Man With A Mission

“Hey!” Haley complained. “How’d you like an oak chair upside your head?”

Hank had reached the bottom of the stairs, but the hallway was too narrow for him to put the table down so they could catch their breath. He turned the bulky piece of furniture onto its side and aimed himself carefully out the door, angling the table so that Bart could follow with the legs at his end.

Snow flurried from a leaden sky, and Hank was instantly assailed by the cold of a western Massachusetts March afternoon, its harshness blunted by the delicious freshness of the air. Old snow crunched underfoot as he headed for the dark green van he’d bought to start his new life.

“Is this going to fit in there?” Bart asked, their pace considerably quickened now that they were outside.

“I measured it.” A former engineer for NASA, Hank checked and rechecked even the smallest detail of any project he undertook. He put down his end, climbed into the van, then reached out to pull the table in. He’d removed all the van’s seats to make room and now backed his way toward the driver’s seat as Bart lifted up on his end and pushed the table under the hatch door.

It was a snug fit. Bart took the chair from Haley and slipped it sideways between the table legs.

“Is this it?” Bart asked. “We’ve got a little room under the table. What about those files you had in boxes on the floor?”

Hank climbed over the front seat and let himself out the passenger door. Bart and Haley came around the side. “No, I’ll take those tomorrow. I’ve got to clean them out tonight. You guys go back to work and I’ll meet you for dinner at seven at the Yankee Inn.”

“I told you you don’t have to take us out to dinner,” Haley protested.

Bart had an arm around her and his thumb, Hank noticed, was unconsciously stroking the curve of her shoulder. In jeans and a fleece sweatshirt, her dark hair in one long braid and her cheeks pink from four hours of helping haul his office furniture up and down stairs, Haley looked about fourteen.

Bart had been good for her, Hank thought, though when he’d sent his friend to get her out of jail last August after a crisis on a space mission prevented Hank from leaving, he’d never imagined that his best friend and his little sister would fall in love. Haley still had the fearlessness that had encouraged her to challenge a crooked mayor and end up behind bars.

The sweetness she’d lost that fateful night five years ago when she and her fiancé had been attacked by thugs and he’d broken free and ran, abandoning her to her fate, was finally back. Thanks to the timely arrival on the scene of an off-duty policeman, she’d been rescued, though not before she’d lost her faith in men. But Bart had restored it. Hank saw implicit trust in her eyes when she looked into Bart’s face—as well as a hot, almost embarrassing passion that made Hank green with envy.

The lack of a personal life was part of the reason Hank had decided to come home to Maple Hill. NASA had hired him right out of the University of Southern California, and he’d spent the next fourteen years devoted to assisting in the exploration of space. One day six months ago, after he’d been up seventy hours when one of their space missions encountered a control problem, then finally landed safely, he realized he had no one to celebrate with. There were co-workers who understood the engineering problem and could share his happiness and relief that the astronauts were safely home. But there was no one who really knew what was in his heart.

He had girlfriends, party friends, who shared the intimacies of a bed without really caring about his thoughts and feelings.

He’d once believed that was freedom. Now he knew it was simply loneliness.

There was no one who knew about the warnings that filled his head—“You’re not as good as you think you are. You’ll fail just like the rest of us. But your high and mighty attitude will make you fall so far, you’ll dig a hole when you land.” No one who understood that every day was a struggle to live down the sound of his father’s words. No one who grasped the depths of his relief every time he proved the voice wrong.

Fortunately, an interest in electricity, which he’d probably inherited from his father, led him to a summer job working with an electrician in high school, and apprenticeship summers while he was in college. When he’d decided to change careers, getting licensed had been a simple thing, and his hobby turned into his livelihood.

“I want to take you out,” he insisted. “I couldn’t have managed all this in one day without you. Make sure you bring Mike.”

Mike McGee was a fifteen-year-old boy who helped Haley at the Maple Hill Mirror, the weekly newspaper she published. She and Bart had acquired custody of him when his mother went to jail.

“He’s got an overnight with some friends from the basketball team. The kids are going to have a booth during the Spring Festival. The coach and his wife are hosting them this weekend so they can plan their strategy. Eleven fifteen-year-old boys. Can you imagine?”

He couldn’t. Kids in general were not his forte. He liked them fine, he just thought every child deserved more tolerance and understanding than he felt capable of. They were mysterious little beggars, and he’d been an engineer. Specific rules applied to specific situations for specific results.

Even now that he was an electrician, the approach was the same. There was little mystery involved. If you held on to 120 volts, you fried. It was as simple as that.

“How are you going to unload this when you get to City Hall?” Bart asked, pointing to the table.

“Mom’s there, straightening things up for him,” Haley said with a grin. “She’ll just order the table to get inside on its own power.”

Bart laughed. “I can see that happening. But on the chance that doesn’t work…”

“Trent promised to stop by and help me,” Hank said, pushing the passenger door closed.

“Trent?” Haley asked.

“The plumber I hired yesterday. Seems like an all-right guy.”

“And what’s his story? Why is he joining your troupe of part-time tradesmen?”

“He’s getting his MBA from Amherst, but wants to work part-time. Says school’s too cerebral. He needs the hands-on work to stay grounded.”

“You’re sure you don’t want me to do a story on Whitcomb’s Wonders?” Haley asked for the fourth or fifth time. “It’d be good for business, and the public would love to know about a service that can fill any need out there at a moment’s notice. How many men do you have now?”

“Seven.” He didn’t have to stop to think. He was surprised himself by how good his part-time help idea was. He’d started the business at the end of September, and by Christmas had employed five men who were surprised and pleased by the notion of working part-time while they pursued other careers, cared for their children, went to school. Evan Braga, a house-painter, signed on in January, and now Cameron Trent rounded out a pretty impressive roster. “We can do wiring, plumbing, landscaping and gardening, furnace repair, janitorial work, insulation and house painting. But I doubt that any of my guys is anxious for publicity.”

Haley grinned. “It might get them girls,” she cajoled.

He rolled his eyes at Bart. “Why is it they think we have nothing else on our minds?”

“Maybe because trying to guess what they want,” Bart replied, “takes so much of our time and concentration.”

Haley punched Bart playfully in the stomach. “I’ve told you over and over. Full-time attention and expensive jewelry.”

Her wedding ring of pave diamonds flashed as she punched him, and Hank concluded that Bart must have gotten the message. Or else he loved her so much that what he couldn’t say with words, he spoke with diamonds.

“Thanks for the offer, Sis,” Hank said, walking around to the driver’s side. Bart and Haley followed him. “I’ll buy an ad instead to announce the opening of my new office.”

“Oh, all right, I’ll give you the ad.” She hugged him tightly. “A good half page in the TV section so it’ll be seen every day. Think about what you want in it. A photo of all of you would be good. We don’t have to go into details, just let the town see you have a competent force.”

“Okay. That sounds like a good idea. I’ll see how the men feel about it.” Hank shook hands with Bart, then climbed into the van. “See you at dinner. You’re sure you wouldn’t rather eat at the Old Post Road Inn? The menu’s a little more elegant than the Yankee.”

Bart opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Haley said, “The Yankee’s great. I’m in the mood for their pot roast.”

Bart sent him a subtle smirk over her head. She was as transparent as cling wrap. The Yankee Inn had been in Jackie Bourgeois’s family for generations. Her father had retired two years ago, leaving her in charge. Haley wanted them to bump into each other.

“The Yankee it is,” he said with a cheerful smile, pretending he had no idea what she had in mind. He’d studiously avoided Jackie for the six months he’d been home, afraid she’d see the feelings he couldn’t control, even though she’d broken his heart all those years ago. He didn’t want to care and never intended to do anything about it. He just couldn’t help that he did.

He’d run into her by surprise on only two occasions—once in the dentist’s office when he’d been walking out and she’d been walking in with two very grim-looking little girls in tow. He knew they were her daughters. Erica was ten, his mother had told him. And Rachel was six.

The second time was at the grade school when he’d been called in to replace a faulty light switch in the cafeteria. She’d been chatting cheerfully with other mothers who’d gathered there with classroom treats. He’d looked up at the sound of her laughter, startled and weirdly affected by the fact that though everything else about her had matured in the seventeen years since they’d been high-school sweethearts, that hadn’t. It was still high-pitched and infectiously youthful.

He’d also noticed her pregnancy. Her stomach was bulbous, her cheeks a little plumper than he remembered. But her strawberry-blond hair had looked like Black Hills gold, her complexion porcelain with a touch of rose.

The moment her eyes had met his, she’d disappeared into the pantry area, the swift turn of her back coldly adult.

She had no use for him. Which was fine with him. He had no feelings left for the woman who had loved him as though he was her whole world one moment, then refused to share her life with him the next. If she was at the Yankee Inn tonight, he was sure she’d be as eager to avoid him as he was to stay clear of her.

Comforted by that thought, he turned the key in the ignition, waved at Haley and Bart, and headed off toward downtown Maple Hill.

He was amazed by how comfortable he’d felt coming home to this quiet little Connecticut River valley after being away for so long. If Jackie Bourgeois didn’t live here, he thought, it’d be perfect.