Beneath the Palisade (31 page)

“It’s Allison. Either Allison or Spencer or both. They’re in charge of breakfast this morning, remember?” Ian hopped out of bed and into his boxers. “Come on, sleepy head, we have a full crew we’re supposed to be leading today.”

Harper sat on the edge of the bed and yawned. “That’s right. Okay.” He pulled on his own boxers. “I’m fired up. Yes I am. I’m fired up to… what am I supposed to be doing today?”

“You and Allison are painting cabins.” Ian tugged his signature hooded sweatshirt over his head.

“Ah yes, painting with Allison. How could I forget?”

“Yep, and if I hear you guys screwing off there’s going to be trouble. We have a shitload to get done today.” Ian held the bedroom door open. “Let’s move it, Bink. You can shower after breakfast. I’m going to be playing around in the dirt so it doesn’t matter.”

“I’m coming.” Harper yanked his jeans up and grabbed a sweatshirt.

When they walked into the kitchen, Allison was picking out strips of bacon from a frying pan and putting them onto a plate lined with paper towels. Spencer was ladling pancake mix into a skillet. They both were sporting paper hats commonly worn by short order cooks.

“I bet the aroma of bacon woke you up, didn’t it?” Allison hooked the remaining pieces of bacon and topped off her platter.

“There were a few smells this morning that got us rolling.” Harper smacked Ian on the back of the head.

“Ouchy, stop. Good morning, guys. I love the hats.” Ian plucked off a piece of bacon as Allison carried it over to the large table in the great room.

“We love this kitchen, by the way. The pasta faucet is a nice touch. Do you know if Andy and Emmett are up yet? Someone should tell them breakfast is almost ready.” Spencer expertly flipped his skillet, sending a pancake somersaulting into the air and miraculously back into the pan.

“You’ll have to teach me that trick someday, Straight Cat.” Harper stood behind him and watched with awe.

“It’s in the wrist action.” Spencer flashed an evil grin.

“Not going there. I want to, but I’m not going there. I’ll run up and check on Andy and Emmett.”

Harper raced up the stairs. They had given Spencer and Allison the room on the main floor. Further down the hall on the second floor past the master bedroom was a second guest room. It became apparent as he approached the door that Andy and Emmett were awake. The distinct sound of flesh being slapped was unmistakable.
What the hell?

“Has Daddy’s little boy been naughty?” a voice, Andy’s, asked prior to a set of rapid slaps.

“I’m sorry, Daddy. I’ll be good, I promise,” a smaller voice answered.

“You bet you’ll be good,” Andy stated with authority. “You’ll be a good boy once Daddy has spanked your bare butt good and hard.”

So that’s how they roll. Wow!

Covering his mouth, he giggled all the way down the hall.

“Are they up?” Ian asked when he’d returned to the kitchen.

“Oh yeah, they’re up. Should be down….” Unable to hold it in, he burst into laughter
.
“Sorry.”
Oh my God, I’m dying here.
“I… I was just thinking of something funny.”

“I never thought of it before, but it might be fun to have intercoms between the rooms. That way we wouldn’t have to run up and down the stairs all the time.” Ian looked around for a response.

“Oh, that
would
be fun.” The image of everyone seated around the table eating breakfast listening to Andy spank Emmett was more than he could take. He lost it again, bursting into hysterics.

“Okay, what’s so funny?” Allison insisted on being let in on the joke.

“Oh man, I can’t explain it, I just can’t.”
Time to change the subject.
“Hey, has anyone seen or spoken to Alex this morning? I invited him to breakfast.”

“He strolled by earlier carrying a flat of plants.” Spencer proudly walked his platter of cakes over to the table. Allison followed with a bowl of cut-up fruit in one hand and a pot of coffee in the other.

“Alex,” Harper hollered, walking out onto the screened porch, “if you can hear me, breakfast is on the table. Come and get it.”

“Be right there,” a voice hollered back from a distance.

Returning to the table, he plopped down next to Ian and poured a glass of orange juice. “Thanks, you guys, for making breakfast. This looks great. Should we wait for the other two?”

“No need. Here come the lazy sots now,” Ian chimed.

Andy came bolting down the stairs two at a time with Emmett right on his heels. They bounced into the room like Keystone Cops.

“Good morning, everyone,” Andy hailed. Emmett, wearing a mile-wide smile, peered around Andy and waved.

“Morning, guys. Grab a seat and help yourself.” Allison poured from the steaming pot. “Let me know what you think of the coffee. It’s a special blend a friend of mine suggested. Sure smells good.”

“How did everyone sleep?” Ian took three pancakes off the platter and passed it to Emmett.

“Great.” Andy stacked cakes on his plate after Emmett. “Our bed was really comfortable. Didn’t you think so, Em?”

“Yeah.” Emmett was a man of few words. Ian had mentioned he was shy. Shy, and apparently very, very naughty.

“Hey, everyone!” Alex came strolling in from the porch. “Ian, I moved the plants you picked out last night over to the garden by cabin one. What do you call the little flower plants?

“Annuals? You’re talking about the packs of four plants in the plastic flats, right?”

“Annuals…. Anyway, all of those have been moved up to the house.”

“Awesome! Sit down and have breakfast.” Ian moved his chair over and pointed to the empty seat next to him.

“I just got off the phone with Colin. He’ll be over in a few minutes to help. He’s out to breakfast with his folks.”

“Thanks so much, Alex, for drumming up some more help. We can sure use it.” Harper poured a cup of coffee.

“Colin wants to meet you guys. I’ve told him so much about you.”

“And he
still
wants to come over? Wow, he’s one brave lad.” Harper winked.

“You think you’re safe planting annuals now?” Allison reached for the coffee. “Load up your plate, Alex.” She passed the bacon across the table. “Do you drink coffee?”

“I’ll stick to juice, thanks.”

“No, it’s too early to plant them. Now that they’re off the truck and near the house, we can either bring them in or cover them, depending on how low the temperature gets. Something tells me we’re in for some pretty hard frosts yet.”

“The lake could temper that a bit.” Spencer reached for a second helping of bacon. “Where’d you get this bacon, honey? It’s the bomb.”

“Everett’s. I think so too.”

“Hey, Alex,” Spencer asked between bites, “what were all those people fishing for? We saw a ton of cars along the side of the road when we drove up. Salmon?”

“Smelt.” Alex downed his glass of juice.

“Smelt?” Spencer looked around the table. “Anyone heard of smelt before?”

“They’re small fish. People catch them by the bucketloads. They dip them in egg and roll them in some kind of batter and fry ’em up with the skin, heads, everything still on.”

“Yummy! Not!” Allison wore a look of disgust.

“If you know how to cook smelt right,” Alex said, unfazed by Allison’s harsh reaction, “they’re great. You’ll see, bars in the area have smelt fries. It’s kind of a specialty around here. Check it out.” Alex appeared proud of the fact he could speak so extensively on something nobody else knew about. “I heard someone up at Norbert’s mention they were running this weekend.”

When they’d finished breakfast, Ian led the group in a short meeting where they outlined their hopes, wishes, and dreams for the day. Emmett, Ian, Alex, and Colin would be working up the gardens and planting. Harper and Allison were on painting detail. Andy and Spencer were in charge of building the small brick fireplace grill units Ian had designed for each cabin. This was the best idea yet. Besides grilling, their guests could pull up their chairs and enjoy a campfire. Clumps of shrubs would offer each cabin more privacy than they’d had in the past. The guests could roast marshmallows and warm themselves during the early spring and fall months. Harper and Ian hadn’t decided on what their seasonal schedule would be. At some point they’d planned on closing the cabins during the coldest portion of the winter. No doubt they’d need a break, and the two had planned to travel and energize themselves for the next season.

“I can’t believe these actually had orange shag carpeting.” Allison dipped her roller into the pan and began covering the surface of the small wall with the soft lemon-colored paint Harper and Ian had picked out at the hardware store in Silver Bay.

The cabins, with all of the shade from the surrounding trees, had seemed too dark. The lighter color on the wall would help. That and the sand-colored industrial carpeting they’d chosen. Over the winter, Alex had yanked out the orange shag from all of the cabins. Once the interiors were painted, a professional carpet outfit out of Duluth would sweep in and lay it all in a day or two.

“When do I get to use a roller?” Not having much experience with painting of any kind, Harper agreed Allison could be team leader.

“Maybe never if you don’t get crackin’ on that trim. Let’s pick up the pace, counselor.”

“You know it’s funny, I hardly think about the firm or the work anymore. I think I was so disgusted for so long, it’s somehow evaporated from my mind.”

“You haven’t talked much about it, but did the firm try to change your mind and get you to come back?” Allison handed over the roller. “Here. I think I can do the trim faster.”

They exchanged spots in the room. “They didn’t get the chance. I met with Duncan Price, and he pissed me off almost instantly, so I got up and walked out. That was it. Anyway, it’s so funny to hear you call me that because my past life, even though it’s been such a short time, seems like a million miles away right now.”

“I swear to God you and Ian could go into the book of world records for how fast you’ve moved from point A to here, to now.” Allison ripped off a strand of blue masking tape and tossed it into the garbage bag in the center of the room.

“It seems more right than it does fast, if that makes any sense. This roller really works.” He’d only been at it for a few minutes and already he’d completed an entire wall. “Come to think of it, the only thing faster than Ian and me is this roller. Wow!”

“Well, for what it’s worth, Harper, the consensus is you are fast
and
right for each other. If
that
makes any sense. I don’t think what happened with you guys is very common, but why fight it because people can’t wrap their minds around it. Honestly, I met Spencer out one night with some friends at a little bar off campus. I knew. I knew at that moment I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. Of course, we had to conform to the norm, not sure why, but we did. We went through the entire dating ritual to satisfy our friends and family. You guys just skipped that part. And….”

“And?” He poured more paint from the can into the tray.

“And we feel blessed to have gotten to know you. Had you guys stuck around in Minneapolis, Spencer had planned to campaign hard to get you onto the Hornets. He didn’t give a shit how good you played. He just wanted you around.”

“Seriously? Wow, thanks for sharing that. But there’s no way in hell I’d ever give up our bleacher time together. It’s sooooo annoying.”

“
Y
OU
guys are doing a good job. If you have any extra hostas left over, bring them back to the truck. It’s kind of our regrouping station.” Ian surveyed the progress. Alex and his friend Colin were planting like gangbusters. It had been a good idea to give them both the “don’t be too careful” speech. Hostas were basically indestructible. He frequently sawed through large clumps to create new smaller plants. They recovered quickly and barely skipped a beat. Emmett was up at the highway planting a mixed bed of perennials and low shrubs in the spot where the new sign would go.

“Colin, Harper and I sure appreciate you coming by to help.”

“Oh, no problem. I came up from school to spend the weekend with my parents. Basically all we do is hang out and eat.”

“You’re at the University of Minnesota, right?”

“Yep. I live in Dinkytown with some guys I went to school with up here.”

“Cool. Do you actually get any studying done?” Ian laughed, imagining party central.

“We don’t do too bad. You’d be surprised. I’ve got my sights on premed, so I can’t really be a fuck-up. I’d sure like to.”

“Wow, very cool.”

The sound of a car caught Ian’s attention. He watched a jeep turn the corner, drive up the small hill, and park in front of the office. “I wonder who that is? Alex, any idea who this might be?”

Alex got up from kneeling on the ground and looked over to the office. “Not a clue. Want me to go over and check it out?”

“I tell you what, let’s all take a break. I need to portion out some ferns for our next bed.” Because the office was also Alex’s home, they followed him up to the car. “Hello, can I help you?”

A dude wearing dress pants and a crisp white shirt was standing near the office door. A woman, still seated in the passenger seat, waved and smiled.

“You’re Ian Burke, right?” The man walked over to meet them.

“That would be me. And you are…?”

“I’m Steve Gilmore. This is my wife. Honey, come on out for a minute.” The guy gestured for the woman to get out of the car. “This is my wife, Debbie,” he said when the door had opened. “She’s expecting, but it will be good for her to move around some.”

Ian and the guys watched with amazement as the small, pale-faced woman swung her legs around the seat and, after a wobbly second or two, took a step forward. “I’m Debbie.”

Good lord! She’s expecting what? Three watermelons?

“I’m Ian. Pleased to meet you.” He gestured behind him. “This is Alex and Colin. Sorry, we’re kind of busy today getting everything planted. What can we do for you?”

“Well,” Steve said, clapping his hands together, “I was hoping I could convince you to play ball on our team. I’m the team manager. We’re the Taconknights out of Duluth. We play in a league that includes some of the surrounding cities. Any interest?”