Page 3 of Freak
Well, not all of it was just stuff. She had to get the coop repaired and the goat barn rebuilt, and those tasks were far beyond her capacity to handle alone. And not much within her ability to pay for the work to be done. She was going to need some neighborly help—as long as neighbors hadn’t done this in the first place.
She knew where to go for help: the Night Horde MC. It shouldn’t have taken her so long to figure that out, but she’d never had to ask for such help before. The Horde had not been much a part of her life. Though she considered herself, and was considered to be, a Signal Bend resident, she lived well outside the town limits, and she didn’t go into town with much regularity.
Most things she needed she either grew or made herself, or she bartered with neighbors. The rare times she had need to go into a city, she might stop by a thrift shop or two. Once a month she made a big run for staples and other things she either couldn’t make herself or didn’t have time for and to deliver jams and pies, or soaps, cremes, and lotions, to various individuals and to shops where she sold on consignment. Otherwise, she went down when there was a seasonal festival, where she ran a booth and sold her wares direct.
There wasn’t too much about Signal Bend in her daily life, so it took her a while to imagine asking the Horde for help. But she knew she could have full faith that they’d been no part of this mess. Even if they’d had some kind of quarrel with her, this was not their style at all.
So she’d call the Horde and ask for help.
Chapter One
Fall
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Mel Lind finished splicingthe last wire. He sealed the splice, double-checked each connection, and stepped back. “CLEAR FOR POWER!” he yelled, though it was the end of the day and he was probably the only one still working.
He always called out a warning—sometimes he even did it when he was home alone, working on his own house. He was glad the habit was so ingrained; he’d learned the hard way that safe was better than sorry. When he was a young apprentice electrician, on the very first job he’d been point on, he’d brought the breaker board online without any kind of heads-up. He’d thought he was the last one still working. The power had flared on for a nanosecond, then a loud bang and a shout from the second floor of the subdivision house they’d been building.
Mel had crossed a wire. It was neither the first nor the last time; mistakes happened, and no amount of experience or expertise could make a human perfect. On that day, unfortunately, one of the guys had still been packing up his gear upstairs. He’d noticed a loose screw in an outlet box and taken it upon himself to tighten it at exactly the wrong time—and he’d used his ‘lucky’ old screwdriver with a metal band around the wooden handle. Just enough metal-to-skin contact for trouble. A whole house of power went through his hand. He’d lost the hand, spent three months in the hospital recovering from the internal damage, and had been on permanent disability for the rest of his life.
Mel always called out a warning. He learned his lessons the first time.
He gave it a couple beats to be sure, then flipped the master switch. The tenant of this particular commercial space, which would soon be a pen and watch shop, had chosen high-end pendant lights with brushed nickel housings and LED elements that emitted a soft golden light like old-fashioned incandescent bulbs.
“Looks good,” Nolan said, surveying the room.
Mel looked around, too. The lights were beautiful, of course, he was great at his work, but otherwise, they still had a ways to go before anything here really looked good. Signal Bend Construction was just beginning the second phase of the Signal Bend Pavilion project. Phase One: basic exterior construction—the actual building. Phase Two: basic interior construction—electrical, plumbing, HVAC, anything else that went inside the walls, then the walls themselves. Phase Three: exterior and interior finishes. Phase Four: cleanup. At Phase Two, it took a lot of imagination to think anything looked good yet. But the electrical was great. Obviously.
“Of course it looks good,” Mel said, turning to grin at Nolan. “Everything I do is beautiful.”
Nolan smirked back. “Your self-confidence itself is a thing of beauty, my brother.”
Mel laughed and slapped the kid’s back.
Was it confidence? He supposed so, but he didn’t think he was anything special. Certainly nothing he’d ever done, nor any ambition he had for the future, would change the world or even get it to look up and take notice. But he was hardwired to see the value in the mundane as well as the great. The great stuff got all the attention, but the mundane kept the world rolling. And even the most basic person was important to somebody.
