A Man's Heart

by Lori Copeland

  Chapter 33

  Two days later, Jules and Crystal stepped into Mellon’s Mortuary. Memories of Pop and Sophie flooded Jules as they took their seat in a near empty chapel. Lucille had outlived most of her friends, and only a stray mourner sat here and there. Cruz and Adan sat in the third row, alone. Jules recalled how the two brothers had taken care of the elderly woman’s house repairs and mowed for her in the summers. When she offered to pay, they had never taken a cent.

  Lucille’s sons, daughters-in-law, grandchildren and great grandchildren filed into the curtained family room, and the service began.

  Jules counted the floral offerings, and including theirs, Lucille had six. Very pretty, but so insignificant for the many years of service in this community. Lucille had taught Sunday school since Jules was a child. She’d been in the Women’s Sewing Circle, volunteer librarian and self-appointed cookie and casserole maker for the entire community.

  Burial was family only, so immediately after the service Jules and Crystal walked to the truck. A man’s voice called, “Crystal Matias?”

  Crystal turned. “Yes?”

  Jules recognized Lucille’s oldest son. The family, as Lucille suggested, was upscale. The women wore Burberry suits and large flashing diamonds. Men were dressed in Italian suits and alligator shoes. Jaguars, Mercedes and Lincolns lined the parking curb in front of the funeral home.

  Walking toward them, he removed a letter from his pocket. “We found this on Mom’s bedroom night stand. It’s addressed to you.” He handed the note to Crystal.

  “Thank you. I’m very sorry about your mother. She was a lovely woman.”

  Without comment, he turned and strode to a Lincoln and got in.

  Crystal unfolded the note. “Wonder why Lucille would leave me a note?”

  “She liked you, and you were very good to her.” Jules watched as her sister’s eyes scanned the message.

  Crystal’s jaw dropped.

  “What?” Jules leaned closer to read the note.

  Dearest Crystal,

  Your kindness has brought me many hours of pleasure. The mattress contains my life savings, which by now, should be well over a million dollars. Please enjoy.

  Your friend in Christ,

  Lucille

  Cruz spotted the dust trail from the field. Someone was in a big hurry. Wheeling the tractor, he drove to the edge of the fence row to identify the maniac. These young farm hands drove like the wind. Jules’s mini SUV came into view and he frowned.

  Killing the engine, he jumped from the tractor and headed for the fence. Jules pulled up, standing the Tracker on end. She piled out, followed by Crystal.

  His heart hit his stomach. “What’s wrong? One of the kids hurt?”

  Gasping now, Jules said, “You have to come with us.”

  “What’s wrong? Is Ethan hurt?”

  “No!” Crystal stood beside the Tracker, wringing her hands. “Get Adan. We have to search the Pasco dump.”

  “What?”

  “The dump!” Jules screamed. “We have to find Lucille’s mattress.” She whirled to face Crystal. “You’re sure the junk man took it to the dump?”

  “He said he was on his way when he picked it up.”

  “Okay. Calm down.” Jules drew a deep breath. “We have to stay calm. He picked it up yesterday. With any luck, we can find it.”

  Cruz stared at the babbling women. They didn’t make a lick of sense. “Anybody care to fill me in on the crisis? Where are the kids? Are they all right?”

  “They’re fine. I left them with Anne. Lucille gave Crystal her prized mattress, and I told her to have it hauled to the dump.”

  “Why would you want Lucille’s mattress?”

  “I didn’t want it! It was ugly and an eyesore, but Lucille left Crystal a note on her bedside table, saying that her life’s fortune was in that mattress. Over a million dollars!”

  “A million dollars!” Cruz’s jaw sagged. He cleared the fence with one bound.

  “You drive,” Jules called. “I’m a nervous wreck!”

  Wheeling the Tracker around, Cruz floored the gas pedal. A couple of miles down the road they picked up Adan, who was plowing under the water deprived crop. With little more than “get in!” Adan was drafted into the search party. Crystal filled him in on the crisis as the vehicle sped down the road.

  Forty-five minutes later, the truck turned into Pasco Sanitary Landfill. Bulldozers worked to bury monstrous piles of refuse in smelly graves.

  The four piled out of the truck and ran willy-nilly, trying to spot a mattress. The monumental task was like trying to find a gallstone in a hospital compactor.

  “Somebody better get permission for us to be digging around out here!” Cruz called. The last thing they needed was to be thrown in jail for looting.

  Jules volunteered. Cruz figured she was about to lose her lunch anyway.

  Permission to dig in Pasco’s ruins didn’t come easy; only when Jules explained the unusual request were the machines shut down.

  Since a mattress wasn’t a small item to spot, trash surprisingly blended. Four hours later, dirty, hot, discouraged and tired, the four piled back in the Tracker, a million dollars short of their goal.

  The stench in close quarters forced the occupants to roll down windows and air out the stink.

  Jules glanced over and burst into laughter. She pointed to Cruz. “You have ketchup on your shirt.”

  “Oh yeah?” Cruz pointed to an imaginary spot on her shirt, and then flipped her nose when she fell for the oldest trick in the world.

  Even with the stench, the four were hungry. No one had eaten since breakfast. Cruz pulled into a drive-through and ordered four burgers, four fries, and four super-sized Cokes.

  Over inhaled dinner, the men questioned Crystal. “You’re sure the junk man was on his way to the landfill?”

  “He said he was.”

  “Did you call to check and see if he made it?”

  Crystal shook her head. “I didn’t think to do that.”

  Adan bit into his burger and spoke around a mouthful. “Maybe we should check.”

  They finished up, and Cruz pulled out of the fast food drive. Tooling down the highway, they made their plan.

  “Who took the mattress?” Cruz asked.

  “I don’t know … the truck said Smart Refuse.”

  “Old man Smart,” Adan said. “He lives out on Road 36.”

  It was nearing ten o’clock when they drove into Smart’s drive. Not a light shone in the house.

  Cruz and Jules stepped out of the SUV and walked to the door and knocked. It took several attempts to rouse the old man. Dogs barked. When he opened the door, Jules spotted a shotgun propped by the door.

  Cruz nodded. “Sorry to bother you at this hour, Mr. Smart, but we have an emergency.”

  The man eyed Cruz in the dim porch light. “State your business.”

  “I’m Cruz Delgado — I live off Road 29?”

  “Buff Delgado’s boy?”

  “Yes sir.”

  He opened the screen. “What’s the emergency?”

  “We’re looking for a mattress you hauled away yesterday.”

  “Yesterday?”

  “From the Matiases’?”

  “Sure. What about it?”

  “Did you take it to the landfill?”

  “No.”

  “Where is it?”

  “In my garage. Why?” “We need it back.”

  “What for? It’s no good. I put it in the garage for my dogs to sleep on.”

  Reaching for his wallet, Cruz offered, “I’ll give you a hundred dollars for it.”

  “A hundred dollars?”

  “Yeah—Crystal’s decided she should keep it.”

  “Tell her to take it. It’s hers anyway.”

  Cruz pushed the bill into the older man’s hand. “No, you take this for your trouble. Seems Lucille Miller left some money in it intended for Crystal.”

  “You don’t say!”

  Cruz
nodded. Jules knew that Smart was a fair man. He wouldn’t claim ownership.

  “Load ‘er up. Just watch the dogs. One of ‘em will bite the fire outta you.” He closed the door, hundred dollar bill in hand.

  Jules wondered which one. Smart forgot to say.

  Fifteen minutes later, and after a minor skirmish with a tenacious mutt, Cruz pulled the vehicle onto the highway with a large ratty looking mattress tied to the top.

  When the final count was tallied, Crystal Matias had a cool million, five hundred, twenty-six dollars, two quarters, three dimes and four pennies. Lucille had scrimped and saved all of her life, stuffing her fortune in her mattress.

  Well, good for Crystal, Jules decided.

  Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

  Chapter 34

  A million dollars altered a custody battle, all parties concerned knew it. Crystal and Jules now had the funds to fight him and Adan until the kids were grown. The idea hung in Cruz’s mind when Jules glanced at the clock and noted the time. The children would be asleep, but the Ramseys would be wondering what happened to Jules.

  “You better give Ann a call and let her know where we are,” Cruz reminded.

  Jules reached for her cell phone and dialed. Crystal started to clear the table of Coke cups, seemingly unaffected by her sudden windfall. “The Tracker won’t hold all four of us and the children. Why don’t I take Adan home, Cruz can go with Jules to pick up the children, and then she can drop Cruz off on the way home?”

  Yawning, Adan stretched. “Sounds good to me. I’m beat.” Sitting back in his chair, he grinned. “How does it feel to be a millionaire?”

  Crystal paused, studying the thought. “Exactly the way it felt to be dirt poor.”

  He glanced at Jules and winked. “You’ll be like Jules and her magic potato plant. You’ll have to fight the men away now.”

  Jules clicked off from talking to Ann Ramsey. “She says the kids are doing fine. I told her we’d be over in a few minutes to pick them up.”

  The four left the house together. Adan spoke up. “Hey, Crystal, can you drive me by the field on the way home? I forgot to put a lock on the tractor.”

  Cruz frowned.

  “Hey,” Adan apologized. “Everything happened so fast I didn’t get a chance to lock down the equipment.”

  “Sure, I’ll take you by the field.” Crystal and Adan walked to the farm pick-up while Jules and Cruz headed for the Tracker.

  Jules had purchased the vehicle her senior year so the interior was as familiar to Cruz as it was to Jules. They’d spent hours in the truck, talking, dreaming of their future.

  “When we marry, I want kids right away.”

  “How many?”

  “Two.”

  “What if I want three or four?”

  He leaned to kiss her. “Why not make it six? That’s a good even number.”

  Familiar bitterness rose to the back of his throat. Everyone told him to get over her; well he’d tried, but everywhere he turned she was there. Lending him equipment. Raising Sophie’s kids, flaunting the notion that she was about to create a potato that would stun the world.

  Jules pitched the keys at him. “You drive.”

  He caught them, resenting the familiarity the simple act invoked. She’d never driven when they were together. She didn’t like to drive. She preferred sitting next to him, her arm around his shoulder as he drove. They slid into the vehicle and he started the engine. She sat far to his right, crowding the door. Was she fighting her memories? The big scene she made the other night: “You’re right, Cruz. I loved you.” Was that an emotional outburst or a fact?

  If it was a fact, then she’d lost the battle. He’d asked her twice to marry him and both times she had walked away. He wouldn’t give her a third chance even if it meant he had to fight her for the children the rest of his life. And fight his feelings for her.

  Marry and settle down, she suggested.

  If that’s what it took, he’d do it; Jules was not going to back him into a corner on this one, but how did he find a woman that he could love as much as he loved this one sitting beside him? The thought irked him, but it was there, bold as orange hair.

  Wheeling out of the barnyard, they drove in silence to the Ramseys. The front porch light glowed as they pulled in. Cruz got out and followed Jules into the house. Minutes later they emerged, Cruz carrying a sleeping Ethan and Jules lugging a limp Olivia.

  Cruz laid Ethan on the driver’s seat, and then walked around and reached for Olivia. Jules got in and then took the sleeping child.

  A Tracker wasn’t that roomy. Two sleeping kids and two adults made for a cramped front seat. “Seat belt?” Jules frowned. “I can’t get mine fastened.”

  Cruz reached over and drew the belt across her and Olivia. Their faces at one point were so close he could smell her shampoo. Some floral scent mixed with the Pasco landfill. Memories hit him hard. Drawing back, he reached for Ethan. “We have to put them in the backseat.”

  “You’re right.”

  Together they shifted the sleeping children to the backseat and fastened the seat belt tightly around them.

  “Let’s hope we’re not stopped on the way home. This is illegal,” Cruz noted.

  “I’ll take it easy.” The farms were a couple of miles apart. There’d be no traffic at this hour of the night. Switching on the engine, he backed up and turned the SUV around.

  Jules’s closeness was like a shroud. All these weeks she’d been back and he’d successfully avoided this closeness. Now she was sitting next to him, and it felt so right it hurt.

  She broke the stilted silence. “What do you think about Crystal’s windfall?”

  “I’m happy for her.”

  She smiled. “It is wonderful, isn’t it? Yet Crystal is the least likely to want material things.”

  “Can’t imagine that she wouldn’t welcome a million dollars.”

  “Honestly? I think the fun of the mattress hunt brought her more happiness. And you and Adan have been so good to mow Lucille’s lawn and care for her house. Why didn’t she leave it to you?”

  “Does it matter? Crystal will manage the money well. Maybe Lucille sensed that.”

  Cruz approached the fork in the country road. “Even if your potato experiment doesn’t work out, you’ll have the money to fight for these children until we’re old and gray.”

  Jules glanced over. “That isn’t our intent.”

  “Yeah?” He turned to look at her. “What is your purpose, Jules?” His anger boiled over. He’d lost most of his crops, he was flat broke, and now Jules was smack back in his life, the very thing he intended to avoid. What did God want of him? He wasn’t a saint. “I can’t fight you forever, and I’m not about to go out and marry the first available woman in order to get Sophie’s children.”

  Headlights appeared. An oncoming vehicle barreled over the rise as Cruz pulled onto the road.

  “Cruz!”

  Cruz saw the impact coming. He swerved, throwing the driver’s side in position to take the full impact.

  The sound of metal meeting metal. Shattering glass. Then silence.

  Flashing red lights streaked through the night. Jules sat beside Cruz in the ambulance, praying. The children were in a second ambulance, unhurt. Liquid from tubes ran into Cruz’s arm.

  The teenager driving the second car was in a third ambulance ahead. None of the injuries were thought to be life threatening, but Cruz was still unconscious from the impact. Jules held tight to his hand, urging him to open his eyes as the paramedics worked.

  The ride to Pasco encompassed an eternity, but the forthcoming wait while the doctors examined Cruz and the children was even more tortuous. Jules stepped to the waiting room and phoned Crystal.

  Her sister answered as though she had been expecting the late night call. “The children are okay,” Jules started. “We’ve had an accident and Cruz …” Her voice broke and she lost her earlier calm. “Cruz is hurt.”

  “
I’ll call Adan and we’ll be there within the hour.”

  Jules returned to the emergency room. The doctors insisted that she be checked for injuries. The children were already in the process.

  In time she was given a clean bill of health, and she walked back to Cruz’s cubicle and found him sitting up on the side of the gurney. With a cry, she went into his arms.

  Wincing, he held her, urging calm. “Careful. I have a couple of busted ribs and I can’t breathe.”

  Holding onto his neck, she whispered, “You scared me to death.”

  “Oh yeah?” His hold tightened. “Consider it payback, honey.”

  “You saved our lives.”

  Color crept into his cheeks. “Did you check that guy’s speed?”

  “I did, and if you hadn’t have turned your side into the oncoming impact, the driver would have hit us head on.”

  “Ethan?” Cruz pulled back. “Olivia?”

  “They’re going to slap a stiff fine on you because both children were sharing a seat belt, but they’re not hurt. Not a single broken bone or bloody nose.”

  He nodded. “What about the other driver?”

  “Scrapes and bruises. He was wearing a seat belt. A young kid—one of the seasonal workers.”

  Her gaze forced his back to meet hers. “You literally saved our lives. Thank you.” Her eyes focused on the streak of blood covering his shirt. “Oh, sweetie. There’s blood …”

  He caught her hand. “Ketchup. Remember?”

  She recalled the afternoon at the dump and glanced down to appraise her appearance. And stench. Pathetic.

  Adan and Crystal arrived an hour later, still wearing the same clothing they’d worn all day. The Landfill Collection. Nurses and aides side-stepped the strange, reeking assemblage as they went about their work. Crystal soothed the children in their cubicles while they waited for dismissal papers. Cruz had to spend the night for observation.

  When the excitement died down, Cruz lay on the gurney in a sedated sleep. When Adan offered to spend the remainder of the night, Jules demanded that she stay.

  Adan grinned. “Okay. You win. You stay. I’ll help Crystal get the kids home and into bed.”