“I’m an only child, too,” he said in a low voice.
“Really?” she asked, lifting her head a bit to meet his eyes. “That surprises me. I guessed you came from a big family. All boys.”
He laughed. “I wish. I always wanted to be part of a big family. My father . . .” He paused. The subject of his father was always complicated for him to delve into. “He and my mother married late. He used to say he never found the right woman till he met my mother, and while I’d like to believe that’s true, I think he liked his freedom too much to give it up. You see, my daddy was a musician. Guitar player. Pretty good, I’m told. He traveled all the time, picking up jobs where he could. Bars and music venues, joining bands and playing for weddings. It was his life. But when he married my mama, he left his traveling days behind and only played the guitar for himself. My mother is a lot younger than my father, so I guess it’s lucky that I came along at all.”
“Do you look like her?” she asked.
“Some. My eyes, I think. But folks say I look like my dad.” He paused to finish his wine and stretched his arm out to place the empty glass on the table. He wrapped his arm around her again, holding her tight against his chest.
“Where do they live now?” she asked.
His brows rose. “I like to believe my daddy’s in heaven,” he replied. “He sure was a hell-raiser during his lifetime, though.”
Heather’s mouth dropped open a bit, her face a mask of pain for the loss Bo had suffered. “Bo. I’m . . . I’m so sorry.”
“I was only three when he died, so . . .” He shrugged. “I don’t remember him. I inherited his looks, his guitar, and a box of music he wrote. My mother never remarried. So it’s just me. One and done,” he added, trying to make light of it.
Heather reached up to run her fingers along the edge of his robe. “I’m not surprised you’re the son of an artist. Do you play an instrument?”
“Me? No. I love music, though.” His gaze caught hers. “But I guess you know that.”
Her cheeks turned the pretty pink he loved. Sometimes he flirted with her just to see it bloom on her face.
“Who taught you to work with wood?” she asked.
“That would be my uncle Thomas, my father’s brother.” Bo’s face softened. “Uncle Tom. After my father died, Uncle Tom kind of took me under his wing. He had three daughters, so I guess I was the son he always wanted. He sure was the father I needed. A gentler, wiser man never lived. He had a small furniture-building company in Mount Pleasant. He was the real artist. That man could change an ordinary piece of wood into something beautiful. Uncle Tom used to say my father had the musical talent in the family. There wasn’t an instrument my daddy couldn’t play. But Uncle Tom claimed he was a sculptor. That’s how he saw creating furniture. A kind of art.”
“Of course it’s art. You’re an artist, too.”
Bo scoffed.
“You are! I’ve seen you work. Even the way you fish. Do you build furniture?”
“Not really. I worked with my uncle at his business for years but I never found the same pleasure in making chairs and tables that he did. And frankly, most of what we did to earn a living was repair work. He made the new legs or arms for chairs. Me? I helped him—but I also did a lot of gluing. But he taught me a lot. Mostly, Uncle Tom taught me how to care enough to do the job right. To take my time with my work. It comes down to respect for the wood. Wood is very grounding, part of Mother Earth. You don’t hack it. It’s kind of like fishing—you respect the fish, handle them humanely. You take care of the water they live in.”
“I can see that.”
“It was Uncle Tom who taught me to whittle. He carved wood into furniture. I don’t carve anything so grand. I like to look at a piece of wood until I can see something in it—the way the grain moves, the shapes it has formed. Somewhere in the wood I see an image emerge that is crying to come out.”
Heather sighed, entranced. “So,” she said, leaning back to study his face, “you’re a sculptor, too.”
“That’s a highbrow word for whittling.”
“When I think of whittling, my mind turns to some old man sitting on a porch in a rocking chair, a knife in one hand, a piece of wood in the other.”
Bo laughed at that. “Well.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I wish I was as good as some of those old men,” he said. He looked at the table. “We ought to get back to our game.”
“No, don’t stop. I want to hear more about your uncle Tom and your childhood. What happened to the business?”
“When Uncle Tom died, the business was sold.”
“So you lost both of them.”
“Yep,” he said, closing off that sentiment. “Aunt Sara is a good woman. She asked if I wanted to try to keep it going, but you have to love it to do it, and, well, I didn’t. The way I see it, his business died with him. So I started working construction. I was still working with wood, but bigger. I found I love houses. I love seeing the design and the myriad pieces coming together like some ultimate puzzle.” He smiled and thought of his insight into Heather earlier. He looked down at her. She was listening intently, giving him her full attention.
“Did you go to college?”
“Nope. I guess my career education was more an apprenticeship.”
“You know so much about so many things.”
“I read a lot. Education doesn’t only come in schools.”
She blushed at underestimating him again.
He continued in an even voice. “I make a decent living. Can afford what I need and even a few things I just want. I don’t aspire to make a lot of money.”
“I hear a ‘but’ in there.”
“But . . . someday I’d like to have my own business. Small but respectable, like Uncle Thomas’s place. I like the small construction jobs. Cabinetry, especially. Bookcases. I really like to solve problems with the homeowner. You know, that weird corner no one knows what to do with, how to take advantage of a view, get more space in a kitchen, or trying to figure out where to put bookcases. It’s problem solving, sure. But it’s also a sense of symmetry. I guess I have some of my uncle’s training inside of me still.”
He ran his hand through his hair; drier now, it fell over his forehead in a tousled wave. “That’s enough about me,” he said, moving her legs so he could stand up. “My mouth is dry from all that yammering. I’m going to pour some more wine. Would you like some?”
Heather shook her head. Her hair was also dry and fell forward across her shoulder in a silken veil. “No, I’m good.”
“Okay,” he said, accepting it without question. Bo walked to the kitchen. When he carried his full glass of wine back into the living room, he found Heather sitting in front of the board game again. She’d set up the racks and passed out seven letters to each of them.
“I didn’t peek,” she said when he came to sit at the other end of the couch. “I promise.”