Husband Under Construction. Karen Templeton

his snow-frosted knit cap and slammed it to the floor, freeing a forest of thick, white hair. “What kind of choice,” he said, wetness sheening his eyes, “is railroading me into something before I’m r-ready?”

      “Oh, Charley…” On a soft moan, she wrapped her arms around him, her tenderness in the face of his cantankerousness making Noah’s breath hitch. Then she let go and said, “I know this is hard. And you know I know how hard.” She ducked slightly to peer up into his averted face, thin lips set in a creased pout. “But sticking your head in the sand isn’t going to solve the problem. And we can’t put it off much longer, since I have no idea when a job offer’s going to come through. I’m trying to help, Charley. We all are.”

      Several beats passed before her uncle finally swung his gaze back to Noah. “It’s really that bad?”

      Catching Roxie’s exhausted sigh, Noah said, “Yes, sir. It is.”

      Charley held Noah’s gaze for another moment or two before shuffling over to a small bench on the landing, dropping onto it like his spirit had been plumb sucked right out of him—a phenomenon he’d seen before in older clients, his own grandparents. As somebody who wasn’t crazy about people telling him what to do, either, he empathized with the old man a lot more than he might’ve expected.

      “So what’s this all gonna cost me?”

      Noah walked over to crouch in front of him. “Until I run the figures, I can’t give you an exact estimate. But to be honest, it’s not gonna be cheap.” When Charley’s mouth pulled down at the corners, Noah laid a hand on his forearm. “Tell you what—how about I prioritize what should be done first, and what can maybe wait for a bit? Your niece is right, a lot of this really shouldn’t be put off much longer. But nobody’s trying to push you into doing anything you’re not ready to do. Right, Roxie?”

      When he looked at her, though, she had the oddest expression on her face. Not scared, exactly, but…shook up. Like she’d seen a ghost. At her uncle’s, “What do you think, Rox?” she forced her gaze from Noah’s to give Charley a shaky smile.

      “Sounds more than fair to me.”

      Nodding, Charley hoisted himself to his feet again and crossed the few steps to the bathroom, while Noah tried to snag Roxie’s attention again, hoping she’d give him a clue as to what was going on. No such luck.

      “Mae picked out that tile when we moved in,” Charley said, then gave a little laugh. “Said the pink was kind to her complexion…” He grasped the door frame, clearly trying to pull himself together. “She would’ve been beside herself, though, that I’d let the place slide so much, and that’s the truth of it. Should’ve seen to at least some of it long ago. But…”

      Noah came up behind him to clamp a hand on Charley’s shoulder. “But change is scary, I know. Sometimes even when you want it—”

      “Charley?”

      Both men turned to look at Roxie, whose smile seemed a little too bright. “What’s Mae saying about this?”

      Charley sighed. “That I’m being a damn fool.”

      “And…?” Roxie prompted.

      Flummoxed, Noah watched Charley tilt his head, his eyes closed for several seconds before he opened them again. “She says to tell Noah to get going on that estimate. So I guess, since I never refused my wife anything while she was alive, no sense in starting now.”

      Dear Lord.

      Roxie walked Noah downstairs and to the front door, her arms crossed like she was deep in thought.

      “Hey. You okay?”

      “What? Oh. Yes.” Finally her eyes lifted to his, but almost as if she was afraid of what she’d see there. “Thank you.”

      “For what?”

      She smiled slightly. “For blowing my preconceived notions all to hell.”

      Noah mulled that over for a second or two, then said, “I guess I’ll get back to you in a few days, then.”

      “Sounds good,” she said, opening the front door to a landscape a whole lot whiter than it’d been a half hour ago. Noah stopped, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I take it you humor the old man about hearing his wife?”

      That got a light laugh and a shrug. “Who am I to decide what he does and doesn’t hear?” Stuffing her fists in her sweatshirt’s front pouch, she squinted at the snow. “Be careful, it looks pretty slippery out there.”

      The door closing behind him, Noah tromped down the steps, thinking the pair of them were crazy as loons, and that was the God’s honest truth.

      Through the leaky window, Charley watched until Noah was out of sight before turning to face his niece, up to her elbows in one of the moving boxes they’d hauled out of the garage he hadn’t been able to park in since 1987. The way Mae’s “collections” had clearly gotten out of hand was pretty hard to swallow. That he’d become an ornery old coot who’d hung on to his wife’s stuff every bit as tenaciously as she had, just because, was even harder.

      However, Noah’s eyeing Roxie as if she was a new item on the menu at Chili’s and he hadn’t eaten in a week? That was seriously annoying him. Whether she returned his interest he couldn’t tell—the girl never had been inclined to share her feelings with Charley, anyway, which he’d been more than okay with until now. But as close as he was to the boy’s folks, and as much as he thought the world of Gene’s and Donna’s other boys, his Roxie deserved far better than Noah Garrett.

      “I don’t imagine I have to tell you to watch out for that one.”

      Seated on the brick-colored, velvet sofa—definitely Mae’s doing—Roxie glanced up, the space between her brows knotted. “That one?”

      “Noah.”

      With a dry, almost sad laugh, she shook her head and dived back into the box. “No, you certainly don’t.”

      “Because you know he’s—”

      “Not my type.”

      “Well. Yeah. Exactly.”

      She straightened, a tissue paper-wrapped lump in each hand and a weird half smile on her face. Her let’s-pretend-everything’s-fine-okay? look. “So, nothing to worry about, right?”

      Charley yanked his sleeve hems down over his knuckles, the icy draft hiking up his back reminding him how much weight he’d lost this past year. Even he knew he looked like an underfed vulture, bony and stooped and sunken-cheeked. That seriously annoyed him, too.

      “Glad we’re on the same page, then,” he muttered, winding his way through the obstacle course into the kitchen for a cup of tea—what did he care if the color scheme was “outdated,” whatever the heck that meant?—thinking maybe he should get a cat or something. Or a dog, he thought, waiting for the microwave to ding. Lot to be said for a companion who didn’t talk back. Besides, he’d read somewhere that pets were good for your blood pressure.

      As opposed to busybody nieces, who most likely weren’t.

      Dunking his twice-used tea bag in the hot water, Charley watched her from the kitchen door. He loved the girl with all this heart, he really did, but being around her made him feel as if he was constantly treading in a stew of conflicting emotions. Some days, when the loneliness nearly choked him, he was actually grateful for her company; other days her energy and pushiness made him crazed.

      More than that, though, he simply didn’t know what to say to her, how to ease her pain while his own was still sharp enough to scrape. That’d been Mae’s job, to soothe and heal. To act as a buffer between them. Not that Rox was a moper, thank goodness, but every time he looked at her, there it was, his own hurt mirrored in eyes nearly the same weird green as Mae’s. And at this point the helplessness that came with that had about rubbed his nerves raw.

      Especially