Made to Last (Where Love Begins Book #1) (8 page)

Man, the guy played uptight to a T. “No, I just . . .” Except, well, maybe.

Miranda’s voice jutted into his fumbling reply. “Coped cuts are used where one piece of crown molding meets another at an inside corner. Coping is the process of cutting the end of a molding to mimic the profile milled into its face.”

Matthew tossed Brad a sheepish grin, going for a mood-lightening tone. “Do you have any clue what she just said?”

But Brad didn’t crack—pressed lips and stony stare ready at the defense. “Randi Woodruff has more talent in her pinky finger than most people accumulate in a lifetime.”

Chill, buddy. I wasn’t implying anything.

Miranda’s instructions continued. “To create a snug-fitting joint, hold your coping saw at a five-degree angle away from the face of the molding and cut carefully along the marked edge.”

Brad’s rigid stance still leaking hostility beside him, Matthew downed the rest of his Coke. Time to mend fences. “Look, I didn’t mean—”

“Hey, we’re trying to tape here!” the show’s director, Tom Somebody-or-other, yapped from where he leaned against a coffee cart. “Walsh, take the chitchat outside.”

Brad tapped Matthew’s shoulder. “Come with me.”

“But I haven’t finished learning about crown molding. It was just getting interesting. Cutting joints and sawing faces. It’s like, Frankenstein meets
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
.”

Brad rolled his eyes, pointing at the exit. “Out.”

Matthew turned, but not before meeting Miranda’s amused gaze, her snicker rattling over the set as she stayed balanced atop her ladder. At least someone appreciated the humor—someone who managed to make Levi’s and a plain white tee scream femininity. Even with that pencil between her teeth, her smile could have graced any magazine cover.

And would if he did his job right.

Brad gave him a light shove, and Matthew acquiesced, emerging into autumn’s outdoor embrace. The colors of fall were beginning to deepen, as if an artist had smudged fresh paint over the landscape, blotting out the lingering green of summer.

Matthew matched Brad’s stride. “This is a beautiful setting for the
From the Ground Up
set. Like going to work in a Thomas Kinkade piece.”

Brad gestured to a patio set, surrounded by meticulous landscaping sloping down a scenic ravine. “Let’s talk.”

“Look, yesterday we sort of got off on the wrong foot. Today we still seem to be hobbling along on the same leg. How about we shift weight or something? Start over.”

Brad dropped onto the rattan chair and motioned for Matthew to sit. “Fair enough.” He opened the folder he’d been carrying since walking onto the set earlier. “Matthew Knox. Originally from Minneapolis, worked for the
Star Tribune
for five years. Pulitzer finalist in 2006. Impressive, by the way. Moved into the position of news editor in 2007 for a short six months before being bumped up to interim managing editor when your predecessor had heart surgery. And in 2008—”

Every muscle in Matthew pulled taut. “Pause, Principal Walsh. You’ve got a file on me?” And just how much did the guy know about . . . 2008?

Brad closed the folder with a snap. “Yes, I do. I’m picky about who spends time with Randi.”

Matthew’s hand tightened on the empty pop can he still held. “Hey, you okayed this blog project. I don’t understand what’s up with the interrogation act now.”

“I okayed the project based on a proposal that listed the reporter as Lisa Spangle. She interviewed that one blond singer slash train wreck last year—made her look like Shirley Temple. Spangle’s a softie.”

“And she just had a baby, which is why I’m here. I’m simply a replacement.
Today
magazine isn’t trying to pull anything on you.”

“It’s not the magazine I’m worried about.”

Which meant Brad Walsh probably knew everything about the 2008 fiasco. In the distance, a woodpecker pounded out a rhythm. “I’m not out to play ‘gotcha’ journalism.” Though, if the opportunity presented itself, wouldn’t he take full advantage?

Absolutely. For Cee.
And fine, okay, also for the career comeback. Not how he’d imagined it—and yes, it stabbed at his dignity—but when options were limited, what was a man supposed to do?

Brad’s eyes focused on him, and Knox wondered what he saw. A wannabe writer in faded jeans, blue hooded sweatshirt, and Converse shoes? Someone too old to still be floundering in his career, questioning his life’s purpose, his identity.

“You slammed your own father in a front-page exposé.”

Brad’s flat-toned statement dug into Matthew like claws, any response lost in the emotional puncture.

“We had a source.” But the argument had as little weight now as it had five years ago.

“You pinned a target to his back with newsprint, only to find out weeks later he was innocent. That had to sting.”

No, it had burned. And after it was all over, his career, his confidence, his reputation lay in ashes. He’d basically co-written the article, kept it under wraps until deadline. Didn’t matter that it wasn’t his name in the byline.

A distant scent of burning leaves wafted in with the breeze. Finally he found words. “The police were investigating my father. I wasn’t blindly grasping at straws. You have no idea what you’re talking about.” No idea Matthew had more reason than anybody to suspect Gordon Knox of the scandalous embezzlement that rocked the Twin Cities financial district
that summer.
Of course
he’d believed his businessman father capable of the scheme.

After all, the man had emptied the family bank account before leaving Mom years before. Not such a leap to believe he’d orchestrated the embezzlement scheme.

If his personal experience wasn’t enough, there’d been his source—his father’s former financial advisor. He’d come to Matthew claiming to have proof of Gordon Knox’s illegal activities, said no one else would listen, no one else believed him.

Turned out, they were right not to listen. The State’s case against his father crumbled quickly, and the real embezzler was convicted mere months after the crime.

But not before Matthew had green-lighted the scathing article that drew attention not only for its biting portrayal of Gordon Knox, but also for the shared last name of the subject and the paper’s editor. Or as the
Star Tribune
publisher had described it seconds before inviting Matthew to resign, “glaringly obvious conflict of interest.”

“My source was unreliable,” Matthew said to Walsh.

“Your judgment was unreliable.” Brad’s tone was unflinching.

If the whole thing wasn’t bad enough, the reporter whose name appeared under the article? Delia Jones. Matthew had fed her the article. And even worse, they’d gone out one night after a day of piecing together their research. He’d considered it a working dinner; she, a date. Either way, it didn’t end well. He’d hurt the woman personally and professionally.

And while he had been given the chance to resign, she’d been sacked.

Was it any wonder she plagued him still?

Brad leaned forward, expression intense. “You play that kind of shoddy reporting with Randi, and I’ll have you outta here so fast the Road Runner will be coming to you for advice.”

“Point taken—on one condition.”

Brad almost relaxed, apparently pleased at the outcome of his interrogation. “What’s that?”

Matthew forced his voice into even tones. “Leave my father out of this from now on.”

Because he’d learned the hard way, that was the best way to deal with Gordon Knox—who, as it turned out, had relocated to the South without so much as a good-bye after the case.
And history repeats itself.

Brad shrugged. “All right, fine—consider the subject closed. And now, about what you said earlier, about Randi knowing her stuff, as if it was a surprise . . .”

That again? “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Brad cocked an eyebrow.

“Okay, so maybe I wondered. But people always wonder about these TV types. Can Rachael Ray really cook? Can Martha Stewart really make her own candles?”

“If you insinuate Bob Ross couldn’t actually paint, you’ll throw me into a state of serious disillusionment.” Finally the guy cracked a smile. “But seriously, have Randi show you her workshop sometime. Sure, she’s a whiz at the home-improvement projects she does on television. But her real love is working with wood. It’ll be good blog material for you.”

They eased into conversation that belied the strain of only moments ago.

And yet, the folder in Brad’s hands mocked Matthew. He clenched his pop can, squeezed it with a crunch. Would he never escape the stigma of his five-year-old fatal career move?

Under a star-studded dusk, Miranda shuffled the path from the cabin to her house. Moonlight-tipped trees and shadowed ridges beckoned, the tension of the day begging to float off like the white of her breath in the evening chill.

But there wasn’t time. Matthew might return any minute.

“What’s the rush?” Blaze huffed from the opposite end of the antique trunk swinging between them. The weight of it pulled Miranda’s arms taut. No way would she have been able to lug the thing without him. “You must really not want Knox to see whatever’s in here.”

A nighttime wind rustled through the trees circling her property. “Nothing important. Just personal. I’d rather not have a reporter digging through it.”

The memory of the trunk in the cabin had hit her out of the blue after arriving home from work. She’d waited all evening for a chance to swipe it from Matthew’s prying eyes, had practically choked on a sigh of relief when she heard his car rumble to life. The second his headlights disappeared down the road, she’d bolted from the house.

She hadn’t expected the cabin to be locked, though. Who did Matthew think would break in? Smokey the Bear? And she’d given him her only set of cabin keys.

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw you climbing in that window,” Blaze said with a chuckle as they hefted the trunk up the porch stairs. “First you burst from the house like a greyhound, then you break into the reporter’s cabin. This husband gig just keeps getting better and better.”

Her forearms strained at the heaviness of the trunk. She shifted to free one hand and nudged open her front door. “It’s not technically breaking in since it’s
my
cabin.”

Yes, perhaps removing one of the cabin’s side windows and limboing in like an acrobat was extreme, but the contents of the trunk told more of her story than Matthew ever needed to see.

Inside the house, they dropped the trunk in the entryway. “I hope there’s not a body inside. I’d hate to think I aided and abetted a murder,” Blaze said.

Eventually they’d move it—maybe up to her bedroom or
her office next door. But for now, she needed to get back to the cabin, re-lock the front door, and replace the window. “Don’t worry. This won’t add to your criminal record.”

“Not sure how I feel about the fact that you assume I already have one.”

“I’ll go clean up the crime scene. Watch for Matthew, and if you see him drive in before I’m back, stall him.”

“Aye aye, oh, wife of mine.” He saluted. “You can count on me.” Tan legs poked from Blaze’s shorts and his windswept hair brushed over his smiling eyes. The man did serious about as well as she did makeup.

She sprinted back to the cabin. The three-room structure had been the only building on the property when she’d purchased the land a little less than four years ago. For over six months she’d called it home, woken up every morning in the double bed edged up against one wall, covered in Grandma Woodruff’s quilt . . . Robbie at her side.

Earlier, she’d been in such a hurry to retrieve the trunk, she hadn’t allowed the tide of memories to rush over her. But this time, before she even walked through the door, the flashbacks returned so thick she could smell the sweet of the cedar walls, feel the poking springs of the old bed, hear the whispering voice of her guilt.

Miranda shook her head, dislodging the pull of the past.

The storm window sat on the ground where she’d left it, propped against a caulked wall. Quickly, she replaced it, then marched inside. She looked into the bedroom to make sure all was as she’d found it: Matthew’s duffel bag in the corner on the rough-hewn floor, the doorless cutout closet empty, frayed braided rug at the foot of the bed.

Miranda’s cheeks warmed at the sight of the bed sheets thrown back, the familiar chiding of her conscience like a gong. Because, while she and Robbie may have lived like it, they
hadn’t been married. Robbie—handsome, vibrant Robbie—had been irresistible. Her convictions, no match.

She took a breath now. Even without his clothes in the closet or his work boots lined up against the wall, the cabin still resonated with Robbie’s presence.

Another labored breath. And then . . . she froze. The sound of footsteps on leaves, the crinkle of a grocery sack. The jiggling of the doorknob.

“Oh dear.” How could Matthew be back so soon? She hadn’t heard him drive up. So much for Blaze keeping watch. Oh, why hadn’t she ever put a door on the bedroom closet? She could have hidden inside. Maybe under the bed.
And what, stay there all night?
Or maybe . . .