The phone rang, and Jaymie jumped up to get it.
“Jaymie, I’ve been trying to call your cell phone,” Daniel said, exasperation in his tone. “What is the point of me giving you a cell phone, if you never answer it?”
“Well, hi, Daniel. Nice to hear from you, too,” she said, rolling her eyes at Valetta.
Her friend got up. “I’ll just let myself out, okay? I’ve got a million things to do today, but I’ll call you later.” Valetta waved and left.
“So, what’s up?” Jaymie said to Daniel, not wanting to get into everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. She didn’t comment on the cell phone and where it was now, still in her van until the police retrieved it for her.
“I really need to talk to you, Jaymie, but I’d rather video chat, okay? Go up to your office and log on. We need to . . . I need to see you to talk to you.” He spoke quickly and left no room for argument.
That was weird, Jaymie thought as she hung up. He knew she wasn’t overly fond of video chatting because it made her self-conscious, and she couldn’t wander around and do stuff with the phone glued to her ear like she usually did when talking to him. But it sounded important. She hoped he wasn’t going to push her again about an answer on the subject of marriage and dating. She was most definitely not in the mood today. Every part of her body ached, and she was exhausted.
She logged on to her computer and clicked on the video chat link, and up popped Daniel, in his home office in Phoenix. He looked worried and tired. “Hey, you okay?” Jaymie asked, concerned and hoping he hadn’t had bad news of some sort. “You look like you haven’t slept.”
“We have to talk, and I don’t know how to say this,” he said, looking miserable. He fidgeted, moving restlessly and looking to the right and left.
His glasses glinted in a desk light, and she couldn’t see his expression. Her stomach twisted. “Daniel, what’s wrong? Just tell me!”
He paused and looked down. There was a voice somewhere, and he looked over his shoulder, then back at her. “Look, there’s no easy way to say this. Trish and I—you remember we talked about Trish, my ex?—we got back together. We’re . . . Jaymie, we’re getting married over Thanksgiving weekend.”
Jaymie shook her head and almost laughed. “Come on, Daniel. Whatever you have to say, you don’t have to make something up so that it doesn’t seem as bad.”
There was a long silence. He shifted awkwardly, disappearing out of sight and reappearing. Then he looked her in the eye and said, “It’s true, Jaymie. You always asked if I was over Trish, and it turns out I wasn’t. I was desperate to get married, and I really like you, but—”
A face appeared over his shoulder, a woman in her midthirties, dark hair cut in a bob. “Hi, Jaymie,” she said. “You don’t know me, but I’m Trish. Look, Daniel’s not saying it right. I was an idiot to break up with him, and I learned my lesson. I called him, talked to him, and we met up. Turns out neither of us is over the other, and so . . . to cut to the chase, we’re getting married. Sorry, but I don’t think you really wanted him anyway.” She squeezed Daniel’s shoulders and looked at him, then kissed his cheek. “He’s my geek now.”
Stunned, Jaymie sat back, hardly able to breathe, tears welling up in her eyes. Hoppy had climbed the steps and was waiting at her knee, trying to get her attention, but she gently pushed him away. “You can’t be serious,” she finally said, her tears drying even before they ran down her cheeks. She was shocked, but oddly enough, not unhappy.
No answer from either of them. Daniel looked miserable and ashamed.
“Just give it some time and you’ll get it,” Trish said, her tone hard and brittle. “When Debbie told me Danny was trying to get you to marry him, I knew I needed to move in or lose him for good.”
“Debbie . . . oh, Mrs. Collins!” Jaymie sat back again, still scrambling for answers. Mrs. Collins had been bitterly angry at Trish. However, Trish had one thing Jaymie didn’t, and that was a home in Phoenix, and therefore a reason for Daniel to stay put. By contacting Trish, Daniel’s mother had guaranteed her son would stay in Phoenix, and had perhaps moved to secure grandchildren and a life that would keep him close to home.
Words she had said to Heidi about Joel came back to her; you can’t “steal” a man if he’s in love. She took a deep breath and watched Daniel. The poor guy looked absolutely despondent. “Daniel, you know I want what’s best for you, right?” she said. “I only want you to be happy.”
A beam of hope lifted his expression. He pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Sure. And the same back at you.”
“Will she make you happy?”
He nodded. “As long as I know you’re okay.”
Jaymie had some doubts about Daniel’s future happiness married to Trish, but he was an adult, and it was his life. “I’m better than okay. I would have said no,” she said. “I’d made up my mind in the last week. I’m not ready. This happened at the right time, and if you’re happy, I’m happy for you.” It was the honest truth. She took a deep breath.
He looked relieved, and tears actually watered in his eyes. “Thanks, Jaymie. You don’t know how much this means to me. I was so afraid to hurt you like Joel did.”
“Are you happy to be getting married so quickly?”
He nodded. “I am. Trish gets me . . . she always did.”
“Friends?” Jaymie said.
“Friends,” Daniel replied.
They signed off and Jaymie sat for a moment, assimilating the vast change that had occurred in her life in just the last few minutes. She was free, and that was good. And now she had to get on with her day.
As she descended, she heard a tap at the door. Bernie was there, holding out Jaymie’s car keys and cell phone. “Do you have a minute?” Jaymie asked.
Bernie did. She wasn’t working, she just drove Jaymie’s van over as a favor to the chief, she said, so she came in and they sat in the parlor with tea. Bernie liked Earl Grey, and Jaymie enjoyed it as a change, so they sipped together.
“Have you heard from Heidi in the last few days?” Jaymie asked, after they had gone over everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours, including the latest, Daniel’s breakup by video chat. “How are she and Joel doing?”
“Better, I think, thanks to you. That was an awful shock, though, right?”
“What, that he was married?”
Bernie nodded.
“Awful. I hope Heidi’s not too upset.”
“No, that’s what she isn’t,” Bernie said, squinting and cuddling a happy Hoppy on her lap. Denver had come in and was snoozing in his basket by the fireplace. “I think she’s relieved it isn’t another woman, you know? I mean, that he’s not in love with another woman. Joel is off seeing about a divorce, and Heidi has gone to the city to talk to her parents about Joel. They won’t make the Christmas deadline to get married, but they’ll be okay.”
“Finally!” Jaymie sighed. “Now I can get out of their relationship, where I don’t belong.”
After Bernie left, Jaymie checked her cell phone. There was another text from Zack, just along the lines of “Call me,” so since she was on a roll she decided to take a chance. She clicked through, and he answered.
“Hey, how are you?” he said. “Staying out of trouble?”
“Not so much,” she said with a chuckle. Given everything that had happened, that was laughable. “What’s up?” she asked, wondering if he was going to ask her out. Did he like her that way? Was he interested? She wasn’t sure of her own feelings, nor what she’d say if he did ask. He was a nice fellow, but . . .
They chatted for a few minutes. He loved his new job with the Detroit force; it was a real challenge, and he felt like he was making a difference. And his life was better than it had been for a long while. “Thanks to you, I decided to handle a few things in my life.”
“Thanks to me?”
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“Yeah. You always face life head-on. That’s what’s cool about you. Anyway, I caught up with some old friends. Turns out I was mistaken about a few things. There was this girl . . .”
He broke off, and Jaymie rolled her eyes. What was it with her? Men seemed to want to confide in her, make her their best buddy, ask for advice. “There was this girl . . .” Jaymie repeated back to him. “And?”
“She was the reason I got in trouble in Chicago. She was a material witness in an important case I was a detective on, and we got involved, but that ended when I got fired. Things went bad, and the case never made it to court. The DA said that my involvement with the witness tainted the evidence. I thought she’d blame me, and I left town. Anyway, I called her a few weeks ago, and we got to talking. We’re seeing each other now.”
Jaymie sighed. “That’s good,” she said, almost to herself. “That is really good. I’m so pleased for you, Zack, I really am.”
They chatted for a few more minutes, but they didn’t have a lot to talk about. Jaymie certainly didn’t want to talk about what had been going on in her life; it was all too confusing. But once she hung up, she realized that she felt more at peace than she had for a long time. Resolving issues seemed to have that effect on her.
She had always known deep in her heart that she and Zack didn’t have enough in common to date, as hunky as she found him. He was one more guy with itchy feet, and that didn’t appeal to her. She wanted solidity, stability, roots, not wings. She wanted a sense of home. “And this is it,” she said out loud, looking around the kitchen. “I’m home, and I’m happy.”
Hoppy danced around at her feet.
She leaned over and scruffed his cheeks. “I said I’m happy, not Hoppy! Let’s go for a walk through our town, maybe go visit Mrs. Stubbs.”
Twenty-six
A SNOWY THANKSGIVING CAME and went. She had a riotous turkey dinner with Bernie, Heidi and Valetta, during which much wine was drunk, many toasts made and thanks given for friends and safety and happiness. It was a real girls’ weekend that meant the dinner together on Thanksgiving, Jaymie and Valetta working at the Emporium on Black Friday—in Queensville the biggest shopping day of the year meant the usual trickle of locals plus a couple of Johnsonville Canadians over on the ferry—and continued with karaoke at Bernie’s newly redecorated home on Saturday night. Jaymie sang a duet with Bernie that was so bad, it was good. Sunday she went to church with Valetta, then to the historic house to catch up on the last odds and ends that needed to be done.
Her mom and dad called; they were happy and healthy, always a good thing. She talked to Grandma Leighton and Becca, who had dinner with Kevin at a local restaurant. Her blog gained another few followers, and she worked some on the vintage recipe book. Another Howler column came out, with the recipe for the turkey roulettes and absolutely no mention of mallets of any kind. Eventually she would do an article on them, but right now they gave her the heebie-jeebies.
The first of December, the Monday after Thanksgiving, dawned with another day at the historic house for Jaymie. Dickens Days had officially started in Queensville, and they were having the soft opening of Queensville Historic Manor the next weekend, then a grand open house the week after. She needed to get the last few things done before then. She had little time and still much to do, including working on her costume. Mabel was making her a pinafore-style apron, which she would wear over an appropriate Depression-era dress as she busied herself in the kitchen. Bill Waterman had made the deal on the stove he had seen and was having the owner of the Junk Stops Here bring it in his truck.
It was freezing, and the house would not warm up, partly because people kept going in and out, leaving the door open half the time. Jaymie had on a ratty old sweater she kept in her van for emergencies, as well as baggy jeans and a sweatshirt, appropriate clothes for what she had been doing, rooting around in the junk left up in the attic.
The house was full of people and noise. Cynthia Turbridge was there, and she looked better. Jewel was keeping an eagle eye on her friend and accompanied her almost everywhere. Valetta had told Jaymie over Thanksgiving that, in an astonishing turn of events, Cynthia and Johnny Stanko were becoming friends. He was not the kind of guy Jaymie would have pictured with elegant Cynthia, but one never knew. He had proved to be more gentleman than the lout who’d attacked her, that was for sure. They could at least be sober buddies, as both had had their problems with alcohol.
While she waited for the stove, Jaymie stood in the middle of the black-and-white-tiled floor and looked around the kitchen of the Queensville Historic Manor. It was almost done. The green and cream color palette was a little chilly, but she would warm it up with the displays she had planned of kitchen implements and some vintage Christmas décor she just happened to own. She was using a lot of her own vintage kitchen tools, many of them red handled, to go with the Christmas theme they would be creating.
Bill said he figured he could have the stove hooked up and working that very day, if it all went smoothly. Jaymie hoped to wear her costume for the open house, baking Christmas cookies as folks toured. This would all help her move toward her goal of becoming a knowledgeable and locally well-known resource on vintage cooking and kitchens, part of her overall scheme of getting a cookbook published.
She heard a rumble outside and pulled open the kitchen curtains. A truck with a big side panel that proclaimed THE JUNK STOPS HERE pulled up the drive. Jaymie was so excited she jumped from foot to foot. It was probably the same excitement felt by a bygone housewife when a new stove was about to arrive. Bill was guiding the driver, and Jaymie opened the back door, taking a deep breath of frigid air as she stepped down to the step where Theo Carson had died. She had avoided this entrance lately, but she couldn’t keep doing that. Bill himself had pointed that out to her, saying there had been several folks who’d died in the house, but it didn’t mean those rooms were shut forever. It was a part of life, and even if Theo’s death was not natural, they had to keep going, and keep moving ahead.
She was just glad Bill didn’t say, Theo would have wanted it that way, because the historian’s death did not change the fact that he was self-centered and a bit of a jerk. He would have wanted a shrine at the door, she thought. That was perhaps unkind to think, but she was a realist. She felt very sorry for Mrs. Carson, but that woman had attained some peace, she said, by the capture of the culprits. She had turned over Theo’s research notebooks to the historical society—he had hidden them under the mattress in his room, so he and Isolde had probably even slept on them more than once—and headed back to Cleveland and, Jaymie hoped, the loving embrace of her family.
Bill jumped up into the truck and helped the proprietor unload the stove while Jaymie propped the door open with a box and made way, laying cardboard on her brand-new, era-appropriate tile floor. She danced back and forth, guiding, chattering and chuckling over the green and white beauty that would soon be operational. She paused to thank the proprietor of the Junk Stops Here and turned, looking up at him. Her breath caught in her throat. “Jakob!” she cried. “Jakob Müller!”
“Jaymie Leighton,” he said with a grin. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing you again, but I didn’t expect it to be under these circumstances.”
Her feelings were doing somersaults and she was giddy, light-headed even. She stared up at him, the scruffy chin, the intelligent brown eyes, the thatch of thick, black hair, the flannel-clad arm that reached out to her. She took his offered hand and they stopped for a long moment, staring at each other, hands clasped. His was warm, and the warmth transferred to her; her cheeks flooded with heat. “I am so glad to see you,” she finally said, her voice husky, as she shook his hand. “I wanted to visit you, but I wasn’t sure . . . that is . . . how is Jocelyn? She wasn’t . . . upset by everything that happened, was she?”
“My little Jocie seemed to think it was some kind of joke,” he said with a frown, shaking his head. “I wasn�
�t going to tell her the truth, that we really were in danger.”
“No, best she think it was just a game.” Jaymie was at a loss for words, but her heart was pounding and her mouth was dry. Everything lurched in her world, and she wished she had taken a little time over her appearance that morning, instead of just pulling her long hair up in a ponytail and donning her grubbiest clothes.
Bill Waterman cleared his throat. “If you let me at it, I can begin to hook the stove up, Jaymie.”
She moved aside, and Bill, with Jakob’s help, moved the stove into place. Bill hooked up the gas, and everyone gathered, including Cynthia, Jewel and the Snoop Sisters, to witness it working. Jaymie, her breath held, turned the knob, then lit it with a long match. It sprang to a flame and burned steady! She jumped up and down and clapped.
“It works! Oh, Bill, it works! You’re a genius.” She hugged him and he smiled.
“You really do like the old ways and the old stuff, huh?” Jakob said, watching her face.
“I do. I collect vintage kitchen stuff mostly, but anything old is cool! I noticed everything at your house and wished I had a chance to examine it all.”
“Yeah, I collect, too. It all has so much . . . I don’t know how to say it: heart? Meaning?”
“It’s like these things had a life before I got them,” Jaymie said, waving her hand toward the counter littered with vintage tools and baking sheets, colanders and even the mallets. “They can teach me more about the old days than any book, even though I love reading.”
He smiled at her. “I’ve always felt like I was born seventy years too late. Why don’t you come out sometime and check out my collection?” He paused and cleared his throat. “You know, Jocie talks about you. She told me she never did get a chance to show you all her pictures. And you could come to the store and see if there’s anything there for this house.”
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