Lost and Found: Sara Martin Series

by Danelle Helget

  I grabbed the meat and salad from the fridge. Jake was already started on the sauce. In his family, nothing came from a jar, which I thought was great except when you're in a hurry. Jake was an excellent cook, and he enjoyed cooking too, which was a benefit to me.

  “So, how are you?” I asked, as I started working on the salad.

  Jake looked at me, tipped his head kinda sideways and asked, “What?”

  “Nothing. I just think we need to talk, and so I thought I’d start there,” I replied, while looking at the vegetables I was working on.

  “Oh, what now? Did I do something wrong? What are you mad about?” He asked, annoyed.

  “I don’t know. There just seems to be a lot going on with you lately, and I feel like you’re a million miles away sometimes. I see you smile a lot, but it’s not usually in my direction. It seems like you have lots to talk about when I'm not around but as soon as I walk up you get quiet. So I'm just trying to figure out where you’re at.” I wanted to be gentle encase I was way off in left field. I waited, what seemed like forever, before I continued. “I have fears, Jake, like a lot of married people, I'm afraid we’re drifting apart, and it scares me.”

  Jake seemed irritated and was shaking his head as he continued chopping the tomatoes. He looked very lost in thought and really upset. It wasn't that he was mad, but really more like, I don’t know, upset. He wasn't responding to me or looking at me. I really wished he would've just looked at me with loving eyes and told me he was sorry, that it was just stress, that I was being silly. Anything. But he didn't, it was like he'd left the building. Just kept chopping tomatoes, face down, deep in thought.

  “Jake, will you please say something?” I demanded.

  “What? What do you want me to say?” he practically yelled at me. “I told you on the way up here that it’s been really busy at work and I’m just stressed.”

  Wow, he had never used that tone with me before. He didn’t even look me in the eyes either. Now I was mad, too. He was guilty of something. Why else would he have snapped like that? Whenever he talked to me it was always in a loving fashion. He couldn't even look at me. God, I hoped and prayed that I was wrong, but my heart was telling me I wasn't. Crap, I was going to throw up. Shit, Lily and Mark were still in the shower, giggling. Sick. She was playing both of them! I grabbed a cup and drank some water. I needed to hold it together. If I threw up in front of Jake, he would know that I was really upset. I made the decision to act normal until I had solid proof.

  “Okay, well we're on vacation so try to forget about it for now. There’s nothing you can do about work while you're out here in the middle of nowhere,” I said. I put on my best fake smile and walked over to him. I slipped my arms around his waist and hugged him from behind. I nuzzled my face in the back of his shirt and inhaled. He smelled so good. I prayed I was wrong. Was I? Man, I hated the fight in my head. I’m right . . . I’m wrong. Ugh, I needed a beer. I went to the fridge and grabbed two. I set one by Jake. He said thanks.

  We continued cooking without much conversation. About twenty minutes later, Lily and Mark passed through the kitchen and went out the door for their hike. “Bye. Have fun and don’t get lost,” I said to them, gritting my teeth.

  “We won’t,” Lily said, “Dinner at eight, right?”

  “Right, and if you’re late, there might not be any left,” Jake said back, with a wink.

  They put on their shoes and light jackets and left. The kitchen smelled awesome, the sauce was simmering, and the salad was prepped and back in the fridge. Jake worked on browning the meatballs, while I set the table. The sauce had to simmer for a while, and the rest of the stuff was done. So, after the meatballs were brown and in the oven on warm, we both sat down at the table.

  “I really wish you would take this time to enjoy us and our time together and try to keep work at work. It’s going to be a long week if you're like this towards me the whole time,” I said, not realizing I was talking until a sentence into it.

  Jake finished his beer and grabbed another one. Then he looked at me from the fridge and wiggled a beer at me in an effort to ask if I was ready for another one. I shook my head. He opened one, slammed it, walked around to where the trash was and tossed it in. Then he sauntered over to where I was and put his hand out, palm up. I put my hand in his not knowing what he was doing. As soon as my hand touched his, I felt my heart skip a beat and my whole body relax. He pulled me up to my feet and pressed his body into mine and hugged me, so tight. I loved full, body-length hugs. I felt a rush of heat move through me. I loved him so much. Right then I thought, what a paranoid wife. Geez. We're fine. Mark and Lily were fine too. We had just seen that.

  Jake moved his face from my shoulder up to my lips and kissed me softly. I inhaled deeply and melted into his lips. He was so soft and warm, and I was starving. The kitchen smelled like spaghetti sauce and Jake, two of my favorite things. Bad feeling gone. We continued kissing, and he slid his hands down to my hips and picked me up and set me on the island counter top in front of him. Lips still touching, he didn’t miss a beat. Jake was kissing my neck when I felt him fumbling with my zipper. I opened my eyes and looked into his. Our eyes locked for a long moment, and I felt better. See, he loves me. I am crazy, I thought, as I lifted off his shirt.

  Twenty minutes later, I was wiping up the sauce-splattered stove while Jake took a shower. I threw the rest of the meal together and put it on the table. Jake came out clean and dressed, just as Lily and Mark walked in. We all enjoyed our dinner together and retired to the living room for a movie. It had started to rain outside, so we’d decided to forego the campfire. Each couple snuggled up on one of the overstuffed couches. The TV was little and old but there was a DVD player, and it worked. The guys put in an action movie, and we all grabbed adult beverages and I added a large bowl of popcorn in the middle of the coffee table. We watched the first half hour of the movie, and I decided I didn’t really like it. The cool air and dark sky outside made us all snuggle up nice and close, so I felt a nice romantic comedy would have been better.

  I heard my cell phone ring tone coming from the other room. Yay, I still got service. I quickly jogged to the bedroom, but I missed the call. I checked my voicemail. My mother. She just wanted to talk, but I didn’t need to call her back. My heart ached for her. Her mother had passed away a year and a half ago. They had been close, and my mom was an only child. My grandfather passed away four years before, and we knew Grandma would soon follow. My grandparents were very old fashioned; they kept everything in life simple. They were very rich but most people didn’t know that. Ken and Pauleen Taybro kept their finance details to themselves. When they were first married, they lived in Alaska for two years, in a tiny apartment, in the basement of a house that belonged to a member of their church.

  They bought a hundred acres of land super cheap with the plan to build a home and maybe farm there in the near future. Shortly after, Grandpa got a great job offer as an assistant director of sales, for the Ford Motor company. That moved them around a lot, but he made good money, so he stayed with them. Grandma worked her whole life even though she never had to. She loved feeling needed and important. They lived simply and well below their means. “It’s not about the money,” she’d tell me. “You have to do something you love and makes you feel important in the world, or you’ll lose yourself in it.” Good advice. Pauleen was a patient assistant to birthing mothers in the hospital for most of her life. She loved it and it showed.

  I couldn’t even imagine what it must have been like for them when they found out that the land they bought was the central location for the biggest oil find in the U.S.A. ever! Stubborn as they were, they didn’t sell. They rented the land to the oil company, so each month they received a huge check in the mail. Not only that, they made a percentage on each barrel of oil that the company extracted as well. There were a lot of barrels extracted every day, year in and year out. I can just picture my Grandpa at the table with the big oil executives pounding his fist and m
aking demands. It made me smile, little people beating big people in this corporate world. The other nice part was that my mom was an only child and so was I.

  When Grandpa passed, Grans sold the property to the oil company for a lot of money. She never told anyone how much she got for it, just said that she got what she wanted, and her family would be taken care of for generations to come. Her passing had been tough on my mom, but at the same time a blessing. My mom was a hard worker all her life but unfortunately did not love what she did. Now she was able to quit and still live very comfortably the rest of her life. My mother and father, Jan and Will Lewis, were still happily married and had lots of plans to travel in the near future. My father quit his job the day the lawyers told them the details of the estate. My dad had been a mechanic his whole life, and he’d worked only for the paycheck.

  Grans had set up a trust for me as well. She wrote me a letter, that I was to read after she passed. In it, she stated that it was her wish that I continue to work, at least part time, doing something I loved and to make sure I didn’t lose myself in this world. The trust, from what I understood, would give me a one-time gift of three million dollars on my thirtieth birthday and ten thousand dollars a month for the rest of my life. My thirtieth birthday was last month, but the estate was going through probate. My mom had set another meeting with Grans's attorney for the next week. Probate could take up to a year, some of that had passed already but in the meantime, I had set up appointments for later in the month with three different financial advisers. I hoped, out of those three, I'd find one I was comfortable with so I could start planning investment strategies. Ten-thousand dollars a month was way more then I needed, and I didn’t want to blow it. I thought I was responsible and had made good choices in life thus far. Life could only get easier from here, right? Right.

  I had only told Jake about the estate and asked him to keep it on the down-low. I didn’t want people or friends to change their feelings towards me. The money was in my name only and was legally set up as my inheritance so that it would always be mine and could not be considered as part of any divorce issues. Grans insisted on the pre-nup, too. She wouldn't tell me why but insisted firmly. I figured I'd get an inheritance, but I had no idea when or how much. I told Jake that if he ever divorced me, I’d be rich and he’d be lonely. He just laughed and told me he'd surely love me forever.

  I asked my mom why Grans never asked me to be her lawyer, and she said Grans wanted to enjoy her time with me when she saw me and not let money or business get in the way of our time together. She was such a smart woman. I hoped I’d become half the woman she was. I was excited and nervous. It really changed how I looked at the world. I thought a lot about what I could have now, what I could do, where I could go. It was as if a million doors had just opened and I could pick which one or ones I wanted to walk through. It was very calming. Grans would tell me stories when I was a kid about people with lots of money, how they got big heads, got stupid and then lost it all. They usually ended up sad and alone and broke.

  And to keep working, but to drop back to part time or maybe just do probono work seemed to fit with Grans plan for me. It was really nice never to have to worry about money again. Life was full of problems but at least, no matter what else happened, I knew I would be able to pay my bills and put food on the table.

  I texted my mom back and told her all was good, the place was in the middle of nowhere, it was really beautiful and that we'd be back next Sunday afternoon. I said I’d call then, if not before. When I got back to the living room, both the boys were sleeping and Lily was rolling her eyes. “So much for couple’s cuddle time,” I said.

  “No kidding. It’s not like they worked real hard today. Remember the old days when they stayed awake for our dates.”

  “Yeah, I think so. That was the first two dates, right?” I smirked back. “The good news is now we can watch a different movie. What did you bring?” I asked Lily.

  She went over to the TV and read through titles. “Mama Mia, Sweet Home Alabama, Fried Green Tomatoes, and Dirty Dancing.”

  “Dirty Dancing for sure!” I said. “I haven’t seen that in forever! I was so sad when Patrick Swayze passed away. He was such a heart throb in that movie. Yay, date night just turned into girls night! You get it started, I’ll go get two margaritas.” I told her. I went to the kitchen and returned five minutes later with drinks in hand. I passed one to Lily and sat on the floor in front of the couch.

  When the movie was over we left the guys on the couch to suffer and went to bed.

  I woke up at about six and couldn’t fall back to sleep. It was still raining. The weatherman said it should clear up soon. Good, I thought, because he promised nice weather the whole week. When I padded out to the kitchen and started the coffee, I noticed Mark was still asleep on the couch. Jake had climbed into our bed late, mumbling something about his back hurting and asking why I didn’t wake him up. I rolled over and asked why he didn’t stay awake. He sighed, and that was the end of that conversation. I rummaged through the fridge and found the flavored creamer. Then I dropped a Pop Tart into the toaster. I was still in my lounge pants and long-sleeved tee that I'd slept in. My hair was up in a messy bun. I was a little concerned for Mark. If he woke up and saw me sans makeup, he might get a little freaked out.

  I'd settled at the island counter on a stool with my version of breakfast and a magazine. I'd brought about ten with me since I wasn't much of a book person. I flipped through it very quickly, then shut it. Okay, I was officially bored. This was bad because everyone was asleep, and it was wet out. No cable TV, only a radio, which was playing old-time country. I wasn’t a fan of whinny country, especially in the morning, so I decided to take a shower. I dressed for warm weather, praying the news anchor on the radio was right. I squeezed some mousse into my wet curls and let them air dry. I added a couple swipes of mascara, Chapstick and slipped a ponytail holder onto my wrist for later. If it rained early and then was suppose to get hot, that added up to frizz in my book. A girl scout was always prepared.

  I sauntered back to the bedroom, and Jake was gone. I could smell his cologne, so I figured he must be up and dressed. While walking into the kitchen, which was getting brighter, I noticed he and Lily were on the patio, both dressed and sipping coffee.

  “Good morning.” I said. They both looked over, smiled and said hello. “So do we have a plan for today yet?” I asked them.

  “Lily was just saying that it’d be fun to drive north. Her co-worker, Scott mentioned there was a great, little town called Nisswa about twenty minutes north of here, off County Road 18. It has a cute little main street with a bistro, bar, restaurant, and ice cream shop, and a bunch of little souvenir shops. We were thinking that would be a good plan for the morning since it’s still pretty wet out.” Jake said.

  “Yeah, he said it’s kinda fun. It’ll give us something to do for a bit while the weather clears. I already mentioned it to Mark, and he’s in, so what do you think?” Lily asked me.

  “Sounds great to me. I’ll just go throw some things together,” I said and I grabbed a cup of coffee and headed to my room. I tossed a sweatshirt, iPod, hairspray, sunblock and a wallet in my shoulder bag, and I was set. I headed back to the patio with the pot of coffee, topped off Jake and Lily's cups. “I just heard Mark shut the shower off, so he should be out soon.” I told them.

  Jake went in to grab his things. Lily and I picked up the breakfast mess, then she headed to her room to grab her purse just as Jake and Mark announced they were ready.

  4

  We decided to take our Jeep, just in case there were good mud puddles on the back roads along the way. Of course there were, so Jake gave us a wild ride through the back country and didn’t miss a one. We arrived in Nisswa about ten-thirty. It was a cute town. Like something you’d see in an old-time movie. The main street was about two blocks long, and all the stores were connected. The fronts were all painted different colors but were built like a strip mall. The heights of the roofs
, the colors, and shapes of the stores were different but complemented each other. They had a long boardwalk out front, and it was the same on the other side of the street. There were tables and chairs out on the boardwalk by the ice cream shoppe, and large flower pots outside the saloon. A cute bar and restaurant had wood picnic tables covered in vinyl, red-and-white-checkered, tablecloths. And the best part, there was a speaker system. We could hear old-time, country music all the way down the street. The place was alive with people. Jake found a parking spot right in the middle of the block, and we all got out.

  “This is super cute!” I said, as I stepped out of the Jeep. “Wow, Jake, nice job on the Jeep.” It was pure mud on the bottom half and the rest was splattered here and there.

  “I didn’t want to stand out like a sore thumb when we parked in this redneck village, and now we don’t. And we won’t have to worry about anyone stealing our ride, lil' lady.” Jake said, as he slung an arm around my shoulder.

  “Well, you ladies are the pros. Where do we start?” Mark wanted to know. He reached out for Lily’s hand, and she took it.

  “We’ll start over here,” she said and pulled him toward the boardwalk. Jake and I followed, and we slowly checked out a couple stores. About thirty minutes later, we were at the saloon, and the boys were begging to go in and stay. They said they’d wait for us while we hit the rest of the shoppes, which was maybe three or four more. We agreed they could have a beer and wait there for us. But no more than one before we got back, and no eating because we wanted to go to the cute place across the street, with the picnic tables for lunch.

  Lily and I kinda split once we were in the next store. It was the biggest one so far called “Lost and Found.” All the little rooms were themed—home décor ranging from antiques to modern stuff. There were candles, purses, clothing, everything. I found my way over to the jewelry, and I was looking at some really cute, handmade earrings when I heard a voice.