Nolan: Return to Signal Bend (3 page)

Geoff dipped down and looked at the underside of the frame without disturbing it in her hand. “This one is fifty.”

She let out a disappointed breath and handed it back. “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t take the frame from her. “This is an antique shop, Iris. There’s some flexibility in the price. Make me an offer.”

There wasn’t any flexibility in her pocket, though. “I only have twenty-eight dollars.”

Geoff crossed his arms and regarded the frame still in her hand. He seemed to be thinking. “I could let it go for twenty-five, if you promise you’re not trying to work me.”

“I promise! That would be awesome!” Iris almost wanted to hug this guy, and she wasn’t even sure Shannon would like the gift. She really hoped so, though.

They went back out to the front, Geoff smiling almost as much as Iris, and he led her to the desk. As he wrote out the purchase on a paper pad, Iris noticed a small, handmade notice, written in calligraphy, propped on a brass stand:
Help Wanted. Intrepid Soul for Sales and Acquisitions
.

“Why an ‘intrepid soul’?” she asked.

“We have to dig around in some interesting places to find things out of the ordinary for our shelves. The last person I hired was afraid of spiders. Spiders are virtually our co-workers.”

Iris stared at that sign while an idea formed in her head. She loved Signal Bend. She loved being with her dad and Shannon, and Millie and Joe, her twin little sister and brother. She liked this weird shop. She even liked Geoff. She had no bigger—or even smaller—plans for the future.

And creepy-crawlies had never bothered her.

“What other qualifications do you need?”

He stopped writing on his pad and stood up straight. “Are you applying? What qualifications do you have?”

“A degree in American Studies.” As she said it, she realized that it was an actual qualification for a job like this. “And I…um…I worked in the food court at college for three years. That’s sort of retail. And I know Signal Bend. I was born here. My dad is Horde.”

His expression sharpened with fresh interest. “Really? Who?”

“Showdown Ryan.”

Geoff’s friendly face brightened even more with understanding. “
Shannon
is your stepmom! Oh, you’re right. Those earrings would
not
have been right for her at all.” He nodded at the framed butterfly, sitting now atop a stack of smooth sheets of gold tissue paper. “That’s an excellent choice, I think. I’m glad we could come to terms.”

Shannon was a major mover in Signal Bend business; it didn’t surprise Iris that another business owner would know her, and probably knew her well. “So…could I apply?”

With a grin, he reached under the desk and brought out a pad of generic applications. “Absolutely. I need your info. But you’ve got the job. Can you start Monday?”

~oOo~

She had handed Geoff—her new boss!—her completed application and taken the little red paper shopping bag holding her gift for Shannon before she’d realized that Rose had never shown up. When she left the shop, she found her older sister sitting in her little Subaru coupe across the street. She jumped off the boardwalk and trotted over.

“Why didn’t you come in?” she asked as she sat in the passenger seat.

“I wasn’t going in that creepy place. Mindy said that he keeps jars with dead animals floating in green goo in there.”

Iris hadn’t seen anything like that. What she’d seen was quirky and a little edgy, not macabre. “No, he doesn’t. Mindy is a twat.”

Rose eyed Iris’s red bag. “You bought something in there?”

“Yeah. Shannon’s gift.” She pulled the frame out and unwrapped it from its tissue so she could show it off.

“That is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen. You’re giving Shannon a dead butterfly for Christmas?”

It was beautiful. And Iris felt good. She wasn’t going to let her sister ruin it, either. Without another word, she wrapped the frame carefully back in its pretty tissue and slid it into its bag.

“Well, at least it’s not floating in green goo,” Rose muttered and started her car. “A dead bug for Shannon, and a rusted-out old sign for Daddy. You are one weird little chick, Irie.”

A vintage 1920s Harley-Davidson showroom sign was not a ‘rusted-out old sign.’ Iris was not going to let her sister bring her down.

~oOo~

At home later that afternoon, while Shannon and Millie were making supper, Rose was online with her boyfriend, and Joey was playing a racing game on the Xbox, Iris went out and crossed the big yard to her father’s garage.

It was a huge thing and his favorite ‘room’ of the house. Aside from housing Shannon’s SUV, his truck, and two Harleys and an old Indian, the garage had a fourth bay that was walled off from the others and climate-controlled. He had a mancave set up in there, and he worked on whatever project bike he had going there as well.

The overhead door was closed—not surprisingly, considering the temperature—so Iris went to the small door at the side and knocked.

“Yeah!” he called, and she went in.

He grinned when he saw her. “Hey, baby flower. Supper ready?”

“No, not yet. I just wanted to hang out for a minute, if that’s okay.”

“You know it is. Have a seat. Let me just get this fork tightened, and I’ll sit with you.”

“Don’t stop. You know I like to watch.”

Still grinning, he nodded and turned back to his work. “Grab yourself a beer and keep me company.”

Iris sat on the tattered old plaid loveseat and leaned over to the little cube of a fridge for a beer. While she sipped at it, she watched her father work. They didn’t speak, and they didn’t need to. She really did enjoy watching him. He was doing something he loved, and she could see that he was perfectly content, thinking of nothing but the work, leaving outside this room any burdens he might be carrying.

He was old, sixty-three at his last birthday, and his long hair and beard had gone grey, but she knew it was still mostly thick and full under his black beanie. He had been terribly hurt in another really horrible thing, one that she had been away from, and his body was scarred and often achy and stiff, but it was still a big, broad, strong body. He was like a mountain. He endured.

When she finished her beer, she set the empty on top of the little fridge. “Daddy, can I talk to you?”

He stood and came over, wiping his hands on a shop towel. “Sure, baby. Something weighing on your pretty head?”

She waited until he’d sat at her side before she answered. “Nothing bad. Just…can I stay? Live here, I mean?”

Though she was confident he wouldn’t deny her, she had expected some surprise. Her father wanted her and Rose to ‘live their dreams.’ When he talked about Daisy—something he rarely did, at least not with them—he always said that the hardest thing about losing her was knowing the she hadn’t gotten a chance to live her dreams. He wanted all his kids to have and do everything they wanted, to have big lives, and he said that Signal Bend was no place to do that.

And that was true. Even now, as it burgeoned and thrived, Signal Bend was a small town. A tiny town. No room for big dreams.

But Iris didn’t have any dreams.

His reaction to her question, however, was not surprise. He simply considered her quietly for several seconds. And then he said, “You know you can. You’re welcome as long as you want to be here. But that’s what you want?”

“Yeah. I got a job on Main Street today. At Jubilee Antiques. I start on Monday.”

“Jubilee…That’s Geoff Robins.” Her dad nodded. “He’s not a bad guy. Shannon said he had some of the other owners ruffled because his stock was too oddball for Main Street, but he charmed them all quiet.”

“I like that it’s oddball.”

“You don’t want more than this? You don’t want to take that new degree and do something exciting with it? You don’t want anything bigger and better than this small life?”

“Nope. I’m excited about this. I love it here. And I can help with Millie and Joey, too.”

“I love you being here.” He set his big old hand on her leg. “Did you talk to your mom about this?”

Her mother would
not
be pleased, but Iris was twenty-three years old. “Nope. I will, but it’s not her call.”

That earned her a knowing smirk, and Iris grinned back. Her dad didn’t do what her mom had always done. He didn’t talk about her mom, except the way he just had—even since they’d been grown. Iris couldn’t think of any time he’d ever said anything critical directly to her or Rose. She’d overheard him talking to Shannon a few times, but that didn’t count. In fact, it made it even better to know that he was angry, too, yet he did all he could to keep it away from his kids.

“I’ll tell her after Christmas.”

“That’s probably best.” Giving her thigh a gentle pat, her dad stood up with a groan. “You ready to go in and see if there’s food yet?”

On the walk back to the house, he gave her little white pickup, parked along the side of the garage, a glance. “How’s Moby running?”

“I hit a pothole driving home. It’s been kind of rattly since.” She dipped her head, ashamed. One thing her dad didn’t like was careless driving.

“Iris. You need to be careful. You need to see what’s ahead of you on the road.”

She wasn’t very good at that—in driving or in life. “I know, Daddy. I’ll do better.”

He hooked his arm around her waist, pulled her close, and kissed the top of her head. “I know you will. I’m going to the clubhouse after supper. Come by later, and I’ll put him on the rack and see what you did.”

~oOo~

It was later than she’d even planned by the time she got to the clubhouse. After supper and cleaning up, she’d showered and changed and redone her face and hair.

She didn’t like to go to the clubhouse unless she looked decent. Unlike her sister, she hadn’t gotten many of the good family genes. Rose had their dad’s tallness and their mom’s fair coloring. She was long and slim and naturally pale blonde, with eyes that swirled green and blue, and she’d even worked as a model in college.

Iris, on the other hand, had their mom’s shortness and tendency toward what their mom called ‘womanliness’ but was just plain old fat, and their dad’s more average coloring. Her natural hair color was his average shade of light brown, and her eyes were his average shade of light blue. So she colored her hair, changing that with her mood, she perfected the ‘smoky eye,’ she worked out and watched what she ate, and she didn’t go to a clubhouse full of bikers without making the most of what she had.

Like her boobs. She’d gotten her mom’s great boobs. Rose, at least, had missed out on that. Iris had been on the tall side, too, when she was little, but then she’d started to get boobs early, and she’d basically stopped growing vertically. Rose had kept growing up, like a tree—tall and flat.

As usual in the winter, there were more trucks on the lot than bikes, but when she saw the old Harley Ironhead at the end of the short row of bikes, Iris took an extra minute, turned down the visor to check the mirror, and made sure that she looked as good as she could. That old bike was Nolan’s.

She really liked Nolan. A lot. He’d never noticed her, except as a fellow club kid, and she wasn’t about to ever throw herself at him, but she wanted to look as good as possible, on the off chance that he might take a look.

She undid another button on her fitted flannel shirt, better to show the little brown beater under it, which swept low, letting the lace edge of her black bra just barely peek out. She took a quick sniff of her wrists and, satisfied that she had just the right amount of scent on, got out of her truck.