Previously Loved Treasures (Serendipity #2)(70)

Joe worked his way around the side of the house but could see nothing. Both windows were darkened. They had moved to the back of the house, he was certain of it, but there was no way around. A tall wooden fence and thick hedges surrounded the backyard. Fence or no fence, he had to see what was back there.

Returning to the truck Joe found a pair of pliers and a claw hammer. He crossed the street again and made his way toward the rear of the house. Following the fence around, he moved to the far back corner where if a board should splinter or nails pop it was less likely to be heard. He pressed his hand against several boards; they were all solid and strong. Finally he found one that wobbled ever so slightly. Using the thinnest part of the claw, he gouged the wood until he could edge the hammer’s claw under a nail. He pulled the handle back, and the nail popped loose.

After he’d pulled five nails from the first board, it swung sideways. Then he moved on to the second board and repeated the process. After nearly two hours of work, he was able to push the boards aside and slip through the fence.

The back window was high off the ground, too high for Joe to look directly in. The light in the back room was dimmed, but he could see shadows. It was Rowena, and she stood close to the tall man he’d seen in the parlor earlier.

Joe heard her laugh and felt a sharp pain shoot through his heart when he watched her reach up and wrap her arms around the man’s neck. “Son of a bitch,” he grumbled.

For nearly a month Joe had suffered pangs of guilt, believing he’d driven Rowena away with his careless behavior. Now he realized that wasn’t it at all. She’d come here to be with another man.

“You’re not getting away with this,” Joe growled. He crossed the yard, stepped outside the fence, and returned to the truck.





Mistaken Identity





After Wilbur said he’d be happy to read the remainder of Caroline’s book whenever it was ready, she hugged him around the neck for a second time. “Thank you,” she said and brushed a kiss across his cheek.

Although their relationship was new, it didn’t feel new. Wilbur had come into her life just as Ida had, and when Caroline stood alongside him she could already sense he was the grandfather she’d been waiting for. After so many years of drifting through life like dandelion floss loosed from its stem, she now had roots. She had someone she cared about, and that someone cared about her.

After Wilbur left the kitchen, Caroline clicked on the radio. She was listening to Whitney Houston sing “I Wanna Dance with Somebody,” which is why she missed hearing the clap of the fence boards when Joe Mallory banged his way out of the backyard.

~

When Joe climbed into the truck, the anger he felt churned and roiled like the fire of a volcano. The heat of it burned through his body and caused his heart to kick against his chest with such force that it took his breath away. He heaved a desperate gasp, then reached for the bottle of Jack Daniels.

He downed several swigs before his hands stopped shaking and his heartbeat slowed to an angry rumble. At first he cursed Rowena and wished her dead, but once the flow of anger crested the misery of a man who’d lost everything surfaced.

A stream of tears began to cascade down Joe’s face, and he wiped them back with his shirtsleeve. When the stream became a flood, he dropped his head onto his chest and sobbed aloud.

Joe had to talk to Rowena. He had to convince her to come back. The more he drank, the more logical such a plan seemed. He sat there for hours thinking it through, and by the time the bottle was near empty he’d come to believe this was not her doing. It was obviously that man’s fault. He’d turned her against Joe. He’d said things, done things, maybe even made promises. Joe’s tears stopped, and the anger returned. He tipped the bottle to his lips and drained it.

“Damn him,” Joe said as he stumbled down from the cab. He pulled a box from behind the seat and fished through it for a length of hose and a rag. As he searched, he cursed the man who had taken Rowena; he ranted, saying hell and damnation were too good for such a man. Once he found what he was looking for Joe circled around to the side of the truck, unscrewed the cap to the gas tank, and dropped in one end of the hose. He lifted the other end to his mouth and pulled a long sucking breath. When gasoline churned through the hose, he filled the Jack Daniels bottle then tossed the hose aside.

After he’d stuffed one end of the rag into the bottle, Joe started back across the street. He stumbled as drunken men often do, leaning forward and listing first to the right and then to the left. Putting one foot in front of the other he drew closer to the house. The parlor was now dark, and he could see no lights in the upstairs rooms. Joe followed his earlier path until he came to the opening he’d made in the fence; then he climbed through and started across the lawn. At first it appeared that room was also darkened, but then a light clicked on and a figure appeared.

~

Wilbur’s acid indigestion was acting up again. It was the third night in a row. It didn’t come from what he’d eaten; it came from an uneasiness that had settled in his mind. Vague thoughts that carried a sense of foreboding but came without an understandable meaning. He’d kept a close eye on Caroline, even walked up to the attic several times to check on her, but everything was just as it should be. Throughout the evening Wilbur had tried to convince himself it was simply reawakening thoughts of Ida that set his mind on edge, but his argument was less than convincing.