by Ann Yost
“Hey,” she said. His heart crashed into his ribs.
“Hey, yourself.” He forced himself to grin.
The curtain rose to reveal a two-dimensional plywood rendition of Mount Vernon. Sam, dressed in white pantaloons, a cutaway jacket and a tri-cornered hat, stood on the stage opposite Lillie, whose ankle-length blue gown frothed with lace at the neck and sleeves. There was a distinct lack of jingle bells. No doubt some audience members were disappointed.
“The nation wants me to serve again,” George Washington said in a familiar piping voice. “But all I really want to do is stay home with you, my dear.”
“But George,” Martha said, a scowl on her face, “what about your duty? The country needs you.”
George removed his hat revealing a head full of blond curls. “I hate to leave you to raise the children alone, Martha, my dear.”
“Hmmm,” Martha said. “I have an idea! The children and I will come to Washington with you!”
George picked up her hand and kissed the back of it. “With you by my side, Martha, my dear, the nation will get a much better president.”
Jake’s heart swelled with pride and then he felt Lucy’s hand on his.
“They’re so wonderful,” she said, her voice trembling. He lifted her hand and pressed his lips against it. She made a little noise, a whimper and his heart squeezed. He forced himself to be patient, to focus on James and Dolley Madison as they removed a wagonload of silver from the White House and rescued a portrait of George Washington during British invasion of 1812.
Honest Abe, wearing a stovepipe hat, brandished a piece of paper and a quill pen and announced that he was “’mancipatin’ the slaves.” William Henry Harrison came on stage just long enough to die in his bed and Theodore Roosevelt strode across the stage with a stuffed teddy bear under one arm and a bull moose under the other. Franklin Roosevelt, pince-nez falling off his nose, held out a long cigarette holder and declared war on Japan and Germany and afterwards, Harry Truman ended that same war with a decision to drop an atom bomb.
“Maxine made that costume,” Lucy whispered, when Jackie Kennedy appeared in a pale yellow suit with a pillbox hat to support her husband’s creation of the Peace Corps.
“Nice,” he said. He wondered if she could hear the strain in his voice.
The play ended with the unfurling of an oversized American flag and a gathering on stage of all the first graders waving battery powered flashlights and singing This Land is Your Land. The audience stood, clapped, and whistled, then bolted into the hallway to congratulate the cast members. Jake stood behind Lucy waiting for the aisle to clear. He fought the urge to put his hand on her waist. Too soon. He bent his head to speak into her ear.
“I’d like to talk to you.” She turned her sky blue eyes up to him and he winced inwardly. The eyes had lost their sparkle.
“Well, Lucy,” said a strident voice. “I understand you have taken a job at the Hartford Courier. It’s a fine offer but you will be missed in Eden.”
“Thank you, Miss Violet.” Her voice shook.
“A career is a wonderful thing for a woman,” the older woman continued. “It is unfortunate that it is so difficult to combine one with family.”
“Difficult,” Jake said, seizing the opening, “but not impossible. Most women today work outside the home. There’s no reason that Lucy can’t have a career at the Courier and enjoy our family life at the same time.”
He’d gotten their attention. Both Lucy and Miss Violet stared at him.
“There’s one problem,” Lucy said, a little edge in her voice. “The job and the family aren’t in the same town.”
Jake nodded, dismissively. “That will be corrected within the next few weeks, when I’ve moved the twins to Hartford.”
“What?”
“I’ve listed the Cypress Street house with Marilyn Hart and I’ve contacted the Hartford city police. I’ve got an interview Tuesday but it shouldn’t be much of a problem to get hired. After all, I’ve just solved a local murder.”
“You’ve solved it!”
She sounded indignant. He grinned at her.
“I’ll admit I had a little help.”
****
She’d barely been able to keep her mind on the play with Jake sitting next to her, his shoulder brushing against hers, the scent of strawberry shortcake shampoo in her nostrils and her awareness of his big, masculine body so close by.
She’d felt his pride in every molecule of her being when Sam and Lillie had performed. She’d felt his essence in every ounce of her blood. This would be their last time together. She closed her eyes at one point trying to imprint the moment in her memory. She no longer felt like crying. Her emotions were like dead ashes. It was a step toward recovery, she was certain. She was doing the right thing. This had to be the right thing only it was queer that the right thing hurt so much.
Jake picked up her hand at one point and she wanted to squeeze it. She wanted to tell him how much she admired him, how much she’d loved getting to know him.
How much she loved him. None of that was appropriate now, though, so she said nothing at all.
Suddenly the play was over and they got up to leave. Lucy fought the panic that rose in her throat. She heard Miss Violet talking to them but she couldn’t seem to focus. This was it. The last few minutes she’d have with Jake. She nodded and smiled and hoped her responses wouldn’t offend anybody. She knew they probably didn’t make sense.
And then she heard him say something about moving to Hartford, about selling the house and getting a job with the police department.
“There are fine schools in Hartford,” she heard him saying to Miss Violet, who was staring at him as if he’d suddenly sprouted horns.
“And, of course, the children’s grandparents will be with us often. That helps a lot, you know, to have extended family.” He grinned at Lucy and then at Miss Violet. “It takes a village.”
“Pardon me,” Miss Violet said, “but did I hear you correctly? Are you truly going to move to Hartford?”
“Of course.” He sounded as if it weren’t the most addlebrained scheme imaginable. “That’s where my future wife’s career is. Of course we’re moving to Hartford.”
“Daddy, Daddy,” Lillie said, making a beeline down the aisle toward her father.
“Mommy!” It was Sam. He threw his little arms around Lucy’s waist. “I can call you that,” he said, with his shy smile. “Daddy said so.”
Tears filled Lucy’s eyes. They splashed down her cheeks. She lifted Sam, aka George Washington, up into her arms.
“You can call me anything you want, darlin’.”
“We’re gonna go to Har’ford with you,” Lillie said, from her perch in Jake’s arms. “Wiggles and Lucy, Junior don’t wanna leave our house but we told them it’s important. That’s what daddy says. You have to follow your heart.”
Lucy looked at Jake’s laughing green eyes and she read the sincerity in them. You are my heart, he told her, although his mouth didn’t move.
The tears plummeted down her cheeks and onto the child in her arms.
“My goodness,” Miss Violet said, pulling out a handkerchief. She held it to her nose. “My goodness.”
“What do you say, sweetheart,” Jake gave her a rueful smile and she returned it. There was no point in waiting for privacy. “Do you like the plan? Can we come?”
“Do you have your heart set on the Hartford Police Department?”
“No, Luce.” His voice was low and intimate, in spite of the audience. “Only on you.”
“Then I’d like to stay in Eden. I’d like to run the Excelsior. I think a small canvas is more my style.” She grinned at him and she knew her heart was in her eyes. “A small canvas and a big family.”
Jake’s kiss involved no hands. It was chaste and brief but he managed to convey the promise of much more to come.
“I love you,” he said.
Lucy, still holding Sam, moved into his arms for another kiss. An
instant later she realized they’d been joined by Maxine and Frank.
“It’s all right that they’re kissin’,” Sam explained to his grandparents. “’Cause Daddy loves Lucy.”
A word from the author...
It doesn't have to be a dark and stormy night for me to enjoy a mystery story, and a mystery mixed with romance is even better. My idea of fun is an evening spent with Patricia Wentworth, Lord Peter Wimsey, Inspectors Alleyn, Morse, and Lewis, Sandra Brown, Jayne Ann Krentz, Janet Evanovich, or Margery Allingham. I've tried to bring some of the delicious tension of those authors and works to my own romantic suspense.
I'm from Ann Arbor, Michigan—a town that, it turns out, was not named for me—but now live in Northern Virginia. I'm an ex-reporter, a sometime teacher, wife of a longtime Associated Press reporter who loves to read as much as I do, and mother of three perfect adult children and two equally perfect children-in-law and Lucy, a golden retriever.
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