that uncharitable thought. Maybe the reason he couldn’t understand Sheila was that she was a woman with a biological clock that seemed to have sputtered to a stop. Patiently he began to explain Charley’s day to Sheila, as she demanded to hear.

Later, Will glanced out the window of the mansion’s upstairs bathroom where he’d spent the past hour tearing out rotted flooring and his jaw dropped. Coming up the sidewalk was Catherine Stanhope. She was dressed in hiking shorts, a white T-shirt and tennis shoes. Catherine carried a lunch bucket and looked like one of the employees he managed on his construction crew—only prettier. Her expression was uneasy but determined, as if she were a round peg planning to insert herself into a square hole.

He suppressed a smile. That look of determination was one he’d seen on Abigail’s face quite regularly in the past weeks, ever since she’d made her final decisions as to what she would do with the house. Nothing and no one could get in her way when she wore that expression, and Will had a hunch that Abigail’s granddaughter was cut out of the same cloth. He hoped that he and Catherine would agree on the plans for the house. He didn’t care to butt heads with another force of nature like Abigail.

He was weary of women who didn’t understand his perspective—like his sister-in-law. Before Sheila had hung up this morning she had again harangued him about the fact that Charley was living with him instead of her and his brother, Matt, just as she had ever since Annie’s death.

To hear Sheila tell it, Will was utterly inept and ill suited to raise Charley. Sheila demanded custody of the boy, saying it was a travesty that the child didn’t have two proper parents—like her and her husband. Will didn’t consider Sheila a suitable parent. She was more like an absentee landlord.

They called him restless and a wanderer, which might have been true a few years ago, but now he was willing to be as rooted as a giant oak to keep his nephew with him.

Catherine, a big-time attorney, had practically landed on their doorstep, he thought. Maybe she could help him keep Charley. It had, at least, given him a sliver of hope.

Dream on. It’s never going to happen. She doesn’t have to bother with the likes of us. His fantasy was just that, a pipe dream. He redoubled his efforts on the floor.

Wood splinters flew as he worked and the squeal of nails releasing from old flooring filled his ears. It felt good to use his body rather than his mind. One of the things that he had found as a new Christian was the struggle to turn his concerns over to God and to leave them there.

“Trust Him, Will,” he could still hear Abigail say. “If you don’t trust Him, do you really believe in Him? Each time you experience a prayer answered, you’ll see His faithfulness and your trust will grow. Mark my words.”

Warm with exertion, Will wiped his forehead on the sleeve of his denim work shirt. He hadn’t needed to work out since he’d come to Abigail’s. She kept him so busy lifting, toting and digging that half the time he felt like begging for mercy.

He tested another board with the toe of his foot and grimaced. Another soft spot. That made it certain that the entire floor would have to go. He took a crowbar, wedged the flattened end beneath the end of the board and pried it loose. The visitor he’d spied out the window was forgotten for the moment.

The grating sounds emanating from the main bath made Catherine wince. It sounded more as if the man was tearing the house down than restoring it. It was a good thing she was here to oversee things and keep Tanner in line.

She smiled a little. The idea of someone like her keeping up with a powerful man like Tanner bordered on the ludicrous. Still, a big boat could be guided by a little rudder. That’s what she would have to be. Bigger didn’t have to be better.

She put the lunch bucket Emma had packed on the chair by the front door, mounted the steps to the second floor and followed the loud banging noises. What she found nearly took her breath away.

Will Tanner, wearing a T-shirt, denim jeans and a tool belt, was balancing precariously on the floor joists that had held the wooden floorboards in place. Beneath was the plaster that formed the ceiling of the room below. One mis-step and Tanner would land in the sunroom downstairs.

He looked up and grinned at her. “Good morning. How did you sleep?”

“Fine, thank you. Could you please come over here where there’s a floor to stand on?” Even in her dismay Catherine couldn’t miss the sight of Will’s strong, well-built frame.

He bounced a little on the tips of his toes. “There’s something to stand on here.”

She reached out as if to stop him and nearly lost her own footing.

“Don’t worry. I’m accustomed to this.” He walked across the joists like a cat and stopped beside her. “Piece of cake. You don’t have to look so concerned. I do this for a living, you know.”

She was surprised at the nervous feeling in her stomach. “When will you start to lay the new floor?” By the look of it, the house would never come back together.

“Tomorrow afternoon, I think. Or the first thing the day after. Why?”

“Oh, no particular reason,” she said vaguely. “For now, is there anything I can do to help?”

The pressure on her felt greater because she’d recently been getting emails from the law school about faculty gatherings, workshops and the like. Although, because she would be part-time at first, she wasn’t duty-bound to attend any of them, she felt it would be a nice gesture. Even more, it would be a true step toward that other life she was seeking.

“I cut a hole in the wall in the bedroom. I’d like to get that door put in between the rooms as soon as possible.”

“Maybe I could help with that?”

He gave her a startled look but led her into the bedroom that had once been hers. “I don’t think I explained what I was planning last night. I found the studs in the walls, marked the position of the door and cut out the hole, but I haven’t taken down the plaster yet. You could do that. I don’t even have to put up a new header for the door because the original one is still there….”

Catherine had no idea what he was talking about. Her education had been broad and varied, but there’d been little opportunity to learn carpentry and construction.

“There are hammers and crowbars in the hall. Help yourself.”

And before she could say anything, Tanner strode out of the room.

Well, then…. She picked up a hammer and took a swing at the wall where he had marked the outline of the doorway. There was a satisfying crunch and chips of plaster flew. She hit it again, harder, this time. It was surprisingly therapeutic, as if the tension and grief she’d been carrying left her body, exploded out the head of the hammer and fell to the floor with the chunks and crumbles of plaster. She swung fiercely at the wall as a refrain formed in her mind. She took a swing for the Three C’s and all the stress and pressure the firm had provided her over the years. She took another swing for that dreadful woman who had lied to her about wanting custody of her son and one for the manipulation and deceit. One cathartic swing was for herself for so foolishly buying into that story. How naive could she have been? And take that, death, for stealing my grandmother away….

The hammering on the other side of the wall was unrelenting, Will noted. Catherine was really tearing into it. Too bad he hadn’t had her on his crew when he was running demolition jobs. By the rhythmic sound of her swings, she was a miniature wrecking ball in action. Good. That freed him to work on other things. What’s more, it would keep her busy and out of his hair.

Lovely as she was, he didn’t need her underfoot right now. She’d tire of this soon enough and move on, but for now this would keep her occupied. Will turned up the radio he’d brought from home and lost himself in the nasal twangs of Hank Williams, country-western-style loneliness, cheating hearts and lovesick blues.