“How did you figure this was a workshop?” Allan asked as he helped me to carry a thick plank of wood. “I think this might be teak.”
“How would you know that?” I asked. To me, wood was wood.
“It looks like it. The color reminds me of furniture my mom has. She has a lot of Mid-Century teak stuff.”
The color was a warm, orangey hue. We could see the color because at Ruby’s snarky request, I put in a few LED work lights so we could see what we were actually doing.
“I vaguely remember being told that some of the pieces of old furniture I had grown up with were made by a great-grandfather, or something like that. Like I said, it’s a vague memory. But what clinched it for me” —we dropped the plank onto a growing pile of larger rough, unrefined pieces— “is that system up there.”
I pointed up. There were several flywheels and ratty looking scraps that I assumed were rotted out belts from a line shaft system.
“Fuck me, that’s old shit. Like old, old. You think that still works?” Allan stared up with a squint.
I shrugged. “Basic machines can keep working as long as all the parts are there and not busted up. It would be interesting to restore the mechanics. I could probably sell the whole workshop to some collector at that point. I looked it up. The system is very simple. The shaft rotates and drives the flywheels of different machines. There could be all kinds of table saws, bench grinders, drills, who knows? Maybe even a lathe or other specialty tools.”
“Would you even know what a lathe is if you saw one?” Allan chuckled.
“Probably not. But until we can get this cleared out, I wouldn’t have any idea what’s really in here.” I continued to look up at the system. Based on the flywheels, I guessed there were at least four big pieces of equipment.
“Yeah, I hear you. Did they just shove everything from the house in here when they left?”
“It certainly seems like it. I don’t know, there is still an awful lot of old furniture in the house. I haven’t even started with the attic.”
Allan looked out the open barn doors at the house. “Is there a cellar?”
“At least one. I found it when I went searching for the furnace.”
“You have radiators. It’s a boiler system, right?” he asked.
“Exactly. It fired up good to go, right away.”
“It doesn’t do a very good job. Your house is cold as fuck. At least my room is.”
“That house is old as fuck. Remind me to take a look at your radiator later. My room and the downstairs get decently warm.”
“That house is going to be really something when you’re done with it,” he said.
I nodded. It was. The question that had been lingering in the back of my mind whether I was going to keep it or not was settled now. At least as far as I was concerned. Maybe I should focus on the house and not the barn.
If I wanted someone else to move into the house with me—Allan didn’t count—it needed to be in better condition. For starters, I should make sure all the radiators were functioning, and then get the furniture that is held together by dust and spiders out of the house.
“I’m wasting my time out here, aren’t I?” I asked. I was mostly thinking out loud.
“Is that an existential question, or something more specific?” Allan asked for clarification.
“Maybe a little of both.” I chuckled. “I was just wondering if maybe I should be focusing on working on the house.”
“So, why are we out here?” Allan asked.
“Because every time I turn around, I need a tool. Like a crowbar, or a screwdriver. I’m at the hardware store every other day. You know, that’s how I met Ruby, and then Kenzie.”
“You met Ruby at the hardware store? What was a thirteen-year-old doing at the hardware store? And she introduced you to her sister? That kid is the best wingman you could ask for. They don’t have another sister they’re hiding, do they?”
I laughed. I really hadn’t thought of Ruby as my wingman, but if she hadn’t fallen… it’s not like I would have walked in the Burger Jeff on my own.
“I never made it to the hardware store that day. Ruby wiped out in front of the truck. I scraped her off the pavement and took her to the ER. That’s when she broke her wrist. I had no idea her older sister was as beautiful as she is.” Kenzie was more than beautiful. She was fierce and determined. She struggled but tried really hard to not let Ruby see how unhappy it made her. And yet, she never hid the reality of their situation from Ruby, turning every misunderstanding into a learning opportunity. Kenzie was amazing in every way.
“What?” I turned back to Allan. “You say something?”
“I said you really like her.”
“Yeah, I think I do,” I admitted.
“You should know about the old guy bothering her at work, if you don’t know about him already.”
I groaned. I brushed my hand through my hair. “Yeah, I know about him.”
“You want me to arrange an accident for him?”
I started to laugh but stopped and stared at Allan. Allan had been a party boy out on deployment. He played hard and he fought hard. Maybe too hard. He enjoyed all of it. I thought a lot of that would have changed after the incident.
Maybe it had, maybe it hadn’t. I wouldn’t have let him stay if I didn’t trust him. After all, my previous self was capable of dangerous actions. I’m sure I could easily tap into that part of me again if needed.
“I’ll take care of things with Mac. He’s more of a pest than a threat. Thanks for the heads up.”
“Kenzie really seemed bothered by him.”
Something clenched in my chest. Allan had gotten to see her today and I hadn’t. She may have been in my bed last night, but she and Ruby were up and out before I woke up.
“Hey, give me a hand with this shelf,” Allan said. The topic of Mac was already gone and forgotten.
“Don’t pull, it looks like it’s stuck under—”
There was a crack, and then a rumble.
“Fuck!”
A cloud of dust swirled up into the air, and then the rumble got louder.
“Oh, shit!” Allan jumped back out of the way and the shelving unit collapsed.
He was on his ass and scrambling back as things continued to topple down. I got him under his armpits and dragged him out of the way.
“You good?” I asked.
He sat there nodding.
I panted from the adrenaline spike. “That was close.”
I peered past the pile of rubble. “Check this out. There is a whole room back here.”
I moved stuff around so I could climb past it into the room the collapse exposed. No wonder the barn felt jam-packed. A row of shelves, or maybe it had been a wall, created the smaller front space that someone had filled with everything Allan, Ruby, and I had already spent hours clearing away.
“What the hell?” Allan asked.
I turned back. He was back on his feet and watching me as I wandered around in the large, open space. Tarps covered several objects. I peeled one back. Dust launched into the air. I coughed and covered my mouth before pulling it back further. It was a piece of furniture. I removed another tarp from a second piece of furniture. “This must be stuff my grandfather never finished. This is really nice work.”
Allan managed to climb over into the room. He ran his hand over the top of the first piece. “Did you see the inlay work done on this? Your grandfather did some amazing work. How come none of the furniture in the house is this nice?”
“That’s a good question. The house had been sitting empty for quite a while when I got here. I think it’s been at least twenty years since it had tenants. Maybe there were more pieces. Maybe that’s what got moved to the East Coast all those years ago.”
I continued to run my hands over the dresser I had uncovered. It wasn’t a heavy, chunky piece. There was a Victorian delicacy about it. It was feminine.
“Do you know anything about woodworking? What would it take to finish this?”
“I know more than you do, but I don’t have a clue about how to finish something like this. Or how to use these tools. Holy shit, Major, you were right. There was a workshop back here.”
If I were going to finish anything, I think I needed to get the workshop cleaned up and in working order.
And to think, I was ready to put a halt to the current project and turn everyone’s attention to getting the house in better shape.
No, I still needed to get the house fixed up. I could hire a team to come in and start taking care of that. I didn’t have to do it myself, after all. I literally had more money than time now. And I really wasn’t Mr. Fix-it, never had been. I was good at telling other people what to do.
