Now he sounded smug and amused, and Mitch snorted. “I’ve been a little busy, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“A little busy sitting at the counter watching Paige work. And everybody saw you swing and miss at Old Home Day. You’re striking out with her, just like every other guy in Whitford.”
“I’m just getting warmed up,” he muttered.
Fortunately, a good song came on the radio and Josh cranked it up, so they rode the rest of the way into town singing along and playing the drums on various parts of the truck interior. Mitch pulled the truck up in front of Whitford Hardware and grabbed the crutches, while Josh slowly and carefully lowered himself out of the passenger’s side.
An ancient brass bell jangled when Mitch pushed open the door, and Albert Dozynski—permanently dubbed Dozer by his new hometown when he’d bought the place in the seventies—looked up from the shelf of gardening supplies he was straightening.
“I heard you were back in town,” he said as he pushed himself to his feet. He was a child when his family had immigrated to America, but his parents had only spoken Polish at home and he still had a trace of their accent. “How have you been?”
“I’ve been good.” He shook the man’s hand. “How’s business?”
Dozer shrugged. “Slow, but I’m not going anywhere.”
“Glad to hear it.”
Josh pulled a checkbook out of his back pocket, and he and Dozer moved to the cash register to settle up, so Mitch wandered off to look around. The store was a treasure trove of hardware and miscellaneous anything and everything, begging to be explored. A person couldn’t go into one of those big home-improvement warehouses and find a carburetor float set from a generator made in the early 1980s, but there was a good chance Dozer had one. He could dig up a nut for any bolt and a fitting for any pipe. And maybe his prices had to be a little higher than those big-box stores’ prices, but at those places a woman had to carry her purchases to her car and you couldn’t borrow a pipe bender or a blowtorch if you were only going to need it once.
“You lost?” he heard Josh call, and he abandoned the crate of old tractor parts he’d been digging through. He wasn’t sure their old tractor even needed any parts, but you never knew what you’d find at the bottom of a box buried at the back of Whitford Hardware.
“You do me a favor,” Dozer said as they headed toward the door. “If you see my grandson, you tell him he’s supposed to be helping me move things around and clean up this week.”
“Will do,” Mitch said as he held the door open for his brother again.
If he remembered correctly, Nick, the AWOL grandson, would be about sixteen. Just the right age for blowing off helping out at Grandpa’s store. Mitch knew the boy’s mother a little because she’d married Ryan’s best friend, but he hadn’t seen Lauren Carpenter in years. He’d have to remember to ask Rose how she was doing. He scanned the area while Josh climbed into the truck and handed him the crutches, but he didn’t see any kids who looked like they might be Nick Carpenter.
“You got any other errands to run while we’re in town?” he asked Josh as he pulled away from the curb.
“I was thinking about stopping in to see Andy Miller.”
Andy was Drew’s dad. He’d been a good friend to their dad—one of his best friends—and he’d been around the lodge a lot when they were growing up. “How’s he doing?”
“I heard he was asking around for work, and we could use some help.”
“Ryan’s going to come up.”
“Eventually. And he’ll be looking a the big picture and only be able to do so much. I was thinking more about all the little things I’ve let slide by. I don’t really want to spend any more money than we have to, but the place is starting to not look like the pictures on the website, and that turns customers off.”
Mitch thought it was probably a good idea, except for one thing. One really big thing. “What about Rosie?”
Rose Davis didn’t speak to Andy Miller. Ever. Nobody knew why and, after almost three decades, nobody dared ask, but she didn’t like the man. He couldn’t imagine she’d be pleased to have him working around the Northern Star.
“She works for us,” Josh said.
Mitch laughed so hard he almost drove off the road. “You keep telling yourself that, Josh.”
“Screw you. Just head out to Andy’s place.”
“No problem. I’m looking forward to watching you try to run from Rosie on one leg.”
Chapter Six