by Beth Flynn
“I don’t want a tub I have to climb over the side to get in. I want to step down into it, so the floor needs to come up by the window, and he needs to reinforce beneath it to support the weight. He offered to manage the subcontractor for me, and I jumped at the chance. I offered to pay him, and he got offended.”
Darlene was digging in her purse and mumbled, “Yeah, sounds like a guy thing.” She offered me a piece of gum while asking, “Have you heard anything from your realtor?”
I popped the treat in my mouth. “No, and I haven’t called her. Things have been so hectic lately. Hey! Did that guy give me the finger?”
“I believe he did!”
“What’d I do?” I frowned and looked in my rearview mirror.
“Forget him. Tell me what you’re wearing tomorrow night.”
I woke up the next morning with a smile on my face and wondered whose bed I would be waking up in tomorrow morning. As Darlene had reminded me more than once, I was overthinking. But I couldn’t help myself. I felt that having dinner at his place might propel us to another level of our physical relationship and I still wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Every part of my body ached for Jake, but the sensible side of my brain had erected an impenetrable wall. “I can’t believe you’re worried about coming off as a prude,” I said to my ceiling. Frustrated, I grabbed my pillow and pulled it over my face. “You haven’t been on a date in decades. Decades!” I screamed into it. Just enjoy yourself and see how it goes, I told myself.
Tossing the pillow aside, I jumped out of bed and raced downstairs to use the bathroom and start the coffeepot. I headed back up to my room to change into my running attire. I’d still not had the opportunity to jog back over to the Pritchard farm, and I was happily stunned to realize I didn’t care. I’d been running in the opposite direction a couple of times a week to retrieve my mail from the post box at the other end of my road. I still wasn’t back in the cardiovascular shape I’d been in over a year ago, but I was getting there and was enjoying the physical as well as mental benefits of exercise.
I was home sooner than expected, and after a cup of coffee and a simple breakfast, I spent the morning and most of the afternoon working around my house. The painting contractor knocked on the door to ask me a few questions and double check my color selections. He was confident his men could knock out the dining room and upstairs guest bedroom in a few hours. I’d gone to school with him and had no problem being alone in the house with him and his two grown sons. They left around two o’clock, and after locking the door behind them, I showered and headed upstairs to get ready for my dinner date.
You’re being ridiculous. He won’t be here for four hours. I spent the next hour sitting at my dressing table in my robe, experimenting with makeup. Taking a closer look at my face, I saw the crow’s feet on each side of my eyes and hoped they looked more like laugh lines. I played around with my face, using my fingers to pull my skin taut in certain places. I could certainly use a minor lift in a few spots, but nothing earth-shattering. At least not yet. After applying only light makeup, I stood, threw off my robe, and looked at my nude body in the full-length mirror on the back of my bedroom door.
I turned around and peered back over my shoulder to size up my butt. The old gray mare wasn’t what she used to be, but all those years of running and tennis had been good to me. I wished it was a tad higher and firmer, but it wasn’t an awful butt. I turned around and stared at my chest. If only my girls were a little perkier too. I looked down and pinched my right thigh. The cellulite was there, just hiding. I stood sideways and grabbed my stomach. I didn’t see how it could ever be flat again. I might get it to look a tad less bloated if I changed my diet and did some sit-ups, but I liked to eat and hated sit-ups.
For one split second I let the discouraging image of what Dolly probably looked like nude sneak up on me, but immediately squelched the thought. Very few fifty-two-year-old women could’ve competed with my body when I was twenty-one. It was asinine for me to do it now. “I’ve taken care of myself, this is the normal process of aging, and Jake likes me. And if he sees me naked and runs, then it’s his loss. I’m sure he has a few hidden age secrets of his own,” I said to my reflection. After giving myself a good talking to, I got dressed and realized I still had a little over two hours to kill.
I’d meant to take care of a tax bill and hadn’t been able to pay online so I grabbed my purse, locked my house, and climbed into my Jeep.
There was a small satellite county office in the same building where I worked at Dr. Tucker’s practice. I noticed his parking lot only had a few cars and two belonged to employees. It must be a slow day. The county tax office was at the opposite end and only one vehicle was parked in front. I pulled up next to it and went inside.
A pleasant-looking elderly woman with outdated bouffant hair and overstated lipstick asked, “How can I help you, young lady?”
Her compliment made my day. I quickly introduced myself.
“Are you the doctor who works part-time at the clinic next door?” she wondered aloud. When I told her I was, she thanked me for sewing up her great-grandson who’d had a playground incident a month or so earlier that required a few stitches in his chin. After some chitchat, I explained why I was there.
“I need to pay a tax bill for a piece of property.” I rattled off the name and address.
“Do you have the bill with you?” she kindly asked.
“I don’t own the property so I’ve never received one. I’ve managed to keep up with the payments by checking online when I know it’s due, but I couldn’t find it this year.”
“Let me see what I can find.” She adjusted her glasses and turned to her computer screen. I glanced around the small office while I pondered the reason behind my visit.
When Mr. Pritchard passed away, he’d left a sizable life insurance policy in Jonathan’s name. And because they had no living relatives, except for Kenny who was in prison, Jonathan became his sole heir and a ward of the state. Even with all his rottenness, I was grateful that Mr. Pritchard had provided for Jonathan. The money that was left to him was absorbed by the state to pay for his medical and living expenses. The Pritchard farm was to be sold and the proceeds would also be used for Jonathan’s lifetime of care.
I think I was in my third year of college when I became overly curious and started snooping to find out if anybody had purchased the farm. I was shocked to find out that even though it was owned by the state, the property was still in Mr. Pritchard’s name and it showed there were three years of property taxes owed. I wasn’t sure if it had slipped through the cracks, was a glitch in the system, or if there was a backlog and it hadn’t been taken care of yet. Even with my hurt and anger still simmering toward him, I must’ve been hopeful of a less-than-slim chance that Kenny’s sentence would be shortened or revoked. And something in me was petrified at the thought of him getting out of prison, retrieving Jonathan from his group home, and having no place to go.
So I scrounged, borrowed, worked extra shifts, and paid off that past due tax bill. As the years passed, I continued to check, and every year, a new bill was due, and I managed to pay it. I never inquired about the supposed glitch. Almost seventeen years ago, I gave the responsibility to Richard’s administrative assistant who handled our joint household checking account. She would look the same time every year and pay the bill out of that joint account. With Richard gone, I’d assumed the task again. I was able to pay it online last year, but couldn’t find a record of it recently.
“I’m sorry it’s taking so long but I can’t find it in my system,” the sweet clerk told me with a puzzled expression.
“Is it possible the property was sold?” I was more than a little shaken at the idea. I didn’t know why, but couldn’t fathom the thought of anyone other than a Pritchard living on their property. Knowing that was impossible, I braced myself for her answer.
“No. If it was sold, I’d still be able to find the address.” She looked thoughtful. “Unless…”
She started typing frantically and I tried to lean over the counter to see if I might catch a glimpse of her screen.
“Bingo!” she shouted. “It wasn’t sold. It was part of a rezoning project last year between our county and Pickens County. It’s why you didn’t see a tax assessment on our website. It’s migrated over to their website.” She sat up and smiled.
This might explain the strange marker I’d come upon the day I jogged toward the Pritchards’ farm. The property was now in another county and they’d marked the new zone.
“Would you happen to have access to the Pickens County computer system?” I hoped my voice didn’t sound desperate.
“No,” she told me. “But anybody can look up land records. Let me get on their website and do a little investigating for you. It might take me a few minutes. And if I can’t find it, my niece works over there. I can always call her. Is there something you can do while you wait?”
I told her I would run over to the clinic and ask about my schedule. When I returned twenty minutes later, she greeted me with a smile.
“This is the new address assigned by Pickens County. You can pay online at their website.” She handed me a small piece of paper, and as I read it, I had to blink my eyes to make sure I was seeing it correctly. I barely remembered thanking her and leaving the office as I walked in a zombie-like trance to my car. The man I was certain I was in love with had been keeping a huge secret from me.
Chapter 31
It Didn’t Seem Like a Good Time
I warred with myself the entire drive home. My first instinct was to show up on Jake’s doorstep and demand his reason for not telling me he’d purchased the Pritchard farm. For not telling me he was my neighbor. I certainly wasn’t the real estate police, but it seemed like a pretty big detail to leave out of our conversations. It sure does explain his concern about my jogging adventure to the Pritchard property the morning he woke up at my house.
By the time I arrived home, I only had thirty minutes before Jake was supposed to show up. I passed the time by checking my makeup, making a grocery list, and folding some towels. After I put away the last towel, I retired to the only chair on my front porch and waited.
I watched as his truck slowly made its way up my road. Should I be thinking of it as our road now? I wondered. When he pulled into my driveway, he gave me a hesitant smile. I realized that he was nervous and this was probably a big deal for him. I found my earlier anger fizzling as he got out of the truck and greeted me with a kiss on my cheek. He took me by the elbow and escorted me to the passenger side, and after closing the door behind me, trotted around to his side and jumped into the driver’s seat. He started to back up and stopped where my gravel driveway met the dirt road. He took a deep breath and, taking his foot off the brake, began to turn the wheel of the truck so he could leave the same way he’d come.
“It’s okay, Jake. You don’t have to take the long way around. I’m assuming that’s why you wanted to pick me up? To give you some time to explain.”
He jammed on the brake and looked over at me. “How long have you known?”
I looked at my watch and then at him. “Almost an hour and a half.”
“Barbie, I should’ve told you. I was going to tell you more than once, but—”
I cut him off. “It’s okay. But what I don’t understand is why you felt you needed to keep it a secret for so long.”
He put the truck in park and turned off the ignition. After casually leaning against the door so he could face me, he enlightened me about his arrival in South Carolina several months prior.
“I was taking the road less traveled, falling in love with small-town America when I drove through the one intersection at Pumpkin Rest and ended up in Stillwell. I stayed in a motel for a few days and heard that they were looking for help at Hampton House. Sheila gave me a job, and I worked it out with the motel’s owner to let me rent for the month. I didn’t know if I’d be staying or for how long.” He raked his hand through his short, cropped hair. “Jonathan immediately took to me, and I started hearing stories about his family and the farm where he’d grown up. I went looking for it on my day off, and I found it.”
“Were you already living there that first day I saw you?”
“Yeah, I’d been living there for a few weeks before you moved back here permanently. I’d heard about the lady doc who’d bought her childhood home, but I’d never seen you. I guess you were coming and going at random when you were trying to be there for Richard in Greenville.”
He was right.
“Anyway, you didn’t look happy the first time you saw me, so I stopped using the road. When the county rezoned the property, and that was months before I moved here,” he quickly clarified, “they must’ve widened one of the old Pritchard trails and connected it to the other county. It’s the same amount of time to get to Hampton House from my side of the road as it is if I passed by your house.”
“That would explain why Darlene had never seen you before that,” I surmised. “I guess I wasn’t very welcoming back then, was I?”
“I’m not sure if it was that or your sensitivity to the Pritchard name.”
I couldn’t argue that one.
“So, I waited until I got to know you better. I should’ve told you sooner because I never knew if you’d show up there one day. Like the morning you went for a jog.” He paused and tugged at his short beard. “I waited a little longer and finally decided to go for it. I invited you to my place for dinner, but you were in New York.”
“Yeah,” I interrupted. “But that was almost a month ago. Why have you waited so long before extending a second invitation?”
“Barbie, do you remember what you found out the day you got back from New York?” He reached for my hand and held it. “The day you told your sister you were evicting her?”
“Of course I remember. I found out about my family roots. Or rather lack of them.”
“Right. It didn’t seem like a good time to dump another surprise on you. And that was followed up by that dirtbag beating the crap out of Sheila.” He shook his head. “Like I said, it just didn’t seem like a good time.”
His voice matched his eyes. Both were thick with emotion and regret. I smiled and gave his hand a tight squeeze. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m kind of curious to see what you’ve done with the place.”
Chapter 32
In His Younger Days He Helped Law Enforcement Find Dead Bodies
We slowly made our way down our shared dirt road to the Pritchard property. When we passed the county marker, I couldn’t help but ask, “I wonder why they didn’t mark the road correctly?”
“What do you mean?”
“The first set of trees that divide our farm from the Pritchards’ is on their property but we already passed them. The marker should be a few hundred yards behind us.” I looked over at him. He was shaking his head.
“No. The stakes aren’t wrong.”
“Yes, they are. There are at least two hidden tree houses in that first row and they belong to the Pritchards.” A thought occurred to me and I snapped my head around to look at him.
He must’ve sensed it because he peered over at me before returning his eyes to the road. “What?”
“Have you ever been in those tree houses?” I inquired through narrowed eyes. “With a flashlight?”
“Are you nuts?” he shot back. “I found those tree houses and they’re barely staying up there. The wood is so rotten only a fool would try to climb up to them. Why?”
“Oh, nothing.” I shifted in the seat, secretly embarrassed that I was subconsciously accusing Jake of sending me flashlight signals a few months back.
“Back to the property marker, Barbie. Those trees are on your property.”
“Jake, I grew up here.” I pointed back over my shoulder toward my house that was no longer visible. “I think I would know my property.”
“Well, you don’t,” he said as we rounded a curve and the old Pritchard far
m came into view.
Instead of the dilapidated farmhouse I remembered from my youth, I was surprised to see a well-cared-for home. It was the same small one-story structure, but it was neat and orderly. Something it had never been before.
“I still have a lot of repairs, but I took care of the important ones,” Jake told me. “The roof needs replacing, but I’ve stopped it from leaking until I get that done. It had some busted windows but I replaced the glass panes instead of the whole window units. That’ll have to be done eventually though. And you can see it needs a coat of paint, but it can wait. I’m concentrating on replacing rotten wood siding and this summer it’ll be ready for paint.”
“Kind of like what I’m doing,” I added breathlessly, unable to tear my eyes away from the front of the house. “Except that you’re doing it all yourself?”
“Yeah, just me.”
He threw the truck in park, turned it off, and came around to open the door for me. I was speechless as I walked up a small stone path with neatly trimmed grass on each side. I could see where Jake had cleaned up the yard. Off to the right was a dumpster.
He answered my unspoken question. “It’s a rental for whenever I find something that needs to go. I’ve already filled it up twice. That’s how much junk and trash I’ve had hauled away. It’s easier than making dump runs with my truck.”
“I can’t believe what you’ve done with this place by yourself in the short time you’ve been here,” I marveled.
“I still have a lot to do, Barbie. The inside is clean but still pretty raw. I bought a new fridge and stove, and the plumbing and electricity work, but I haven’t replaced their guts like you did. I’ll need to hire people to do that. I have a lot of time on my hands so it’ll eventually get done.”
“You work all the time, even on your days off. When would you have time to do anything?” I asked incredulously.
“I’m an insomniac. I don’t sleep.” He opened the front door and waved me inside. “The night you stitched me up was the best night’s sleep I’ve had in years.”