The Trouble with Joe

by Emilie Richards

  She was wiping her eyes. “Go ahead, take her home.”

  “You’ll start the paperwork tomorrow?”

  “First thing in the morning.”

  He turned before she could change her mind. Ten yards across the floor he saw Sam waiting in the doorway. He thought that when he was an old man he would remember her exactly that way. Blond hair loose on her shoulders, a brilliant smile and tears running unchecked down her cheeks. She crossed the room at a run and embraced both of them in a tearful hug.

  Joe stood with Corey in his arms and Sam’s warm arms around them. And he knew he was a man who lacked nothing.

  He was a man who had it all.

  Epilogue

  SAM LISTENED FROM the dining room as Joe talked on the kitchen telephone.

  “Sure, I understand you’re having a problem with Corey. And I’m telling you what you can do about it. First of all, you’ve got to throw away all the busy work. Then you’ve got to find something challenging for her to do instead.”

  Sam chuckled softly. She could almost see Connie Antonio’s face as Joe outlined his plan for keeping his fourth-grade daughter out of trouble. He had outlined it to Corey’s third-grade teacher last year, at about this same time in the fall. She suspected that there would be a string of these conversations in the years to come.

  A purple blur with flopping blond pigtails raced past. “Don’t go too far,” she called after Corey. “Dinner’s early tonight. P.T.A. open house. Remember?”

  Tennis shoes screeched against the old pine floors. “What’re we having?”

  “Chicken.”

  “Fried?”

  “Yep.”

  “Josh!” Corey shouted.

  Sam watched her daughter poised on the brink of flight. Corey had Joe’s awesome energy, and she was just learning how to control it. Joe gave her frequent pointers.

  Corey was two years taller and two years healthier than she had been when they adopted her. She smiled often, and her brown eyes sparkled. Her face was alive with intelligence and curiosity, and her petite body was tanned and fit. She was in Camp Fire with a talent for gymnastics and a passion for horseback riding, which she shared with Mary Nell, who was still her best friend. Corey didn’t know it yet, but she was going to get her heart’s desire for Christmas. A horse of her own.

  “Josh!” Corey shouted again.

  “You’ll bring the house down,” Sam scolded.

  “Sure. Sure.” She said the words just as Joe might have.

  A dark-haired little boy came limping into the room. He was a head shorter than Corey, still pale from too many months in a hospital room. Sam’s heart turned over at the sight of him, just as it had every day since Josh had come to stay.

  “Come on, Josh,” Corey said, hands on lavender hips. “You’ve got to learn to catch me. I’m going to beat you to the lake.”

  She took off and the door slammed behind her. From the window Sam could see just how slowly she was moving.

  Joe came into the room, and Josh gave him a heartbreaking grin before he limped after his sister. Sam went to the door to watch his progress.

  “He’s moving faster,” she said. “I’ve got to give Corey credit. Josh is definitely moving faster.”

  Joe came to her and put his arms around her waist. “You look tired.”

  “This mother stuff is hard work. I’m glad I’m on leave for a while.”

  “Josh isn’t favoring his leg as much. He’s looking stronger.”

  “Corey makes sure he does his exercises. She says that’s what big sisters do.”

  “He’s in danger of being mothered to death.”

  “He needed a mother. Now he’s got two.”

  “And a dad.”

  “Who he adores.”

  “Dinah called right before Connie.”

  Sam leaned back. Joe’s arms were warm and strong, arms that could hold a thousand burdens. She closed her eyes and luxuriated in the feel of his body against hers. She thought wicked thoughts. “Was she checking on Josh?”

  “Not exactly.”

  When he didn’t elaborate she opened her eyes. “Joe, don’t tell me...”

  “Okay.”

  “Another child?”

  “You said not to tell you.”

  “You’re right. Don’t tell me now. Take me to bed tonight. Make perfect love to me. Then you can tell me.”

  She felt his hand in her hair. Stroking, soothing. He tucked one long, silky lock behind her ear. His lips were warm against her earlobe. “Twins,” he whispered.

  * * *

  COREY THREW DOG food into the lake. Attila honked in protest, then started for the opposite shore. “See, Josh? The catfish are coming right up to the edge to eat it.”

  “How come you feed catfish dog food?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s made with worms and stuff fish like.” She stared out to the middle of the lake where her father had built a raft. She could swim all the way out and back by herself. Of course, a grown-up had to be watching.

  “Did you always live here?” Josh asked.

  Corey thought about his question. Josh asked a lot of questions. “I lived somewhere else once, but I don’t remember much about it.”

  “I don’t remember much about the hospital.”

  “I remember when I was in the hospital once, and Daddy came and got me.”

  “And he took you home?”

  “When we went outside he kissed me and told me I was his little girl.” She threw another handful of dog food in the water. “’Course, I wasn’t big then.”

  “I like living here.”

  Corey thought about all the things she liked. Warm hugs and cold swims in the lake. The new fort sitting back among the trees. Mom teaching her to do cartwheels and Daddy coaching her soccer team. The funny shadows dancing on her ceiling at night when the moon was full. The silly stuffed bear who slept on her pillow. Grandma Rose. Even Grandma Kathryn and Grandpa Fischer. She shrugged. “It’s just home.”

  Josh shrugged, too. “Yeah, just home.”

  They stood watching the catfish feed. Then hand in hand they walked back home together.

  * * * * *

  Someone Like Her

  Janice Kay Johnson

  Dear Reader,

  I’m really excited that Someone Like Her is being reprinted. One of the big drawbacks to writing series romance is that the books don’t stay on the shelves very long. A reprint gives a well-loved story a chance to revisit its glory days. But this reprint is even better, because Emilie Richards is an author whose books always go straight to my keeper shelf. Love to see our books together!

  As I said in my original letter to readers, the plot of Someone Like Her came to me from a newspaper article that reported about an elderly homeless woman who had died in a small town, and how community members who had cared for her all contributed to pay for her funeral. The notion intrigued me. How did she end up there, and why did she stay? Did she really have no family? I imagined what family—a son, say—would think to learn that Mom had lived this kind of life, lost in one way, yet somehow having found a real home, too.

  The timing of this reprint is bittersweet for me, as I am currently losing my mother to dementia. I hadn’t yet had that experience with anyone I loved when I wrote Someone Like Her, and yet, upon reading it, I seemed to understand the emotions all too well. Mental illness is different, of course, but for the family has many parallels. Yes, this person is my mom, but some times more than other times. And yes, day by day, whatever quality made her Mom is being lost. How do you remind her of the woman she was? Hold on to your own memories once hers are gone?

  I truly loved this story, and never more than now.

  There’s nothing I like more than h
earing from readers! Look for my Facebook page and my website at www.janicekayjohnson.com.

  Janice

  For Mom, with all my love

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  “EVERY TABLE FULL except the reserved one, and it’s a Tuesday.” Carrying two glasses of iced tea, Mabel paused to grin at Lucy Peterson. “Those new soups are a hit.”

  She continued into the crowded dining room of the café. Lucy, who had just finished ringing up a customer, looked around with satisfaction. Mabel was right. Business kept getting better and better.

  The bell over the door rang. Lucy’s head turned as her guest slipped in, her carriage confident, her gaze shy. The hat lady.

  Last time Lucy had seen her, the day before yesterday, she’d carried herself decorously and yet with regal authority. The pillbox hat had said it all. She was often Queen Elizabeth—the second, she always emphasized. She didn’t actually look much like Queen Elizabeth II, being slender rather than matronly in build, with hair that had been blond when she first appeared in Middleton, perhaps ten years ago. Now her hair was primarily white, as wispy and flyaway as the woman whose head it crowned.

  But today, she wore a flower-printed dress and a broad-brimmed hat festooned with flowers. Her face was softer, her carriage more youthful, her gaze vaguer.

  This was always the awkward moment. Lucy had to pretend she knew who Middleton’s one and only homeless person was. Calling her by the wrong name seemed so insulting.

  Talk in the café hadn’t dimmed at all. Everyone knew the hat lady was a project of Lucy’s. Lucy’s Aunt Marian called, “Your majesty,” and resumed her one-sided conversation with Uncle Sidney, who almost never said a word, and failed entirely to notice the hat lady’s astonished stare.

  Lucy went to her and said in a gentle voice, “I’m so glad you could come to lunch today. Your table’s right here, by the window. Did you see the crocuses are blooming?”

  The hat lady smiled at her, her face crinkling with pleasure. “God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.”

  Okay. It was a clue. She still had a British accent, which was mostly a given, although not long ago she’d been Elizabeth Taylor, the accent wholly American. She had an astonishing gift for accents; a few months ago, she’d done a splendid Eliza Doolittle, starting with a nearly indecipherable Cockney accent skillfully revised over several weeks until she spoke with a pure, somewhat stilted upper-crust accent worthy of the most carefully tutored student.

  Lucy had taken to rereading English literature and watching classic films so she wouldn’t be completely lost every time the hat lady changed personas.

  “Please. Sit down.” Lucy gestured her to the tiny table for two in front of the bow window, which she’d reserved especially for the hat lady. Yellow and purple crocuses bloomed in the windowbox outside. Her shopping cart, neatly packed, was parked on the sidewalk where she could see it. That was why Lucy always saved the window seat for her. “Would you care for tea?”

  “Please.”

  She gazed with seeming delight and no boredom out the window until Lucy returned with a teapot, loose tea steeping inside. One did not offer the hat lady tea improperly made.

  From the menu she chose only soup and a scone. Lucy had tried persuading her to have a hearty meal when she was here, but had never succeeded.

  “Won’t you join me?” she did ask, with vague surprise as if unaware there was a busy restaurant around them, and that Lucy was in charge.

  “I might sit down with you for a moment a little later,” she promised. Her friend had aged noticeably these past few months, Lucy noted with dismay. Her spine was as straight as ever, her pinkie finger extended as she sipped tea, but she must have lost weight. She seemed frail today. If only she could be persuaded to settle into a rented room! Hiding her worry, Lucy asked, “How are you?”

  She tilted her face up. Her blue eyes, fading like her hair, seemed unusually perceptive all of a sudden, as if she saw the doubts and unhappiness Lucy scarcely acknowledged even to herself. In a voice too low for anyone at neighboring tables to hear, she said, “I might ask you the same.”

  Lucy’s mouth opened and closed.

  After a moment, the cornflower-blue eyes softened, looked inward, and she murmured, “Did you know the sorrow comes with the years?”

  “I...” Something seemed to clog Lucy’s throat. “Yes. Yes, I did.”

  This smile seemed to forgive her. “Grief may be joy misunderstood.”

  Oh! That line she’d heard. Somewhere, sometime. It had to have been written, or said, by a Beth, or Liza, Lizbet, or Elizabeth... Yes! Lucy thought in triumph. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Of course. The hat lady was very fond of her poetry. Only, the first couple of things she said had seemed so sensible, if also profound, Lucy hadn’t recognized them as poetry.

  “Miss Browning,” she said, “I’m so glad you could join me today.”

  She meant to get back to the hat lady and sit with her, as promised. She did. But the kitchen ran out of spinach, and she had to race to Safeway for more, then Aunt Marian expressed her opinion at some length on the very peculiar soup—which was delicious, but she did miss the split pea Lucy used to offer. And then Samantha, Lucy’s youngest and most compatible sister, who had recently opened a bed-and-breakfast inn, suggested they join together to put on a murder mystery weekend, with the guests staying at Doveport B and B and Lucy catering the meals. Samantha had scarcely left than Lucy’s niece Bridget came in to apply to be a waitress, her air of defiance suggesting to Lucy that Bridget’s mother hadn’t liked the idea of her working. Bridget was resisting the idea of staying close to home after graduation and doing her first two years at the community college in Port Angeles rather than going away. Was she trying to earn enough to pay a significant part of her own expenses? If so, there was no doubt whose side Lucy was on.

  Still, she wished every decision she made didn’t have family repercussions. The tiniest stone spread ripples of gossip, hurt feelings, righteous indignation. That was the problem with having such a large family who all lived so close by. Making a face, Lucy thought wistfully, Why can’t one side or the other live in Minneapolis or Houston instead? Anywhere but here?

  Dad’s family, by preference. His sister, her Aunt Lynn, was a particular trial. Come to think of it, Lucy didn’t like most of her cousins on Dad’s side, either.

  The trouble was, Dad had a sister and a brother, who had kids, all of whom had already started families of their own. Mom had two sisters, and they had kids, and... Aagh! There was a reason Lucy had yearned to leave Middleton for most of her life.

  She ran the cash register as the full restaurant gradually emptied, and by the time she thought to look at the small table in the bow window, it was empty. Erin, another employee, was starting to clear it, and Lucy was disappointed to see that the soup bowl was half-full, and Miss Browning hadn’t even finished her scone.

  Oh, dear, she thought. If only the hat lady would fill up when she was here. Or take leftovers in a doggie bag. She accepted invitations to dine, but wouldn’t come more than a couple of times a week. Lucy knew that she did get food elsewhere. George, down at Safeway, saw to it that expired canned goods and slightly wilted produce got set outside the back door when the hat lady’s route took her that way. And Winona Carlson, who ran the Pancake Haus out by the highway, fed her break
fast at least another couple of days a week. Still... When Lucy thought about the hat lady—gentle, whimsical, yet somehow sad—she worried.

  Today, though, she was too busy to do more than shake her head and feel slightly guilty that she hadn’t made time to sit down, if only for a minute or two. Then she went back to work in the kitchen, prepping for dinner.

  Hands busy, she let her mind wander. That one achingly perceptive look from the hat lady set her to analyzing why she’d felt so down lately.

  Of course, she knew in part: this wasn’t the life she’d dreamed of having. Like her niece Bridget, she’d been sure she would leave Middleton behind and never be back except for visits. But after college she’d let herself get enveloped again by family. First a job at the café, the chance to be creative in the kitchen and the pleasure of seeing how her food was received. Wan lettuce and all-American comfort foods were gradually replaced by wraps, spinach and romaine salads and her signature soups. When the opportunity to buy the café came up, she’d still told herself this didn’t have to be permanent. She’d improve business and make a profit when she sold the café in turn. Perhaps she could start a restaurant in Seattle or San Francisco, or get a job as an executive chef.

  Her hands went still as her chest filled with something very like panic. All of a sudden she had a terrible urge to turn the sign on the door to Closed, scrap preparation for dinner and just...run away.

  Lucy grimaced. She was far too responsible to do any such thing. Okay, then; why not put the café up for sale and use the proceeds to travel for a couple of years? Give in to all the yearnings that made her so restless. Spend a year traveling between hostels in...Romania. Or Swaziland. Or...

  The hat lady’s face popped into her mind, and a smile curved her mouth. England. How silly of me! Of course it has to be the British Isles. Images of thatched roofs and hedgerows, church spires and castle towers rose before her mind’s eye. Perhaps she would bike between villages, staying as long as she chose in each. She’d have to start over financially when she came home, if she ever came home, but she was young. At least she’d have lived a little before she settled into being a small-town businesswoman.