Page 12 of The Fence Between Us

For a while, they worked quietly, each wrapped in their thoughts. As time wore on though, the increasingly awkward silence drove her batty. More townsfolk arrived to work on their respective floats, and someone unlocked the giant garage doors to allow in fresh air and sunlight. The routine sounds of hammers, laughter, and general conversation filled the air, but even that could not penetrate the hush that surrounded her and Rabble.

Grimacing, Skye did the one thing she told herself she wouldn’t do. “What do you do for a living?” Her voice cracked as her words left against her will.

The stunned expression on Rabble’s face almost made her snort with laughter. Had she not been so surprised at her own question, she may have.

Rabble stood, lowering the hammer to his side, like her question had caught him off guard, “Uh, I work security. With Elyza’s brothers.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Skye asked, keeping her eyes cast on the glue gun and little string of flowers clasped in her hands.

“Potentially, but usually no. We’re good at what we do.”

“How did you fall into that?” She couldn’t help the genuine curiosity that overtook her. It was simply a natural part of who she was.

When Skye thought about particular moments in their past, she could see how Rabble belonged in a field like security.He had always had a soft spot for the downtrodden and less fortunate. Those years in high school, when he had been so lost, Skye feared he’d fallen into such a pit of all-consuming despair that his future ceased to matter. He constantly got into trouble with someone either at school or around town, and few people believed in him as a person when it finally came time to graduate.

Which aspects of his life had led him down this path? Had more happened to him since he left town, more than added to the hopelessness she remembered? Had his work given him a sense of purpose? Did he find satisfaction in his work?

Rabble gave a small smile and set his hammer down, reaching instead for a drill and a box of screws. He straightened, lifting his shirt to wipe at the sweat beading on his forehead. Well defined abdominal muscles peeked out from under the cotton fabric and Skye turned away, fighting the urge to fan herself. A blush flaming on her cheeks, her mouth suddenly dry.

Rabble’s face relaxed, a faraway expression settling in his eyes, like he was no longer in the warehouse with her but somewhere in the past, lost in a memory that helped shape him into the man in front of her. “The three of us met in basic training. We make an—let’s say—interesting team. After making our way around the block a few times, there was a darkness—”

He swallowed heavily and shook his head as if to clear the thoughts that had settled there. “Well, anyway, we decided collectively that something had to give. When reenlistment came up, we went out for a beer, which turned into several pitchers and maybe some harder stuff. Honestly, the only thing I remember is that the tab was ridiculous, and we came to a decision that night. Two days after we got out, we met right back at that same bar, and Rabble & Bros. was born.”

Skye decided to ignore the insane gaps in the story, though her interest nearly got the better of her. All these years later,she still wanted to know everything he’d been through since leaving town, leaving her. The man working beside her now was definitely not the man she expected if he’d continued down that self-destructive path. She told herself she’d made her peace with his leaving, with the pain of his rejection, but that sting stayed with her, fighting her desire to learn more about this man, the one who had once been her most trusted and beloved friend.

This is not the same boy I remember, not the young and broken one, not the teenaged and angry one, and not the one who left me here. How do I figure out who he is now?

Her thoughts whirled as she tried to reconcile the Rabble from her childhood with the man who worked alongside her.

A twinge went through her, sharp and ugly. A part of her had wanted to be the cure to all his pain. That he had gone off and found a life worth living without her, even though she was happy for him, still stung a little.

Skye thought to that petite woman with light-brown hair from Elyza’s shop, standing among her brothers, her family. Who was she to Rabble?

Had Rabble found a life with her? If he had, their relationship must be serious for him to bring her home to Shiloh Hills.

Before Skye’s better nature could zip her mouth shut, she blurted, “Who was that woman with you at Elyza’s shop?”

Her face heated and she kept her head down, grateful for the glob of glue that stuck her fingers together and gave her a less cowardly reason to avoid his gaze. She pulled a rogue flower off her skin while she waited, breathless, for Rabble’s reply.

“The woman? Oh, Bekah. We know her from the city, but she just moved here. Declan, Dash, and I are helping her out while we’re here.”

“Oh,” Skye said, her voice coming out louder than intended. As she glued together two more white flowers, her brows furrowed. Were they helping her like a friend? A client? Something else?

Gah, why does it matter?

As she studied Rabble out of the corner of her eye, more questions swirled around in her mind and waited at the tip of her tongue. Skye opened her mouth to ask another, but something in his eyes stopped her. Behind the self-assured projection he gave the world, a jaggedness lurked. Any question she may ask, he would likely answer, but what would it cost him? She wasn’t prepared to find out. Plus, they didn’t know each other well enough, not anymore.

Rabble’s muscles rippled as he sank a screw into the two-by-four board he held. “What about you?”

That slightly unsettled feeling that had been with her all morning welled up again. Everyone who knew her growing up judged her because her chosen profession was so far off from what she’d planned, or rather, what others had planned for her. Even though she’d received acceptance letters from the most esteemed schools in the country, scoring above average on her ACT in math and science, that Skye—the one who would have ended up in the family business simply because that’s what her family wanted—she didn’t know anything about life or heartache.

But he had been honest with her…

“I’m a kindergarten teacher at Shiloh Hills Elementary.”

Chapter 7

Rabble

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