Straddling the Line - By Sarah M. Anderson Page 0,55

printer that printed parts.

It would take some serious planning to pull it off, but once the equipment was here and Billy was boosting his productivity, Dad would have to agree that Ben was fully capable of making smart business decisions. Once he got over being left in the dark, that was. It was risky, but it was a risk Ben was willing to take.

“I got time.” Billy looked around, a sense of weariness sitting on him like an ill-fitting crown. “All the time in the world.” He shook it off and shot Ben an actual smile. “All this talk of building bikes—and you haven’t built one in years.”

“Actually,” Ben said, feeling the truth of it, “I was thinking about starting one.”

Billy shook his head, like he just couldn’t believe his own eyes. “This Josey must be a piece of work.”

Ben didn’t bristle this time. He was going to take his victory and run with it.

He had a lot of work to do.

*

After a weekend of frenzied housekeeping, Josey’s mom was ready. Ben showed up Sunday night with a box of chocolates and a small African violet. He said nothing about the shabby double-wide trailer that was home. Instead, he complimented Mom on how much he liked the comfortable couch and how cozy everything was. He studied the picture of Josey’s dad, Virgil, and listened intently as Mom talked about his military service.

Over a dinner of fried chicken and baked potatoes, he told them how he’d arranged to donate heavy shop equipment when they bought new computer-based tools, and how he thought it would be a good idea if his older brother, Billy, came out with him after Don got the shop finished and helped the kids build a bike they could auction off for charity.

The more he talked, the wider Mom’s eyes got as her gaze darted between Josey and Ben. Soon all she could say was, “That’s—why, that’s a wonderful idea!”

“They’ll need to be able to operate all the tools first, so it probably won’t happen this school year,” he cautioned, that hidden smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Mom shot Josey another stunned look. “You knew about this?”

“I wanted it to be a surprise,” Ben said with a sheepish smile that was unnecessarily attractive.

He’d wanted to surprise her, something that required forethought and planning. As Mom and Ben discussed the particulars, a warm, taken-care-of feeling spread throughout Josey. This was such a far cry from Matt’s disconnection from anything tribal. That had to make it a good thing, right? After all, Ben was a problem-solver. He was doing what he did best, she realized.

But that didn’t answer the question of what would happen between the two of them when there was no longer a problem to solve. Or when the problem wasn’t something he could solve.

He could donate tools and instruments and even a bike, but he couldn’t make people accept him on anything more than a surface level. He couldn’t be a member of the tribe, no matter how generous he was, just like Grandpa had never truly been accepted by anyone other than Samuel Respects None and his granddaughter, Mary. For all his generosity, for all his goodwill, Grandpa had never been accepted. His granddaughter had never been fully accepted, despite a lifetime of trying. Would Josey ever find her place in the tribe, especially if she was involved with another outsider?

That was the problem Ben Bolton couldn’t fix. No one could.

Again, she was getting way, way ahead of herself. She shut off her brain and forced herself to stay in the here and now, because right now, Ben was the answer to a whole lot of prayers. Josey couldn’t do anything but sit in wonder at this man who had become such an important part of her life in such a short time.

Grandma had always talked about knowing she would marry Grandpa from the first time she saw him. It hadn’t mattered that she’d been six and Grandpa had been ten or that their lives were so different. She’d just known. She’d always known.

Mom had been the same way. The way the story went, she’d come home from college on summer break and had seen the young grass dancer stomping in the middle of the ring. “I believe in love at first sight,” she’d always said.

Josey watched as Ben sketched out the floor space that the donated tools would need. She’d long thought Mom and Grandma had been over-romanticizing the past, glossing over the