Hold Onto the Stars by Tracy Broemmer

Chapter 7

CJ slippedthe screws into the pocket of her beige apron and gently pulled the switch plate from the wall. Down the hall, Andrea Shively was on the phone with her mom, and in the background, CJ heard a children’s program on the TV. She set the switch plate on the decorative table at the end of the hall and turned her attention back to the outlet. Andrea’s trouble call this morning about her three-way light switch malfunctioning had trumped CJ’s other jobs, but changing out the defective switch wouldn’t take long. CJ wouldn’t run much behind, and even if she did, she could shave time off her lunch hour.

Or work late.

Not like she had a life outside of her job and taking care of her dad. Well, really, she didn’t take care of her dad. True, they lived in the same house—though it was a duplex. CJ did some of his laundry, but her dad knew how to sort colors and how much bleach to use. He even knew how to use an iron, not that he had much need for that skill.

“I heard that new teacher’s pretty hot.”

CJ pocketed her screwdriver and glanced at Andrea as the woman moseyed down the hall. Apparently finished with her phone call, she cupped a giant stoneware mug in her hands and sipped from it. CJ grinned when Andrea arched her eyebrows and waited for the scoop. Andrea was happily married to her high school sweetheart and was the mother of three-year-old twins, so CJ knew she wasn’t interested in Peyton Quinn for herself, just interested in how good-looking the single women in town found him.

Normally, CJ would be happy to wag her eyebrows and agree that yes, the new teacher was smoking hot. After all, when Aaron Beckett, the airplane mechanic, had come to town a while back, tongues had wagged about how hot he was, and yes, CJ had readily agreed. This was different, though. For one thing, Peyton was dating her best friend.

And another, CJ was still a bit regretful that she hadn’t hung out at Bender’s with him that first day she bumped into him. Maybe if she had, he would have asked her out.

“Pretty easy on the eyes,” CJ agreed softly. She smiled as she pulled a handful of wire nuts from her apron to cap off the wires. “Seems nice, too.”

“So, Violet went out with him, huh?”

CJ spared Andrea a quick glance and nodded, but she turned her attention back to the switch.

“Yeah, they went out last Friday. That band was pretty good, by the way.”

CJ had moved away from the pool tables for the sole purposes of giving Violet space on her date. She had wandered over to watch the band set up, and though she enjoyed talking to friends there and listening to the live music, it hadn’t been long before Violet and Peyton were dancing. CJ had watched them briefly; they had certainly hit it off, enough so that when Violet told her there hadn’t been a goodnight kiss, CJ was surprised.

“So, what’d she say?” Andrea ignored CJ’s comment about the band. “Good kisser? When are they going out again?”

CJ offered Andrea a smile and shrugged. “No kiss yet. Guess they’re taking things slow and easy.” Maybe Peyton was the shy kind. Who knew? CJ didn’t want to speculate, and she didn’t want to talk about Violet when she wasn’t there. “Be right back.” She slipped by Andrea and skipped down the basement steps to get to the breaker.

Why hadn’t Peyton kissed Violet goodnight?

Nope. Not your business, CJ.

She flipped the power back on and went upstairs again. To her relief, Andrea was in the living room with the twins, so CJ went straight back down the hall to test for the hotwire. She liked Andrea, and she wasn’t necessarily above harmless gossip, but thinking about Violet and Peyton made her itchy and uncomfortable.

Thirty minutes later, the Shively’s three-way switch was fully changed out, and CJ climbed up into her truck, put the windows down, and headed to an old rental house that Eugene Long was refurbishing. When they’d taken the job, she’d assumed she would be working alongside her dad, as usual. She hadn’t thought much of it when her dad hired Travis Winston, a guy who had just completed his apprenticeship, to round out the crew. But just this morning, CJ’s dad had announced that she would be handling the Long rental mostly on her own. Travis would be helping on the Fitzgerald house.

Her dad was aging quickly. He was retirement age, but he had always enjoyed the work. Now, he was making rumblings about retiring and handing the business off to her. She wanted it— heck yes, she wanted to take over the family business. She had been working alongside her father in his electric business since she was a kid. At first, she had done simple things like fetching tools or drinks for him. It had been no surprise when she had aced all her science classes in high school, and probably no surprise to anyone in Oak Bend when she had started her apprenticeship to become an electrician like her dad.

Maybe that was the itch that kind of niggled between her shoulder blades from time to time. That and the way pretty much everyone in town expected her to settle down and get married. And have children. Sometimes, CJ felt like her life was a script, but it was the same damned script everyone else lived, and as content as she was with her life, she wanted something different. More.

Too bad she had no idea what that different, that more, might be.

CJ found Eugene perched on the porch steps with the business end of a pipe in his mouth. The old man gave her a silent nod when she climbed out of the truck, gathered her tools, and headed up the walk. Some men balked at her showing up to work on wiring, as if having two x chromosomes somehow made her less capable of understanding electricity than men. But mostly, she had proved them all wrong with her performance, not to mention most people didn’t cross her father.

“Morning, Eugene,” she said as she pounded up the porch steps and reached for the screen door.

“It is,” he agreed. The man was eccentric, but CJ didn’t mind him so much. The extra nice thing was that even if he hung around while she worked—and he wouldn’t—he wouldn’t be hounding her for gossip about the hot new teacher.

Which meant she was free to wonder, maybe even daydream, about the guy as much as she wanted. As long as she didn’t get too caught up in her thoughts and end up frying herself on live wires in the process.

As she set her tools on a card table in the middle of the otherwise empty living room, CJ wondered again why Peyton hadn’t kissed Violet goodnight. Didn’t most dates end with a kiss? Even if it was sweet and harmless? Violet hadn’t seemed all that upset about it either. Pretty strange, CJ decided. The guy had such a pretty face—those finely chiseled cheekbones and deep eyes would drive CJ crazy. She imagined pressing her lips to his cheek, kissing a path to his lips where she would nibble and sample until he parted—

Good grief, CJ.

She cleared her throat and wiped her hands on her hips as she looked around the empty room. Time to get busy and get her mind off Peyton Quinn. She and Violet weren’t kids anymore, so entertaining thoughts like this about her friend’s boyfriend was a bigger violation now than it was when they were little.