The Carpenter's Daughter (18 page)

Regret, heavy and serious and awful, weighed his husky voice, and he refused to look at me.

Why would he want a butch carpenter’s daughter?

He didn’t.

The house could have crumbled over top of me. It would have been less painful.

Jesse

I kissed her.

Biting my lip and staring at the floor, I fought against the dizzying heat that billowed over me. Unable to calm my pounding heart, I focused on finding a normal breath.

Why had I kissed her? I knew better.

A quick glance at Sarah, and desire flared hot again. Every cell in my body screamed to draw her back, to curl her body tight against mine. I shut my eyes, willing away the phantom sensation of her lips responding to my kiss.

She sniffed, and I forced myself to look at her again. Her arms wrapped around her middle, and she huddled near that awful sink, like a girl who’d been kicked in the stomach. I had wanted her to know—to feel how amazing she was. Now she sank under the humiliation of rejection.

Nice work, Chapman.

“Sarah…” My voice hitched. “Please don’t think—”

The tips of her fingers swiped at the black under her eyes, and then she bent to retrieve her hat. “Don’t think what?” She replaced the hat, pulling the bill low over her eyes.

Think that I don’t want you…

I couldn’t tell her that, because then I’d have to explain why I
couldn’t
have her. The wrong move for so many reasons. Swallowing, I straightened my concave posture and stepped toward her again.

Touching her was dangerous, but not optional. My fingers brushed her shoulder and traveled down her arm until they settled on her elbow. “Don’t feel like…” I cleared my throat. “We’re—I’m just not ready for this.”

Liar. If I tossed logic and boundaries aside, there’d be no air between us, that kiss wouldn’t have ended, and she wouldn’t think that I didn’t ache to hold her.

She jerked away from my touch. “Right.”

My hand fell to my side, and an empty, helpless feeling cooled the place in my chest that had been on fire moments ago. I’d blown everything—my testimony for Christ, our friendship, any hope that someday she’d be saved and…

That was the problem. I’d had an agenda attached to what should have been my purpose. If I’d cut off that selfish desire and stayed focused on the mission God had given me, we wouldn’t be drowning in awkward pain at that moment.

“I can run you back to the hotel.” My fingers curled into my palm. Even after knowing what I’d done, and how wrong it was, the desire to touch her almost overruled my self-discipline. “You can wash your face, and I have saline. Rinsing both eyes would be a good idea.”

“I don’t need you to fix me, Chapman.” Her chin lifted, and a sharp stab sank into my gut when her blue eyes settled on me. “I don’t want your pity.”

She brushed past me, the contact between her shoulder and my chest harsh. With a pace more suited to a gym than a construction site, she left the bathroom and cleared out of the house.

I shut my eyes as my head fell forward. You’d think by twenty-six I’d have outgrown stupid.

Sarah

Walking with my face covered in smeared charcoal makeup wasn’t conspicuous at all. What choice did I have? Wasn’t letting Jesse take me.

How come I confused his pity for actual care? The day had been awful from the get-go. I must have had bad karma coming at me—probably from fighting with my dad and then leaving.

I should call him.

The sound of dusty brakes squeaked behind me, and I felt the presence of a running engine crawl nearer. I kept up my pace as I stalked down the sidewalk. Jesse was something else. Couldn’t he leave me alone?

“Hey, Sarah.” Not Jesse’s voice. “Where you headed?”

I stopped, keeping my back to Troy. Not someone I wanted to talk to, but not someone I was refusing to talk to at the moment either. His truck eased parallel to me, and the brakes gave one last squeal as he stopped.

“Going for lunch?”

Could I talk to him without actually looking at him? “Yes, but I need to go wash up first.”

He chuckled. “A prissy carpenter. That’s new.”

Turning my head, I scowled at him. “I got junk in my eyes, and I need to rinse my face off. Nothing prissy.”

“Oh.” Somehow his grin came off as a smirk. Maybe that was his normal. “Hop in. I’ll drop you off.”

I glanced back down the block I’d covered. Jesse came out of the house, and his gaze tracked my path and landed on me. Heat simmered in my stomach. “All right.” I turned back to Troy. “Thanks.”

Once I slammed the door shut, he pulled away from the curb.

“Chapman couldn’t run you back?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.” This lying thing came pretty easy. And this time, I didn’t feel the tiniest brush of guilt.

“So…” Troy hooked his arm over the steering wheel and glanced at me. “You two are…”

“Nothing.” I cocked a
that’s a dumb question
look on him. “We’ve worked a couple of jobs together. That’s all.”

He snorted. “I think you may have a stalker, then.” His eyebrows hiked. “I’d watch out for that guy. He’s wound up tight.”

Yeah, Jesse Chapman was wound up. Today. Every other day, he was the most easygoing person I’d ever met.

“Matter of perspective, maybe?” I pushed my back against the seat, not sure why I was defending the guy who’d just pushed me into a well of humiliation. “Said you were trouble.”

One side of Troy’s mouth tipped up. “Maybe.” We came to the only stoplight between the house and the hotel, which was red at the moment, and Troy anchored a look on me. “How about you decide that for yourself.”

Huh. If attracting male attention was the female goal in life, I was having a good week. Except for the fact that I’d managed to snag the attention of the guy I actually liked, lip-locked with him, and lost him all in less than a minute. Heaviness sank through me. Jesse didn’t want me as anything more than a fixer-upper. I couldn’t get that nail out of my chest.

So I ignored it.

“Does that work on all the girls?” Flirting as a default in uncomfortable situations. This was an interesting development in my personality. Who’d have guessed?

The light turned green as Troy managed the most innocent face a player could mask. “What girls?”

A tiny grin spread over my lips. Not because I thought he was cute, but because he thought he was clever. Games. That was all this stuff was. Men and their games.

Even Jesse? Laine’s face flashed through my memory—she’d set her hope on him, and when he silently pushed her away, her downcast eyes said more than any words. He’d messed with her heart.

Yes, Jesse played, no different from the rest. An invisible grip wrapped around my heart and squeezed. He’d been messing with me, and he was better at it than either Aiden or this transparent Troy guy. I swallowed, willing away the burn in my stomach. They all did it, some with more layers than others.

Troy’s right hand left the steering wheel, and he draped his arm over the back of my seat. “So…” His jaw moved as if this conversation had already played out in his head and he knew exactly where it was going and how it was going to end. “You and Chapman are nothing. Which means you’re free tonight, right?”

Tipping one eyebrow up, I gave him a sideways glance—the same kind he’d given me when I’d first climbed in his truck.

His grin spread full. “I’m thinking you, me, a couple of beers, and a round of pool.”

“That’s what you’re thinking, huh?”

He answered with a wink.

“I happen to have work to do tonight.”

His confident grin faltered. “Work? That house doesn’t have electricity. What kind of work are you going to do after sundown?”

“Drafting.”

“Are you getting paid for it?”

I didn’t have anything clever to say.

“Thought not.” His fingers brushed my neck. “Girl’s gotta have a life, right?”

Sure. Why not? “You’re buying?”

“Of course.”

I smirked. “One round. Then we’ll see.”

Troy chuckled under his breath. I had some kind of smug satisfaction smooth the ache from earlier.

Let the games begin.

Dale

My phone finally rang at seven. Not that I’d been waiting.

Like hell I hadn’t. Sarah hadn’t ever taken off like that, and she hadn’t called since she left.

I punched the Accept button. “Where are you?”

She drew a breath and held silent.

I white-knuckled the phone. “Sarah, damn it, I asked you a question.”

“Lexington.” She cleared her throat, and then her voice, which had been soft, flipped to the foreman kind she’d learned from me. “I’m on a job with Homes For Hope.”

I’d kill Dan for getting her into this. “You’re with that guy, aren’t you?”

“No.”

Fire seared my gut. Where had my girl gone? My daughter didn’t do things like this—fight with me, take off with some guy, and then not come clean about it. “Don’t you lie to me, girl.”

“I’m not
lying
to you.” Her voice cut hard on that word. “Jesse’s here, but I’m not
with
him.”

I heard her shudder, and the fire spread to my arms. He’d hurt her. I knew it. That jerk had led her on, got what he wanted, and left her more messed up than she’d been before she met him. The muscles in my arms rippled, and my free hand fisted. “Come home.”

Her sigh sounded agitated. “I told you, Dad. I’m working here. I can’t come home.”

The protective anger flipped, turning icy and hard. “Fine. Stay. Leave me out of this circus though. Let me know when you’ve figured out whatever you think it is you need to figure out.”

“Dad…”

“Don’t ‘Dad’ me.” I’d been through this before. All my efforts to raise her to be different, and none of it mattered. She was becoming
her
. “I’m not doing this. So stay or go or whatever. I don’t care.”

“What does that mean?” Panic underscored her words.

I should back off. She wasn’t Cassie. This wasn’t the same thing, was it?

Hurt the same.

“It means I don’t want to go through this. You do what you need to do. Leave me out of it.”

She didn’t answer. I wondered if she’d hung up. Seemed like something she’d do at that moment—although it wasn’t something my old daughter would have done.

“Okay, Dad.”

Her breathy response melted my frozen resolve. And then the line went dead. Frost resettled over me, which suited better. I didn’t want to feel that kind of pain again.

Jesse

Sarah didn’t come back after lunch. Panic had my heart throbbing, and when Troy showed up alone, I stopped him near the west wall of the house.

“Where’s Sarah?”

A grin—the kind that curdled my lunch in my stomach—slithered over his face. “What’s it to you?”

I’d never been in a fight. Didn’t know how to go about it—but at that moment you couldn’t tell. I had his T-shirt wrapped up in both my fists and his back slammed against the wall faster than he could wipe that horrible smile off his face. “If you hurt her…”

“You’ll what, Preacher?” He struggled against me, but I held him pinned with my forearms. Guess roofing every day had some payoff.

“She doesn’t want you,” he hissed.

My grip uncurled. He didn’t know anything, and this whole afternoon had been my fault. “Did you take her to lunch?”

He rolled his eyes like a stupid teenage punk. “What, are you like her dad or something?”

I stared at him. “I’m like your supervisor, smart guy, and the judge will ask me to sign off on your time.” Not completely true. Mack would have to verify. But I had a pretty solid connection there.

He straightened himself to his full height, which was a good two inches taller than mine, and hovered. “I dropped her off at the hotel. She said she had to do some kind of drawings or something.”

Like two inches were supposed to intimidate me. “Get on the roof.”

I pivoted on my boot and strode away from him, heading for my truck. I should have taken Sarah back to the hotel, but causing a scene out in the open seemed like a bad idea. I’d already made her feel awful. Didn’t think adding an audience to it would be a good call.

After opening the driver’s side door, I reached under the seat for my phone. A swipe, a tap, and then another tap brought up
Sapphira
on the screen. Her name summoned those blue eyes, and my heart pooled in a way that hurt.

She didn’t answer. Been through this drill before.

“Sarah, I’m really sorry. We need to talk.” I rubbed the back of my neck, imagining her averted face and replaying how she’d pushed me away earlier. “Please. Call me.”

She wouldn’t though. I knew it before I’d called. Sarah was the hiding kind. From people. From pain. And now, from me.

The afternoon dragged by. I threw myself into the work. No conversations. No breaks. Not Jesse Chapman–style at all. By the end of the workday, my clothes were soaked with sweat, the roof was bare, and Mack had me cornered.

“Wanna talk?”

With him? That was laughable. Conversations with Mack were quippy and mostly work related. Mostly.

“Nope.”

“Where’d she go?”

Asking
who
would be a childish game. “To work on the drawings.” Glad I knew where she was. Made it all sound so much more amiable.

“You two gonna figure this out?”

I snorted. “You’re paddling in an ocean with a twig, old man. Better stick to what you know.”

“I know.” His eyebrows flickered, and he crossed his arms.

How was it he could say things louder by not saying them at all? “Don’t know what to tell you, Mack.”

“The truth.” There it was again. Two words. Two solid pounds that sank the nail in deeper than a dozen little raps ever could.

Glancing up to the burly old guy, I suddenly saw my father standing there, and my defenses dropped. “I messed up, and I don’t know if I can fix it.”

He nodded. “She hurt?”

My chest locked down so tight I couldn’t draw in air. Hanging my head, I nodded.

“Yep.” He uncrossed his arms and looped his thumbs over his pockets. “Better find a way. Life’s short.”

And thus ended the motivational wisdom of a seasoned contractor. Sometimes good advice poked up from the most interesting sources.

I followed Mack’s trail to the street, hopped into my truck, and started the engine. Being by myself in the cab of my vehicle had never felt so lonely. Mack was right. Life was too short to let this slide, but I still hadn’t a vague inclination as to how to fix it.

Shower first. Then a face to face.
God, write something wise on my heart, and let it cross my lips.
Certainly on my own I’d make the mess worse.

My stomach rumbled by the time I toweled my hair—which still needed cut. Would Sarah let me buy her dinner?

Not a good plan.

Oh. So, being kind was confusing things?

Maybe it was being manipulative. Hold up—was I manipulative?

Somehow I hadn’t expected that this relationship with Sarah—this
friendship
—would hold a mirror up to my unrealized flaws. That was not cool. So, being kind but having a hidden agenda driving the act of kindness was manipulative. Right. Everyone knew that. Didn’t know I was doing that though.

How did you separate kindness for kindness’ sake from agenda-driven kindness?

No concrete answers. But tonight, no dinner. Because it was manipulative.

I called in an order for pizza with a local place, tossed a clean T-shirt over my head, and wandered down the hall toward Sarah’s room. My pulse accelerated as I drew closer to the door, and my tongue seemed to swell. What was I going to say? Nothing brilliant had struck me yet.

Rapping with my knuckles on the door, I leaned a shoulder against the frame opposite the knob. Seven heartbeats—in only about two seconds—pulsed in my chest until Sarah opened the door.