Good Wood
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Good Wood
Copyright © 2014 by L.G. Pace III & Michelle Pace
Cover designer: Robin Harper. Wicked By Design.
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Cover model: Ruby Franco
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Formatting by
JT Formatting
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products, bands, and/or restaurants referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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THE FLASHING LIGHTS of the helipad blinded me, but they barely penetrated my anguished haze. I was so lost inside my own head that I didn’t really see them. The crushing weight of three officers held me in place, pinning me down to the cold concrete. The biggest cop ground my skull against the unyielding surface. Another held my left arm, while a third wrestled my right into handcuffs. There was no need for them to put so much effort into my arrest. At this point, one of them could have easily cuffed me. Not that I blamed them for being cautious. I had initially put up quite a struggle, but now all my strength was gone. It had abandoned me like blood running from a gaping chest wound. The ragged sobs that racked my entire body consumed all my energy. Part of me wished they would just shoot me and put me out of my misery.
Looking back on it now, I realize I was already in a state of shock. I guess having your entire world turned upside down in an instant has a tendency to do that. Only a day earlier, I was blissfully unaware of what fate held in store. My wife, Jessica, had gone on maternity leave early and had been using the time to get the house ready for our new arrival. Eight months pregnant with our son, she’d become almost frantic in her preparations. One day she’d insist we needed to put in a stock of cloth diapers and the next day she wanted to drive an hour to get a special blender for making our own organic baby food. The doctor assured me that it was perfectly normal. Every woman goes through a nesting process. I told the doc that the way she was going our nest was going to be bigger than the Grand Canyon.
Just before we found out we were pregnant, Jess had convinced me it was time to start my woodworking business. From the early days of my apprenticeship, I had been doing custom woodcraft for people. As the jobs had gotten more complicated, I had struggled to keep up with demand. Jessica convinced me to find a space to use for a full service woodworking shop. There was a cheap building that had been fire damaged. The bones were solid, but it needed a lot of restoration. The ground floor would be my workshop and there were two income apartments on the second floor.
It took a lot of nights and weekends, not to mention trading some woodworking for plumbing and electrical work, but I finally got the place in shape. The downstairs was mostly workshop with a small retail area up front. Jess had told me to put that in at the last minute. Her thinking was that it made sense to have a place to meet with customers and transact business in addition to having a full shop. That was my Jessica, chock full of good business sense. The upstairs we roughed out and made ready for finish work. I procrastinated on completing the apartments figuring there would be plenty of time later. And I wasn’t hurting for money.
When the pregnancy news came, the apartments were the last thing on my mind. Along with starting the new business, I was still working as a contractor on construction jobs. Between all of that and trying to spend time with Jessica, I was in desperate need of a rest. So the apartments went to the bottom of my priority list. Even with all the horror stories my friends Mac and Mason told me about sleep deprivation, the month or so I planned to take off when Jessica gave birth beckoned me like paradise.
Since we found out we were expecting, I’d been doing everything I could to make sure I’d have the time I needed with Jessica and little Jack. I’d given up pretty much everything extracurricular, to the horror of my buddies, but it was more than worth it. Watching daily as her belly grew, just made my growing responsibilities undeniable.
I had two weeks of work left and everything was stacking up. There were last minute changes to customer build plans. I had suppliers claiming they hadn’t been paid. And then there were the people trying to bid me out of my time off. Some of the offers were just plain senseless. One lady from England wanted me to recreate a hand carved chest of drawers from solid walnut. But she wanted it in three weeks. The guy I referred her to told me if Jess got tired of me, he would have my babies as long as I kept sending that type of work his way.
I’d decided to go home early hoping to surprise Jess with her favorite meal, Joe’s Famous Homemade Spaghetti and Meatballs. It was one of the few things I could do in the kitchen that didn’t involve a fire extinguisher. I’d hit the Farmer’s Market for a few ingredients: fresh mushrooms, herbs, heirloom tomatoes and some grass fed beef from an organic butcher. My girl had always been a health-nut, and pregnancy had only made her more militant about the ingredients she put into her body. As I came in, she was on the phone but spun toward me, fumbling to hang up and greet me with a kiss.