by Lyn Cote
Dear Lord, help us. Help my dad downstairs.
In the upper level, Jack let the boys lead, his hands in theirs, to their room. They pushed him toward a large rocker in one corner of the room.
Jack allowed this. As soon as his seat touched the chair, both boys claimed a portion of his lap. “Read us a story,” they begged in unison.
Jack looked to her, asking her silently what to do.
Why did he look so natural doing this, caring about the boys and trying to help? It isn’t fair—it makes me love him all the more. But she nodded her approval and then trusted her voice.
“I think that’s a good idea. Why don’t each of you pick out a book for Mr. Lassater to read you?”
While the twins scrambled to choose their favorite books, Gracie smoothed the purple sheets and thin summer bedspreads on their twin beds. Anything, just so she could put some distance, a buffer between Jack and her. The memory of their kiss remained always just below the surface, tempting her to believe Jack might someday soon wake up and notice her.
And this setting was dangerous. Being here with Jack was only a short step from imagining that she and Jack were the mother and father and she was doing this for their sons. Or maybe daughters?
It didn’t help that she’d let herself draw closer to Jack when she’d known she should have drawn away. She’d been weak or sentimental enough to let it happen, and that did nothing to improve the situation. Or make it look more promising.
Without Tom at LIT, she must stay with Jack until he got his feet under him. She couldn’t resign. But spending her days with him was becoming more and more of a severe test. And more than ever before, they were being thrown together over and over without the distraction of a third party.
And renting that storefront so close to home had been a big mistake. It would make it more and more difficult to break with Jack.
“What’s wrong, Aunty?” Austin asked.
She looked up. “Nothing’s wrong. Why?”
“You look like Mommy does when she says she has a headache.” Andy ran across the short distance and hugged her neck. Austin followed.
Oh, Lord, protect these children and keep their family together.
She hugged and kissed both twins. And then she led them back to Jack. They climbed onto his lap. His unique scent—aftershave or soap, and Jack himself—filled her head. She moved away, fearful of letting her response to him show.
Jack opened the first book and began reading Green Eggs and Ham. He caught on to Dr. Seuss’s rhythmic verses, and before long had the twins smiling again. Then he closed that book, laid it down on the foot of the nearest bed and opened the final book, Tell Me a Story.
Gracie sat down on the side of Andy’s bed, facing Jack. But she tried not to react to his story reading. Another talent she’d never guessed he possessed.
Jack’s voice became quieter and lower as he went through the story of different animal babies who asked their mothers to “tell me a story” and then, as the mother read to each, the baby animal fell asleep.
Gracie blinked as his soothing voice increased her languor, making her eyelids heavy. With a yawn, she gave in and lay down on the bed, trying not to imagine Jack lying beside her with an arm around her.
Jack droned on, “And the baby fox said to his mother, ‘Tell me a story…”’
She closed her eyes, letting his deep, even voice flow over her. The cotton sheet was cool and soft against her cheek. Jack can take care of the boys….
“Gracie,” Jack whispered. “Gracie?”
She opened her eyes and realized that she had almost fallen asleep. “Jack,” she whispered back, “why are we whispering?”
“I need you to help me,” he said. “I don’t want to wake them.”
Enmeshed in her own drowsiness, she made herself sit up and look at him more closely. Both twins had fallen asleep in his arms. One white-blond head lolled over each arm.
Rising, she tiptoed over and drew Andy into her arms. She carried his small, completely relaxed warm body to bed and laid him down. She kissed his cheek and whispered, “Sweet dreams.”
Andy squirmed into his pillow but did not waken.
Jack followed her lead and did the same with Austin, including an awkward kiss and the same phrase.
Once again, seeing Jack caring for a child touched her heart.
Trying not to show this, she led him out into Troy and Annie’s living room. She looked around, remembering helping Annie, a new bride, pick out the gleaming white paint and Victorian roses wallpaper for the room. “I thought Annie was the luckiest girl in the world.”
“Pardon?” Jack spoke at her elbow.
His voice made her shiver. “Nothing.” She turned and smiled tentatively at him. “Thanks. You’re great with the boys.”
He said in a gruff tone, “I hope those two downstairs don’t act up like that again in front of their boys. They don’t deserve two great kids if they’re going to throw tantrums like that.” Jack looked grim. “What triggered this?”
She led him to the nearby couch and sat down. “Dad called me while we were at the county club to tell me that Annie had Troy served with separate maintenance papers today.”
“Separate maintenance?” Jack sat down beside her, making the sofa dip.
“She had a lawyer contact Troy to set up an agreement for them to live apart.” Gracie hated having to tell him this.
“Isn’t that like a pre-divorce or something?” Jack wrinkled his nose.
“I don’t know, but I do think I know why she did it.”
“Why?” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs.
Again, his clean-soap scent filled her senses. “Troy said she couldn’t see the boys. I’m pretty sure that the separate maintenance agreement would force Troy to let her have visitation rights on a regular basis.”
“You think that was her motivation?”
Resisting the urge to smooth back his hair, Gracie nodded.
“That wasn’t a pretty scene downstairs.” His voice betrayed just how intensely Annie and Troy had upset him.
“No, it wasn’t.” Gracie watched him, wondering if Sandy and Cliff had enacted any such scenes in front of him.
“I hope the two of them wake up or grow up before they end up hurting their kids,” Jack said, repeating what was obviously his main concern.
And it touched her heart. She could only nod.
They heard hasty footsteps on the back stairs. Gracie rose and so did Jack. Together, they faced Troy as he entered the room.
“You two can go now,” Troy said in a sullen tone.
Gracie nearly asked, How did it go? But Troy’s demeanor spoke volumes. “The boys are asleep. Good night, brother-in-law.”
“Good night.” Troy stalked past them to his bedroom.
Gracie and Jack exchanged looks and headed toward the front stairs. Gracie wanted to show Jack out before she faced her sister and dad downstairs.
At the front door, Jack paused. “I’ll say a prayer for you and your family. Good night.” He leaned forward as if to kiss her again.
That kiss, that wonderful, disturbing kiss. She looked into his eyes and saw the sympathy, concern and the desire to stay. With her? She hardened herself against them all.
“Good night, Jack. See you tomorrow.”
On Saturday morning, Jack watched Gracie painstakingly press the masking tape along the window frame. She’d called him yesterday and suggested they paint their new office. He wanted to tell her his good news, but doing that in this setting didn’t seem appropriate. Or was it his new heightened awareness of Gracie that made it difficult to start a conversation? Or was it that he had kissed her here just days ago?
Why had he begun to discern things about Gracie he’d never noticed before? “I’ve never done much painting,” he muttered.
“Goodness! We’re not ready to paint yet.” Gracie gave him a tart look.
He noted again the faint freckles dotting her nose. Why am I noticing
Gracie’s freckles? “Then, what are we doing?” He tried to work up some enthusiasm for this, but couldn’t. He’d much rather stand and stare at his new sales manager.
“We need to move the shelves out to the alley for disposal and then sweep the floors. Then we can scrub the walls and Spackle the nicks and cracks.”
Even this list of unappealing chores didn’t dull his new and very keen concentration on Gracie Petrov. “That’s all I need to know now,” Jack said. “Thanks. Are you sure we couldn’t just hire this done?” Gracie shouldn’t have to do this kind of stuff.
“This little bit of work?” Gracie said, scanning the dilapidated-looking store. “The bottom line is the bottom line, Jack. We need to be careful of it while we’re—you’re—buying Tom out.”
Jack couldn’t argue with that. But he almost said, while we’re buying Tom out is the right way to say that. LIT wouldn’t be LIT without Gracie.
Now why had that popped into his head? Was it because he’d had to let Tom leave to follow his dream? Would Gracie decide to leave him, too, someday? Something Tom had said about Jack proposing to Gracie replayed in Jack’s mind. What an odd thing for Tom to say.
“Besides, help is expected later.” Gracie turned back to the window. “It won’t take long for us to get this place ready to paint. And the painting will go fast.”
He wanted to ask her about her sister’s situation, but didn’t know how to bring that up, either.
“Where’s the broom?” he asked instead.
“In the back room, and I rented a Dumpster for us. It’s in the alley.” Gracie was back to concentrating on masking the window.
“Okay, boss.” Jack saluted her.
In the back room, he located the new broom and dustpan and peered out the door at the bright green Dumpster in the narrow alley. Leave it to Gracie to think of a Dumpster. Then he returned to the large room and began to lift the first piece of shelving. The metal groaned and grated against the aged, painted hardwood floor.
“Wait.” Gracie swung again. “I’ll help you with that. It will go quicker and do less damage to the floor if we work together.”
“This is heavy.”
Gracie lifted her end. “They’re more unwieldy than heavy.”
Jack couldn’t argue with her—at least, not while walking backward, clumsily carrying a hunk of metal…and watching Gracie’s shapely legs.
With her upper body hidden by the bulky shelf, he found he could finally tell Gracie the good news. “I finished last night,” he said to his unseen sales partner.
“Finished?” Gracie, still unseen, asked.
“Yes, late last night, I finished the software update in record time—” he backed through the door to the rear area “—and issued new passwords to Hope Medical Group.”
“That’s great, Jack! Was your dad pleased?”
“I don’t know. I just e-mailed him the news and sent the new passwords via sealed office memos from their central office.” Jack pushed the rear door open with his back and entered the alley.
“I’m relieved. In the back of my mind, I was worried about a hacker messing around with patient files. That would be scary.” She looked around the shelf and nodded toward the Dumpster behind him. “Just a little farther,” she murmured.
“Well, the medical files were never accessed by the hacker—just the financial accounts.” He set his end of the shelf down, opened the lid, and with Gracie’s help managed to heft the shelf into the Dumpster.
“I know, but it still bothered—”
“Hi, we’re here!” A female voice from inside the store summoned Jack and Gracie in from the alley.
“Patience! Connie!” Gracie greeted a pretty blonde and an equally pretty brunette, both dressed in faded jeans and shirts, waiting in the back room. “Jack, you remember my cousin, Patience Andrews?” She motioned toward the blonde.
“Sure.” She did look familiar. A little. He shook hands with her.
“And this is Connie Oberlin, an old friend from here in the neighborhood.”
“Patience, you recall,” Gracie announced with obvious pride, “just graduated with her education degree with honors and is looking for a fall teaching job.”
He nodded. Okay, where’s this leading?
“And Connie is in law school,” Gracie said with identical pride.
“Hi, Jack.” Connie, the brunette, held out her hand to him.
He shook it politely.
“Did you ask him yet?” Patience asked.
“No—”
Gracie turned to him, her expression brimming with…excitement?
“Contingent on your approval, of course, I’ve hired Patience to do our clerical work part-time.”
“Don’t we need someone full-time?” he asked.
“I’ve also hired Connie part-time.” Gracie looked at him expectantly.
“Yes, so the two of us together make one whole employee,” Connie said with a grin.
“Is that all right?” Gracie looked up at him with doubt. “Things have been so hectic—”
Jack swallowed. Gracie wore a delicate gold chain around her neck, and for some reason, it called for his attention. He made himself look at Connie and Patience and tried to figure out why their arrival felt like an intrusion.
“It’s fine, great.”
“And we’re here today to help—gratis,” Patience added. “What do you want us to do?”
“We need to move this old shelving out and clean up.” Gracie grinned. “Then the painting begins!”
For the first few minutes, the four of them, in teams of two—he and Gracie and the two young women—“wobbled” the shelves out to the alley and deposited them into the Dumpster.
While Gracie masking-taped the large front windows, standing on an old ladder that came with the store, Patience began washing down the walls with a sponge mop and Connie started cleaning the small kitchen area in the back room.
Jack began sweeping the floor in the main room and tried hard not to keep looking at Gracie. What is going on with me? He couldn’t figure out why, but it was as though an invisible thread connected him to Gracie. She couldn’t make the slightest move without his being aware of it.
Thoughts of Dr. Collins and Dick Witte kept rolling around in Jack’s mind. He’d verified that both of them had the knowledge of computers to qualify as suspects. But he hadn’t connected either with what had happened at Hope—yet.
“Gracie,” Patience asked over her shoulder, “what’s the latest on Annie and Troy?”
Jack listened intently.
Connie spoke up before Gracie replied. “Earlier this week Troy called me to ask about the separate maintenance papers he was served with. What’s that all about?”
Gracie turned on the ladder to face them. “Annie has agreed to put that on hold,” Gracie replied, “as long as she can visit the twins in the evenings and on weekends when she’s free.”
Jack didn’t like the worry in Gracie’s voice. Why couldn’t Annie just settle things with her husband? On the other hand, Troy hadn’t acted like a reasonable man the other night.
“I just don’t get this,” Connie said from the back room. “When Troy called me, he didn’t even sound like himself.”
“It’s been pretty tense,” Patience agreed, swabbing the wall with long strokes.
“I tried to talk to Annie and she was…angry,” Connie added. “I’ve never seen her act like that either.”
“Divorce brings out the worst in people,” Jack muttered.
“Hello!” A voice from the front door greeted them.
Jack turned…to see his mom and Mike Petrov walk in together.
“We came to give you a hand.” Sandy beamed.
Jack frowned at Mike, who was resting his hand on Mom’s shoulder.
He studied the screen and tried not to feel…stupid. That guy Lassater knew his stuff, all right. For a minute, he thought about just quitting, just letting that computer nerd win.
The feeling didn’t last
long. I did it before, I can do it now. I can get through this. I can. I’ll just take it step by step. I don’t have to hurry. Nobody’s timing me.
Chapter Nine
In the week since Jack and Gracie and company had finished refurbishing the storefront, he’d let his concern over his mother and Mike Petrov and their relationship simmer. At least a hundred times, he’d told himself not to pry into his mother’s personal business. She and Mike were probably just becoming friends—and that was good, right?
Now, on a bright, unusually warm morning for late June, he drove to his mom’s house and jumped out of the car, ready to find out. What was going on? He didn’t want his mom hurt, but with her progressive disability, how could she avoid it? What man would want her in a wheelchair? It wasn’t right, but that’s how the world thought.
“Hi, Jack!” Mr. Pulaski, sporting his favorite straw gardening hat, greeted him over the fence.
Jack paused, realizing how grateful he was that Mr. Pulaski was his mom’s neighbor. Jack could always count on the retired cop to keep an eye on his mom. “Hi, how’re you?”
“Great.” Mr. Pulaski motioned toward Jack’s mother’s backyard. “Your mom’s carpenter is doing great work. They’ve already got the slab poured and he’s getting the frame up.”
Jack followed the neighbor’s gesture and saw that his mother’s addition was indeed taking shape. A cement foundation and wooden frame now connected the house and garage. But the progress aggravated rather than pleased him. Why had she hired someone who might end up hurting her?
“I like that guy,” Mr. Pulaski went on. “He’s a good worker and your mom’s smiling and laughing all the time when he’s here.”
Not the least reassured, Jack felt his jaw tighten.
“It’s about time your mother found someone who appreciates her. Your father didn’t know what he had till he left. But that’s ancient history. It’s just that I’m happy for Sandy. And she says that Mike’s been alone for a lotta years, too.”
Jack held his tongue, but it was a challenge. He didn’t want to think badly of Mike, but based on Jack’s experience, his mother could only be hurt when the job ended and Mike left the scene. Jack merely nodded.