Chapter 11
A gorgeous heap of manure was mingling with the turned earth in his garden now, and Mac was feeling cheerful. He liked the beginnings of things. And he’d grown to love doing things from the very beginning to the very end. It had been his salvation, pretty much.
He’d kind of lost his knack, if he’d ever possessed one, for fielding ambiguity. Or for addressing an onslaught of equal but incompatible feelings, like lust and hilarity, or affection and fury, like yearning and a sense of brutal competitiveness, like admiration and impatience. Avalon Harwood was a whole freaking noisy symphony of those things.
Taking refuge under a tractor that needed fixing seemed like a restful way to spend the next few hours.
He crawled beneath, happily tinkering, not thinking about much, until he slid partially out from beneath the tractor to reach for a different wrench.
A pair of little blue eyes were peering right down into his.
He jerked in shock and banged his head on the metal so hard it rang.
“Ow! Shit! Sorry!”
The eyes belonged to a little girl, wearing a green beret. She took a step back.
“Hi!” whoever this sprite was said brightly.
“Uh, hi yourself. Sorry about the swearing. You startled me. Whoever the he... whoever you are.” He rubbed his poor head.
“That’s okay. My grandpa swears a lot. He puts a nickel in the jar every time. My grandma says they almost have enough in that jar for an above-ground pool.”
Realization dawned. “Ah, you must be Avalon’s niece.” He knew Eden Harwood owned the flower shop downtown.
“Yep. My Auntie Avalon owns this big house here. I’m Eden’s daughter, and Glenn and Sherrie’s granddaughter, and Jude’s niece and Jesse’s niece, too.”
“That’s quite a family you got there.”
“I know!”
He couldn’t help but smile at her unfiltered delight in her good fortune to be loved by a lot of people. Even if his head was still ringing like one of John Bonham’s cymbals.
She bent down to peer under the tractor with a frown. “What seems to be the trouble?”
“Know a lot about tractor motors, do you?” He gave the lug nut a good twist.
“Nope, I just like to know stuff.”
“That sounds a lot like your Auntie Avalon. She thinks she knows eeeeeverything.” He gave a bolt a ferocious twist with a wrench.
“Auntie Ava is really smart. She’s got a head for business.”
“Don’t I know it,” he said grimly.
“I can play guitar. I can play G, C, and D now.”
Children and their non-sequiturs.
“I bet you can make a lot of songs with those three chords.”
Why was he making conversation? He gave the nut another ferocious twist.
“You wouldn’t believe how many! What’s your name? I’ll make up a song about you.”
“Mac,” he said. He knew it was a mistake but was frankly curious about what would happen next.
“Mac took a snack out of the shack and he told all the girls they betta jump back!Holla!”