The Maid of Honor and the Two Groomsmen No One Seated Beside Her novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: The Paddle

The shop was a long cinderblock building behind his grandfather's farmhouse in Lebanon.

It had a tin roof and a sliding door that took both of them to open.

It had been raining since noon.

The sound on the roof was so loud we had to lean together to talk.

Inside it smelled of cedar and machine oil and old sawdust, and a single work light hung from a chain over a bench.

Colt turned it on, and Jesse dragged the door shut behind us.

"Granddad built every chair at his church in here," Colt said.

"It's beautiful."

"It's a mess. But it's quiet."

"It's not quiet at all, it's raining," said Jesse.

"It's quiet for us."

On the bench, laid on a clean rag, there was a long flat piece of cherry wood.

It was as wide as my two hands and nearly as long as my forearm.

The wood was dark red, rubbed to a satin shine.

The handle was shaped to fit a palm, and burned into the end of it were two letters: LB.

I picked it up.

It was heavier than my hairbrush and lighter than I expected, and it balanced perfectly on my fingers.

"You made this," I said.

"Yes, ma'am."

"For me."

"I wanted it to be yours," Colt said. "Not something off a shelf. I did it over four weeknights. Jesse held the light."

"It's sanded to three grits," Jesse said earnestly. "He made me feel it."

I laughed, and then I stopped, because my eyes had filled.

Nobody had ever made me anything.

My ex-husband had once bought me a blender for my birthday and it was the one thing in the house that was his.

I ran my thumb over my initials.

"Thank you," I said. "It's perfect. I'm going to hurt so much."

"Is that right?" said Jesse, in a husky voice.

"I want the sawhorse."

There was one in the middle of the floor, a heavy old thing in pale wood, with a folded moving blanket over the beam.

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