Something Old - Dianne L. Christner [33]
“That’s just it. He’s back to stay. So why not deal with him on your terms? You can heal faster that way. I’m doing this for your own good.”
Face-to-face. Those dark mournful eyes, that crooked grin. A mouth she’d once kissed, cherished, owned for her own. No, she wasn’t falling for it. “It feels like you’re treating me like a child. Giving the contract to my dad before you let me see it, and now this. Why the big surprises? Why couldn’t you just be straightforward?”
“Because you wouldn’t have been able to see clearly in this situation, to see what’s best for you.” Lil pulled out her list and made a poor attempt at diversion. “We can talk about this later. We’re wasting shopping time. Let’s go over this and hit the stores. It’s going to be fun.”
“I’ll tell you what. You go over the list. I’ll wait for you in the car, having the time of my life.” She heard Lil sigh as she stomped down the hall without even looking in the direction of the kitchen.
Jake swung the sledgehammer, and a chunk of plaster caved in, some of it crashing to the floor and filling the air with white powder. After Katy’s rebuff the night of the skating party, he hadn’t expected her to give him an open-armed welcome as her surprise contractor, but her rejection still hurt. He’d overheard much of her ranting and raving, wanting Lil to fire him. Mennonites might be antiwar and noncombatant when it came to flesh wounds, but his fellow brethren could wield weapons that slashed through flesh to the soul. What was the term he’d learned in college? Passive-aggressive. Yeah, that described his Katy. He’d rather she’d just come at him swinging. That he could handle. But when she employed her smoldering eyes and pouty lip, he’d rather scoop her up and kiss her to her senses. Only he’d tried that. It hadn’t been successful at all.
Still, her reaction to him today, treating him like he was some lowlife, was a twisted blade to his heart, reiterating the very words she spat at him the night of the incident: Stay away. Those words had hardened him then, but now that he’d let God back in, they just plain hurt. And she’d added even more meaning to them today. I don’t want you to go to hell. I just don’t want you.
He knew a few things about Katy. She took life seriously, categorizing everything in labeled cubbies. Six out of ten of these cubbies she labeled off-limits: lying, missing curfew, stealing crackers from the church cupboard marked COMMUNION, watching movies through his neighbor’s window when he was mowing, driving over the speed limit, and kissing in the church parking lot.
But being stuffed into a cubby didn’t suit his style, and he had no intentions of staying there. The thing was, he knew the real Katy, the little girl he’d teased who loved a good adventure and thrilled at life. She’d always pretended she didn’t, but he knew the truth about her. And he intended to bring that inner woman to the surface—the wonderful, vivacious one—then claim her as his own. He wanted to nurture that part of her, not stifle it.
His cell phone jangled in his pocket, and he propped the sledgehammer and yanked down his dust mask. “Hello.”
“Hey, it’s Lil.”
“So she still mad at me?”
“Yep. But we knew she’d be ticked. That only goes to show how much she still cares about you.”
“That love-hate thing?”
“Right.”
He sat on the rung of a ladder and stared down at the feminine footprints remaining in the drywall and plaster dust. Tracks that led away from him. “Look, you know how important she is to me. I don’t want to drive her away. And I don’t think she appreciated the setup. She’s not stupid. About our next plan, she’s not going to trust us.”
“She already doesn’t trust you. Just don’t go chicken on me. We’ve got a great plan. You have to show her a little at a time that you’ve changed. You can’t