Cracked Foundations

I remembered how thin she'd been when we'd first met and realized she had put a little weight back on. I meant that in the best way, because it only added to her curves.

This woman was truly lovely.

I realized it was also that the normal tension she carried was not there. She was at peace. I had a sudden desire to pull back out the driveway. To just drive around for hours to let her sleep. To let her have as much time without worry as she could. To protect her from the world.

As my mind tried to analyze that thought I shut off the key. The sudden silence had the effect that I knew it would. She woke up. Even as her eyes were blinking open, I saw that tension settle back on her. The little wrinkle above her eyes came back. A determination to not only find the cause of that but to put an end to it came to me then.

"We're here," I told her unnecessarily, just to have something to say. "Come on, sleepy head, lets get to work."

"What are we fixing today?" she asked when I opened my door.

"Nothing."

To her open-mouthed look, I just smiled and started grabbing tools from the box on the back of my truck. I arranged them all on the tail gate.

"If we're not fixing things, why am I up so early?" she asked after a moment of silence.

"Plug this in and I'll tell you." I handed her an extension cord. Enjoying the look I got, I slid my tool bag in next to the power tools and then pulled a few of the two-by-fours up as well while she was away. When she walked back up she had the end of the cord in her hand like she was considering beating me with it.

"Okay, do-it-yourself school is now in secession. I'm your teacher, Mr. Duncan, but you can call me Stan. If you're feeling more daring you can call me Stan-the-Man, a lot of my regular workers do. Alright, the first thing we are going to learn about today—"

"Are you serious?"

"Very." I stopped fooling around. "You have a house to rebuild. Your house. The house you will live in the rest of your life, maybe. You have to know how to do everything that is needed to make that happen. You will be using every tool you see here."

Her eyes looked over the selection of rather scary-looking power tools laying on my tailgate. I saw the slight uncertainty I had been looking for flash across her face. The fear of the unknown.

"Now, the first thing you have to learn is not to be afraid of them. To respect them, yes, they deserve that, but not fear them." I picked up the Saws-All.

"That thing looks dangerous," she said, giving it a wary look.

"Oh, it is. Very." I smiled. "You know what it also is? Nothing more or less than a big electric carving knife. No different than one you would use in the kitchen to cut up a chicken or to carve a roast." I turned the tool in my hand to show it to her. "No different, just bigger and stronger. Now you wouldn’t think you could pick up one of those and immediately use to carve with right? You would make a mess of your dinner with it. This is the same."

Setting it down, I reached into my tool bag and puled out a pair of safety glasses.

"Don't ever plug in a power tool without putting these on. Make it a habit. If you start right now it won't be one you have to learn to do latter like some of my guys. I spend hours out of every week telling people to put their glasses on."

Maybe it was because I'd seen her wear glasses so often when she was reading something, but she made glasses look sexy.

"I'm going to start you learning the circular saw first." I told her, plugging it in. "You know why?"

"Because it's the hardest to learn?"

"Nope. It's one of the easiest. But it's also the loudest and the scariest-looking." I reached for the tape measure on my hip then stopped. "Please tell me you can read a ruler?"

"Of course!"

"Just checking, not everyone can. Now, the beams under your houses, the ones we are going to be replacing? They are, for the most part, fourteen foot eight inches. That is not a standard length, so we are going to have to cut every beam you put in. Or, spend more money and have a saw mill special cut them." I laid a hand on my saw. "This one just costs time."

She looked at the saw with its round blade and jagged edges. I saw her close her eyes take a deep breath and sigh. The half nod was all I needed.

"Alright. Safety glasses on. Plug it in and let's get familiar with how it sounds and works."

Working first with the saw, then through my list of other power tools, she and I spent the day together pretty much there by the back of my truck. I taught her to handle them not with fear but with a respect for what they were and could do. Then, when I was sure she was used to what it sounded like, I let her make a few thousand trial cuts. I could at times see her patience wearing thin as I had her cut the same thing over and over on the scraps of wood, but she didn't complain.

After two hours she had it, and we started cutting floor joists. I would measure them once, then let her measure them, then she cut them to length.

I began to notice as we worked just how wonderful she smelled when she was a little sweaty. The perfume that was her normal scent began to heighten. I also noticed just how close we had to get for me to show her what to do. I all but held her hand to teach her how to hold the saw right, or where to place a mark for cutting.

I think she began to notice it as well. She would lean into me a little when I stood next to her. Her arm would touch mine, her head turn a bit till it was closer to my face. At one point I turned to find her lips just inches from my own.

It was in the middle of this that a charcoal gray Nissan pulled into the driveway. The guy who got out made the construction worker in me flinch. He had the look of either an architect or an OSHA safety inspector. Neither of which is a person a construction worker wanted to see; trouble always followed them around.

He walked up carrying a clipboard, another bad sign. "Mrs. Natalie Reynolds?"

"Yes? Though it's Miss." She took off the safety glasses and let them go; they dropped to the ground when they weren't on the chain she wore her normal glasses on.

He bent down to get them before I could. I noticed him checking her out on the way back up. Not that I can blame him or any man—Natalie had a very nice body—but something about him made me want to punch him on general principle.

"I'm Bill Norman, with the Historic society." He held out her glasses.

Ah, that explained it.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Norman. What can I help you with?" she asked. She toyed with her glasses, a nervous gesture, I guessed.

He looked at the piles of saw dust under our feet and the stack of lumber nearby.

"I need to take a look at the construction work, get photos of before and after, and if you could give me his number I need to talk to your general contractor." He checked the clipboard. "A Stanley Duncan?"

"Stan, and that would be me." I held out my hand to him. Mostly because I knew I had some hand sanitizer in the car.

"Oh. Well, nice to meet you as well, Mr. Duncan. My office needs a list of your building credentials with regards to historic building, for our records, and of course several references to check on the quality of your work in such buildings." He pulled a business card from the top of his clipboard and handed it over to me. "Now, I see you're using modern wood. Why not reuse the original lumber?"

"Because most of it is either warped from water or dry rotted to unusable conditions," I told him after a second to get my temper back into check.

"Why not saw milled wood then? That would be far closer to the original timbers for a house of this historic age."

I hid a sigh. It was going to be a long day.

Natalie

Stan was a good teacher. I'd learned more about what went into building and rebuilding and renovating houses than I ever thought I would, or could. We'd been at it for weeks and I felt like we'd turned a corner with the house; we were starting put it back together instead of constantly taking things apart and knocking them down. Every day I felt a little better, and everything that had happened in New York receded a little more.

I was nervous about handling the tools, but Stan was confident about my ability to use them, and it rubbed off after a while. Once I was used to them, I found I enjoyed them. There was something about holding and controlling that kind of power that made me grin. No wonder men liked power tools.

As we worked with the wood, we would talk, then not, then talk some more. Stan was easy to talk to, and neither of us minded when the conversation stopped for a while. He didn't mind my questions, no matter how basic. It was novel to talk to a man who listened, as opposed to one who pretended to listen and then talked over me.

It went fine until Bill Norman showed up. I didn't like him, and I could tell Stan didn't either. Norman had that condescending manner people sometimes get when they know they have a little power over you. I'd had enough of that in New York, thanks, and couldn't wait until he was gone.

He questioned us on a lot of things, starting with the wood, and I answered what I could but had to let Stan handle a lot of it. I felt bad, because I didn't mean to put him on the spot like that, but I just didn't know enough to answer the questions.

Thank god, he finally left.

While we took a break, my cell phone chirped. I saw the number and bit my lip, unsure whether to answer, but I could only ignore so much. Stan gave me a puzzled look, but I just shook my head.

"Hello." I closed my eyes and took a breath. "Yes, I know who you are. No, I am not going to withdraw my complaint. Because it's the truth, that's why. No, I don't want to—all right, fine, I'll read it. Goodbye."

"What was that, if you don't mind me asking," Stan said after I disconnected.

"That was the past intruding on my present," I answered.

"Want to talk about it?"

"Thanks, but not right now. I'd rather concentrate on the house."

We kept working but talked less. I kept replaying the phone call in my head, wondering what I should do. Stan looked at me a couple of times, and I knew he was curious, but I just didn't want to talk about it at the time.

Later that evening, I took Stan up on an offer of dinner on his grill. I was all knotted up inside from the phone call, and if I'd gone back to the apartment alone I would have been up all night thinking about it. Company, especially Stan's company, was the much-preferred alternative.

"You make terrific hamburgers," I told him.

"Glad you enjoyed them." He handed me a beer, my second of the night, and we both sat back and looked up at the stars. The heat didn't seem so bad at night.

"I wanted to say thanks, for earlier," I said.

"What do you mean?"

"After that phone call, I appreciated that you didn't press me for details."

"Wasn't my business," he said with a shrug. Then he frowned. "I didn't quite mean it that way, Natalie. I mean, I'm curious and I want to help, but I won't pry."

"Thanks." I reached over and squeezed his arm. "I understood."

We fell silent again, both busy with our own thoughts and beers. I finished mine and reached for a third. I was feeling a pleasant buzz; a sense of relaxation and comfort. Stan looked at me a couple of times, stroking his beard as he did and I wondered what he was thinking.

"So, do you want to know what the call was about?" I asked after a while.

"I do, if you want to tell me," he said.

"It's just one part of a larger story. I'll try to keep it short."

He chuckled. "No need for that. We have time."

I gave a small laugh myself. "I'm tired of telling it; I'll keep it short for my sake."

This time his laugh was deeper. "Then by all means, tell me your short story."

I took another swig of beer before I started. "I have a business degree, and worked for this big company. One of those big 'corporations' that does a little bit of everything, fingers in lots of pies. Anyway, I was doing well, I liked my job and all of that. Then I found an error.

"I did everything I was supposed to do: I researched, I documented, I corroborated. When I was ready, I took it to my boss. Big mistake."

"Why's that?" Stan's voice was quiet and sincere.

"Because suddenly it was my fault." I drank some more. "How could I have let this happen? Why had my work fallen off? If I had been paying attention, it wouldn’t have happened. I protested, because it wasn't my fault, and went to my boss' boss, and it got worse."

"Worse how?"

"They made it look like it was my fault, and they were relentless. I was disciplined, and threatened with being fired or at least demoted. Every time I tried to go to somewhere else, higher up or even outside the company, I was blocked. The stress was so bad I started to get sick, to lose weight. I got depressed and it was so upsetting because I'd never been like that before.

"When I thought it couldn't get worse, two things happened." I drained my bottle. "First, my boss propositioned me. Told me if I slept with him, and maybe with his supervisor, I could keep my job." I scoffed. "Like I wanted it at that point; I was about to quit since I couldn't take it anymore."

"What did you do?"

"I said no and I quit and I was about to go hide in my apartment for a while. But there was one bright spot, when another woman came to me and said she'd been through something similar, just not on as large a scale. She had documented everything as well, and was willing to come forward now, with me. So we did, and that changed some things."

Stan was quiet, probably digesting everything I'd said. Hell, I still found myself processing it, months later, and I'd been there while it happened.

"All right," he said, "then what?"

"It still wasn't easy. I did quit, like I said, but working with the other woman made it easier to defend myself. A couple of other women came forward as well. But that doesn't pay, and finding a job is hard, even in my industry and with my experience, and now my baggage. Then Uncle Jimmy died and I found out about the house and, well, it seemed like the best thing I could do. Just dump everything and come down here, throw myself into something completely different." I smiled and gave a rueful laugh. "It worked for a while."

"What was the phone call about?"

"They offered a settlement. A good one, too. But I'm not sure I feel right about taking it. I could use the money, don't get me wrong, but it feels like a sell out after everything that's happened. There are non-disclosure terms, they won't admit anything, that kind of stuff. After all I've been through, it doesn't seem like I should take money and shut up."

"No one would think badly of you if you did," Stan said after a moment. "I know I wouldn't. You did what you could, and some people could see the money as a reward."

"I know." I appreciated his take on it, and his support. "I'm just not sure. Plus, I don't want to mess anything up for anyone else. The other women could use the money, too, I’m sure. They're sending me the terms. I'll read them. Can't hurt, I guess."

"Nope, can't hurt." I looked over and saw Stan nod, silhouetted by the moonlight. Whether it was the beer, or the emotion, I didn't know, but I at that moment, all I wanted was Stan.

Natalie, you are almost drunk enough to do something stupid, I thought, and got up before I could embarrass myself. That was easier said than done, given the beers. Stan chuckled and helped me to my feet as I took a minute to get my balance.

"You're a cheap date," he said. "Three beers and look at you."

"I would, but I'd probably see two of me," I kidded.

"Then let's get you up to bed. Take some water and some aspirin, let's keep that hangover to a minimum."

I laughed. "I'm not that bad, I don't think, but okay."

Stan put an arm around me and I leaned into him, more for the desire to be near him than any need to stay upright. Ever the gentleman, he walked me up the steps to the apartment door.

"Thanks, again, for everything," I said as he opened the door.

"You're welcome." He put his hands on my arms, studied me for a moment, then leaned in to kiss me. I met him half way

He released my arms and slid his hands up to my shoulders and then around me. I hesitated just a moment before wrapping my arms around him as well. He felt solid and warm, and my body responded.

I wanted those strong hands on me with nothing between us. I wanted his body on top of mine, skin to skin. In that moment, I didn't think I'd ever wanted anyone as much as I wanted him.

A trace of cologne only enhanced the masculine smell of him and heightened my desire. His tongue traced my lips and I opened mine with a moan of pleasure. I ran my hands over his back, the muscles moving and tensing under my touch. I heard him groan deep in his throat and he slid a hand up to tangle in my hair, holding me so I couldn't get away.

We were both breathing hard when we broke the kiss, and I didn't know what to do next. I wanted to tell him to come in with me, but I wasn't sure I should. Stan was old-fashioned in some ways, and I didn't know what he'd think about a woman who made that kind of move first. With a moment to think, I realized I wasn't entirely sure if it was the best move.

"Good night, Natalie," he said.

"Good night."

He nodded and went down the steps. I wanted to call him back, but didn't and went inside.

I got ready for bed with Stan on my mind the whole time. I hadn't been kissed like that in longer than I could remember. I replayed the evening while I showered and changed, remembering the way he looked, sounded, smelled. Even after the shower, I imagined I could still smell the musky, spicy scent of him.

My imagination went into overdrive as I lay in bed, wishing I'd had the courage to ask him to be there with me. I wanted more of his touch, more of him. My thoughts kept going, picturing him next to me, his hands on my body, mine on his, and more.

None of helped me sleep. After a few moments of tossing and turning, I gave in and used my own hands, imagining they were Stan's. It didn't take long to reach a point of crying out his name while heat and warmth rushed through me.

At last, satisfied for the moment, I turned over and fell asleep.

Another weekend rolled around and we kept working. Stan was happier than he'd been in a while because Rowena was there. I liked to see them together. They got along well, better than I ever had with my parents, and it was fun to watch. She came along with us to help on the house, and it was nice to have another female along for once.

"Hey, Natalie?"

I looked up at the opening in my ceiling to see Stan's daughter's head upside down to my view. "Yes, Rowena?"

"Dad wants to know if you have a bikini."

I could see her lips trying not to twitch. "And why does he need to know that?" No sooner were the words out my mouth than Stan's shiny head appeared next to his daughter's.

"Because, if you're going to stand around like a fashion model you need to dress like one." He gave me that crooked grin of his.

I stuck my tongue out at him. He returned the gesture.

"Children!" Rowena shook her head.

"He started it!" I complained with a grin of my own.

"Did not, it was her!" He pointed his finger at me.

Rowena shook her head and moved back from the opening.

"Don't make me turn this house around, you two." I heard one of his guys say, from up in the attic over the sound of hammering.

Stan grinned down at me. "I need four two-by-six beams, cut to twelve foot nine-and-a-half. If you please."

"I'll go get your wood," I said in a sultry voice.

"Hey did you hear that," one of his guys called out. "Natalie's going to get wood for Stan."