The Carpenter's Daughter (8 page)

Her expression froze somewhere in the middle of that. How had I startled her? Man, I was such a klutz at this—and
this
wasn’t even
that
anymore.

“What’s that look for?”

“What look?”

“The
I can’t believe he just said that
look.” I ran a napkin over my mouth. “What’d I say?”

“Oh.” She ducked, apparently used to hiding beneath a hat she wasn’t currently wearing. “It didn’t mean that. It’s—” Her head came back up, and she searched my face.

I imagined what she’d say if I asked her what she was looking for.

Sarah: Can I trust you?

Me: Yes, I promise. I was an honest guy, a good friend.

Sarah: Will you tease me?

Me: Not if it would hurt your feelings. I like a good laugh, but not at the expense of another person’s dignity.

Sarah: Do you think I’m strange?

Me: Only in the best way.

I’m a nut. I know. But I swore that conversation happened in the silence of that look. Made me feel like we’d sealed a true friendship.

“It’s what, Sapphira?”

Her eyebrows scrunched together. “Why do you call me that?”

I was so in left field on the female ballpark. “Your eyes?” Did that sound as dumb to her ears as it did to mine? Whoa there, did it matter? I was blazin’ a friendship here, that was all.

Whew. Glad to get that straightened out. Again.

She stared at me, and then, after I held my breath for longer than normal, the skin around those eyes crinkled.

Safe. How far could I push and still stay on that plane? She may as well know how goofy I really was.

“That’s what I named you when I bumped into you last week.”

Again, the incredulous look. “We’ve met before?” She leaned forward. “I mean, I thought you looked familiar, but I don’t remember…” Crimson crept over her cheeks.

“Nah, we didn’t really meet.” I hoped my smile would rescue her. “I nearly ran over you when you were coming out of Subway the other day, and wasn’t gentleman enough to help you to your truck.”

Her mouth opened, and her face flamed deeper. Why was that embarrassing? Maybe she’d been mad that I’d been so clumsy and then rude.

“Sorry about that,” I said.

“What?” Her stare drifted over my shoulder and then fell to her plate. “No, you don’t need to apologize.”

Hmm. This was an interesting reaction. I thought she’d laugh. If not about the incident, then at least about my naming her. She continued to study her half-eaten food, not looking at me.

“You okay?”

“Huh?” Her face snapped back up to me. “Oh, yeah. It was—” She licked her lips, her eyes wandering back over to some vacant spot behind me. “That was a bad day.”

Super. I’d made her slop soda all over herself at the end of what had been a bad day.

“Why did you say what you said earlier?” Her soft voice mimicked her lost stare.

“What did I say?”

She refocused on me. “About seeing past yourself. What made you say that?”

Full circle. Intriguing. “Let me think—you said this was a new experience, and I said new experiences are good, right?”

She nodded once, expectation painting a solemn expression. “You said they help us see past ourselves.”

“Right.” This was important? “I think we get wrapped up in our own world, with our goals and problems and everyday stuff, and then it’s hard to see other people. When we serve others, it’s like taking blinders off. We can see past our tiny little lives and become useful to others.”

She held eye contact, but her mind had sailed to somewhere else. I wished she were the talkative type—the kind who needed a sounding board to process through her thoughts. I’d gladly volunteer for the job. But Sarah seemed to be not only introverted but introspective.

Exactly my opposite. In personality, in thought, and probably in action. But we needed an opposite every now and then. Someone to open our eyes to things we didn’t understand on our own.

“Maybe you’re right.” She’d returned from the labyrinth of wherever she’d gone, a tiny smile poking at the corners of her mouth. But that was it. No explanation. No details about her thoughts.

I chuckled. My thoughts were forever coming out of my mouth before they were fully formed. I definitely could take some lessons from an opposite. And I was pretty sure God sent her to be my teacher.

“Does that mean you’ll be showing up at the job site tomorrow morning?”

“I’d planned on it anyway, though I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do.”

Roofing. That was what she’d be doing. With her pace, we’d be done before lunch, and then perhaps we’d hang siding. The job would slide along the current of her ability and work ethic, and we’d be way closer to completion than we’d expected.

“I’m sure you won’t be bored.”

Sarah

The squeal of screws penetrating fiberglass punctured the air where we worked. I hated siding. It wasn’t hard work, but it took the least amount of creativity, and the noise was flat-out awful. But after we finished the roof, Jesse asked me to stay and help him with the siding. I was pretty sure he usually got what he wanted. Not because he was pushy, but because he was charming.

Actually, charming wasn’t the right word. That implied manipulation. Jesse was definitely
not
manipulative. He was like a light on a hill on a dark night. Intriguing, and something that you couldn’t help but stare at.

I decided our dinner wasn’t a date. He paid, didn’t even leave me the option of going Dutch, but he didn’t act like it was a date beyond that—not that I would really know what to expect. Strangely, that conclusion didn’t disappoint me. Working with him was comfortable.

“Hey, Sapphira.” Jesse stopped the miter saw and caught me before my drill screeched another screw into the house. “Are you good at angles?”

I liked his nickname for me. It came off his tongue with a casual ease, making me feel feminine. Way better than butch.

“Not bad. Why?” Actually, I was pretty good, if I did say so myself. Math in general rolled from my mind like a ball down a hill.

“I hate angles.” He tilted his neck in a
come here
gesture. “We’ve gotta do the peak next, and I never get the angles right.”

“How do you work construction and not know angles?”

“I’m a roofer.” He grinned as if that was a sufficient answer.

“Okeydokey, genius.” Laughing, I held the drill out to him. “If I have to do the math, you have to endure the screeching witch.”

“Man, this is not a good deal.” He took the tool, pretending to pout. “I’d better go back to school.”

A hint of jealousy zipped through me. I should have gone to college, finished the drafting classes I’d started in high school. If only it hadn’t been so far away and required me to live with strangers. More and more classes were offered online. I wondered if that included architectural drafting.

I took a sheet of siding and laid it out on the makeshift plywood bench set up by the saw. Jesse had the plans duct-taped to the corner of the wood, so I had easy access to the roof pitch, which I needed to calculate the gable’s plane. Making a quick sketch of the triangle directly onto the wood, I inserted the known numbers and scribbled out my calculations. The math was pretty easy, and the cuts came out to what I would have guessed eyeballing it, but eyeballing on a build was never a good idea.

My mind drifted back to school. How much education did Jesse have?

“Did you finish?” I asked.

He glanced at me over his shoulder, his eyebrows raised. “I just got started. What kind of crew are you used to?”

The temperature in my face spiked. “No, I’m sorry. I was still thinking about school. Did you finish college?”

“Oh.” He chuckled. “Yep.”

I slid the siding to the edge of the table and marked where I needed to cut. “Was it worth it?”

Jesse pushed another screw through the siding, so I waited for the ungodly zing to stop. Finished with that strip, he walked back over to the pile of siding near me. “Depends on what you’re asking. Do I regret going to school? Nope. Am I using my degrees? Nope.”

“
Degrees
? As in plural? What did you study?”

That little-boy smile stretched as he stopped his movement to look at me. “Business and English literature.”

“English lit?”

“Now you know why I’m not good at angles.”

“How does an English lit guy wind up as a professional roofer?”

“I don’t get paid, so I’m not pro.” He walked back to the house to resume siding. “I worked for my dad for as long as I could pound a nail. Usually on a roof. That’s how I paid for college. Dad said that three legs made a sturdy stool, and he encouraged an additional business degree when I told him I wanted to teach English. In case I needed something to fall back on. I liked school, so even though some of my business classes were a struggle, I went with it.”

Business. English. And construction. The most well-rounded person I’d ever met. “What’d you struggle with?”

He turned from the house to flash me a smile. “Math.”

Funny.

By the end of the day, my ears rang, echoing the screeches from our job. It’d take hours for the loop of noise to dissolve from my hearing.

“So, I have a proposition.” Jesse wound the extension cord for the saw while I gathered the scraps of siding to toss into the Dumpster out front. “I’ll buy you dinner again if you promise to stay and help with the soffits tomorrow.”

Yuck. Soffits were worse than siding. The same horrible sounds with the added pleasure of having to tilt your head at an awkward, almost upside-down angle. Talk about a headache.

“I’m going to have to pass.”

“Oh, come on. Soffits are so much fun.” He tipped his head to complete the best puppy-pleading expression ever.

Tempting. I couldn’t help but grin. “Can’t. Sorry. I promised my dad I’d be in Kearney tonight.”

“Come on. One more day. He’ll understand.” Jesse propped his hands on his hips. “Surely your dad knows how delightful it is to hang soffits. He wouldn’t deny you that kind of joy.”

Laughter escaped, and I shook my head. “You are persistent. But I really can’t. My dad wasn’t very happy about me coming in the first place.”

He sobered, his eyebrows dropping in a quizzical expression. “Why?”

“He’s got a big job down there, and I’m his framer. I only convinced him by having the interior walls prefabbed and ready for installation. If I don’t get there to make sure it all goes smoothly, he’ll—”

Jesse’s forehead wrinkled. “He’ll…be really mad?”

“No.” How had he managed to pull so much out of me? “He won’t let me try that again.”

“What?”

“Panels. I’ve been looking into the panelized systems—do you know anything about SIPs?”

Jesse nodded. “Structural Insulated Panels, right?”

“Right. I think they’re a good idea, and I think we can build with them—maybe even distribute them.”

“And your dad?”

I shrugged and looked to the ground. “He’s old school. Likes to stick with what he knows.”

“Aha.” His voice carried a smile. “You’re an entrepreneur.”

“No.” Not even close. The idea of doing something risky on my own made me want to vomit. “I’d never try anything like that by myself. But I think they’re a good idea, and if I don’t get to Kearney to make sure my two-by-four panels get installed correctly, he’ll never give it a go again.”

I hoped he wouldn’t go into a big
you should try it anyway
speech. I wasn’t made of that kind of stuff. Tough on the outside, but inside…well, I wasn’t sure what I had on the inside.

“Okay, no soffit party tomorrow.”

Good, he’d moved on. So intuitive.

“I’ll still pay for that dinner though, with a different condition.”

And yet so relentless. “What could you possibly want with me?” Oh goodness. Did I just say that? Talk about setting yourself up for trouble.

“You show up at the next job site.” His green eyes invited with warm friendliness.

I’d never felt wanted like that. Obviously not a romantic kind of wanted, but like I had…value. How could I turn that down?

I bit my lip. “Where is it?”

“Down your way, actually. It’ll be perfect.” He finished with the cords and dumped them into the rubber tote marked
Chapman
. “We’ll be in Holdrege.”

Not even an hour away from home.

“When?”

He flashed his
I’m the winner
smile. “We’ll finish the structural work up here on Wednesday. If everything stays on schedule, we’ll head south on Thursday.”

“Do you have an address?”

“Nope. I follow Mack.” He picked up some of the stray pieces of siding I’d missed, and we walked to the Dumpster. “If you give me your number, I’ll let you know.”

I flung my armful of siding into the bin. Handing out my number? That was new.

It was for a job. Not anything to get my pulse up about.

“Is it a deal?” Hanging on to a smaller piece, he tossed his handful of scraps.

What could I lose? Maybe Darcy had been right. “Okay.”

“Good.” His eyes danced as he pushed a small scrap of siding toward me.

What was I supposed to do with that?

He reached to his back pocket and produced a nub of a pencil. Common carpenter equipment.

What kind of girl gave her number out on a piece of vinyl siding? My life was so not normal.

Dale

She made it. Thank God—or something. I half expected Sarah to come back with her head low, face to the ground. She didn’t.

I grabbed another slice of pizza. Sarah had wandered into the hotel as our food had arrived. “How’s Valentine?” I asked.

She shrugged, plopping onto the chair across from me, but her eyes gleamed a little bit. “Fine. Mack didn’t know I was coming, but it worked out.”

“Are you going to eat?” I gestured toward the box of pizza.

“No, I ate before I left.”

“Worked pretty late. Sun’s down already. I thought you’d be here sooner.”

“Sorry.”

That was it? How was I supposed to pull out details when she stuck to uninformative sentences? “Where’d you eat?”

Her eyes flickered, and she hesitated. “Just a local joint.”

Vague again. This wasn’t my girl. What was going on here? Holding my half-eaten slice, I scowled. “That’s all you’ve got?”

“What are you fishing for, Dale?” Dan was always interfering. “She didn’t do anything wrong. Never does. What’s with the inquiry?”

“Can’t I ask my daughter about her trip?”

“Sure, if you’re only looking for a conversation.” Dan leaned forward on the couch, reaching for more food. “You look like you’re waiting for a confession. What do you think she’s done?”

I didn’t know. Truth was, I didn’t like this quest for self-definition. It was drawing out too long, and Sarah…she was starting to change.

That terrified me.

“I don’t think she’s done anything,” I snapped, “but I can’t know, because she’s not talking.”

Sarah huffed. “I’m still sitting right here.”

I shifted my glare and settled it on her. Raising my eyebrows, I waited.

Her shoulders slouched. “What do you want to know?”

“Anything.” I immediately wished I could take back the bark in my voice. “Tell me what you did.”

“Worked on a house.” She shook her head and pushed herself out of the chair. “It’s been a long drive, and I’m tired. I’ll see you in the morning.”

She walked out of the door without looking back. I was losing her.

Just like her mother.