Redwood Bend

store?” he asked. Then he gave a little laugh. “She changes tires and changes oil…”
“I do a lot of things. When the boys came along, Conner stuck me with paperwork. I was happier in the store, building things, helping customers learn how to build and repair things, but you know—a person can only do so much.” She whistled and shook her head. “Twins. Couldn’t be twin girls, right? I’m probably better off with boys, given that I enjoy team sports a lot more than things like ballet and origami.”
He looked into her eyes. “You were kind of busy, I guess.”
“I lost Charlie right before they were born,” she said. “If not for Conner, I don’t know what I would’ve done, so when he gets all big brother on me, I let it go. But from twenty-one to twenty-six I worked full-time in that store. I worked as hard as Conner and I did as much, too. I wasn’t some girlie girl who could only do the books. I trained to be a phys ed teacher, but we had a commitment to the store.”
Now, this business about losing Charlie, this brought Dylan upright. His feet came off the rail; he turned toward her, leaning his elbows on his knees and said, “If you don’t mind my asking about Charlie…”
“He was army. He was deployed, I was pregnant, he was killed on a mission, the details of which I’ll never know, and the boys never knew him. But I have medals and pictures and I try to be sure they know about their dad. He was a great guy. He was a hero. When they’re older, they’ll be proud of him.”
Dylan nearly blanched. The closest he would ever come to being that kind of hero would be playing one in a movie. “Army widow,” he said for lack of anything intelligent.
“Army widow.”
He cleared his throat. “And you can do all the guy chores because…”
She looked at him with dead seriousness. “My dad taught Conner and I all the mechanical and maintenance stuff. He was so proud of that—that he didn’t cut me out of the loop. That store was to be in the family for as long as we wanted it to be. And it was to be as much mine as Conner’s. You don’t get a bigger cut for being a boy.” Then she laughed and said, “My mother did none of that stuff, by the way. She was old-fashioned and not very stylish. She cooked and cleaned and tended kids. She could never have been a soccer or softball coach and I might’ve been such a disappointment to her—I pitched girl’s softball rather than sewing or learning to bake. But when I was fourteen she said, ‘Katie, never underestimate the power of red lipstick.’ From that point on I knew when their anniversary was because they went out to dinner alone and she put on the red lipstick.” And she laughed. “My parents were pretty boring,” she added. “But they were in love in their own way. I mean, come on,” she said with a lift of a brow. “Red lipstick! Priceless, right?”
Dylan was transfixed by the smile, the laughter. How did she do that? Talk about dead people, people who had ultimately let her down, even though not by choice, and laugh with such beauty? He wanted that mouth....
“What?” she asked, studying his expression.
“That must have been hard. Losing your parents when you were young.”
She sat forward and her expression became serious. “Everyone I lost, I lost young,” she said.
He was quiet for a minute and then said, “We have that in common.”
She relaxed back in her chair, waiting.
“My dad died in a car crash when I was twelve. My best friend when I was fifteen.”
“Wow. I’m sorry. I should’ve known there was something that linked us. We kind of connected the first time we looked at each other.”
Suddenly his grin was enormous and his eyes twinkled and she remembered the wet T-shirt display when his eyes dipped to her chest, which was such an ordinary chest.
“You’re a dog,” she said.
“I am a dog,” he admitted, smiling. “So, your husband was lost five years ago or so, yet you didn’t get married again? It wouldn’t have taken my mom that long.”
She shrugged and studied her cola can.
“Oh-oh,” he said. “I smell a broken heart.”
She looked up suddenly. “Me? Oh, God, no. A slightly disappointed heart, maybe. I haven’t even dated much since Charlie died. I was just starting to get interested again when…I guess I just lost that old knack for knowing what to look for in a guy. Besides, I’m happy with my life—my family.”
Dylan was quiet for a second. “My grandmother said I made my dad