Chapter 6 - Learning to Trust Again
For the next two months, Grant visited Pine Creek every Friday.
Not secretly.
Not pretending.
Everyone knew who he was now.
Earl started calling him “Moneybags.”
Grant hated it.
Earl enjoyed that tremendously.
Mary didn’t immediately take him back.
Grant didn’t pressure her.
He worked at the garage when she allowed it.
He became marginally competent with basic repairs.
He also began making changes in New York.
Not because he wanted to impress Mary.
Because once he had seen his life from outside, he couldn’t fully return to the person he had been.
He introduced emergency assistance funds for hourly employees whose transportation or family crises threatened their jobs.
He changed the company’s vendor-payment policy after remembering how a delayed check could crush a small business.
He spent more time visiting warehouses and repair facilities where people worked with their hands instead of reading reports about them in boardrooms.
When Daniel accused him of becoming reasonable, Grant threatened to fire him.
Daniel knew he was joking.
Sabrina disappeared from Grant’s daily life.
Months later, she sent one email.
It was short.
She had taken a job with a nonprofit arts organization in Boston.
Not a glamorous position.
Not a board seat.
A real job.
At the bottom she wrote:
I used to think losing you proved I didn’t have enough. I think now it proved I didn’t understand what enough was.
Grant didn’t answer immediately.
When he did, he wrote only:
I hope you find it.
He meant it.
By spring, Dawson Auto Repair had been fully restored.
Grant offered Mary money once.
She refused.
He never offered again.
Instead, he helped her negotiate a fair loan with a regional bank when she decided to add a second service bay.
She reviewed every number herself.
Grant secretly loved that.
One Friday evening, almost eight months after the day his car broke down, Grant found Mary beneath the same red pickup truck where he had first seen her.
He crouched beside the bumper.
“Car trouble?”
Her boots stopped moving.
Mary rolled out.
She stared at him.
Then laughed.
“Very funny.”
Grant sat on the floor.
She noticed his expression.
“What?”
“I need to ask you something.”
Mary narrowed her eyes.
“If there’s a ring in your pocket, I’m hitting you with this wrench.”
Grant slowly raised both hands.
“No ring.”
“Good.”
“Eventually, maybe.”
“Grant.”
“Not today.”
She sat up.
He looked toward the open garage doors.
Outside, twilight settled over Pine Creek.
“Callaway Holdings is opening a logistics center seventy miles from here next year.”
Mary waited.
“I’ll need to spend more time in Pennsylvania.”
Her eyebrow lifted.
“Convenient.”
“Extremely.”
“And?”
“I found a farmhouse fifteen minutes away.”
Mary stared at him.
“A farmhouse.”
“Needs work.”
“You bought a farmhouse?”
“Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m trying not to make major decisions involving you without involving you.”
Mary became quiet.
Grant smiled nervously.
“I’m learning.”
“Slowly.”
“Painfully.”
She looked at him for a long moment.
“What are you asking?”
“Come look at it with me.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
Mary put the wrench down.
“Okay.”
Grant exhaled.
She laughed.
“Were you actually nervous?”
“Terrified.”
“Good.”
The farmhouse was old.
White siding.
Blue shutters.
A wraparound porch.
A barn that leaned slightly to the left.
Mary walked through every room without saying much.
Grant followed.
In the kitchen she opened cabinets.
In the basement she inspected the electrical panel.
At the barn she examined the roof.
Finally they stood beneath an old maple tree behind the house.
Grant put his hands into his pockets.
“Well?”
“The barn needs structural work.”
“I expected romance.”
“You brought a mechanic.”
He laughed.
Mary looked at the house.
“It’s nice.”
Grant nodded.
“It is.”
She turned toward him.
“But don’t buy it because you think living here proves something.”
His smile disappeared.
“I won’t.”
“Your life is in New York too.”
“I know.”
“You shouldn’t hate everything you built just because Sabrina loved it for the wrong reasons.”
Grant stared at her.
That had never occurred to him.
Mary stepped closer.
“Money isn’t evil, Grant.”
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
She touched his chest.
“You went from trusting it too much to distrusting everyone around it.”
Grant looked at her hand.
“You’re annoyingly insightful.”
“I charge extra for that.”
He smiled.
Mary’s eyes softened.
“You built something huge. You should be proud of that. Just don’t let it become the only thing anyone can see.”
“Including me.”
“Especially you.”
Grant touched her face.
“Can I kiss you?”
Mary smiled.
“You’ve gotten weirdly polite.”
“Is that a yes?”
May you like
“It’s a car, Grant. Not a spaceship.”
He laughed just before she kissed him.
