And next to it all, like the period at the end of a sentence, was my own damn trophy from the last year I’d won the Lope—a trophy I’d given Ava as a memento a decade ago that I’d figured she’d destroyed, but which Mal had found and redeemed and made a part of the Thicket again.
In short, it was insane… and insanely beautiful.
Every component of the sculpture was necessary; everything was decorative and nothing was; every piece was an unlikely, integral part of the whole. It was ridiculous and over-the-top, maybe, when you looked at it from a distance, but up close, it was a melding of a whole bunch of semi-useful things into something better than any of them could ever have been on their own.
It was the embodiment of Licking Thicket. One man’s pile of junk and another man’s work of art.
I stared at it for a long minute with my jaw hanging open, and then I took out my phone and dialed a number.
“General Partridge?” I said a few minutes later when his assistant connected me. “Sir, I need a huge favor. Let me explain.”
Ten minutes after that, the General had not merely given us a good deal, he’d insisted on sponsoring the entire dinner dance for free. And agreed to be a guest of honor in the parade, to boot.
“I respect the hell out of a man who’s committed to his family and his town, Brooks. I’m happy to help out. And I’m real eager to see what you’ve been cookin’ up for my campaign too. Don’t suppose you could drop by today?”
“I’d love to, sir,” I said without hesitation. “But I can’t today.”
For once, there was no question in my mind about what and who my priority was. I knew exactly where I needed to be. And it just so happened to be exactly where I wanted to be, also.
“I can give you a sneak peek tomorrow, though,” I said, suddenly realizing the best way to placate the General would also help me do an end-run around Pamela. It wasn’t the sort of thing fair-and-moral Brooks Johnson would usually do, but I had a feeling it would be effective. “Maybe you can give me five minutes before the parade?”
“Tomorrow,” the General agreed. “I’ll see you then.”
I slid the phone away and swallowed, still staring at the sign.
Over and over again that week, I’d been shocked by the way Mal saw the real me—the responsibility and commitment I felt to the town, my need to do everything right, my frustration at not fitting in.
But looking at this piece of sculpture no one else in the world could have created, I realized it wasn’t just me he saw, it was all of Licking Thicket. Everything that made it crazy. Everything that made it home. And in doing so, Mal had shown me and all of us what made him so freakin’ special.
Now I needed to make sure he believed it too.
14
Mal
I’d only managed to catch an hour of sleep before the sun shined directly into my face through the tree house window and woke me back up. As soon as I awoke, my brain began spinning with too many thoughts, and I knew it was pointless to try and go back to sleep. Plus, I needed to clean up my mess in Mr. Ivey’s workshop before he wandered in there and thought he’d been ransacked.
After helping myself to a shower, a couple of granola bars from the Iveys’ pantry, and a big icy refill for my water bottle, I made my way back out into the morning sunshine. It was already hot as fuck which was another reason I knew it was pointless to try and keep sleeping in the tree house. Unfortunately for me, the guest accommodations didn’t boast any air-conditioning amenities, which meant my only hope of catching a bit more sleep later today would be begging Ava to sneak me into her bedroom for a nap.
I greeted a few cows gazing through the fence at me as I made my way to the workshop and slid open the big barn doors. Everything was exactly as I’d left it a couple of hours before. The coppery tang of metal was still heavy in the air, and seeing the remnants of my work made me unusually proud.
As I began putting tools away, I thought of Brooks for the millionth time, the way he felt when he’d held me close, the way he’d sounded when he’d begged for release, and the intense way he’d looked at me when he’d told me how much he’d wanted to kiss me…
I moved through my tasks with my head firmly lost in the events of the previous night, not realizing until it was too late that someone had entered the workshop.