limber as she could for as long as she could, and working with them was better than any medication she’d yet found.
She gave him a knowing look. “In fact, you’re even less talkative than usual.”
Bryce grunted as he turned to gaze out the window over the sink where the last dregs of sunlight filtered through the pine branches. God had been poking at him since yesterday. About Keith’s wife. Wouldn’t leave him alone. Saying he was being too hard on her. Needed to tell her about his plans for the museum, too. He’d seldom had to deal with that kind of prodding much B.J. Before Jesus. Keith would have said that was because he’d been like a kid with his eyes closed and his hands over his ears yelling la la la la la.
Sure was a lot of stuff he wished he could talk to Keith about now. Spiritual stuff. Women.
But it was too late.
He turned back to the woman who’d raised him, who knew him better than anybody else did. “Nothing much to say, I guess.”
She fixed him with a scrutinizing eye. “Are you regretting coming back here?”
“No.”
“Awfully small town for such a big man.” She set the pan on the table, pushed both it and a cutting board toward him to indicate he could do the slicing. Then she grasped the arm of the chair as she attempted to pull herself to her feet. Bryce was halfway out of his own chair to assist her, but she waved him off and accomplished it on her own. Shuffled to the sink, still favoring that ankle she’d broken late last fall. “Not a whole lot exciting going on around here for someone who’s lived off an adrenaline rush for fifteen years.”
“Overrated.” He placed a potato on the cutting board and reached for a wooden-handled knife. He’d had enough of that kind of excitement to last him a good long while. Iraq. Afghanistan. Bad enough he dreamed about it. Woke up in a cold sweat.
In comparison, firefighting in a tiny town would seem like child’s play. Not that he’d mention that to the fire chief who’d promised to back his application. But nobody in Canyon Springs—you’d hope anyway—would be waiting in ambush when you raced in to put out a fire.
Grandma turned on the faucet. “Don’t imagine there’s much around here in the way of young single women, either.”
Sandi Bradshaw’s wide-eyed gaze flashed through his mind. He took aim with the knife and gave the potato a whack. A chunk flew into the air and landed on the worn linoleum floor. He bent to pick it up. “That’s overrated, too.”
She snorted, and he couldn’t suppress a grin.
He’d never confided to her the details of his life in the military, but undoubtedly she’d filled in the blanks on her own, wise woman that she was. No point in denying it. He’d sowed his share of wild oats.
And then some.
Wasn’t proud of it. But what was done was done and now in the past.
He changed the subject. “Do you want to go to the Memorial Day parade on Monday? I’d be happy to take you.”
He didn’t much care for parades himself, but he’d dress like a clown and stand on his head in the middle of it if that would make Grandma Mae happy.
“I’d like that.”
“Then it’s a plan. So, Gran, what’d you do today?” He sliced another potato—with less gusto this time.
“Peggy came by and set my hair.” She patted her curlers. “Then I watched a little TV. Did some reading.”
He had reading to do, too, if what was in the box sitting on his bed was what he thought it was. Grandma had been at him to join the men’s summer group at Canyon Springs Christian Church. But he’d taken one look at the syllabi posted in the fellowship hall a few Sundays ago and decided it wasn’t for him.
Not that he couldn’t use some help in the God department, but a big chunk of it focused on how to be the head of a household. A husband. A parent. He’d feel out of place among all those married guys. Dads. Grandpas. He didn’t put much stock in what others thought about him, good or bad. But this was different. He’d look downright silly to them. Green as grass.
It was stuff he needed to know, though, if he was going to be the kind of man he should have become a long time ago. All the stuff Keith kept telling him—and he hadn’t listened. Blew him off. But going to the men’s study would be like a rookie recruit marching out with a bunch of battle-hardened, heavily equipped veterans—without guns and gear. In skivvies even.
There was nothing to stop him, though, from ordering online the CDs and workbook they were using. So that’s what he’d done. Ordered a volume on Arizona history, too, just in case Grandma asked what was in the box.
Yeah, he had a lot of catching up to do. But he didn’t want to think about why, since his encounter with Sandi yesterday, that it seemed more urgent than before.
Sandi would give just about anything not to have to make this call.
But all too often doing the dirty work was synonymous to her role as the president of the historical society. Right now calling Bryce Harding fell into that category. Why’d the electricity have to go out tonight? Just when she’d slipped in to catch up on work? But with the museum set to be open Saturday and Monday, she didn’t dare hope the situation would resolve itself. Since Mae’s grandson seemed to be sticking his nose in museum business now, she’d let him deal with it.
She speed-dialed Mae’s number on her cell phone. Had the power gone out upstairs, too? She glanced around the darkened room of the old stone house which sat a block off Main Street, surrounded by trees. At nine o’clock and with leafed-out bushes and bristly pines snuggled in close, hardly any light came in from the street. She gave an involuntary shudder.
It was creepy here at night.
In the dark.
Alone.
“Hello?”
Startled when the phone picked up on the first ring and a familiar masculine voice responded, she steadied herself by launching in with her most businesslike tone. “This is Sandi Bradshaw. I’m downstairs at the museum. The power is out, although it looks like the neighbors still have lights. Do you?”
“Yeah. You probably blew a fuse down there.”
She waited expectantly, but he didn’t offer a solution.
“Is that something you can do something about? I have work to do here tonight and the museum will be open tomorrow.”
He paused as if debating her request, then it seemed he’d covered the mouthpiece with his hand for she could hear indistinguishable words in his rumbling voice. Probably consulting with Mae. When he returned he seemed to speak with reluctance. “Grandma has extra fuses. Hang on.”
The phone went dead.
She crammed it back into her purse. No wonder he’d long infuriated LeAnne, why she was so adamant about daughter and daughter-in-law giving him wide berth. How had her charming husband gotten along so well with him since childhood? She had no choice, though, but
