Tribute

want a turn.”
    “Tragic and terrible things happen when I pick up tools. So I don’t, and save lives.” He reached in his bag. “Brought you a present.”
    “You brought me an apple?”
    “It’ll help keep your strength up.” He tossed it to her, cocking a brow when she caught it neatly, and one-handed. “I had a feeling.”
    She studied the apple, then bit in. “About what?”
    “That you’d field what comes at you. Mind if I take some pictures while you’re working? I want to start some more detailed sketches.”
    “So you’re going forward with the warrior goddess idea.”
    “Brid. Yeah, I am. I can wait until you take a break if the camera bothers you while you work.”
    “I spent more than half my life in front of cameras.” She pushed to her feet. “They don’t bother me.”
    She tossed the apple core into the Dumpster before stepping over to her lumber pile. Ford snapped away while she selected, measured, set the piece on the power saw. He watched her eyes as the blade whined, as it cut through wood. He doubted the camera could capture the focus in them.
    But it captured the cut of her biceps, the ripple of toned muscle when she hefted the planks and carried them to the finished decking.
    “Living in California, I expect you’re a woman who spends regular time at a gym.”
    Cilla set the plank on her marks, braced the distance with spacers. “I like a good gym.”
    “Let me say working out’s worked out for you.”
    “I tend toward skinny otherwise. Rehab work helps the tone,” she continued, driving in the first nail. “But I miss the discipline of a good gym. Do you know any around here?”
    “As it happens, I do. Tell you what, you come on over when you’re finished up for the day. I’ll take you to see the gym, then we’ll have dinner.”
    “Maybe.”
    “You’re not the coy type. ‘Maybe’ means . . . ?”
    “It depends on when I finish up.”
    “Gym’s open twenty-four/seven.”
    “Seriously?” She flicked him a glance, then worked her way down the board with her nail gun. “That’s handy. I’ll adjust the maybe to probably.”
    “Fair enough. On the dinner end, are you vegetarian or fruititarian or some other ’tarian that requires restrictions on the menu?”
    Laughing, she sat back on her heels. “I’m an eatitarian. I’ll eat pretty much what you put in front of me.”
    “Good to know. Mind if I take a look inside, see what all the banging and sawing’s about? It’ll also give me the chance to rag on Matt about whatever comes to mind.”
    “Go ahead. I’d give you the tour, but my boss is a bitch about unscheduled breaks.”
    “Mine’s a pushover.” He stepped up, then bent down, sniffed at her. “First time I ever realized the smell of sawdust was sexy.”
    He stepped inside and said, “Holy shit.”
    He’d expected a certain amount of chaos, activity and mess. He hadn’t expected what struck him as a kind of maniacal destruction. There had to be a purpose behind it all, he thought, as Cilla struck him as firmly sane, but he couldn’t see it.
    Tools scattered over the floor in what hit his organized soul with dismay. How did anyone find anything? Cords snaked and coiled. Bare bulbs dangled. Sections of wall gaped where for reasons that escaped him someone had cut or hacked them out. The wide planks of the floor were patchworked with stained cloths and cardboard.
    Baffled, and slightly horrified, he wandered through, observing the same sort of mad bombarding in every room.
    He found Matt in one of them, curling blond hair under a red ball cap, tool belt slung, measuring tape at the ready. He gave Ford an easy smile, said, “Hey.”
    “You make this mess?”
    “Pieces of it. Boss lady’s got ideas. Good ones. That’s a woman who knows what she’s doing.”
    “If you say so. How’s Josie?”
    “Doing good. We got a picture of the Beast.”
    Ford knew the Beast was the baby Josie was currently carrying. Their two-year-old son had been the Belly.
    He took the sonogram shot Matt pulled out of his pocket, studied it, turned it and finally found the form. Legs, arms, body, head. “He looks like the other one did. Midget alien from Planet Womb.”
    “She. We just found out. It’s a girl.”
    “Yeah?” Ford glanced up at his friend’s huge grin, found his own spreading. “One of each species. Nice going.”
    “She’s not dating till she’s thirty.” Matt took the picture back, looked at it with love, then slipped it back into