One Day in Apple Grove(43)
She was starving by the time she pulled around the back of Mulcahys, and she was pleased to see her father gathering supplies in the back of the shop. “Hi, Pop!”
Her father looked up and grinned. “My favorite carpenter.”
“You’re only saying that because you’ll be working with me on the Johnson project.”
“I saw the bookshelves you built for Meg and Dan, and the curio cabinet you built for Miss Trudi’s birthday. She’s going to love it.” He paused and told her, “You’ve a gift, Caitlin.”
She cleared her throat. “Thanks.” She hadn’t expected him to say something like that, although he usually told them if he thought they did a good job with something. This was different—this was her dream. “It means a lot that you think so.”
He grinned and held out a sub sandwich.
“You are the seriously the best! I’m starved.”
While she ate, they talked about the Johnson job and the order in which they’d be doing the construction. When they’d gone over everything, he asked, “So, does the lumberyard have our order ready for pick up?”
“Yes, but that’s the problem,” she said, finishing up the sub. “I’m still driving the car and don’t have a lot of room.”
“I guess you didn’t look out front,” he told her.
“No. I came around back. Why?”
“Follow me.”
When they walked through the shop, Gracie looked up from her terminal, but from the glazed look in her eyes, she was either setting up tomorrow’s schedule or doing their quarterly reports for taxes.
Cait knew better than to interrupt now; she could talk to her sister later.
When her father opened the front door and held it, she stepped past him and felt her mouth drop open. “It’s finished?” She walked over to the F1, examining the passenger door up close. “It’s great…you can’t tell that it was scratched or anything.”
“Bob does good work.”
Her eyes filled as she spun around to face him. “I’m so sorry—”
“I know you are.” He took her hand and turned it so her palm was facing up, placed the keys in her hand, and gently closed her fingers around them. “Take care of our legacy.”
Clearing her throat, she promised, “I won’t let you down again.”
“That’s my girl. Let’s tell Grace where we’re headed.”
The lumberyard was busy, but Joe and Cait had been there countless times before, and knew their way around. They pulled up in front of one of the buildings in the back and were greeted by one of the owners. “Glad you two are still speaking to one another,” he said, eyeing the gleaming black F1. “Bob Stewart does good work.”
Cait silently cursed and waited until they’d loaded up the truck bed and paid for the lumber before saying anything. “Did you have to tell him about the truck?”
Joe stared out the front window as she drove. “Didn’t have to.”
“But this isn’t Apple Grove.”
“Close enough that news travels fast—good and bad.”
“Maybe I get why Grace doesn’t want to stay in town. Everybody knows everyone else’s business and talks about it over coffee at the diner…or at the lumberyard a few towns over.”
Her dad frowned. “She’s been wanting to go back to the city ever since she graduated. I keep expecting her to tell me she’s leaving any day now.”
“I know, but I haven’t given up hope that she’d change her mind.”
Her father sighed. “Mulcahys is my life, but that doesn’t mean it has to be Meg’s, or yours, or Grace’s.”
“But when you retired—”
“None of you were engaged or married, so I didn’t have to hire outside the family. I hoped it would always be that way, Mulcahys working for Mulcahys, but that’s my dream, and I am a realist.”
He fell silent for the next few miles.
She didn’t mind riding without talking because that meant that her dad would be working out a problem in his mind, but the sudden thought that she and Grace might be the problem unnerved her enough to break the silence.
“So, are you and Mary going to get married soon?”
His head whipped around so fast she wondered that he didn’t get whiplash. “What makes you ask?”
“Just something about the way the two of you were communicating without words.”
“When?”
“The other day at the market…when you turned the sign around and kissed her.”
“You saw that?” He sounded resigned.
“Yep, thought about taking a pic and sending it to Rhonda, but then realized that you might not like being front page center news in the Gazette.”