Because of Audrey Page 6

  The defiance in her voice bugged him. Honest to God, she didn’t get that he wasn’t mean or stingy or hard-hearted, but a realist. Certain things had to change to save the company, but they could still afford doughnuts.

  He was tired of tension in the company and with Hilary. He’d had to call her to task more than once for her spending of company money without his permission.

  Worse, she’d actually called Dad a couple of times to make sure that what Gray was doing was okay with him. The woman needed to screw her head on right. She was either for or against him.

  In the meantime, she ran the everyday details that Gray didn’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole. He needed more responsibility in his life like he needed a lobotomy.

  What would the company do without Hilary?

  “Thanks,” he said, to appease her. “It was good of you to think of it.”

  Hilary smiled, but reluctantly.

  To satisfy her further, even though he didn’t have a sweet tooth, he bit into a doughnut. Hilary grinned.

  Stifling a sigh, he turned away to socialize, asking about spouses and children.

  When the last of the employees had finally dribbled in, Gray called for their attention.

  He thanked them for their loyalty over the years and their hard work. Then, with Arnie by his side, he unloaded his bombshell.

  “We’re canceling the benefits package my dad gave to all of you a few years ago.”

  The eruption of complaints hit the rafters, the sound level sending the throbbing in Gray’s temples into overdrive.

  “Cripes,” he mumbled to Arnie. “You’d think I was killing a litter of puppies.”

  “Can I say I told you so? Once you’ve given something to people, they take ownership. You try to take it back and they don’t thank you for having given it to them in the first place. Instead, they think they’re being robbed.” Arnie shrugged. “Human nature.”

  Once Gray got the crowd under control again, he got right to the point. “Here’s the alternative. Layoffs.”

  Again, more grumbling, but this time more subdued. Shock, no doubt.

  “I’m fighting tooth and nail to not have that happen. I’ve kept you all on and plan to continue to do so, but you have to work with me. We need to cut corners like crazy. The economy is bad across the country.”

  Mumbling all around. The employees’ fear smelled metallic, like spilled blood.

  “My concern,” Gray continued, “is that once I let any of you go, you won’t get another job. The retail, hotel and restaurant sectors of Accord are doing well because of tourism, but industry is suffering. We need to fight hard to save Turner Lumber.”

  He stalked to his office and slapped a hand against the office wall he’d slid open earlier. “This,” he said, “will be open all day most days. If any of you have ideas on how to cut costs, how to improve service to the customers so they’ll return more often, how to change anything that will help this company stay in business, you come to me and I’ll listen.”

  Tired to the bone, he all but mumbled, “I’m heading out now. I’m sure you all have a lot you want to discuss without the boss hovering, so stay as long as you need to. Everyone still has jobs for now. See you tomorrow morning.”

  He left the office. Where minutes ago, it had been full of noise, now it was silent. Perhaps they finally understood the situation. Despite how he’d tried to make changes recently, they had resisted and hadn’t understood fully how bad things were.

  But Gray had. Maybe now they did, too.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “AUDREY!” THE PANIC in Dad’s voice had Audrey dropping the dress she was sewing and running downstairs. It was seven in the morning, and she’d been up since six.

  After her run-in with Gray yesterday at the greenhouses, she’d planned to wear something bold today to bolster her morale. The red dress with the huge white polka dots that she was hemming would have been perfect, but she would opt for something else.

  She rushed into the living room. Dad sat in his favorite recliner rubbing his shins.

  “What happened?”

  “Walked into the coffee table. Why did you move it?”

  She hadn’t. His eyesight was failing rapidly if he couldn’t see the monstrosity in front of the sofa that could house a small village.

  “You have to remember to turn your head when you move. Learn to use your peripheral vision.” Macular degeneration caused vision loss in the center of the field of vision. Dad could no longer see and recognize faces, not even his own daughter’s. Or his own, for that matter. Good thing. It was probably a godsend that when he looked into a mirror, he wouldn’t see how much he’d aged in the past year.

  “It’s hard walking forward while turning your head sideways,” he said, voice ripe with frustration. “I try.”

  “I know you do. It’s a huge adjustment.”

  She sat on the table and lifted his pant legs. “You’ll be sporting some impressive bruises tomorrow.”

  She glanced up at his impassive face, his vibrancy drained by his affliction.

  “The skin isn’t broken. I’m sorry, Dad. There’s nothing I can do.” She rubbed his shin gently to soften that news, then stood and walked to the hall. “I’m going back up to my sewing.”

  “Don’t.”

  She stopped in the doorway and watched him expectantly. Stress had ravaged his once handsome face. Deep creases bracketed his sullen mouth. Oh, Dad.

  “Read to me,” he said, sounding so much like a little boy asking for a bedtime story she almost smiled. She had wanted to work in the greenhouses before heading into Denver today.

  But Dad needed her.

  The more and more trouble he had with his eyesight, the more childlike he became in his demands. An avid, lifelong reader, Dad could no longer read to himself. He resisted listening to the audio books she got for him from the library. She knew it was more than stubbornness. It was fear. If he started using them, it would be an open admission of how much he had lost in his life.

  And he had more worry hanging over his head. Dry macular degeneration had already caused a blind spot in the center of his vision. If his condition changed to wet macular degeneration, blood vessels could grow under his retinas, leaking blood and fluid, and distorting what was left of the little vision he still had.

  The doctors couldn’t predict whether it was a given.

  Poor Dad.

  It would be arrogant of Audrey to believe she understood how taxing Dad’s life must be these days. Her eyesight and her health were perfect.

  “Dad, I have to get to work. I can read to you this evening.”

  “You call that work? That shop? Mucking about with flowers?”

  Audrey braced herself, heartily sick of this old argument. “The shop allows me to live in Accord with you.”

  “I don’t need you to live with me. You didn’t have to come home.”

  Oh, Daddy. Of course she did. She’d returned to town as soon as Dad had been diagnosed a year ago. How could she not have come home? Dad might be stubborn and unrealistic in his views that he could live alone, but she loved him. They belonged together, especially in his time of need. She was all he had left.

  “I can get around this house just fine,” he insisted.

  “And town? Do you get around town fine?” Dad sucked in a breath. She wasn’t being cruel. Just realistic. “You refuse to leave the house. How would you get your groceries?”

  “I’d have them delivered. Or hire a kid to pick them up.”

  But they wouldn’t be Audrey. They wouldn’t read to him because he could no longer read to himself. They wouldn’t cook him the meals he loved. Or force him to eat the healthy stuff he hated. Or spend time with him in the evenings.

  Audrey held her tongue and picked up the print
book from the end table. It tied into Dad’s fascination with World War II. Audrey didn’t get how Dad could listen to talk of war when his own son had been killed in Afghanistan.

  She opened to the section on the Berlin Airlift.

  Please, please, please, let me read something uplifting.

  When she started reading, though, Dad said, “Not that stuff. Turn to the Invasion of Normandy. All the good stuff, all the turning points happened in the battles.”

  “But the good stuff for me is the wonder of the airlift and human interest stories like Uncle Wiggly Wings.”

  The stern set of Dad’s mouth eased. “You’ve always been too soft.”

  “It’s not just the human interest aspect. I love the politics. The airlift was significant, huge, the beginning of the Cold War.”

  “I know, but read about Normandy.” His tone softened. “Please.”

  It destroyed Audrey to read about lives lost. They were more than numbers to her. They were all young men like Billy. She missed her brother and his goofy sense of humor. She wished like hell that he’d never joined the army. There wasn’t a man on earth less suited to it than Bill.

  Dad had his own way of dealing with his grief. Hearing about war, about the logistics of it, as though he could control it in some odd way by understanding it, seemed to be his way of dealing with the loss of his son.

  So, she read to him about battles and casualties.

  After retrieving Jerry from his kennel out back, Audrey left the house. Jerry could no longer live indoors with Dad. He’d tripped him one time too many. Not on purpose, but simply because Dad couldn’t see the dog sleeping on the living room floor.

  To save everyone’s nerves, she’d started keeping him outside. She didn’t know what she would do once the weather turned cold in the fall.

  Jerry sat in the passenger seat, and Audrey rubbed his ears before dropping him off with Noah for the day.

  She was late getting to the greenhouses and watering her plants, and even later still getting on the road to Denver

  The reason for her trip to the city was twofold. She’d set up interviews with three occupational therapists to take on Dad as a client in September after she’d won the floral competition and that monetary award. It would make a couple of months of in-house occupational therapy affordable. The year’s contract would mean she could finally contribute to the household.

  A therapist could teach Dad how to take care of himself, how to cook despite the darkness and the blurriness. How to do his laundry. How to get out of the house. Maybe a stranger could have luck where Audrey hadn’t in persuading Dad to use a white cane. Or not. Audrey could only try. The alternative was to give up, and that was out of the question.

  Dad wouldn’t even go outside to walk down the street he’d lived on for nearly forty years.

  Eventually, hoping for improvement in his eyesight, they would have an operation to pay for, if only Dad would give in and try it. It would take a miracle to convince him. She was taking a break for a while. Eventually, she would have to broach the subject again.

  Audrey had a lot riding on getting that award. Too much. She couldn’t afford to consider that she might not win.

  She’d sunk all of her savings into buying the greenhouses, stocking her shop and paying rent on the store. She had yet to make much of a profit. She needed to cast her net wider than just Accord to make enough money to be comfortable.

  A win in the competition would sure make that easier.

  The second purpose of the trip was to take a look at the area in which she would set up her booth in the competition. She had the dimensions, but it was hard to judge without actually seeing what she had and how to use it to the best effect. She had an appointment with the woman organizing the show.

  * * *

  JEFF HEARD AUDREY drive away, and leaned over the far side of his armchair to pick up the breakfast he’d hidden there. Audrey fed him healthy pansy food. Egg-white omelets with spinach in them. Yuk. He wanted real food. Bacon and whole eggs.

  Careful to avoid the coffee table, he walked toward the hallway with small steps, like a toddler just learning to walk and afraid of falling down. At least a toddler would have excitement mixed in with the fear, the joy of getting up off the floor and really moving.

  Jeff was going backward, not gaining but losing—everything—with nothing to look forward to but more darkness and less mobility.

  Crap, shit, goddamn. For a man who didn’t like profanity, he sure was using a lot of it lately. He’d never let his children swear when they were growing up, but now he cursed all the time. He had a pansy-assed way of doing it, though. He couldn’t even say them out loud.

  He swore a silent blue streak now because it was the only thing that relieved this damn frustration. Momentarily.

  Feeling his way along the wall, noticing where the seams of the wallpaper he’d put up well over thirty years ago pulled away from the plaster, he wondered who was going to fix it. Who was going to take care of the things that could go wrong in an old house? Who was going to maintain what he’d spent a lifetime treasuring?

  Audrey?

  Between the shop, the greenhouses, sewing, cooking...and taking care of him, when would she have time? The girl was already stretched to the limit.

  His fingers traced the flocked roses on the walls. Irene had chosen the paper. Too old-fashioned now. Had been even back then, but his wife had been that kind of girl. A romantic.

  Like Audrey.

  After Irene had died, he’d preferred his son’s humor, his devil-may-care, full-speed-ahead brand of life.

  Oh, the laughs they’d had.

  Billy.

  Jeff shook his head violently. Tears weren’t allowed. They weakened a man.

  Billy had understood that. He’d joined the marines. Billy had been a man to admire.

  In the kitchen, Jeff dumped the omelet into the garbage and eased his way around the cupboards until he found a frying pan. He was going to make scrambled eggs, and he was going to use the yolks.

  He managed to locate the container of margarine in the fridge. Margarine! What the heck was wrong with good old butter? His parents had eaten butter all of their lives and had lived into their eighties.

  He cocked his head sideways to use what little peripheral vision he had. Made doing everything hard. He found the eggs, managed to break four of them into a bowl and beat them. He felt them slosh over the edge onto his hand. Careful.

  After a fruitless search for the salt, he gave up. What had Audrey done with it? He didn’t recognize his own cupboards, his own groceries anymore.

  He placed the pan onto the large front burner. The control knob was the one on the bottom. Right?

  He turned it to low.

  Opening the margarine, patting his way around the counter because he was a bloody blind man, he scooped a pat of it out with a knife and scraped it on the side of the pan. He heard it sizzle. Good, he’d gotten it inside instead of on the burner.

  Resting the bowl on the edge of the pan, he poured the eggs in. They bubbled and spat, and immediately the room filled with the scent of burning eggs and acrid smoke.

  What the—?

  He grasped the handle of the pan, smoke smothering his nose like a hot blanket, and tossed it into the sink. Only years of living and working in this room made his aim true.

  By feel, he turned the burner knob until he thought it was off. He must have turned it on to high instead of to low.

  Bugger, his mind screamed. Shit.

  He wasn’t a man anymore. If he couldn’t get around, couldn’t even cook his own meals, he was barely half a man.

  How many ways was he a failure these days? Too many to count.

  * * *

  GRAY DRUMMED HIS fingers on the steering wheel of his Dad’s old Volvo and
cursed the vehicle from here to eternity.

  It had broken down halfway between Accord and Denver. For twenty minutes, he’d been waiting for the tow truck he’d called. Time was passing, and it didn’t look as if he’d make it into Denver today, leaving another day without this blackmail issue settled one way or the other.

  Sure, he could wait for the DNA results, but for how long? Since he didn’t trust the woman, he planned to stop at a lab in Denver to pick up a test kit on his way to her home and have her do it in front of him. How she could cheat was beyond him, but he wasn’t taking chances. And, today, he could see her, test her with questions, judge her responses. Maybe denounce her outright and put the issue to bed, so he could move ahead with the other problems in his life.

  “Action,” he stated aloud. Life was about action. Business was all about making incisive timely decisions, and here he was sitting on the side of the highway, stymied.

  When he noticed his fingers doing their neurotic dance, he grasped the steering wheel to stop them. He couldn’t sit still these days. Ants crawled under his flesh.

  Where had his cool, calm manner gone? Where had he gone?

  A vehicle pulled to a stop on the shoulder of the highway in front of him. Not a tow truck. A hot-pink Mini.

  A woman got out.

  Audrey.

  Of course, it had to be Audrey. It couldn’t have been someone he liked, or at the very least, someone with whom he wasn’t fighting.

  She ran along the shoulder, careful, he noted, to approach on the passenger side away from traffic, calling, “Harrison?” In response to the concern on her face, he immediately rolled down the window. When she saw that it was he who was stranded and not his father, her expression eased.

  “Get in,” he said.

  She climbed in slowly, as though reluctant to join him.

  “What happened?” she asked as she sat next to him, bringing with her a cloud of her gorgeous heady perfume.

  A momentary shame, a memory of how he’d left her yesterday, flooded him. In her shop, he’d scared her, and it showed now on her face. Untrusting, she crowded the door.