Nolan: Return to Signal Bend Read Online Free Page A

sitting now atop a stack of smooth sheets of gold tissue paper. “That’s an excellent choice, I think. I’m glad we could come to terms.”
     
    Shannon was a major mover in Signal Bend business; it didn’t surprise Iris that another business owner would know her, and probably knew her well. “So…could I apply?”
     
    With a grin, he reached under the desk and brought out a pad of generic applications. “Absolutely. I need your info. But you’ve got the job. Can you start Monday?”
     
     
    ~oOo~
     
     
    She had handed Geoff—her new boss!—her completed application and taken the little red paper shopping bag holding her gift for Shannon before she’d realized that Rose had never shown up. When she left the shop, she found her older sister sitting in her little Subaru coupe across the street. She jumped off the boardwalk and trotted over.
     
    “Why didn’t you come in?” she asked as she sat in the passenger seat.
     
    “I wasn’t going in that creepy place. Mindy said that he keeps jars with dead animals floating in green goo in there.”
     
    Iris hadn’t seen anything like that. What she’d seen was quirky and a little edgy, not macabre. “No, he doesn’t. Mindy is a twat.”
     
    Rose eyed Iris’s red bag. “You bought something in there?”
     
    “Yeah. Shannon’s gift.” She pulled the frame out and unwrapped it from its tissue so she could show it off.
     
    “That is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen. You’re giving Shannon a dead butterfly for Christmas?”
     
    It was beautiful. And Iris felt good. She wasn’t going to let her sister ruin it, either. Without another word, she wrapped the frame carefully back in its pretty tissue and slid it into its bag.
     
    “Well, at least it’s not floating in green goo,” Rose muttered and started her car. “A dead bug for Shannon, and a rusted-out old sign for Daddy. You are one weird little chick, Irie.”
     
    A vintage 1920s Harley-Davidson showroom sign was not a ‘rusted-out old sign.’ Iris was not going to let her sister bring her down.
     
     
    ~oOo~
     
     
    At home later that afternoon, while Shannon and Millie were making supper, Rose was online with her boyfriend, and Joey was playing a racing game on the Xbox, Iris went out and crossed the big yard to her father’s garage.
     
    It was a huge thing and his favorite ‘room’ of the house. Aside from housing Shannon’s SUV, his truck, and two Harleys and an old Indian, the garage had a fourth bay that was walled off from the others and climate-controlled. He had a mancave set up in there, and he worked on whatever project bike he had going there as well.
     
    The overhead door was closed—not surprisingly, considering the temperature—so Iris went to the small door at the side and knocked.
     
    “Yeah!” he called, and she went in.
     
    He grinned when he saw her. “Hey, baby flower. Supper ready?”
     
    “No, not yet. I just wanted to hang out for a minute, if that’s okay.”
     
    “You know it is. Have a seat. Let me just get this fork tightened, and I’ll sit with you.”
     
    “Don’t stop. You know I like to watch.”
     
    Still grinning, he nodded and turned back to his work. “Grab yourself a beer and keep me company.”
     
    Iris sat on the tattered old plaid loveseat and leaned over to the little cube of a fridge for a beer. While she sipped at it, she watched her father work. They didn’t speak, and they didn’t need to. She really did enjoy watching him. He was doing something he loved, and she could see that he was perfectly content, thinking of nothing but the work, leaving outside this room any burdens he might be carrying.
     
    He was old, sixty-three at his last birthday, and his long hair and beard had gone grey, but she knew it was still mostly thick and full under his black beanie. He had been terribly hurt in another really horrible thing, one that she had been away from, and his body was scarred and often achy and stiff, but it