by Leah Vale
Luke nodded in agreement. “That he will.”
She turned her big, glittering hazel eyes to Jack. “I’m so sorry, Jack.”
Jack’s throat was too tight to respond. He raised an acknowledging hand and left the diner.
As Jack strode down the sidewalk toward where he’d parked his truck in front of the vet clinic, an icy numbness crept under his skin that had nothing to do with the freezing air or the flat gray sky that threatened yet more snow. It was kin to the numbness that had seen him through the days after Caroline’s funeral. He didn’t particularly remember much about the days before.
Cell phone reception was notoriously bad in Jester, so he went in to use the clinic phone to call Melinda with the news. Her soft voice and gentle understanding nearly undid him.
But he forced himself to think of nothing save getting in his truck and following behind Luke’s dark, sheriff department SUV as he drove out to the Faulkner farm ten miles northeast of town. He refused to think about how much he would miss Henry’s understanding gaze when Jack dropped his sorry rump next to Henry, Finn and Dean inside the barbershop and watched the world that was Jester go by while Dean and Finn provided the color commentary. Henry had had nothing but time since he’d sold Faulkner Hardware and retired. Finn, the retired town librarian, was also a widower, but had a big family to keep him happy. And Dean knew everything about everyone, whether they came into his barbershop or not.
Jack wouldn’t think about those times. He couldn’t.
The numbness was fully in place by the time he passed the farm Luke and his sister Vicki had grown up on, but their parents had since sold, then turned into the pothole riddled drive leading to Cottonwood Farm. When he reached Henry’s farmhouse with its peeling paint and air of neglect, surrounded by gigantic maple trees that looked equally forlorn without their leaves, Jack pulled in off to the side beneath one of the trees so he wouldn’t block in Luke, Doc Perkins, whose rig was already there, or the coroner when he arrived. Jack had a feeling he was going to be here a while. It took time to close the book on a person’s life.
He stepped up onto the porch and walked through the open front door and realized that in the eight years Jack had known him, Henry had never invited him into his house. Jack had been to the farm plenty of times to treat Henry’s animals before he sold them off, but they had always gone straight to the barn and stayed there.
Jack stepped into the house, lit by the eerie gray morning light coming through windows Jack distinctly remembered as always being blocked by the heavy curtains that were now thrown wide. He looked around and realized why he’d never been invited in.
Henry had not only ceased to take care of himself after Dolly died, he’d let his house go to hell in a newspaper and garbage stuffed handbag, too. Everywhere he looked there was trash of some sort. And where there wasn’t yellowed newspapers or discarded mail, there were reminders of Dolly.
Her reading glasses occupied the only uncluttered spot on a little table next to a once-comfortable looking chair. Her knitting was in a basket on the floor in front of the chair, as if she’d just set it down to go tend to something else.
Henry had clearly not taken Dolly’s death well. And that had occurred ten years ago.
Jack was too stunned to process it all.
Tall, lanky Finn, wearing dark blue slacks and a white oxford shirt, came out of the kitchen. His thick white hair was unusually mussed, eyes red-rimmed behind his wire frame glasses and he was blowing his nose into a paper napkin. “Hell of a day to forget my handkerchief.”
The frost under Jack’s skin began to melt, and his own eyes started to burn. With the return of his grief came his anger. Why hadn’t Henry let anyone help him?
Finn blew his nose again.
Knowing all too well that there was nothing more he could say, Jack offered, “I’m sorry, Finn.”
“So am I, Jack. So am I. But that stupid old geezer was just waiting to die, you know. Never did want to go on without his Dolly, no matter how hard Dean and I tried to convince him otherwise.” He moved to the foot of the stairs where Luke could be heard talking to Doc, their words indistinct.
The sound of a car pulling up reached them. Jack leaned toward a window. “County coroner is here. I’m going to go up and…and say goodbye.” Something he hadn’t been able to do with Caroline. They’d said the damage she’d sustained in the wreck was too great, and they wouldn’t let him see her.
Finn nodded and waved the napkin at the stairs. “Yes. Good. Go.”
Jack followed the sound of Luke and Doc’s voices to find the right bedroom. The two other men were standing in what looked like a study at the end of the hall, though, on either side of a little cot. Henry was laid out on it flat on his back, head propped up slightly by a pillow and his hands folded neatly over his chest atop the white-and-peach quilt bedding. Despite the wild, sparse gray hair sticking out on either side of his head, Henry had never looked so peaceful.
Some of Jack’s anger dissipated. Henry was finally where he’d wanted to be—with his beloved Dolly.
Jack glanced at Dr. Nathan Perkins. Doc was only three years older and a couple of inches shorter than Jack, but his prematurely grayed hair gave him a distinguished, mature air that fit his role in town. He was no longer the only doctor around since he’d brought in Shelly’s new husband, Connor O’Rourke, to help at the medical clinic Doc had been upgrading with his share of the lottery, but he was still considered Doc.
Gesturing at Henry, Jack asked, “Is that how…?”
Doc raised a hand in greeting. “Hey, Jack. Yep, that’s exactly how Luke found him. Like the old guy had simply laid down to die. But he probably went in his sleep. It happens,” he explained gently, closing up the black medical bag on the cluttered desk with an ominous snap.
Jack nodded, fighting the swell of devastating pain in his throat, wanting the blessed numbness back. Looking around at the study, with Henry’s clothes piled in the corners, Jack was momentarily distracted. “Was he using this as his bedroom?”
Blowing out a heavy breath, Doc said, “Appears so.”
Jack feared he knew why.
Luke strode toward him. “We’ll give you a minute.”
Doc moved toward the door also. “Yes, of course. Was that the coroner I heard drive up?”
Jack nodded, his gaze on the serene-looking old man on the cot.
“Good.”
They both stepped around Jack. Luke, who Henry had been real fond of, also, paused long enough to place an understanding hand on Jack’s shoulder before leaving the room.
Jack moved slowly to Henry’s side. Even though there had been so much Jack hadn’t known about Henry, he’d been a good friend. He would sorely miss the cranky old bird’s unique understanding of Jack’s pain.
He selfishly wanted Henry back, though not with the consuming, burning need that had damn near crippled him after Caroline’s car crash. But he’d laid Caroline and the child she would forever hold beneath her heart to rest. He truly had. The ache was bearable now. He dealt with death often enough to be forced to accept it as a part of life, no matter how brutally unfair.
It was just such a risk to care.
No matter how much Jack wanted to change what had happened here, too, there was no denying the peaceful smoothness Henry’s once-lined face had settled into.
A calming acceptance seeped into the wounds in Jack’s heart. “I suppose you’re finally happy now. That’s good. I guess this was the only way you’d get that. God bless your soul, Henry. Rest in peace old friend.”
Jack turned and headed back downstairs, his jaw clenched tight against the swell of sadness threatening to crest in his chest.
Finn stepped away from the knot of men standing near the front door. “Jack, do you have time to spare today? There are some things that need to be seen to right away, like what little Henry had in the fridge and the cupboards, draining the pipes so they don’t freeze, as well as finding where he stuck his important papers. Ap
parently anything that didn’t have to do with Dolly got put God knows where.”
“Of course.” Jack glanced between Finn and Luke. “The only kin he has left is his granddaughter, right? Has she been notified?”
They both shook their heads.
Finn said, “Don’t know where Jennifer is. She stopped coming to visit after Dolly passed on. Hopefully Henry has her number somewhere, but I honestly don’t know if he kept in contact with her. He probably hid it if he did have it. You know how paranoid he’d been getting as of late.”
Finn let out a heavy sigh as he surveyed the living room. “I tell you, Jack, this is one job I don’t look forward to. I had no idea he’d gotten this bad.”
While the coroner, Doc and Luke saw to taking Henry’s body to the funeral home in Pine Run and starting the necessary paperwork, Jack and Finn went to work on the house. The first order of business, after the garbage was cleared away, that is, was finding Henry’s will, if he had one. He should have had one because all of the lottery winners had been advised to have that sort of documentation put in order ASAP.
By late afternoon they still hadn’t found any sign of a will, but they had unearthed what they hoped was Jennifer Faulkner’s address. Luke would be able to come up with a phone number from it and could contact her. The thought of a young woman, though she probably wasn’t much younger than Jack, soon being told that she no longer had any blood relatives—Finn had told him how she’d lost her parents in a plane crash—dissolved Jack’s protective numbness completely. It was one thing to be separated from family by distance, but to be left alone by death was tough.
As the early winter darkness descended on the late Henry Faulkner’s farm, the ache Jack had been fighting clawed its way out of his heart and settled dead center in his chest with breath-stealing intensity when he walked into a room upstairs that turned out to be the master bedroom with a big four-poster bed. It was the only room in the house that had been kept clean and neat. And it looked as if Dolly had only just been there. A half-full glass of water sat on the nightstand. A pair of women’s slippers were tucked beneath the edge of the bed and a pink robe was laid out on the coverlet.
It was as if Henry had hoped she would soon return.
Jack’s earlier intuition regarding Henry’s sleeping arrangements proved true.
Henry’s words when he’d congratulated Jack and Melinda kept coming back to him over and over again.
You’re too young to end up like me, Jack.
It made sense now. Henry hadn’t wanted Jack to end up like this, living in the past, waiting to die.
Jack thought of his own house as he cleaned out the perishable contents of Henry’s. While his house wasn’t a mess—and unlike Henry, Jack had boxed up his wife’s clothes and other non-keepsake items and donated them to charity—he hadn’t changed much of anything in the past five years. Though it certainly hadn’t been a conscious choice. Not really. It was just easier to leave things as they were.
Easier and less painful. But he was only thirty-three years old. And he did not want to end up like Henry. Jack still had a hell of a lot of life yet to live.
A life he could spend at least a little of in the comforting arms of a woman like Melinda Woods.
AFTER THE EMOTIONAL HELL of the day, Jack was operating on autopilot as he drove away from Henry’s that night, so he wasn’t entirely surprised when he realized he’d driven straight to Melinda’s little house. He wasn’t all the way out of his truck yet when the front door opened and she came out into the cold to meet him. She must not have been home long because she was wearing the red flannel shirt that looked so good with her blond hair and snug jeans she often wore to work. And her hair was still tied up in some sort of knot behind her head.
Part of him wished she were wearing her silky pajamas with her hair hanging wet down her back. But the rest of him was just plain damn glad to see her. Her big brown, soft eyes were shiny in the porch light, her empathy for his loss right out there on her sleeve.
She immediately grabbed his hand, her small palm warm and comforting against his. “Oh, Jack. I’m so sorry about Henry. How awful. Have you been out there all day?”
He nodded as he continued toward the front door, his throat suddenly too tight to speak.
“Oh, boy. I was afraid of that.” She went through the door first, holding an exuberant Pete at bay until Jack could come in and close the door behind him. “And you probably haven’t eaten anything at all, either. I have some soup all ready to go. I came home earlier in the day and got it going. I was about to take it over to your place so it would be there for you when you got home because I…I wasn’t sure if I’d see you.”
His chest burned with emotions stirred up by the day, and Jack didn’t waste another second. He instinctively reached for Melinda, snagged her around the waist and pulled her against him. Wrapping his arms around her, he hugged her for all he was worth, holding her warmth, her softness, as tight against him as he could.
He buried his nose in her hair to breathe in deep her comforting citrus smell, only tonight it was muted by the earthy smell of the outdoors and a hint of the disinfecting soap they used after treating an animal.
She squeaked and the toes of her boots bumped against his shins. Only then did he realize he’d picked her clean up off the ground and was probably crushing her. He eased his hold and let her slip down the front of him until she was back on her feet. The friction created by her soft curves rubbing along the length of him made him want to groan and snatch her right back up again.
He met her wide-eyed gaze. “I didn’t mean to crush you.”
She smiled gently and reached a hand up to his whiskered jaw. “Jack, you can crush me anytime.”
No matter what you need, I’m here for you.
Her words from the night before in the pavilion hung unspoken between them. He searched her gaze, wondering if he should risk taking what he truly needed from her. Did he dare get that close to another human being again?
She broke the spell by stepping away from him with a deep sigh. “You should eat, though. Come on.” She snagged his hand again and led him to the little oak table in the kitchen nook. “Sit down and let me take care of you.”
Jack eased himself into the wooden chair facing the kitchen, his chest tightening. It had been a long time since anyone had taken care of him. Maybe that was all he needed from her. A little comforting, a little nurturing, a little care.
As Melinda laid out a place setting in front of him, something rubbed against his leg. He looked down to find her big white cat, Mr. Booger, bumping his fat cheek against Jack’s shin, then arching his back and rubbing his side along Jack’s jeans. The cat left a trail of white hair in his wake.
Jack sought out the rest of her animals with his gaze. If anyone could handle taking care of the likes of him, Melinda could. He looked back at her as she poured chunky, steaming, heavenly smelling soup from a large, wide-mouth thermos into a bowl. She’d caught her tempting bottom lip in her teeth as she concentrated. Her full breasts no longer missed his notice beneath her shirt and her rounded bottom was incredibly enticing in her jeans as she stood with one hip out.
Jack’s body responded instantly with heat and hardness.
The burn of sexual need knocked aside the searing pain of loss in Jack’s gut and he accepted the fact that he wanted a hell of a lot more from Melinda than a bowl of warm soup.
He shifted in his chair and watched her carry the brimming bowl of soup over to him, concentrating on not spilling as she came to stand next to him. She didn’t meet his gaze until she’d set the bowl on the plate in front of him. Some of what he was feeling must have shown in his expression because her tawny eyebrows twitched upward and she paused, hands extended.
Jack took advantage of her surprise, shock, whatever and put a hand on the back of her toned thigh, sliding it upward over her delectable, firm bottom, which he resisted the urge to squeeze because he’d been raised a gentleman, until he reached the dip in he
r waist just above her hipbone. It was his favorite spot on a woman, and he couldn’t believe how alive it made him feel to touch her there.
He closed his eyes and pulled in a deep breath, his head filling with the savory smell of the soup and the dizzying prospect of rejoining the living, then let it out with a “Mmm” before opening his eyes again.
Melinda shifted, first toward him, then away slightly. “Ah…it’s, ah, it’s vegetable beef soup.”
He gave her waist a gentle squeeze. “Feels like gorgeous woman to me.”
She made a choking sound that was half cough, half gasp. “Are you okay, Jack?”
He opened his eyes and looked up at her. Her pretty brown eyes were wide and her cheeks flushed to the same red as her flannel shirt. “Yeah, I am. I really am.”
With a slow movement she eased away from him, slipping into the chair on his right. He couldn’t help moving his leg so that his knee rested against hers. Heat spread from the point of contact upward.
“I know how much Henry meant to you, Jack. That having to face another…that losing him so suddenly is hard to bear.”
The pain squashed beneath his newly awakened attraction to Melinda twitched at her condolences, but now that he was here, now that he’d decided to reclaim at least a small measure of his life, he refused to let it up again.
The smell of the soup conspiring with his stomach finally convinced his brain that he did need to eat. He shook his head and picked up the spoon. “It was what Henry wanted. I never realized how badly until I saw the inside of his house for the first time today.”
“You’d never been before?”
He took a spoonful of the soup, closing his eyes for a moment in satisfaction that the rich broth and tender meat tasted as good as it smelled. It was as if allowing himself to be attracted to Melinda had ratcheted up his other sensations as well.
After swallowing, he said, “No, I hadn’t. Had never been invited in. Now I know why.” He took another bite, enjoying the flavors.
Melinda sat forward with her brows high. “And?”
“Henry had set up damn near a shrine to his late wife, Dolly, who passed away ten years ago. You wouldn’t believe it, Melinda.”
