Troublemakers Mess With the Wrong Girls novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Part I Couldn't Plan

I read the message twice, and then I held the phone out to him.

"Did you tell her yet?" I read it aloud. "Her. That's me. Tell me what?"

Caleb looked at the screen and shut his eyes.

"Jo."

"My mother is texting you. My mother, who put a plate of meatloaf in front of you like she'd been expecting you."

"She said that?"

"She told you to sit next to Dad. She knew your name before Sunday."

He sat down on the edge of the workbench, among the fallen screws.

It was the first time I'd ever seen him look small.

"I'll tell you everything," he said. "Sit down."

"I'll stand."

"Three years ago my father had a heart attack and your mother was the nurse on his floor. She sat up with him two nights. She wouldn't take anything for it."

I said nothing.

"A year after that, she called me. She said she had a favor to ask a man who owed her. She said her husband's mother was going to do something terrible, and it would take a while, and she needed a builder with a long memory."

"What favor?"

"Be ready. That's all she said at first." He rubbed his face. "This spring Dennis's wife came to me for a kitchen. Your mother had told her about me at a church supper. I took the job on credit because Maureen asked me to."

"You built that kitchen knowing he'd never pay."

"I built it knowing your grandmother would sign something. I didn't know what. Your mother said family money would go first."

"His retirement." My voice cracked. "She let it go."

"No. She never knew it would be your father's until it happened. She was livid. Not in front of you."

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