When I Found You (A Box Set)

by Webb, Peggy

  Elizabeth’s routine never varied, McKenzie had said, even to the cherry ice cream float.

  Tonight was David’s first time to observe her except through the telescope, and he was not prepared for his reaction. Seeing her in person was like a blow to his solar plexus. If ever a woman embodied physical perfection, it was Elizabeth Jennings. She looked like something David might have dreamed. Enhanced by the moonlight she took on a luminosity that made her seem unreal.

  Tonight she was alone, and she was heading straight toward the tree where David hovered. This was a complication he hadn’t counted on.

  In fact, he didn’t know what he had hoped to gain by coming there. Perhaps he just wanted to see close-up what kind of woman would refuse his check then have the audacity to try and track him down.

  She moved closer, swinging a yellow book bag with Save The Trees printed in bold red lettering.

  David stepped deeper into the shadows, and Elizabeth froze.

  “Who’s there?” She swiveled her head, a slight frown creasing her forehead. “Is anybody there?”

  David mentally kicked himself. She was scared, and with good cause. Nowadays not even a college campus was safe at night for a woman alone.

  She glanced back toward the building, probably trying to decide whether to go back to the safety of the lights and the crowd. Then her gaze swung to the tree.

  She was looking right at him, and all he could do was pray he blended with the darkness. If Elizabeth Jennings caught a glimpse of his face, she’d really be scared.

  He held his breath, waiting. Suddenly she changed from a fragile porcelain doll to somebody who wanted to kick something and was just looking for the nearest target.

  Even her voice was different. Strong. Assertive. Self-confident.

  “I’m warning you. I’m a karate expert. My hands are lethal weapons. If you touch me I’ll make you sorry you were ever born.”

  David had to bite his lower lip to keep from laughing. McKenzie had told him Elizabeth was full of spit and vinegar. But her file revealed nothing except the facts.

  Having made her speech, she sashayed down the sidewalk like a woman headed to a Sunday picnic. She passed so close to him, he could have reached out and touched her.

  She didn’t look in his direction. No so much as a single glance. Which was a good thing, for the dial of his wristwatch was glowing in the dark. He might was well have been wearing a theater marquee.

  Some sleuth he’d turned out to be. In a single night he’d almost done the thing he feared most--reveal himself to a beautiful woman.

  In the course of his day there were times when he had to meet face-to-face with employees and business associates. Over the years he’d been careful, though, to make certain the employees in his inner sanctum were male. And on the occasions when David knew a business deal would involve a woman, he would send his second-in-command, Peter Forrest, a man so discreet, so private, that only David knew anything about him.

  Still shaken by his close encounter, David watched until Elizabeth disappeared in the direction of the grill, then he climbed into his car and headed out of town, south on Highway 78, south to the only place he could walk freely in the daylight and feel safe--his farm in northeast Mississippi.

  o0o

  There are certain places and certain people, even particular events, that anchor you in time, that tether you so you that no matter how far you stray from your course you will never be lost.

  For David that place had always been the farm in New Albany, which wasn’t a farm, really, but a plantation featuring an antebellum mansion that had been so run-down when his grandfather bought it he’d said he had to waylay the rats in order to take possession. David remembered going there as a child, he and McKenzie piled in the back seat of the car, their parents up front singing or laughing or talking or sometimes just holding hands while Clint drove the five hundred miles that separated his farm in Tennessee from the place where Della Jean grew up, the place she always loved with a passion that was contagious.

  Grandfather Snead would be waiting for them with stories, and David and McKenzie would stream out of the car like kites straining to break the thin string that holds them back from the heavens.

  That vaulting sense of freedom was gone now, but not the sense that he is returning to a safe harbor, for Grandfather Snead had been one of the people who provided David his mooring, along with his parents and McKenzie. All dead except McKenzie.

  And she might as well be gone for David has drifted away from her. Not physically, of course. He’s still present in the flesh. What he isn’t, is present in the spirit, that life-spark that had burned so brightly when he was a child.

  Like all children, David had been born full of magic and dreams. He was born knowing the songs of angels and understanding the conversations of animals. He was born full of wonder, able to find beauty in a blade of grass or a single raindrop.

  Though his wartime experience had been horrible beyond imagining, it wasn’t that single catastrophic event that had snuffed out his life-spark, but rather the slow corrosion of years and the subtle censure of a society bound by convention and blind to the magic of children.

  Children like Nicky. Children with the good fortune to have a family like Elizabeth and Thomas who had somehow, in spite of the crushing weight of poverty, learned to live unfettered. The flame of magic was still bright in them, and that’s what drew David to his window day after day to watch them from afar.

  That’s also what propelled him through the night toward the refuge of his farm, for seeing Elizabeth this evening had opened up such a sharp sense of loss he had no recourse but to run.

  Briefly, he thought about calling his sister’s cell phone, but he preferred the element of surprise, the look on her face when she saw that he was actually out in the world.

  His old Volvo ate up the miles. A long, winding ribbon of Highway 78 stretched behind him, and before him lay the small town of New Albany, already shut down for the night. He and McKenzie used to joke that the city fathers rolled up the sidewalks at 5:30, and Grandfather Snead would say that was the best way he knew to keep them out of trouble.

  David passed Snead’s Feed and Seed Store which squatted, wizened and weathered, on the corner by the Tallahatchie River bridge and hadn’t changed one iota in forty years. Flats of spring onions and Big Boy tomatoes sat in the bins on the store’s front porch alongside wheelbarrows and clay pots and stacks of potting soil. New Albany was one of the few places left in the world where it wasn’t necessary to carry the merchandise inside at night.

  Up the street was one of many antique stores that had sprung up in the last few years, and across the railroad was the church where David had been christened.

  Roots. They bound him to this town as surely as the blood ties that bound him to McKenzie.

  He headed the Volvo east where sidewalks and turn-of-the-century buildings gave way to rolling green hills and wide open pastures. Soon his lights picked up the entrance to his farm, and as David drove up the mile-long avenue that snaked among towering oaks and ancient magnolias, he rolled down his window to let the sights and sounds of his beloved land sink into his soul.

  The air was thick with the perfume of honeysuckle, and high in the trees cicadas sang their plaintive night song. Fireflies danced among the Queen Anne’s Lace that swayed in the night breeze, their lights like tiny stars that flickered briefly and then vanished.

  Sometimes when David came to the farm he would take a bedroll to the meadow then lie there in perfect silence, his eyes and his heart wide open, letting the beauty soak into his soul while he tried to regain harmony with the universe. And maybe, if he got very lucky, he might find a bit of the magic he’d thought was lost forever.

  The house was dark but a light still burned in the barn. David headed in that direction in search of his sister. She was in the corner of the barn splinting the leg of Bo, her twelve-year-old border collie who still acted as if he were three and the best herding dog th
is side of the Mississippi.

  When she looked up and saw him, her expression went from surprised to ecstatic.

  “David! You’re here!”

  “I saw the barn light on. I see you’re be burning the candle at both ends.” He strode toward her.

  “Don’t come another step.”

  “Why? You don’t like my greeting?”

  “If you take another step you’ll be standing in cow manure.”

  David’s explosive laughter was more than mirth, it was a release. Nobody could put things in perspective like McKenzie. He laughed so hard the donkey in the stall beside them started braying.

  “Now you’ve upset the jackass.”

  “It’s not the first time. That’s what I do every day. Upset jackasses.” He squatted beside his sister and patted the old collie’s head. “How’s the patient?”

  “On his last leg, no pun intended. I probably should have put him down, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. If I can pull him through this, he might have a couple of decent years left.”

  She finished wrapping the leg, then stowed the tape. “Since you’re here you might as well make yourself useful. Help me move him.” They gently lifted the dog and carried him to an old blanket she’d spread on a pile of hay in the corner. “Why are you here, David?”

  “I need a favor.”

  “Shoot, big brother. What is it you need?”

  “I want you to find out why Elizabeth Jennings hasn’t cashed the check and why she’s trying to find me.”

  McKenzie wasn’t a subtle woman, especially when she climbed up on one of her soapboxes. David could tell by her flattened-out mouth and jutted-out chin that she was on a regular rampage. And he was the target.

  “Why don’t you ask her yourself?”

  “That should be obvious.”

  “The only thing that’s obvious to me is that you’re pigheaded and blind, to boot.”

  He knew exactly what she was talking about, but stubbornness ran in the Lassiter family. He wasn’t about to concede McKenzie’s point.

  “Blindness is one of the few problems I don’t have.”

  “Don’t act dumb around me, David. I know better.”

  “Just forget the whole thing. I’ll get Peter to do it.” He turned to go to the house and was already at the barn door when McKenzie stopped him cold.

  “If you don’t finish this conversation with me, you’re not the hero I thought you were. You’re nothing but a lily-livered coward.”

  When David turned around and saw his sister, the fight drained out of him. McKenzie was still bowed up like a Bantam rooster spoiling for a fight, but her eyes were wide and wet-looking. She was close to tears.

  “I’m no hero, McKenzie. Just an ordinary man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “I’ve done a lot of thinking since you became involved with the Jennings family.”

  “I’m not involved.”

  “Yes, you are. I’ve seen you at that telescope watching for them. I’ve seen how you come alive when Elizabeth enters the park. I’ve seen how you smile at that adorable little boy and that wonderful old man.”

  “My interest is not personal.”

  “Yes, it is. Except for Jenny Landsdell you’ve never taken a personal interest in these cases, and maybe that’s my fault. Maybe if I hadn’t stood between you and the rest of the world you’d be living in the suburbs now with a wife and four children.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting this?” He touched the scar that dissected his face.

  McKenzie gave a long sigh, then just stood looking at him.

  “It’s getting late,” he said. “Let’s go back to the house.”

  His sister linked her arms through his, then matched him stride for stride as they made their way up the lane from the barn and through the pear trees, heavy with bloom and redolent with a fragrance that made David think of Elizabeth, of the soft sweet scent that had wafted his way when she’d passed by him on campus.

  Something in him startled, as if he’d been found out stealing from the cookie jar, and he knew that his sister had spoken the truth. If he wasn’t already personally involved with Elizabeth Jennings, he was heading in that direction. And it could only lead to disaster.

  “Forget what I said,” he told his sister as he held the kitchen door open for her.

  She flicked on the light then studied his face in that disconcerting way of hers. She was the only human being alive who could make him feel like squirming.

  “I’m going to do it, David. But not in disguise.”

  “You’re not going to reveal my identity?”

  “No, but I refuse to weasel my way into the confidence of that sweet woman with a pack of lies. I’m going to tell her who I am.”

  “McKenzie, don’t.”

  “It’s a free world, David. If Elizabeth Jennings wants to be friends with Paul Matthews’ wife, you can’t do anything to stop it.”

  The fortress David had built over the years was nothing but a pack of cards, after all, and it looked as if his own sister was determined to pull it down around his ears. Something like panic seized him. He felt as if he were caught in the middle of a whirlpool that wouldn’t let him out no matter which way he swam.

  Standing on tiptoe, McKenzie kissed his scarred cheek.

  “Don’t worry, David. Your secret is safe with me. I’m just going to be her friend, that’s all. I think she could use one.”

  Chapter Seven

  The old Cadillac that pulled up in front of Elizabeth’s house was as out of place in her neighborhood as Noah’s ark, and nearly as big. Painted a bright pink that could be seen half a block away it stood out among the falling-down houses and the wrecks of cars up on concrete blocks.

  It represented escape to Elizabeth, and so did the woman who got out of the car, Quincy Chatam, a size sixteen Amazon stuffed into a red pants suit decorated with rhinestones and sequins. All she needed was a feathered headdress, and she’d look like a voodoo princess.

  The sight of her always gave Elizabeth a lift. Their Saturday morning outings were a joyful ritual that had been born out of serendipity. And best of all, they didn’t cost a thing.

  “I need you to help me pick out a dress for my sister’s wedding,” Quincy had said (had it been almost two years ago?), but Elizabeth had already promised to take Nicky and Papa to the zoo. “Shoot, they can go, too,” Quincy had told her. “And afterward we’ll all go to the zoo. I’ve not seen a baboon since I divorced my second husband.”

  Even before Quincy punched the door bell, Nicky and Papa were at the door to greet her, Nicky in jeans and Big Bird tee shirt and Papa in his Sunday best, an old blue serge suit shiny from years of pressing, a striped tie of uncertain vintage and a felt fedora that Humphrey Bogart might have worn in one of his gangster movies.

  “Is the Good-time Gang ready to go?” Quincy yelled, and they all spilled out the door.

  Elizabeth didn’t know who enjoyed their trips the most. Quincy pranced like she was hearing the beat of Beale Street jazz. Papa strutted as if he had important business with the Queen of England, and Nicky raced up and down the sidewalk, practically airborne in his excitement.

  “My chariot awaits,” Quincy announced, and that was all the cue Nicky needed.

  “Sing that song ‘bout chariots, Papa.”

  It had been one of Mae Mae’s favorites. On sweet summer nights while Papa and Manny worked late in the fields, she used to sit on the front porch swing with Elizabeth in her lap, singing.

  Papa’s glance at Elizabeth said he was remembering, too, and as he sang the first verse of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” in a very good baritone, Elizabeth thought she heard faint strains of a soft soprano harmony.

  When Papa got to the line about a band of angels coming to carry him home, Nicky piped up.

  “Will my angel come in a chariot?”

  “Your angel’s come in a big pink Cadillac, honey lamb. Now get in that car and let ole Quincy take you for a joy ride.�
��

  In the car they decided to go to Goldsmith’s, one of the largest and oldest department stores in Memphis. This was part of the ritual, too, choosing the store. Though not a one of them ever spent a dime, Papa called it spreading the wealth around, and Quincy called it living by the equal opportunity laws. Elizabeth called it just plain good fun.

  The first place they headed was the toy department. Whooping with joy Nicky bounced on a trampoline, shot three quick Nerf balls into a low-hanging net, then raced on to the electric train chugging along a ten-foot track while the three adults stood by cheering him on.

  Quincy was the first to see the starch-faced sales clerk’s approach. “Here comes trouble.”

  “May I help you?” Ice water was warmer than her tone. Elizabeth was getting ready to tell her they were just browsing when Papa tipped his hat and bowed from the waist.

  “Maybe you can, lovely lady,” he said.

  The clerk thawed a little, but not enough to take the stiffness out of her back. Elizabeth thought she looked like she’d recently sat in a briar patch.

  “I need to get my great grandson a present, but I can’t make up my mind.”

  “We have some very nice coloring books on the sale table that might be in the neighborhood of what you want to spend.”

  Elizabeth wanted to slap the clerk’s face. But every time she forgot Mae Mae’s lectures about turning the other cheek, Papa gave her a vivid reminder.

  “Oh, I was thinking of a much nicer neighborhood than that,” he said.

  “How much nicer?”

  “Something more akin to the royal palace than the city dump.”

  Papa winked at Elizabeth, and Quincy’s big bray turned heads three aisles over. She grabbed Nicky by one hand and Elizabeth by the other.

  “Come on here, sweethearts. Your Papa has been insulted. If he spends a red dime with that ole stuck-up fox I’m going to personally whip his fanny.”

  The clerk stood open-mouthed while Quincy sailed off in the direction of the ladies’ department with her little trio--the Queen Elizabeth and three tugs, the littlest one asking, “What’s a stuck-up fox?”