Grandma and Grandpa’s with them. “Oh, believe me, so have I.”
Tessa’s face lit up with a thought. “Hey, you should come to Solos. It’s the single-moms Bible study at our church. Decent baked goods—Yvonne over at the bakery donates them, and that woman knows her stuff—and free babysitting. Spiritual fulfillment aside, it’s the cheapest girls’ night out in town. You free Tuesday evening?”
Marilyn was nothing but free. Her calendar held more open space than all of Colorado’s state parks combined. “As a matter of fact I am.”
“Well—” Tessa dug back into her meal “—that settles that.” She lifted a heaping forkful of the incredible-smelling dish. “I’ll never finish this. I shouldn’t finish this. Want to share?”
Marilyn felt a little of the weight slide off her shoulders. “Sure.”
Wyatt gripped the phone handset, ready to hurl it through the garage wall. “No, I don’t want to hold, I want you to ship me the right part now and...” He fought the urge to growl as he heard the telltale click, then syrupy instrumental music echoed from the other end of the line. Not again.
He stared at the parts catalog page and back to the packing slip inside the box he’d just opened. Why didn’t anyone use plain English for these things? Car parts, truck parts, even carousel motor parts—why use such a complicated code of letters and numbers? Why couldn’t a six-inch pinion gear be a “six-inch pinion gear” instead of Part #XH770? All that nonsense made it hard to tell parts apart—and almost impossible to make sure the part you wanted was the one that showed up in the shipping box.
Case in point? The much-needed gear he’d ordered for the carousel. The one that was too small. Again.
“I just need the next size up!” he grumbled uselessly into the receiver, fully aware that the awful music meant no one was on the other end of the line to hear him.
Wyatt considered banging his head on the workbench. The road to eternal torment was surely paved with tedious paperwork. When did life become such a mountain of irritating correspondence? Dad used to say he could smooth-talk a snow sale to a penguin, but fill out an order form? Wyatt would happily live in a world where no one ever had to fill out forms.
He pulled the receiver away from his ear, scowled at it and punched the zero on the keypad half a dozen times. Give me a human, not a phone tree.
A decidedly inhuman voice informed him, “You have entered an incorrect selection. Please try again.”
Wyatt exhaled, reminded himself that his worst day at the garage was still better than his best day on the ranch and waited. After an eternity, the oh-so-polite woman returned to the line. “I appreciate your patience, Mr. Walker.”
“Can we please just fix this? Fast?”
“I’m doing my best, sir.”
Wyatt hated being called sir. In his experience, no one who ever really wanted to help you called you sir. He pinched the bridge of his nose, grimly reminded that the gesture was an echo of Dad’s. “And?”
“I have reviewed your account. The part you received is the one you ordered.”
“No, it’s not. I need the next size up, not this one.”
“You ordered part number XH760. The next size up is XH770.”
Wyatt peered at the packing slip, endlessly annoyed to see she was right. He tossed the offending sheet back into the box. “Whatever happened to small, medium and large?”
“You can exchange it, sir, but I can’t authorize expedited shipping if the error was on your part.”
“Tell that to Margie and Maddie!” Wyatt growled into the receiver.
“Tell what to Margie and Maddie?”
Wyatt spun around to see Marilyn Sofitel back in his doorway. He stuffed a lid on his boiling temper, pointed to the phone receiver and gave her a “hold on a second” expression.
“Fine. Expedite it. I’ll eat the surcharge. On this order and the one from yesterday. Are we square?”
“Yes, sir. We appreciate your business.”
Tell that to Manny. And the guy who owns the Jeep still waiting on the right air filter. I hate this part of the job. More than that, he hated the thought of giving Manny anything else to worry about.
Wyatt clicked off the call. “If they call it a help line, they ought to actually help you, don’t you think?” He’d botched no less than three orders in as many weeks. Since when did car parts feel more like algebra?
“Everything okay?”
He slapped the parts catalog closed with more force than was necessary. “Not when they tell you it’ll be thirty extra bucks for expedited shipping. They can’t get the order right for the broken carousel part. Stupid order numbers.”
He watched her eyes roam to the piles on the desk in the corner of the garage. He’d let the paperwork pile up.
“Orders not coming in on time?” she asked.
He didn’t want to admit his frustrations, especially to her. “Something like that. Late or wrong. Honestly, I don’t know how Manny ever could keep track of all this stuff.”
Before he could stop her, she was walking toward the desk. “He must have had some kind of system.”
He did, and he’d explained it to Wyatt—twice—but the disorganized pile of papers on the desk practically advertised his inability to follow it.
Marilyn, on the other hand, looked like the kind of person who alphabetized her spice rack. He stepped between her and the cluttered desk in an attempt to head her off, but she went right around him. “There’s that logbook there,” he called after her, pointing to a tattered blue binder sitting open on the desk. “But I don’t need to use it.”
That wasn’t exactly true. He’d tried to use it. It just wasn’t working for him. And he sure wasn’t going to drag Manny in here to explain it a third time. I just gotta get a handle on it, that’s all.
She ran her finger down one page and got a look on her face that was 100 percent know-it-all mom. “What goes wrong?”
He hesitated, trying to come up with an answer that didn’t make him feel like an idiot. Eventually, her relentless gaze and his desperation cut his pride down to size. “I keep ending up with the wrong stuff,” he admitted, finding a grease spot on the garage floor to look at. “Part numbers and I...don’t exactly get along.”
He waited for her to laugh. Or make some nasty remark.
When she didn’t, he looked up to see soft, kind eyes. “Margie doesn’t get along with numbers, either. She says they hate her.”
“I hear her loud and clear.” Shouldn’t she ask his permission before moving papers around like that?
“Some people are better with their hands than with paperwork, don’t you think?” She started flicking through the stack of files. “I mean, Margie’s only just finished kindergarten but she can draw way better than I can.” She looked up at him. “Landon used to joke I could file in my sleep.”
He couldn’t stop himself. “Is your spice cabinet in alphabetical order?”
Now it was her turn to look sheepish. “I know better than to rearrange my mother’s spices. It’s not my kitchen.”
“But your kitchen? Back in Denver?”
“Organization is important. And it saves time.”
Wyatt pointed at her. “So it is...well, was...”
“Maybe.”