Dill and Matt showed up about midmorning on Tuesday, slightly sluggish after the long weekend and complaining about traffic. And Ryan greeted them with happy news.
“While the family was all together, we looked over the house and we looked over some numbers and we decided to go ahead and put a new roof on. The house and the barn and the shed.” They groaned in unison. “If you guys don’t want to do it, that’s fine. I pay my roofers a little more than my rookie carpenters, so I won’t have any trouble finding other volunteers.”
“Roofing in October, boss?” Dill didn’t look convinced.
“Originally, we thought the roof would be okay, but it’s got some punky spots and if we get a heavy snow load and it collapses, we’re screwed.” Since he was there and able to do it, they’d voted to go ahead and get it over with. “We’ll start with the house and move fast. Stripping it totally, right down to new sheathing, but Josh and I will be up there, too, so hopefully with four of us it won’t be bad.”
Matt looked past him at the lodge. “Man, that’s a lot of roof.”
Dill slapped him on the shoulder. “And that equals a lot of money.”
“Good point.”
Ryan knew they’d both stick it out. “Start taking measurements then. I want to be damn sure we have everything on hand before we strip a single shingle. Long-range forecast looks decent, but I don’t want to be wasting time making supply runs while the roof’s open.”
While the guys got busy on that, Ryan grabbed his clipboard and went through the smaller things left to be done. A lot of it could be done during downtime or when it rained. There were a few inside things he wanted to address, like the basement stairs. They were old and narrow. It wouldn’t take long to replace them, and new ones would not only be safer, but would be more attractive to a potential buyer if they put it on the market.
He looked at his phone’s clock for the umpteenth time, but the day was refusing to do anything but crawl by. He’d given Lauren some space over the weekend to deal with her son and Dean, but he was anxious to talk to her. Not so anxious he’d be obnoxious and call her at work, though.
He threw himself into work to take his mind off her, hoping the hours would fly by. He made a few phone calls, looking for the best deal on a construction Dumpster. The guys had been making dump runs with the pickup as needed, but there was no way that would work for stripping the roofs.
Once the guys started seriously taking measurements, he joined them on the roof. At this time of year, he didn’t want to chance any screwups, so they checked and rechecked every measurement. Once they’d sketched out the house, they moved to the barn.
He must have lost track of the time after all, because Rosie appeared at the base of the ladder and hollered to him. “I heard the bus go by and it didn’t stop. Did you know Nick wasn’t coming today?”
His stomach sank. Shit. “No, I didn’t.”
“Lauren would have called us if she’d known he wasn’t going to be here. Something’s wrong.”
What was wrong was the kid had walked in on him in bed with Lauren and now he didn’t want to face him. Ryan climbed down the ladder and pulled out his phone. “I’ll call her now. Let her know he didn’t get off the bus.”
Rose was giving him the look and he knew she had more she wanted to say. He didn’t want to hear it, to be honest, but a lifetime of experience told him to let her say her piece and get it over with.
“That boy was doing really well,” she said. “Not only was working with you guys good for him, but he was doing better in school.”
“Jesus, Rosie. Maybe he didn’t feel good or something.”
“So it’s just a coincidence that Saturday night you didn’t come home and today he didn’t show up?”
“Fine. And Sunday morning Lauren and I woke up to Nick standing in her bedroom door and Dean in the living room. Happy?”
“Oh, no.” She put her hand over her heart. “What a mess.”
“Yeah, so that’s probably why he didn’t get off the bus.”
“I still think Lauren would have called if she’d known he wasn’t coming.”
He held up the phone. “Which is why I’m going to call her.”
When she just stood there watching him, he turned around and walked to his truck. Once locked inside, he pulled up Lauren’s number and hit Call. It rang twice and he would have smiled when he heard her say hello if not for the circumstances.
“Hey, it’s Ryan.”
“Hi.” She paused for a couple of seconds. “I was going to call you. I just...wasn’t sure what to say. And I’m at work, actually.”
“I know. I was going to call you later tonight if you didn’t call me first. But I’m calling now because Nick didn’t get off the bus.”
He could practically feel the exhaustion in her sigh over the phone. “He seemed okay this morning. I would have called if I didn’t think he was going to show up.”
“Which is why I called you.”
“It’s pretty slow today. I’ll sneak out early and go talk to him.”