by Giselle Fox
That was considerate, Taylor thought. “You never know, she might like to come along. Mama could teach a class of her own.”
Jericho grinned. “Is that so? Well, we could always use more instructors if she’s ever interested.”
“I’ll let her know,” Taylor said. It wasn’t likely, given their circumstances.
Jericho leaned against the Coronet and looked out onto the street. “I always liked this property. It’s got a great backyard.”
“You’ve been here before?”
Jericho nodded. “My sisters and I used to play with Al and his sister Sarah when we were kids.”
Picturing that made Taylor smile. “It must be nice to live in the same place your whole life.” She thought of her home back in Independence. It never had quite the same welcoming feel but that probably had more to do with who her father and husband were.
Jericho smiled at Taylor again. “I should probably let you get back to what you were doing.”
“You want to come in and taste some jam before you go? I could use a third opinion,” Taylor asked. She was surprised that she had.
Jericho’s eyes lit up. “Really?”
Her smile was so genuine, it put Taylor completely at ease. “You like peach?”
Jericho’s smile widened. “I love peach!”
Taylor laughed. “Alright, come on back then.”
They walked down the path through the side gate and into the backyard. Taylor placed her toolbox on the back porch and called up the steps. “We got any lemonade left, mama?”
“Just made some,” she said as she came to the screen door. “Oh, hi again,” she said to Jericho. “Can I pour you two a glass?”
“Please,” Taylor said.
“Thanks, Lucinda,” Jericho called.
Max toddled to the screen door and pushed it open.
“That’s it, baby. Turn around and come down backwards,” Taylor said gently.
Max turned his body at the top of the steps and made his way slowly down while Taylor kept close watch. “Good job, little man. You’re working it out.”
He looked up at Jericho and gave her a toothy smile.
“Hi cutey,” she said as she knelt down. “How old is he?”
“Eighteen months now,” Taylor said. “He’s growing faster than I can believe. Louder too.”
Her mother came down the steps with two tall glasses of lemonade.
“Taylor was saying you could probably teach your own auto mechanics class, Lucinda. Ever thought about it?”
Lucinda stared hard at Taylor. “No, can’t say I have.” She handed a glass to Jericho and stepped under the shade of a tree.
“Thank you. Man, it’s a hot one today,” Jericho said. She took a long drink from her glass.
Taylor watched Jericho’s eyes casually take in her mother’s long-sleeved shirt. “So … you want to come in and try the jam?” she asked.
“I sure do.”
Her mother shot her another look but Taylor ignored it and led the way up the steps.
“I’ve always loved this old screen door,” Jericho said as she held it in her hand.
“Screen needs some mending,” Taylor said. “I put a few staples in the bottom so the flies wouldn’t get in but it’s got some holes.”
“I may have a roll of screen left up at the house,” Jericho said. “I’ll check for you.”
They stepped into the kitchen. Taylor took a quick look around. “Excuse the mess. Hard to make breakfast, jam, and lunch without it looking like a bomb went off.”
Jericho took a seat at the kitchen table and leaned back against the wall. “I won’t judge. I’m only here for the jam.”
Taylor grabbed a clean spoon and dug it into the fruity mixture on the stove. “It might be hot.” She leaned across the table and handed it to Jericho.
“Thanks,” she said and then blew on it.
Taylor leaned her back against the kitchen counter and watched Jericho’s eyes dip closed. “Any good?”
Jericho let out a happy sigh. “I’ll take the whole batch.”
Taylor laughed. “There’s a secret ingredient. Can you guess?”
Jericho’s eyes lit up again. “Tell me.”
Taylor shook her head. “Wouldn’t be much of a secret if I did.”
“Cardamom?”
“Nope.”
“Ginger?”
“No again.”
Jericho twiddled her spoon between her fingers. “How many guesses do I get?”
“As many as you like but I’m not going to tell you even if you’re right.”
“Ahh, but I’ll know.”
Taylor grinned at her. “You think so?”
Jericho gave her spoon one last lick and smiled.
“Want some more?” Taylor asked.
Jericho handed back the spoon. “Since you’re offering.”
Taylor gave it a rinse and dug into the pot again. “Here you go,” she said and handed it back to Jericho. She leaned back against the counter and gathered her long hair into a bundle behind her head. She looked down at the grease stains on her thin white T-shirt. When she looked up, she caught Jericho’s eyes. “It’s … a little hot in here.”
Jericho smiled back at her. “It is.” She leaned her head back against the wall then nodded toward the boxes of fruit on the counter. “So what’s next? Strawberry?”
“And strawberry rhubarb.”
“I’ll take all of those batches too.”
Taylor grinned. “You haven’t even tasted them yet.”
“Don’t need to. I already know they’re going to be perfect.”
She looked right at home sitting there in her kitchen, dressed fine with a glass of lemonade in one hand and a spoonful of jam in the other. Taylor wondered how many times she’d sat right where she was.
“Alright,” Jericho said after a few moments. “I should probably get out of your hair. Thank you so much for indulging me.” She looked around the old kitchen and smiled.
“Anytime,” Taylor said. They walked back down the porch steps side by side. Lucinda was sitting under the apple tree at the back while Max played naked in his turtle pool.
“A pool sure looks nice,” Jericho said. She waved down the yard to Lucinda. “Enjoy your afternoon.”
Taylor’s mother waved back. “Yep, you too.”
Jericho turned to Taylor. “The shop is around back of the high school. You can pull in front of the service bay. That is if you’re coming.”
“I’ll be there,” Taylor said.
Jericho gave her a big smile and held out her hand. “I’m really glad I took this way home today.”
Taylor looked down at it and then clasped it in hers. “It was nice to meet you, Jericho.”
When she was gone, Taylor walked to the back and sat down on the grass.
“She was friendly,” her mother said.
Taylor looked up at her. “She’s nice.”
“Nice and friendly.”
Taylor sighed. She knew what her mother was thinking. “You think she’s working for Stinger?”
Her mama shook her head and chuckled. “Nope. I don’t think a woman like that would give Stinger the time of day.”
Taylor looked back down the path. “No, I don’t think so either.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Jericho parked her car outside the iron gates of her house. Parts of the lawn had grown thick and green. Others were dry and crisp where the sun had scorched it. A few stray clumps of dandelions had forced their way up through the black cloth and gravel that trimmed the flagstone walkway. She knew she’d have to get out there and dig them up before they spread. There was always something to do with a property of that size. Time and nature were powerful forces.
Still, it was home and had been for most of her life. She was the last one remaining - even her grandparents had moved on. For Jericho, the house had always been a foundation. As often as she’d traveled, for work of one kind or another, she always appreciated coming home. No plac
e had ever felt the same.
She looked down the gentle slope of the hill road. At the corners of the quiet cross street beyond were two houses built a generation after hers. They were the closest properties. Behind her, lay the sprawling grasslands and forests of the park, the wild place where she and her sisters had built forts and tree houses, where they dug holes and buried treasure like little pirates in training. Jericho looked back at the old house. “It’s just you and me.”
She left the front door open to let the air flow through. It had been a month since she’d finished sanding but dust from the renovations was still kicking up from somewhere. She dropped her keys and bag on the dining room table and took the stairs up to her bedroom. She peeled off her skirt in front of the open balcony doors and hung it back on its hanger. She changed into the clothes that were waiting on the chair beside her dresser; a pair of baggy work jeans that she’d cropped to her calf and an old black t-shirt speckled with paint. Instantly, she felt more like herself.
She went downstairs to the kitchen and pulled open the fridge. She eyed a cold beer but then reconsidered. The tart lemonade she’d sipped at Taylor’s house had been refreshing too. She squeezed a lemon into a tall jar of ice water and went downstairs.
The basement stayed cool most of the year though there were more electronics working down there than anywhere else. She flicked the switch and the TV room was illuminated by the LED pot lights she’d installed. The sunny light made it look way less like a dungeon than it had before. She remembered when she was little being scared of the shadows cast by the old bare bulbs.
It would have looked like any rec-room to those that went down there - not that many had. Along one wall was a large flat screen TV. Positioned in front, a wide brown leather sofa was flanked by two matching reclining chairs. She’d bought it all at a Black Friday sale. Her grandparents weren’t the only ones to point out that she’d set up enough seats for them and her sisters. It wasn’t as if she expected them all to come home - her sisters had been gone for well over a decade. Designing a space for a family just felt right.
But ... to have a family, one needs to date first, Jericho reminded herself. She’d only ever invited two women back to the house. One had been on a temporary assignment at the college. The other worked as an executive assistant for one of her colleagues. Both dates had gone well enough but neither had left Jericho wanting more.
She walked to the front of the TV room and flicked the small switch concealed behind the wall-mounted speaker. She reached up and pushed her finger against the pot light above her head. It depressed a tiny switch that unlocked an access panel hidden behind the water main shut-off. Inside a little cubby on the wall, the panel popped open and Jericho punched in her access code. She waited three seconds and then punched it in again.
She walked down the short hallway to the unfinished part of the basement, past the washer and dryer, the hot water tank and the furnace. Past the stacks of old furniture she hadn’t gotten around to putting back yet and the accumulations of three sporty teen-aged girls.
At the back of the house was a stone wall identical to the others that encased the building. But concealed within this wall was a stone door. It was virtually impossible to see when it was closed, the seams were covered by rough edges of mortar and rock. Of course, the light at that end of the basement was dim. The cobwebs, dirt and odd bits and pieces were kept there intentionally. No one, not Fraser the city housing inspector, nor anyone else, had ever thought to question the slightly shallow dimension of that last room.
Jericho tucked herself through the doorway and down the four steps. Motion sensors triggered the floor lights and the rough stone walls on either side of her were cast in amber orange. Jericho liked the color but her grandmother thought it looked like something out of a horror film. The passage had been built wide enough for two to walk side by side, a detail that her grandfather had insisted on since they often had to carry heavy equipment in and out. At the end of the passage was another steel door. Jericho punched in her security code again and then waited for the bolts to slide open.
The workroom extended below the front lawn and was equivalent in size to the rest of the house. It was ventilated and cooled by a hidden network of shafts that ran the periphery of the property.
Along the east wall was the array of servers that Lexi had set up - phase one of a network that scrambled nearly all of their online activities and communications. Along the back wall were several plexiglass cases filled with equipment. In one was a sliding rack-mounted winch that had once silently hauled a sixteen-hundred-pound steel ram swiftly up the side of an office tower. Beside that, hung her utility vest designed from black Kevlar. It wasn’t that special but Jericho had designed and sewn it herself.
Jericho flicked on the security monitor and browsed through the screens. She remembered she’d left the front door wide open. The system covered the entire property and extended into the park. One of the park cameras had a bird’s eye view of a robin’s nest. She’d been watching the progress of the little bird family since the spring - but even they weren’t home.
She went to the workbench that ran the length of the east wall and tucked her Mason jar safely into the cup holder. The shelves of electronic gadgets all around made it look a little like Santa’s workshop. If Santa had been a thief.
On the table in front of her was the latest of her devices; a battery powered, diamond tipped drill capable of piercing a sixteen inch steel wall. She hoisted the drill into her arms and gave the trigger a pull. It was almost there but the vibration put it at the edge of being too loud. She placed it back on the table and flicked on the work lights above her head.
A while later, she went out to the back shed where the old tractor was parked. The air inside the shed was damp and cool. The dirt floor smelled of oil and sawdust. Jericho flicked on the transistor radio and pulled open the hood of the old beast. Working on simple engines calmed her mind. Her grandfather said she’d gotten it from him - the existential need to pull things apart and put them back together better than they were before. Playing with her tools, dissecting components and retooling new ones, put her in an almost meditative state.
But her mind was preoccupied and it had been for the last few hours. She’d given up entirely on the drill since nothing she tried seemed to get her anywhere. She had to trust that a eureka moment would eventually happen since it always did. Instead, she allowed her mind to wander back to Taylor while she tuned up the tractor.
She sighed - something she’d been doing a lot of for the previous hour. It was obvious why Taylor was still on her mind; she liked old cars, made delicious jam, and she was smokin’ hot. Jericho felt a little bad for letting her hormones do the thinking when it was obvious that Taylor had been through something serious. She wasn’t sure if she’d been imagining things or if Taylor had maybe given her a few receptive signals.
“You’re imagining things,” she assured herself. That was the safest answer and she knew she should just stick with that and be done with it.
She thought of Taylor’s mother and her hard, suspicious looks. The woman hadn’t been unfriendly as much as ... watchful. Jericho knew there had to be a story there - that something serious must have happened to give her reason to be that way. Taylor had been watchful too, she’d just been better at hiding it. Jericho knew she’d pushed things a little by hanging around but she wanted Taylor to know she had a friend.
Why? She wanted any newcomer in town to feel welcome. But the truer reason was that Taylor seemed like someone that could use an ally. Where was the boy’s father, she wondered. And had Taylor intentionally made a point of telling her she wasn’t with anyone?
“You’re imagining things again,” Jericho said sternly to herself. She put her wrench down and wiped her hands on a rag.
Still, imagining Taylor in her kitchen, leaned back against the counter, slowly lifting her arms to pull up her long black hair ... that vision was every bit as sweet as the hot peach jam.
/> “You seriously need a girlfriend,” Jericho said out loud.
She often coached herself while she tinkered with things. It helped her work out the kinks in her reasoning. It drove her sisters bananas whenever they worked together. She thought of her sisters again, of Lexi camped out with a woman in Barcelona. She hoped this time would be different. Lexi wasn’t exactly girlfriend material.
Then she thought about her sister Charlie and imagined her on yet another photo shoot. How different they all were. Jericho barely tolerated having her picture taken while Charlie thrived in front of the camera. Lexi took it to the extreme and rarely came out of hiding. She was the human equivalent of the Yeti.
Jericho threw her head back and laughed and then she spotted something. Sitting up in the rafters of the shed was the roll of screen she’d promised to Taylor. She’d planned to make a trip to the hardware store even if she hadn’t found it. Now she had the perfect excuse to visit her beautiful new neighbor again.
CHAPTER FIVE
Taylor had just finished sealing the last jar of peach preserve when she heard Max call out from her room. “Coming baby,” she called softly to him. When she opened the door, he was sitting in the middle of her bed all warm and sweaty.
“Mama,” he said happily and held up his little arms.
“Hello, my sweetness.” She slid in next to him. “You’re so sweaty, little love.”
Max crawled over top of her and laid his head down on her chest. But a few seconds later he was up and making his way to the edge of the bed.
“Let’s get you outside where there’s a breeze,” she said and lifted him into her arms.
When she walked down the steps, her mother looked up from her chair in the shade. She put her newspaper down and held out her arms. “Did you have a nice nap, handsome?”
“I think so,” Taylor said and kissed the side of his head. Max leaned into his grandmother’s arms and then leaned to be put down again once he was in them.
“I get it, the pool is more interesting. I bet you want to cool off,” Lucinda said as she helped him out of his diaper. “There you go. Be wild and free, little man.”