Janice Kay - More Than Neighbors

There wasn’t any answer this time, either. Mild concern morphed into the beginnings of apprehension. She was running by the time she reached the house again. After bounding up the steps, she called his name one more time, but the same quiet met her. Damn it, where could he be?

Had somebody come by that she hadn’t heard? Would Mark have gone with anyone without having told her?

She grabbed her purse and car keys then raced back out. She’d go from neighbor’s to neighbor’s, driving slowly in between. She wouldn’t panic yet. A boy Mark’s age had no reason to feel a need to check in constantly with his mother. He wasn’t inconsiderate, exactly, but the idea of her worrying wouldn’t cross his mind.

Gabe Tennert’s first, she decided. Mark had been intrigued by him. Neither of them had yet met the people on the other side or the ones across the road. Although there were obviously some kids at the house a little ways down. Maybe—

She drove down her long driveway faster than she should have, dust pluming behind, turned right on the two-lane road then right without even signaling into Mr. Tennert’s driveway. As cool as he’d been, she was trying not to think of him as Gabe. That was too...friendly.

And friendly was the last emotion she’d feel if she found out he’d been letting Mark hang out without insisting her son call home first.

* * *

GABE KNEW MAD when he saw it, and there it was, vibrating in front of him, in the person of Ciara Malloy.

Mark didn’t seem to have noticed. “Mom! Look at all these cool tools Mr. Tennert has. And he’s like me. See? He has a place for everything, and he says he never quits work without putting every single tool away and cleaning up every scrap of wood and even sawdust.” He sounded pleased and awed. He hadn’t been as impressed by the huge band resaw or the pillar drill, grinder and sanding machines as he’d been by Gabe’s regimented ranks of clamps and the rolling chest with multiple drawers that held his tools, each placed as precisely in a slot designed just for it as a surgeon’s tools might be in the operating room.

“You disobeyed my direct order,” his mother said from between tight lips. She shot a fiery look at Gabe.

“I didn’t!” her son cried. “You said I couldn’t go in the pasture, and I didn’t.”

She stared at him. “If you didn’t cut through the pasture—”

“I went down the driveway and along the road. Didn’t you see my bike? Though it would be a lot faster if I could go through the pasture, Mom. Then I wouldn’t have to ride my bike on the road. The horses wouldn’t hurt me.” Momentary chagrin crossed his face. “They won’t even come near me.”

She planted her hands on her hips. “Okay, new rule. You need to tell me if you are going to leave our property. Always . No exceptions.”

“But Mom! You say I can’t interrupt you when you’re working. That’s already a rule.”

“Then you wait until I take a break.”

“But Mom—!” Even he seemed finally to notice she was steaming. “Are you mad?”

“I was scared when I couldn’t find you.” She transferred her gaze to Gabe. “Didn’t it occur to you I’d be worried?”

“I did ask if you knew where he was,” Gabe said mildly. “He said...” He frowned, unable to remember exactly what Mark had said. “I’m right next door,” he added.

“He knows better than to bother you, especially in the middle of a working day.”

“I’m not bothering Mr. Tennert,” Mark assured her. “Am I?” Eyes as blue as his mother’s met Gabe’s. The beseeching expression was his downfall. Damn it, the kid was a bother. Gabe would really like it if Ciara forbade him visiting. But looking into those eyes, he couldn’t bring himself to be that blunt. It would feel like kicking a puppy.

“Ah...a little break didn’t hurt anything. I’d have kicked him out pretty soon.”

“I wish you’d show me how to use your tools,” the boy said wistfully.

Gabe cringed at the idea of those uncoordinated limbs anywhere near a whirring saw blade. Hand tools, though...

“Whatever he says, you cannot pop over here whenever you feel like it and bother Mr. Tennert,” Ciara said. Her sigh was almost surreptitious. Did she have as hard a time crushing the kid’s hopes as he did? Gabe wondered.

“Make it Gabe,” he suggested, glancing at the boy. “Both of you.”

They beamed at him. “Oh,” the mother said. “My name’s Ciara. Did I tell you that?” She spelled it for his benefit, and he nodded. Spelling never had been his strong suit.

“I could give Mark a few lessons in using hand tools,” Gabe suggested, even as he thought, What the hell? “Unless you’re hiring someone to come in and do a sweeping remodel of your house, maybe he could take on a project or two. Learn how to strip and sand windowsills and moldings, say. The doorknob on the front door could use to be replaced.”

Her expression changed slowly to one of suspicion. “How do you know?”

“When Ephraim got old, he needed somebody to check up on him.” He shrugged. “Make sure he hadn’t fallen, that he’d gotten out of bed, looked like he’d been eating. I drove him to some doctor appointments, too.”

“Oh.” She looked almost disappointed, but her face had softened, too. “That was nice of you.”

“I’d known him a lot of years,” he said simply, although that wasn’t all there was to it. Ephraim had expressed gruff sympathy after Ginny and Abby were killed, then went back to treating Gabe the way he always had. He didn’t stare at Gabe every time he saw him with pity or avid curiosity, which made seeing him tolerable at a time when Gabe was avoiding everyone else.

“If you mean it,” she said slowly.

Mean what? Then he remembered. Oh, hell. He’d offered to teach her son to swing a hammer and apply a scraper and use sandpaper and maybe a handsaw. He considered himself a decent man; he didn’t hurt people’s feelings on purpose, and was rarely rude. Mostly, he limited the amount of time he had to spend with them, which allowed him to be polite when he was forced into company.

Well, this time he’d give a lesson or two then make excuses. Maybe start closing the barn doors when he was working instead of leaving them standing wide open. Or tell Ciara that he didn’t want to be bothered. She could be the bad guy so he didn’t have to be.

“A little time with Mark won’t kill me,” he said, and couldn’t help wondering at the expression of astonishment she wiped quickly from her face.

“Why don’t you give us your phone number, so Mark can call and find out a good time instead of just showing up?” she suggested.

He had some business cards in a drawer and took one out. He handed it to Mark, who stood closer. “You won’t lose that?”

“It’s really your phone number?” The kid inspected the card then turned it over as if he expected it to squirt water at him or produce a toy gun with a flag that said, Bang . What was with these two?

“It’s really my phone number.” He glanced at the boy’s pretty mother. “You might want to post it when you get home, in case you have an emergency.”

She thanked him. He escorted them out, reminding himself he was being neighborly, that’s all. Not so different than with old Ephraim. A single woman and a twelve-year-old boy might have a crisis they didn’t know how to deal with. He got the feeling they were coming from a very different environment than a county with barely over forty thousand residents. Most Seattle suburbs probably had that many people. Here, those forty thousand people were spread over one hell of a lot of empty land. Seemed to him Colville, the biggest city in the county, didn’t even have a population of five thousand. Goodwater claimed a grand total of 1,373 people, which put it in the largest few cities in Stevens County. That didn’t include the homeowners outside the city limits, of course, but still, living here wouldn’t be anything like what these two knew. Gabe had to wonder why in hell they’d made a move so drastic. Had Ciara even seen the house before she bought it?