Every year the annual high school reunion brought in new faces and the occasional casual hookup. Small towns had a way of limiting a single man’s sex life. Yeah, he could drive up the coast, or worse, up the five and hit Eugene in a little over an hour, but those encounters didn’t repeat.
When he’d first moved to River Bend the last thing on his mind was women or what he might be missing from a big city. He’d grown up just outside of San Francisco and had his share of traffic, crime, and noise to last a lifetime. The best memories of his life were those from when he was young and his parents had taken him and his little sister on camping trips to Sequoia or the Redwood National Park. The quiet and calm grounded him and reminded him of happy times. He vowed that as soon as he acquired a trade that would set him up with a nice, comfortable living in a small town outside of the state of California, he’d find one and move. A simple place that didn’t require him to drive through a desert to reach an airport.
That was five years ago.
A general contractor license was complete overkill for a small town where no one cared if you were licensed and bonded so long as you showed up when you said you were going to . . . and did the job as promised.
The nuance of small town living became obvious the first time he’d done a simple plumbing job for a widow who lived just outside of River Bend. Mrs. Kate offered a pot roast and an apple pie as payment.
He’d really thought that only happened in movies and novels.
Apparently not.
Having a deep respect for an older woman, especially a widow in her late seventies, Wyatt enjoyed the pot roast, ate the pie, and took the rest home that night at Mrs. Kate’s insistence. To this day, he made a point of stopping by Mrs. Kate’s on the first Sunday of every month with a toolbox and an empty stomach.
Unlike Mrs. Kate . . . Miss Gina offered horizontal naked favors as payment. With one look of hell no, Miss Gina offered a wink and cut a check. The woman still flirted like she was thirty and he was a teenager, but she never took it any further.
Thank God!
Mrs. Kate and Miss Gina were worlds apart and yet only a few miles away from each other. Wyatt appreciated both of them.
Wyatt turned down Miss Horizontal Naked Pot Lady’s B and B drive and dodged a pothole before the pavement turned into ground-up asphalt that resembled a driveway.
He recognized Jo’s Jeep and Miss Gina’s VW van in a vintage teal and white paint with a tuck and roll interior that looked like it just came off the showroom floor. Miss Gina loved her throwback from the sixties vehicle more than anything . . . and even after a storm the van appeared as if Miss Gina had been out polishing the thing the moment the precipitation dried up.
Wyatt didn’t bother walking into the inn. He stepped around the west side of the old Victorian and dragged his largest extension ladder with him. He knew months ago exactly where the roof was going to fail, but Miss Gina didn’t want to fix it until after the cosmos told her it was time.
The previous night’s storm was Miss Gina’s sparkling sign.
With a tool belt secured around his hips, he climbed up onto the roof of the three-story house and pulled himself higher on the brittle composition shingles.
The recent warm summers and lack of maintenance had blown free a good five-foot section the night before. This close to the coast, the weather did a number on every house. Miss Gina’s stood taller than most, had a decent ocean view from the widow’s walk on a clear day, and therefore took the brunt of every storm nature delivered.
Wyatt balanced on one knee while he wrote down the dimensions of the minimum of work that needed to take place to keep Miss Gina’s guests dry. He was extending his tape measure for the fourth time since climbing on the steep roof when he heard a noise behind him.
He twisted, caught himself as he slid half a foot.
“Wow . . . this is awesome.”
A little girl . . . seven, maybe ten, he couldn’t tell . . . had climbed up his ladder and was perched way too close to the edge of the brittle roof.
“Jesus!” He wasn’t sure where the kid had come from, but given how she was flipping around on the steep grade, she had no idea of the drop below.
“Climbing a tree must be like this,” he heard her say.
Wyatt felt his nose flare, took a deep breath. “Hey,” he said in a voice five times calmer than he felt.
“This is better than climbing a tree, isn’t it?” the kid asked as if they were in the middle of a conversation.
He wanted to counter her . . . say that if she were in a tree and fell the branches would break her fall, possibly end with a broken leg, not a broken neck.
To his dismay, the kid started to climb higher. “Can you see the ocean?” she asked as if they were sightseeing.
“Hold on!” This time Wyatt used a stronger voice.
The kid hesitated and slid a few inches.
Wyatt’s breath caught before the girl stopped herself and continued to climb. “Miss Gina said there was a leak . . . are you fixing the leak?”
“Yeah . . . you, you shouldn’t be up here.”
The tiny girl kept climbing and Wyatt felt his limbs crawling closer to the kid.
If he had a crew on this roof, he’d have to have scaffolding, rails to ensure the safety of his men. He didn’t hold any concessions for himself . . . but a little girl without any idea of the danger of dangling off the side of a roof was a complete risk.
“Stop!” He found himself almost yelling when the kid moved closer to the failing shingles.