“Great—you’re here!” Tessa practically pulled Marilyn into the room Tuesday evening. The cozy sitting room served as the Solos Bible study meeting location at Wander Community Church. WCC was as picturesque as the rest of the town, a wide wood-shingled structure with an angled roof and a cupola that still housed a real bell. In the wintertime when the snow frosted the eaves, the church looked like something on a Christmas card. Now in the summer months, it had a rustic, almost log-cabin feel that kept it the center of much of the community. Sitting right in the middle of downtown at the end of Main Street, its community-hub feel was geographic as well as social.
Tessa spouted instructions as if people joined the group every day. “Margie, Maddie, the movie room is down that hallway. Follow Heidi and you can meet the rest of the kids.” A bright-faced high school girl said hello and led the girls away to their own activity. Tessa leaned in. “They get popcorn and lemonade, we get coffee and—” she turned toward the goodies spread on a side table “—yum! It’s tiramisu today.”
“What’s not to like?” Marilyn agreed. She stood still for a second and looked around the room. There were a lot of women seated in the circle of chairs. A surprising number of women, in fact.
“I know,” Tessa agreed, catching her expression. “You think you’re the only single parent on the planet some days, and then you come here.” She quickly introduced Marilyn around the circle. No sign of Wander’s gossipy or judgmental wagging tongues here. Only an arc of warm, encouraging expressions accompanying each new name. So much so that Marilyn had to wonder why it had taken her so long to find the courage to join the group. Why hadn’t Mom ever suggested it? They all went to this church, after all.
“I saved you the seat next to me, but I expect next meeting you’ll feel like you can sit anywhere. Right at home.” She motioned toward a woman coming back into the circle of chairs. “Janice here has a girl where your girls will start in the fall, I think.”
“Canyon Elementary. I’ll be happy to show you the ropes over there,” Janice encouraged as she handed a piece of the tiramisu to Marilyn and Tessa.
Marilyn drank in the warm welcome. Janice, and in fact every woman around the room, looked like a potential friend. How had she not realized she was this thirsty for friends? She’d been trying so hard to “buck up” and keep going that she’d relied totally on Mom and Dad for everything. But it would be lying to say their support, however loving, didn’t come with its own set of pressures and expectations.
She felt no pressure here, just camaraderie. These were women who truly understood what it was like to face the challenge of raising two girls alone.
“This group is my lifeline. We all hold each other up here.” Tessa gave Marilyn a friendly nudge. “And you can eat as much of the cake as you want without getting any looks from us. We need to take our indulgences where we find them, you know?” She looked down at her plate. “Honestly, a whole cake wouldn’t last two minutes with Gregory in the room. I feel like I should just hand my entire paycheck over to the grocery store.”
Marilyn thought of the struggle she’d had to get the girls to eat a healthy lunch yesterday after Wyatt’s enormous pink doughnuts. Every child came with their own challenges, didn’t they? “My girls are picky eaters, Margie especially.”
“Mine, too,” a tired-looking woman with a long red braid said. “If it isn’t apples, rice or white bread, I’m in for a battle. And green beans? Ha! Not in a million years.”
Everyone laughed, and Marilyn felt the knots in her shoulders ease up a little. The rest of the session was taken up with warm conversation, honest questions about life and faith and a generous dose of grace. Exactly what she needed. She made a mental note to be back next week, and every week after that.
As they were helping to put the folding chairs away, Marilyn caught Tessa’s elbow. “Can I ask you something?”
Tessa placed her chair on the rolling rack that held them for storage and shrugged. “Sure, anything.”
Marilyn slipped her chair in behind Tessa’s. “It’s more of a reporter question than a mom question. Is that okay?”
“I don’t see why not. If I can’t answer, I’ll tell you so.”
“Is everyone really that upset over the carousel being broken?”
Tessa straightened up. “Do you mean is everyone as upset as Wyatt Walker thinks they are?”
Marilyn felt her eyes widen.
“Your car’s been there twice in five days. And you were there with it. And the girls.” When Marilyn gave her a look, she added, “You haven’t forgotten that Wander’s always watching, have you?”
Marilyn swallowed a groan at the standard lament of every young person growing up in Wander Canyon. Nothing ever escaped notice in this town. “I suppose not.” It explained at least some of Mom’s resistance to her stint at the garage, but not all of it. While Mom had a high opinion of Hank Walker, that regard did not extend to his son. She’d even been a tad critical of Chaz Walker before he settled down with his new bride, Yvonne. She loved her mother, but there were days she could do without her intense scrutiny.
“Not to be nosy, but what were you doing there all that time?”
“Wyatt was really nice about helping me figure out what maintenance needs to be done on my car. In exchange, I offered to help him organize some paperwork that’s piled up since Manny’s been out. He looked a little snowed under.”
“You always were the superorganized type. And he wasn’t. Isn’t.” Tessa reached for her handbag and the Bible study workbook the group was using. “So yes, there were some who didn’t like the idea of him trying to step in and fix the carousel. Certainly no one thought it’d be out of commission this long.”
“And that has people mad?”
“Maybe more like disappointed. Grumbles of ‘What else did you expect from Wyatt Walker?’ That sort of thing. Honestly, it’s not as if some of the folks raising a fuss could step in and do better. I’d think it takes a mechanical mind, and they always said our carousel was one of a kind.” She looked at Marilyn. “Feeling the heat, is he?”
“Tough to say. He’s no stranger to Wander looking down on him, but I do think this bothers him more than he’ll admit. I hadn’t expected that. He’s a bit different than I remember.”
That brought a look from Tessa. “Not as much as you’d think. He’s still trouble, Marilyn. Charming, but trouble. Watch yourself.”
“Oh, I’m sure he finds me more of a nuisance than anything else. I just need a project, I suppose. And believe it or not, he’s been really nice to the girls.”
“All I’m saying is, watch yourself. Because you know, Wander’s always watching.”
“Seems like it.” She was scheduled to go back to the garage tomorrow morning to tackle the next of the piles with Wyatt. She wanted to go back, wanted to feel the satisfaction of organizing things and of helping someone who had been nice to her. It didn’t feel fair that such a simple gesture became far more complicated. But Wander was watching, and this was a town where everything was everybody’s business.
“You know, one of the first piles I hoped to sort through tomorrow was a bunch of carousel parts orders. I think I might be able to help speed things up.” She’d seen the beginnings of a trend that pointed to more than just complicated order systems. It was far too early to say for sure, and she had no idea how to address it with someone of Wyatt’s oversize ego, but she couldn’t just walk away with the job half-finished. The garage and the carousel would benefit if she could help. And, just maybe, there’d be a big benefit for Wyatt himself.
Was that worth the glare of Wander watching? Then again, what did it show the girls if she didn’t at least try to help someplace where she could make a difference? Teaching the girls honor and integrity now fell solely to her. She couldn’t help thinking that if Landon’s darker side ever did come to light, they’d need a solid moral foundation on which to stand.
“It’s just a short stint of paperwork,” she dismissed to Tessa. “Two more days at the most. It’s not like I have a packed calendar anyway. And who knows? I might get a free tune-up out of it.”
Tessa held Marilyn’s gaze. “Sometimes free isn’t really free. You’ve seen him. You remember him. He hasn’t changed. The man breaks hearts for amusement.”
“Tessa, look at me. I think we can safely say my bedraggled self holds no interest for the likes of Wyatt Walker. He always dated the prettiest girls. These days I’m grateful just to manage a clean shirt and both shoes on.”
Tessa laughed as they walked toward the room where the laughter of young children spilled out into the hallway. “Why is it mussed looks great on most men while it never looks good on any of us?”
Marilyn knew better than to make even a single remark about how a smudge of grease did somehow improve Wyatt’s disarming good looks. She felt decades older, but the years hadn’t diminished how handsome he was one bit. It wasn’t fair.
“I’m not in the market,” she declared, just for emphasis. “I’m not even in the county where the market is, for that matter. So you don’t have to worry about me.”
“Oh, I get it,” Tessa said. “Most days the only man I want to date is Mr. Clean. But it’s not just your opinion you need to worry about.”
That much was true. Tonight’s Bible study may have been filled with welcome, but Wander was still always watching.
Something was wrong with him.
Wednesday morning Wyatt stared at the small apartment he’d inhabited since his dramatic exit from Wander Ranch, flat-out baffled.
He’d cleaned it.
Wyatt couldn’t remember the last time he’d voluntarily cleaned up his living space—he wasn’t a tidy kind of guy. He was a throw-your-shirt-on-the-couch-and-deal-with-it-later kind of guy.
He pulled the door shut behind him, consoling himself that clean was a relative term. It was clean to him. He had little doubt Chaz, or Dad, or Yvonne or Pauline would be so quick to use the term. But you could see the floor and the chairs and tables had actual usable space on them, so that was clean.
It felt a small bit good, he had to admit. Being organized had its upside. But there was organized, and then there was organized. Throwing dirty clothes in a hamper and doing three days of dishes wasn’t exactly the same thing as the paperwork that awaited him downstairs.
He’d kept staring at the piles as he worked yesterday, eyeing them as if they’d disperse themselves into chaos again before Marilyn came back if he didn’t keep watch. He’d stacked the new mail and receipts in a neat pile of its own, even going so far as to grab one of Marilyn’s infernal sticky notes and label it Incoming.
Wyatt walked downstairs into the garage bays, the fluorescent lights clicking and humming as they lit up for the day. This place always felt like freedom to him; grease and oil were the scents of independence, whereas the ranch reeked of duty and judgment. He loved it here.
The sight of the desk brought forth two emotions. A niggle of doubt showed itself as he considered the remaining piles. But there was also a tentative glow of satisfaction at the empty spot they’d created during Marilyn’s first visit. A toehold of confidence that the administrative load of running a garage wasn’t completely beyond him.
Before Marilyn, he’d always tamped down the notion of buying the garage from Manny when he called it quits. He told himself he didn’t want the responsibility. But now that he’d managed to understand a piece of Manny’s binder system, he didn’t squash the notion. Maybe he could handle it. Even do well at it.
Of course, there were multiple piles still on the desk ready to prove him wrong. I have a secret weapon, and her name is Marilyn, he declared in silent defiance to the piles as he plunked the small bag of cinnamon coffee grounds he’d bought from The Depot counter last night. Margie had mentioned her mother liked cinnamon coffee. It wasn’t so frilly a flavor that he couldn’t indulge her this small touch. If they got through even half the piles today, she’d have earned way more than an oil change and maintenance advice, anyway.
Instead of heading straight into the radiator flushing that was first on his schedule today, Wyatt took ten minutes to sweep the bay floors. Again. In case she brings the girls by, he told himself.
Sure enough, at 9:30 a.m. on the dot, Marilyn’s SUV pulled into the spot next to his truck. He looked up from his work just in time to see her glance over her shoulder before she came through the bay door. The gesture pricked at him like a thorn. They got to her already. Howie at the hardware store had made some ill-timed crack about the new lady in town hanging out in his garage, but Howie was a nosy idiot.
Wander Canyon had way too many nosy idiots, and the forced casualness of her look back confirmed it. She was just a person being nice to another person. They could heap all the bad intentions they wanted onto him—he’d earned them—but did they have to pounce on Marilyn so quickly?
Wyatt acted like he hadn’t noticed. “Good morning,” he called brightly.
She walked farther into the bay and halted, eyes casting about. Come on, a mere floor sweep shouldn’t cause that much of a shock, should it?
“Manny always swept out on Wednesdays,” he lied.
She kept that analytical look on her face. “Cinnamon,” she said finally.
“And grease and radiator fluid,” he teased, not ready to show any amusement that she’d noticed.
Marilyn set her handbag and some kind of workbook down at the desk before turning toward the coffeemaker. “You made cinnamon coffee.”
“Margie outed you.” It felt better to put it that way.
She smiled, as if the gesture meant more to her than he would have guessed. “That’s sweet.”
“Technically, isn’t it savory? Or spicy? Or something?”
“Please tell me there aren’t more doughnuts.”
“Just coffee today. Fancy coffee, but just coffee. I’ve got a few minutes to finish up here if there’s something else you can do without me.”
She looked at the shelves of technical manuals that lined one wall. “Have you ever thought about putting these in chronological order?”
“Sure, why not?”
Marilyn poured herself a cup of coffee, and he watched the small smile curl up the sides of her mouth as she inhaled the aroma. He’d always had a knack for making women feel special. It never took much—most guys were foolish not to take note of what a woman liked and give it to her. Women were fascinating puzzles to him. Challenging and complicated. But like puzzles, their fascination wore off fast once you figured them out. Long-term relationships were as foreign to him as paperwork, and that was just fine.
“Done,” he declared about twenty minutes later as he lowered the hood on the sedan he’d been working on and walked to the sink to wash up.
“Me, too,” Marilyn offered. She smiled and ran her hands like a game show hostess down a neatly shelved collection of technical manuals. “Grab a cup. I was thinking we’d tackle the carousel paperwork first this morning.”
Wyatt couldn’t rightly say why the problems with parts orders for the carousel bugged him especially. Then again, he couldn’t really say what made him take the job on in the first place. It was do-goody, civic and, as such, totally out of character for him, even if Manny insisted he was the best man to do it. The stack of misorders looming at him from Marilyn’s pile on the desk would surely prove that anyone else in Wander could have done a better job.
“What do you think went wrong with all these?”
Well, that was a prying question, wasn’t it? “Beats me. Parts numbers kept getting mixed up. They never send me what I ask for.” He narrowed his eyes, remembering his last annoying conversation with the customer service agent.
“So it hasn’t been working for you.” She had that motherly analytical “Hmm, I see” tone in her voice. And a look in her eyes that made him feel like he was under scrutiny. As if she was in the process of peeling back secrets about him. He didn’t much care for that, despite his fondness for big brown eyes.
Still, her curiosity beat Dad’s disappointed glare by a mile. He hadn’t expected to like having her company in the shop, even when they weren’t talking. If she really could untangle why all his orders went wrong, he’d swallow her scrutiny. Provided she didn’t get too analytical.
But she did get nosy. She walked him through each of the last four orders, asking odd questions. How he chose parts. How he filled out the complicated order form on the company’s website. How he wrote things down—when he wrote things down, which wasn’t often—in Manny’s logbooks.
He was watching an idea formulate in her head. An idea about him, which both fascinated and annoyed him. “What do you need next?” she asked.
Wyatt sat back in his chair. “Another week and the Carousel Committee off my back.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “What part do you need next?”
He walked to the volumes she’d just organized, surprisingly pleased at how easy it was to pick the correct catalog from the orderly shelves. “Maybe this is better than piles on the bench.”
A smirk and a raised eyebrow greeted his pronouncement. “Imagine that.”
Rather than reach for a snappy comeback, he thumbed through the pages until he found the belts he needed to replace on the carousel’s main mechanism. “These, in two different sizes.”
“Is there an order form blank anywhere? A paper one?”
“I use the online one,” he replied. “And I hate the thing.”
Marilyn looked at the website listed on the cover of the catalog, pulled it up on Manny’s computer and, in less than a minute, had a blank order form spitting out of the printer on the shelves behind them. “Let’s try paper for this time. Humor me.”
Wyatt found it wasn’t hard at all to humor Marilyn Sofitel.