Remember to Forget (26 page)

He smiled even as a memory pricked his consciousness.
Amy, trying to coerce Trev to lie down for his afternoon nap.

She appeared in the doorway, brushing off her hands.

“How long do you think that will last?”

She shrugged, then looked away quickly. But not before Trevor noticed her eyes were red rimmed and teary.

“Are you allergic to cats?”

“No.” She picked up her paintbrush.

Had she been crying? He scrambled to fill the awkward silence. “So you didn’t have much luck on your job search, huh?” His voice echoed through the open space, louder than he intended. And only after the words were out did he realize how they sounded. Good grief! Was this his idea of comforting a tearful woman? He was seriously out of practice.

But Meg climbed the ladder and resumed painting, as if nothing had passed between them. Maybe he’d only imagined the tears.

She painted for a minute before she turned to him from her perch on the ladder. “I have one job possibility,” she said, seeming perfectly composed again. “It’s only part-time though. Wren said I might have better luck looking on Monday.”

“That’s probably true. Did you try the Dairy Barn?”

She laughed. “Boy, that must be the hot place in town to work. I think everybody I talked to today suggested I apply there.”

“Probably because everybody knows they need good help. It’s the only place in town to get a decent cheeseburger, and right now they’ve got a bunch of irresponsible high-school kids working there. It takes them fifteen minutes to dip an ice-cream cone and twice that long to figure out how to make change for a ten.”

She laughed. “Hey, if it’s good ice cream, it might be worth the wait.”

“Oh, it’s good all right. Otherwise they would have been out of business a long time ago.”

She bit her bottom lip and fidgeted with the paintbrush handle. “You don’t need help at the print shop, do you? I have some graphic-art experience.”

“Really?” He stalled for a minute, pretending the strip of masking tape in his hand was taking all his concentration. He didn’t want to tell her that they could barely make payroll with the skeleton staff they had. “Where did you work in graphics?”

She didn’t answer for a minute but climbed down from the ladder to switch to the smaller brush. He was starting to think she hadn’t heard him.

But once she climbed the ladder again and resumed painting around the edges of a kitchen cabinet, she started talking as if no time had passed. “I’ve worked a couple of different places. My degree is in design, but I’ve done a little of everything. If you have
any
kind of opening, I’d be interested. I’ll answer phones or file or whatever. I’ll even clean the toilets if that’s what you need.” She giggled. “Do I sound desperate?”

“Maybe a little.” His grin melted to a sigh. “I wish I
could
hire you to clean the toilets because, right now, that’s my job.”

She laughed again. It had been a long time since he’d known the pleasure of making a woman laugh.

He frowned. “Unfortunately, we don’t have the money to hire anybody right now.” Then, without prompting, an idea materialized in his mind. “You know what?”

She stopped painting in midstroke, a gleam of curiosity in her eyes.

Why hadn’t he thought of this before? “Listen, Bart and Wren are paying me a pretty decent wage to do this remodeling job. But I need to finish it up before the back-to-school jobs start coming in at the print shop. If you could keep on and just do the painting for me, and maybe help out with some finishing work later, I’d pay you.”

Meg’s face lit like a jack-o’-lantern. “Seriously?”

The idea took on a life of its own, and his enthusiasm gave his words steam. “Yes, I’m dead serious. I can only work in the evenings, but if you can get the painting done during the day, I’d be able to get to the other stuff a lot quicker. It would help us both out. Have you ever hung wallpaper?”

She shook her head, and her expression revealed she was afraid her negative answer was going to cancel the whole deal.

“Hey, neither have I. But Wren talked about putting up a border of some kind out here.” He spun on his heel, panning the walls, trying to imagine. “I don’t know that I’m crazy about the idea, but Wren thinks she wants one.”

“What about stenciling—or a painted border? I did an ivy vine sort of thing in my sister’s bathroom, and it turned out great . . . if I do say so myself.” She balanced her paintbrush across the can of paint. Leaning out over the ladder, she pointed at the arched doorway. “Can’t you see something with vines twining over the doorway—morning glories maybe? Lavender would look wonderful against this sunny yellow.”

He could envision what she suggested, and it sounded nice. If she were any good, the artistic element could add a unique flair to the décor. But what if she was terrible? He had a vision of the wall of drawings the day-care kids did. He’d better give himself an out before he got in too deep. “I think it’s a great idea, but I don’t know how set Wren was on wallpaper. We’ll talk it over with her when she gets back. Maybe you could do a sketch for her first. But I know she’ll do backflips over the idea of you helping with the painting.”

They both laughed at the image he’d created of Wren, and Meg clapped her hands together at his idea, making him think again of that little girl at Disneyland.

“This is fantastic,” she said. “How long do you think it’ll take to finish all this?”

He did some quick calculations in his head and spread his arms to encompass the dining area. “I’ll finish taping and drag all this extra drywall and stuff out of here tonight so you can start painting first thing Monday.”

“Oh, no need to wait until Monday. I could start first thing tomorrow morning!”

He wagged his head. “Huh-uh. That’ll never fly.”

A quizzical look came to her eyes. “Because they have guests?”

“It’s not that. Bart and Wren would never go for you working on Sunday.”

“Oh, I don’t mind. Honestly.”

He puffed up his cheek, trying to think how to explain. “I don’t think you understand. Sunday is the Sabbath. A day of rest. Bart and Wren are sticklers about that.”

She nodded slowly, but he could tell from her expression that she didn’t really understand.

“But even so, if you can get it all painted in a couple of days—say by Tuesday night, I can do the trim work in two evenings, maybe three, while you work on the border. I don’t know how fast you paint, but we could have the whole thing done and cleaned up before next weekend.”

“Oh. That soon?” She deflated a bit. “Well . . . sure. Count me in.”

He studied her. Obviously her expectations had been very different from reality. And he hoped she wasn’t expecting California wages for this job. “Sorry. I wish it was more hours, but I’m just being realistic. And Kansas wages might be a bit of a shock to you after living on the West Coast.”

“Oh, no . . . I didn’t expect . . .” She became preoccupied with a hangnail. “I didn’t mean to seem ungrateful. I’m very glad for the work. And maybe by the time we’re finished, I’ll have heard from the gallery.”

Trevor’s hand stilled on the wall he was taping. “The gallery?”

She nodded. “That’s the possibility I was talking about. The owner said he might have work for me. Of course, it would only be part-time, but at least—”

“You mean Linder’s?”

“Yes.” She pointed to the north. “Just up the street.”

He nodded. “I know where you mean.”

Old feelings came roaring back. He tried to push them down, but they left a bitter taste in the back of his throat.

“Mr. Linder didn’t promise anything but said he might have some part-time work.”

Trevor swallowed hard and turned back to his taping. Was this some kind of test? He’d squared things with Jack a long time ago. He truly had. And maybe Meg really could make a difference with the gallery. Coming from a metropolitan area, she’d probably have some fresh ideas. And maybe this was a chance for Jack to get his life straightened out.

But didn’t he owe it to Meg to at least caution her? Yet what kind of friend did that?

And then there was Wren. He wouldn’t hurt her for the world. Still, Meg had become a friend too. And if she was going to be helping him out here . . .

He raked a dusty hand through his hair. Meg Anders hadn’t been here a week, and she was already tying his life in knots.

She’d invented a whole new background for herself, but it was getting harder and harder to keep her stories straight.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

T
here was something about Jackson Linder that wasn’t being said. Maggie had wondered at Wren’s reaction earlier, and now Trevor had that same sour-lemon expression. What was it they weren’t telling her?

“What . . . what would you be doing . . . in the gallery?”

Trevor kept his back to her, but Maggie didn’t miss the ferocity in his motions as he ripped a length of masking tape from the roll.

“I don’t know yet. Maybe cleaning toilets.” She waited for the laugh she’d hoped to elicit, but it didn’t come. “I’d be helping out with the business stuff so he can concentrate on his painting.”

Trevor gave a noncommittal grunt and turned back to the window sill he was taping.

“So you know Mr. Linder?”

“Oh, I know him.”

He and Wren were reading from the same script. Maggie laid her brush on the top of the ladder and climbed down. Trevor was on his knees taping the wide woodwork beneath the window sill. She crossed the room and stood behind him until he glanced up at her.

He rocked back on his heels. “Do you need something?”

Arms akimbo, she studied him. “Is there something I should know about Mr. Linder?”

He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “What do you mean?”

“You tell me. You and Wren both started acting weird when his name came up. Like there’s some reason you’re not too thrilled with me taking that job at the gallery.”

“You said it wasn’t for sure.”

“No. But if it was, is there anything you’d be telling me?”

He rose to his feet. “Jack is a friend of mine, Meg. We go way back. I don’t know if it’d be right for me to—”

“What? What is it?”

“It’s just . . .” His work boot rubbed a trail through the layer of dust on the floor. “Jack’s had some rough times in recent years. He’s . . .”

She waited while he gnawed the inside of his cheek and shifted from one foot to the other, painting in the dust with the other foot now.

“Jack went through some bad times, and he hasn’t handled it well. He . . . drinks too much and . . . well, I’ve said enough.” He lowered his voice. “The thing is, I don’t know where he’d get the money to pay you. As far as I know, he hasn’t sold a painting since before—let’s just say business isn’t booming at the gallery, and what money he has gets spent on booze.”

So she
had
smelled liquor on his breath. “Is that his only business?”

“It is now.”

She wasn’t sure how to interpret that, but before she could ask him what he meant, the bells on the front door jangled. Trevor looked to Maggie, as if she would know who it was.

“Wren got guests this afternoon. A big group. That’s probably them.”

“Really?” Trevor pushed off the floor and stood. “I don’t think they had reservations. At least Wren didn’t say anything. Well, hey, that’s great.”

Maggie started toward the door. “I’ll go see if they need anything.”

Out in the lobby, she stopped short when she saw Bart and Wren bent over the front counter, sorting through a jumble of Wal-Mart bags. “Oh, it’s you. You’re home early, aren’t you? I thought you were going to see a movie.”

Wren looked up. Her eyes were puffy and her cheeks ruddier than usual. But she offered Maggie a smile, and her voice came out as chipper as always. “We decided not to. We’re not really movie people.”

Bart rubbed the palm of his hand in circles on his wife’s back. Wren smiled up at him and leaned into his caress, all at once looking like she might cry.

“Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine,” Wren said, suddenly intent on digging in a shopping bag.

Maggie took a step forward, wishing she could think of something to say or do. “Can I help put things away?”