Chapter 2: Chapter 2
“Oh, I’ve been gone for a while. I was in Eugene to help my grandparents during high school. Went to U of Oregon so I could stay close and help,” he told me with a smile. “My mom’s dad had a stroke, and my grandma had never worked outside the house or taken care of the bills or anything. So I went. Family’s family, right?” His smile grew even bigger. I could feel a rumble building in my gut. “My father’s family has always lived around here. You know the house. Big stone one in the valley.”
Right. The one my dad loved more than his own family. The one he kept trying to buy. Dad had built the house for Mason’s father and had fallen in love with both the building and the setting. It was the house my dad was convinced would save our family. When all was said and done, however, the house was Mason’s and my dad gradually lost interest in owning it. Love of the bottle will do that for a guy.
The history of my dad and the house was legend to me and my brothers. After my mother left with a carpenter, my dad said she would have stayed if he’d owned the house. When my brother Dominic died at age ten in a skiing accident at Tahoe, my dad said Dom would have lived if we were in the house. The house gradually became heaven to my dad, and as far as he was concerned, he wasn’t worthy of angels.
So here was one of them, one of the chosen, who grew up in the house where my life would have been better if only my dad had been able to buy the place. Jeff looked like an angel too. While I was just an old bear.
Ah, well, couldn’t change our pasts now. Better to move on with the future.
I looked at my work-rough hands. Then at Jeff’s accountant hands. The scars on mine reflected the dark patches in my life. I wondered if his long fingers and almost delicate-looking wrists hid any of his.
“I don’t know how much Guy or Felicity or Fredi told you…” I paused to gather my words.
He broke in. “Not much. Just that you needed help.”
I don’t like to be interrupted. I know I speak slow and deliberate, and those who are quicker and more nimble-minded are often irritated by my unhurried pace. Could I work with someone who wouldn’t even let me finish a sentence?
“Sorry,” he said softly. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I thought it was a question.”
Oh. I got it. I’d paused and he’d answered. Okay. Fair enough.
“I don’t know how much they told you,” I started again. “There’s a leak somewhere in the company, and I want to find it and stop it.”
I handed him a printout of the simplified quarterly finance report.
He quickly scanned it and tapped the paper with one of his delicate fingers.
“Yeah,” he said softly, as if speaking to himself. “You have a problem. What do you want me to do? How do you plan to find the leak?”
I’d been giving the question a lot of thought, but hadn’t come up with anything yet. I was hoping he could just look at all the numbers and figure out what was going on. I said as much.
He studied me for a few moments, long enough to make me uneasy. Nobody looked at me as if he were trying to see beyond my close-cropped dark brown hair and scruffy face, beyond my brown eyes, beyond my scarred and chapped hands, and into my heart and soul. Most people stopped at my heavy brows, at the bulging muscles that made dress shirts and suit coats look as if they’re painted on, and at my fire-hydrant neck, at the permanent scowl and large nose. Most people look down, away from me, and flee the first chance they get. When I gaze at them, they usually frown back. He didn’t bat an eyelash, but kept staring steadily, a slight smile on his lips.
“How hands-on are you?” he asked finally. “Do you work around the office most of the time? Or are you out at the various sites?”
I could understand how he might be confused. I was in a light blue button-down shirt this morning, not my usual white tee. But my hands told the true story.
I held them up to show their work-worn and deeply lined state. One finger was wrapped in a bandage, covering where I’d pulled out a splinter after moving wood from a kitchen tear-out. My hands were nearly nut brown from their exposure to the sun.
“Usually out on sites putting out fires or supervising, often working. This is the first time I’ve been in the office for any extended period since”—I couldn’t remember—”for weeks.” I usually did all the bookwork at home after hours.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone