Page 8 of Trevor

“I hope he realizes that I’m not pretending with him.The company I work for is getting four hundred bucks an hour, and they’re not messing around.”The woman laughed.“I’m Henrie Banister.I work for Banister and Banister Drivers.”

“My name is Lisa, and this is my husband, Barkley.Our son, the man who bought this house is Trevor.He was invited here to see if he wanted the furniture that was in the rooms so that they didn’t have to be moved.I do believe this furniture isn’t going to go cheaply, do you?”She told her that she didn’t know much about wood or furniture that was made from it.Her firm only delivered it to stores.“What a lovely job.Do you get to see much of the country?”

“No, ma’am.Just a couple of states.”She tried to back away, but she pulled her right to her to continue talking.It was a little disconcerting to be talking to a stranger about what she did for a living.“I’ve been riding and driving since I was twelve.You have to be twenty-one to drive a big rig.”

“Oh, Banister.I know that place.We’ve used them a few times when we wanted something moved.Very good company.Are you related to them?”She told her that they were her grandparents and parents.“Oh, how lovely.Did you hear that, Trevor?She works for her family, too.I love it when a family can pull together and be a part of something larger.Good for you.Trevor, this is Henrie Banister.”She went on to tell him how she was related to them.

“I should be getting back to my rig, Mrs.Strong.”She wasn’t given a last name, but she knew who they were.Instead of releasing her arm, she took her hand into hers, telling her she might as well watch the show as she thought it was going to be fun.“All right, I suppose.I can stay for a few minutes.”

Henrie knew on some level that she wasn’t going to be leaving her side until the entire show, as she called it, was over.Staying out of the way, she was dismayed to find that she was standing very close to Trevor when he turned and winked at her.

“My mom is playing matchmaker.”She sputtered at him.“Don’t worry.I’m on to her.I’m assuming that you’re single?”

“Yes.But I have no desire to be matchmade with anyone.”He said he didn’t either.He just wanted to fill his house out.“Well, good luck with that.I think I’ll go to the truck.”

“Don’t.Please.She’ll just find someone else to introduce me to, and I’d rather just be able to focus on the bidding.”She nodded, not at all sure why she was giving in so easily.

When the auctioneer started telling the rules of the day, Peabody pointed out that she was there to load the things that he bought, all the furniture into her rig right away.Before she could tell him again that she wasn’t, he looked at her like he’d murder her if she said a word to the contrary.She didn’t think that anyone in their right mind thought that she could lift even the mattress off the beds much less the entire rooms full of furniture.It was, as Mrs.Strong said, a scare tactic so he could intimidate the other bidders.

The bidding always started out incredibly high.Although she didn’t think that ten grand was a bad price for the stuff in the first room.When it got down to five hundred, the bidding began.

Trevor won the first room.It had been close, and Peabody was pissed off.Henrie was so excited for Trevor that she hugged him.Embarrassed now, he smiled at her, and she could see why the entire world was waiting with bated breath for the last Strong man to get married or at least find himself a wife.

He was charming and beautiful.Men she knew were supposed to be handsome, but he was simply beautiful to her.His hair was a shade or two darker than his mother’s, not including the little bit of gray that she had, and he had an air about him that made you think that he knew he was good-looking but just didn’t care.She thought that was what everyone saw in good-looking men.Not her.She didn’t want anything to do with charm and good looks.That had nearly ruined her mom and dad’s life together.

Her dad had been out of the picture since she’d been about four.Her parents had married only to give her a last name.Mom had had enough and got her trucker’s license and took to the road.Dad thought that, for whatever reason, he still could rule her mom.He found out the hard way that not onlycould he not rule either of them, but his looks never played into her mom’s life with him.She thought that he’d been nice and that was as far as she went with him.

“Henrie?”She looked at Mr.Strong when he said her name.“We’re moving to the next room, honey, and Trevor is telling his mother that you’re his good luck charm.Are you coming?”

“He doesn’t even know me.”The older man laughed and said that Trevor was having fun with his mom, that she’d been going out of her way to see him married.“So long as she knows that I’m not the marrying type.I have just what I need now.Not some man that will be expecting me to—I’m going to shut up now.Yes, I’ll go with you.But I’m not his charm or anything else of his.”

Trevor won the next four rooms with only two more to go.Peabody wasn’t being a good loser, going around and knocking against things that Trevor had won in the rooms.When they were on the last two, Mr.Courtright pulled him aside and asked to speak to him.Trevor grabbed her hand, pulling her along with them out into the hall and into one of the already purchased bedrooms.

“If you get the last two rooms, we’ll give you the ones over the garage.We never expect to get as much as we have been.Thank you for that, but it’s fun to see that other man get his nose bent out of joint about you winning.I told Sally that I’d almost make up the difference if you were to get to your limit and help you buy them anyway.”He laughed.Wren, his name was said he’d not had this much fun in a very long time.“I swear to you, I’d sell off the rest of the house if I knew it was going to be this much fun.”

Not only did Trevor win the last two rooms and get the other furniture, but Sally said that she was going to sell the dining room table as well.They’d only just figured out that they weren’t going to have room for it.

By the time the bidding was to begin on that for the house, Peabody was dressing her down forcahootingwith the enemy.She didn’t even know what that meant.She’d only been standing around until Trevor started holding her hand.As soon as the bidding war was over, she got into her rig to get the paperwork for the job today.And just as she thought that he’d do, Peabody said he wasn’t paying as she hadn’t done a damned thing for him.Henrie called her grandda.

Chapter 3

Henry was having a hard time in keeping up with the conversation that Peabody was telling him about since he said that his employee had beencahootingwith the enemy and holding hands with him.He knew a bit about the other people that were at the auction this morning but he also heard that his baby girl was hanging out with the Strong family.It was all he could do not to dance himself a jig while Peabody bitched at him about fairness and the price of four hundred dollars an hour for her doing nothing.

“You knew the price it was going to be before you had her showing up at seven in the morning to hang around and doing nothing.You were also told that she wasn’t going to be loading a dammed thing for you, so you might as well get over that part.She’s strong enough to do it, but I don’t pay my drivers to be lifting heavy things when they don’t have to.I know too that Donna told you several times—we have it recorded with you agreeing with my employee that you’d get your own people to load the…think how much money you saved in not having to hire loaders when you didn’t win anything.”

“He cheated.”Henry laughed and asked him how Mr.Strong had cheated.“He had more money to spend than I did.Who pays a grand for a bedroom suit that is used?So what if it’s solid oak?It’s still used.I should have been able to get that stuff for five bucks a room.I tell you that even going to auctions is getting to be cutthroat nowadays.”

Henry winked at his lovely wife, Anna, and put the phone on speaker so she could hear what the man was saying to him.He was glad that Henrie had given him a heads up on the man being mad when she’d gone home.But she hadn’t said a word about holding hands with one of the Strong men.

When Peabody got belligerent, he hung up the phone.Since the man had put a credit card number down to rent the rig today, he went ahead and charged him the five hours and smiled while he was doing it.That would teach him to think that he could fool someone like him.He looked at Anna when the charge went through.

“What did he say?”Henry told her what had transpired before she’d come into the room.“He said he cheated because he had more money?Good heavens, Henry.What a thing to be upset about.Of course, he has money to spend.He has a good family that has been saving this town forever.Even he should understand that.But what of his story about our Henrie holding hands with one of the Strong men?I believe the only one that is left is the baby, Trevor.And I believe that he’s in his mid-twenties.”

“That’s what I heard as well, that he was the baby.Wouldn’t it be great if they were to hook up?However, that young man is in for a rude awakening if he thinks that she’ll be easy.She’s hard on men.”Anna agreed reminding him of her boyfriend in high school.“Yes, he thought just because she was beautiful, she was stupid too.I doubt he’s made that mistake again with any woman.”

They both laughed thinking about the kid that had tried to take advantage of Henrie.He’d pretended to have car trouble and she’d gotten under the hood and found out that someone had pulled the plugs on his distributer.Once she fixed it, she made him get in the back seat, and she drove herself home.The kid had never lived it down what she’d had done to him, and he moved away.Best thing that had ever happened to Henrie.No one ever tried to take advantage of her again.

Henrie was coming to their house for dinner.He was sure that it was the only meal that she got that wasn’t fast food.Her life had been doing one thing after another, and he didn’t know what he’d do without her.She was his heart and soul next to his wonderful wife.He never regretted a day that they’d taken her in when she’d been ten years old.

---