Nora Roberts: The Next Always

She lifted her hand in salute to Avery as her friend ladled sauce on dough behind the service counter. At home, Clare walked over to pull herself a glass of lemonade and brought it back to the counter with her.

“I think it’s going to rain.”

“You said that yesterday.”

“Today I mean it.”

“Oh, well then. I’ll get my umbrella.” Avery covered the sauce with shredded mozzarella, layered that with pepperoni, sliced mushrooms, and black olives. Her movements quick and practiced, she opened one of the big ovens behind her and shoved in the pie. She shoveled out another, sliced it.

One of the waitresses swung out of the closed kitchen area, sang out a “Hi, Clare,” then carried the pizza and plates to one of the tables.

Avery said, “Whew.”

“Busy day?”

“We were slammed from eleven thirty until about a half hour ago.”

“Are you on tonight?” Clare asked.

“Wendy called in sick, again, so it looks like I’m pulling a double.”

“Sick meaning she made up with her boyfriend again.”

“I’d be sick too if I was hooked up with that loser. She makes a damn good pizza.” Avery took a bottle of water from under the counter, gestured with it. “But I’m probably going to have to let her go. Kids today?” She rolled her bright blue eyes. “No work ethic.”

“I’m trying to remember the name of the guy you were tight with when you got caught hooking school.”

“Lance Poffinberger—a momentary lapse. And boy, did I pay for it. Screw up once, just once, and Dad grounded me for a month. Lance works down at Canfield’s as a mechanic.” Avery wiggled her eyebrows as she took a slug of water. “Mechanics are hot.”

“Really?”

“With Lance the exception that proves the rule.”

She answered the phone, took an order, pulled out the pizza, sliced it so her waitress could carry the still-bubbling pie to the table.

Clare enjoyed her lemonade and watched Avery work.

They’d been friendly in high school, cocaptains on the cheerlead-ing squad. A bit competitive, but friendly. Then they’d lost touch when Avery went off to college, and Clare had headed shortly after to Fort Bragg with Clint.

They’d reconnected when Clare, pregnant with Murphy and with two boys in tow, had moved back. And Avery, with the red hair and milk white skin of her Scot forebears had just opened her Italian family restaurant.

“Beckett was by earlier.”

“Alert the media!”

Clare met sarcasm with a smug smile. “He said I could take a look inside the inn.”

“Yeah? Let me finish putting this order together, and we’ll go.”

“I can’t, not now. I have to pick up the kids in . . .” She checked her watch. “An hour. And I’ve still got some work. Tomorrow? Maybe before things get busy here or at TTP?”

“That’s a date. I’ll be in around nine to start the ovens and so on. I could slip out about ten.”

“Ten it is. I’ve gotta go. Work, kid pickup, fix dinner, baths, then it’s movie night.”

“We have some excellent spinach ravioli if you want to cross off the fix-dinner portion.”

Clare started to decline, then decided it would be an excellent delivery method of spinach, and save her about forty-five minutes in the kitchen. “Deal. Listen, my parents want the boys for a sleepover on Saturday. How about I fix something that isn’t pizza, open a bottle of wine, and we have an adult, female evening.”

“I can do that. We could also put on sexy dresses and go out, perhaps find adult males to share the evening.”

“We could, but since I’ll be spending the bulk of the day at the mall and the outlets browbeating three boys into trying on back-to-school clothes, I’d probably just shoot the first male who spoke to me.”

“Girls’ night in it is.”

“Perfect.”

Avery boxed up the takeout herself, put it on Clare’s tab.

“Thanks. See you tomorrow.”

“Clare,” Avery said as Clare walked to the door. “Saturday, I’ll bring a second bottle of wine, something gooey for dessert. And my pj’s.”

“Even better. Who needs a man when you’ve got a best girl pal?”

Clare laughed as Avery shot a hand in the air.

She stepped out and nearly bumped into Ryder.

“Two out of three,” she said. “I saw Beck earlier. Now I just need Owen for the hat trick.”

“Heading over to Mom’s. He and Beck are working in the shop. I’ll give you a ride,” he said with a grin. “I just took a dinner order, since Mom says it’s too hot to cook.”

Clare lifted her bag. “I’m with her. Say hi for me.”

“Will do. Looking good, Clare the Fair. Wanna go dancing?”

She shot him grin for grin as she pushed the Walk button on the post. “Sure. Pick me and the boys up at eight.”

She got lucky with the timing, and headed across with a wave. She tried to remember the last time a man had asked her to go dancing and meant it.

She just couldn’t.

The Montgomery Workshop was big as a house and designed to look like one. It boasted a long covered porch—often crowded with projects in various stages—including a couple of battered Adirondack chairs waiting for repair and paint, for two years and counting.

Doors, windows, a couple of sinks, boxes of tile, shingles, plywood, and various and sundry items salvaged from or left over from other jobs mixed together in a rear jut they’d added on when they’d run out of room.

Because the hodgepodge drove him crazy, Owen organized it every few months, then Ryder or Beckett would haul something else in, and dump it wherever.

He knew damn well they did it on purpose.

The main area held table tools, work counters, shelving for supplies, a couple of massive rolling tool chests, stacks of lumber, old mason jars and coffee cans (labeled by Owen) for screws, nails, bolts.

Here, though it would never fully meet Owen’s high standards, the men kept at least a semblance of organization.

They worked together well, with music from the ancient stereo recycled from the family home banging out rock, a couple of floor fans blowing the heat around, the table saw buzzing as Beckett fed the next piece of chestnut to the blade.

He liked getting his hands on wood, enjoyed the feel of it, the smell of it. His mother’s Lab-retriever mix Cus—short for Atticus—stretched his massive bulk under the table saw for a nap. Cus’s brother, Finch, dropped a baseball squeaky toy at Beckett’s feet about every ten seconds.

Dumbass lay on his back in a pile of sawdust, feet in the air.

When Beckett turned off the saw, he looked down into Finch’s wildly excited eyes. “Do I look like I’m in play mode?”

Finch picked up the ball in his mouth again, spat it on Beckett’s boot. Though he knew it only encouraged the endless routine, Beckett snagged the ball, then heaved it out the open front door of the shop.

Finch’s chase was a study in mad joy.

“Do you jerk off with that hand?” Ryder asked him.

Beckett wiped the dog slobber on his jeans. “I’m ambidextrous.”

He took the next length of chestnut Ryder had measured and marked. And Finch charged back with the ball, dropped it at his feet.

The process continued, Ryder measuring and marking, Beckett cutting, Owen putting the pieces together with wood glue and clamps according to the designs tacked on sheets of plywood.

One set of the two floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that would flank The Library’s fireplace stood waiting for sanding, staining, for the lower cabinet doors. Once they’d finished the second, and the fireplace surround, they’d probably tag Owen for the fancy work.

They all had the skills, Beckett thought, but no one would deny Owen was the most meticulous of the three.