Page 23 of Thistle Thorns

It was impossible for him not to notice Aunt Hyacinth first, what with her plum-colored felt jacket and paisley-print skirt in autumn orange, turquoise, and more of that plum-purple color. She was a garish spot of color against the drab rainy backdrop of the day, but it was only when his eyes saw Grandmother did they widen.

Cody Beecham, for the first time since I’d known him, was speechless. Red tinged his cheeks and the tips of his ears first, working all the way down to his collar as he just stared and stared.

Grandmother’s mouth twitched—was she suppressing a smile?—before she turned to the side and started perusing the salad bowls. Cody had carved another one with olives in the same style as the one Mr. Bensen’s wife had broken with her Sasquatch hands, apparently to prove it and the other one weren’t cursed. She picked it up, running her fingertip over the perfectly smooth edge of a blade-like leaf.

“Is he having a stroke?” Aunt Hyacinth murmured when the carpenter had yet to breathe and stop turning red.

“Cody,” I said loudly. I was one second away from snapping my fingers in front of his face when he returned to himself, blustering.

“Well it’s about time you were here to see me again, Misty Fields. I do deliver on the goods, you know.” Sniffing, he set aside his stain rag, hitched up his khaki pants in the manner all men do, and asked, “What’ll it be this time? And don’t you dare say you need more shelves. This is Cedar Haven, not Hammer & Nails.”

“Cody, this is my grandmother, Irene. She, um, has the list. A-and this is my aunt Helena. Also, do you know if Arthur has any more honey for sale?”

The old carpenter didn’t seem to hear me, his attention fixed on my grandmother as she moved to the decorative lintels hanging on the wall. Cody lifted his ball cap and smoothed his hair before replacing his cap. Then he adjusted his suspenders and actually gave his armpits a sniff, as if Aunt Hyacinth and I weren’t right there watching him primp himself. Then, in that bold and down-to-business way of his: “Miss Irene, what can I do you for this fine afternoon?”

It’s like he hadn’t heard a word I’d said after Irene. “Cody, the honey—”

“Is this made of ash wood?” Grandmother asked, pointing to a lintel with a windswept leaf motif.

“Good eye,” he said, clearly having forgotten all about me and Aunt Hyacinth.

“And these are thistle leaves, if I’m not mistaken, instead of the classic acanthus?”

Cody looked genuinely impressed. “Even better eye.”

“Misty,” Grandmother prompted, and I moved forward to retrieve the lintel as she continued her examination of the others. “Did you carve these yourself?”

He placed his hands on his narrow hips. “You’re looking at the finest woodcarver west of the Ohio River.”

“Oh, really? I see none of these in oak, Mr. Beecham. Is that because you find it difficult to manage its coarse grain when doing intricate work?”

“I can manage anything, Miss Irene,” he said, a smidge of the ornery old man I knew coming through at the challenge. “But part of that is knowing what wood is best for what application. You wouldn’t burn mahogany for heat nor use knotty pine for furniture.”

“Nor balsa wood for scaffolding.”

He nodded approvingly. “You know your wood.”

She gave him one of her assessing up-down glances, but there was a little glimmer in her eye. “I know a fair deal more than just about wood.”

Oh my Green Mother, is Grandmother flirting? That would mean she was an actual woman with feelings other than those of a militant-yet-benevolent dictator. And twiggy old Cody Beecham was her type?

“Now,” she said, getting down to business, “I need to see any cherrywood you haven’t wasted on girls’ jewelry boxes, your oaken newel posts, any olivewood cutlery—specifically spatulas—and all of your rowan shillelaghs—or do you call them walking sticks here? Helena, I want that other ash lintel too, the one with the brown-eyed Susans.”

Cody seemed shocked that a woman as done up and dignified as my grandmother would have such a detailed list and down-to-business air about her. She was here to buy, not meander, not ooh and ahh, not ask him a billion questions and then leave the store with nothing but a wave and a singsong, “Thank youuu!”

“Something the matter, Mr. Beecham?” she prompted.

I found it fascinating that she had called Emmett by his first name but wasn’t extending the same familiarity with Cody. Nudging my aunt, I mouthed, “Are you seeing this?”

“I’m trying not to,” was her reply.

“Just never met a woman who was so direct before,” he answered.

“Mr. Beecham, I don’t have time to bat my eyelashes and ask coyly after things I already know the answer to.”

“You’re quite the pistol, aren’t you?”

Aunt Hyacinth and I froze. No one spoke so bluntly to Grandmother. I had at one point, in her office, and look where that had gotten me.

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