Best Laid Plans (Garnet Run 2)

Clive traced the lines of gold in the Formica tabletop with his fingertip like he was tracing a map of the past.

“He was a proud man. Stubborn as hell too.”

Charlie let out a muffled snort that seemed to draw an obvious comparison.

“What was their problem?”

“I don’t think it was just one thing,” Clive said. “Way he talked about your daddy, though. Phew. Made him sound like a—” Clive cut himself off with a cough. “Well now, what do I know.”

Rye imagined that if his grandfather hadn’t gotten along with his father, that only spoke well of Granger.

“My dad and I don’t get along,” Rye offered. “If that helps.”

“Made him sound like a man with little patience for lives lived a different way than his own,” Clive concluded diplomatically.

If he wasn’t careful, his father’s poisonous words leaked into his mind from time to time. His intolerance. His righteous belief that he was right and everything about Rye was wrong. The things he’d said echoed sometimes, when Rye was down or tired or scared. As did the things his mother hadn’t said. Like anything to the contrary.

“Yeah, he’s a fucking asshole,” Rye agreed.

Clive nodded.

“Sorry to hear that. You don’t seem like you caught the disease.”

Rye smiled. “I’m probably an asshole in my own way.”

Charlie muffled a snort, and then schooled his face diplomatically.

Clive smiled. “It’s a wise man who knows he’s an asshole.”

Rye lifted his coffee and toasted the sentiment.

“I’ll leave you to your lunch, gentlemen.”

Clive unfolded his tall form from the booth, knees creaking. He dropped a hand on Rye’s shoulder. “I’m glad to meet you, son. I hope I’ll see you around town.”

Rye’s heart started to pound.

“Wait. Maybe—” he said, reaching out a hand. “Would you want to meet up again sometime? It’s just, I’d love to hear more about my grandfather.”

Clive’s eyes softened and he gave a single nod.

“I’d like that.”

Before Rye could fumble out his phone or hand him a pen, Clive slipped a hand in his pocket and placed a card on the table in front of Rye.

He nodded at Charlie, then turned and strode purposefully away, leaving Rye blinking after him.

Chapter Twelve

Rye

“Listen, I need you to be polite.”

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah, like that.”

Rye rolled his eyes. They were pulling into the parking lot at Matheson’s Hardware for his first shift.

“I meant—”

“Rye. This is my business. I’m not kidding. I know you’re not the small talk type and you’ve got that whole ruthless honesty thing going on, but this is a small, tight-knit town. People know each other and they know my place. They expect politeness. They expect to be greeted. They expect help if they want it.”

Rye tamped down his automatic bristle.

“Of course.”

“Today you can just observe, help out. Marie and I will show you things as we go along. I’ll probably mostly have you at the register, since Marie knows all about our inventory.”

“Okay.”

Rye liked the way Marie went about her business and let him go about his. She was completely professional with customers, but seemed to lack any sense of obligation to make others feel comfortable at any cost.

“Don’t try to get her to talk if she doesn’t want to, okay?”

“Obviously.”

God, what kind of asshole did Charlie think he was?

“Even getting to know you questions. She won’t like it.”

“Yeah that’s pretty clear.”

“Okay, good.” But apparently Charlie couldn’t help himself. “Just, even if you think you’re being polite—”

“Charlie. I would never force someone to talk when they obviously don’t want to. I’ve lived with a million different kinds of people, so I’m pretty good at picking up on their personalities. And although you seem to think I need a Politeness For Dummies book, I have worked in customer service since I was sixteen. I swear I won’t embarrass you.”

Charlie regarded him intently, then nodded.

“Okay.”

* * *

Matheson’s hardware. Oasis to the handy. to Rye, a hell of one thousand kinds of nails and noncomputerized cash registers.

Marie showed him the combination of buttons to push for the fifth time after the register spat out an itemized scroll of his failures.

Her raised eyebrow clearly said, I thought you told me you’d used a cash register before?

“The ones I’ve used were all manufactured after the invention of the World Wide Web,” Rye grumbled.

After that, Marie set him to sorting out screws that had gotten mixed up with screws of a different size. It was tedious but blessedly free of cash registers.

“You’re that Janssen boy,” a man said behind him.

Rye was pretty sure that this was one of those moments Charlie had mentioned where friendliness and politeness were expected so he made his face neutral before turning around.

“Guilty,” he said.

“What are you going to do with Granger’s place?”

“I’m gonna fix it up,” Rye said. “Did you know my grandfather?”

“I knew Granger.”

Rye waited, but no further information seemed to be forthcoming.

“Okay. Uh, can I help you find anything?”