Page 24 of Corkscrew You
Jordan smiles. “You know, Shelby was worried you’d be a total dick, but I think she kind of likes you now.”
Seems my opinion on that subject is irrelevant, as Jordan shouts a cheerful goodbye to Iris, who’s out back again, and heads toward the door.
I go to open it for her, but she says, “I got it” and proves that to be the case by deftly balancing the giant box in one hand and yanking open said door with the other. If any of those teenage boys do slip on the rocks, I suspect Jordan could lift them by the scruff of the neck, no trouble.
I watch her leave, then turn back to find Iris behind the counter giving me a hard stare.
“Pie.” She pushes a much smaller box toward me. Nods at my mug. “Refill?”
The truthful answer would be yes. But the thought of sitting alone, with Iris giving me the evils from the counter and the alligator doing the same from the wall, is too much in my current state.
“I have to find the computer repair store,” I tell her.
“Byte Me,” she says, with ambiguous emphasis. “Next to Curl Up and Dye. Hair salon,” she adds, in case I’m simple. “’bout halfway down.”
I pay for the coffee and pie, and leave a generous tip that Iris ignores. As I walk out, I canfeelher eyes burning holes in my back.
Luckily, the computer store is also next to the pharmacy, and the repair guy is neither hostile nor overly chatty. He says the computer isn’t worth fixing, so we negotiate a price for a new one, and a printer that doesn’t take five minutes to spit out one page. The Advil kicks in as I head to the pickup, so by the time I make it back to Flora Valley, I’m a much happier human.
Or I am until I spot Shelby in a huddle with Cam the Mountain Mute on the rustic porch seat outside her house. I have her pie in my hand, but I can’t bring myself to man up and give it to her. I don’t want to see how close they’re really sitting or hear what they’re talking about.
What Iwantto do is punch Montana Moron in the head. I want to lay him out with one blow and line dance on his huge, unconscious body.
Shit. I’ve crushed Shelby’s pie.
Shit and quadruple shit, I’m jealous.
Last time, I felt like this, I was in love.
ChapterNine
SHELBY
Ihad to break it to Cam that Nathan will be a big part of the tasting room project. Cam doesn’t like dealing with strangers. Any new customers he gets come through existing ones, and we’re the go-betweens until Cam’s comfortable with the new peeps. This has been known to take months. Most people don’t mind, because of the quality of his work. He’s an old-style master craftsman, with a real affinity for wood.
The most anyone’s been able to glean about Cam’s origins are that he grew up in Wyoming. He joined the army straight from school, did several tours of the Middle East, and was invalided out. Came to the Flora Valley area nine years ago and Dad was his first customer. That’s it, that’s all we know. No further details spilled through fireside yarns or drunken confessions. Of course, Cam doesn’t ever have more than one drink, so there’s that.
These days, he makes barrels and fixes pretty much everything except the most technical equipment around here. Every weekend, he helps out with the local Riding for the Disabled. It’s mostly kids. They love Cam. Wealllove Cam. None of us has a clue what makes him tick.
“I thought I’d ask Javi if he could rustle up some labor to help,” I tell him.
We’re sitting on the porch seat, which he made for Mom. If anyonedoesknow Cam, it’s Mom. But she’ll keep his secrets. She’s good at that.
Sometimes I wonder if Cam knew Mom was planning to sell up. All the time Dad was sick, she never said a word to me about the future. I didn’t know about the artist’s cottage she had her eye on. Ireallydidn’t know how hard she’d found our life here, how much of a toll the lack of money and all the effort Dad expected us to put in had taken. I didn’t realize how important her art was to her, and what a wrench it’d been to put it on the back burner for so long.
I didn’t know because she never said. At least, she never said it to me.
No point in asking Cam if Mom had talked to him. Might as well interrogate one of his barrels.
“How many builders do you think you’d need?” I prompt because that’s what you have to do with Cam.
“Depends,” he says.
On the design, the budget, the materials, and all that detail stuff, is what he means. It also means that he’s open to working with others. I’ve spent six years learning to interpret Cam-speak.
“Boss man,” he says next.
Which means Nathan’s back. With pie!
