Previously Loved Treasures (Serendipity #2)(74)


Of course, Max came back at him saying he’d get the money one way or another. Once the threats started, they turned on each other. Deputy Carson overheard a good bit of the conversation and called the sheriff, and before the day was done Max had been arrested for the theft of Wilbur’s watch and a lengthy list of household items.

After he was fingerprinted and booked, it was discovered that Max had a number of outstanding arrest warrants: one from Alabama where he’d swindled a woman out of her savings, a second from Tennessee where he left town with a car not rightfully his, and a third from Arkansas where he allegedly held up a liquor store.

Although Max maintained he was innocent of all those charges he remained in jail, as did Joe Mallory.





Restoration





Wilbur remained in the hospital for several days. For the first two days Caroline arrived before visiting hours began and stayed until long after they’d ended. On the third day she returned to the house.

Because of the situation the Sweetwater house had been considered a crime scene and cordoned off, so no one was allowed to enter for those first two days. The morning Officer Sweeney removed the yellow tape crisscrossing the door Caroline waited on the front porch.

The reopening of the house was hardly a ceremonious thing; Sweeney simply yanked the tape down and told Caroline to go on in. She did. Alone. The odor of burnt wood still lingered and it would continue for a week or more, but the house was livable. The vase on the hall table had been broken, but other than that the only real damage was in the kitchen. That was in shambles. Where there had been a window, there was now a gaping hole, and charred remnants of the curtains were thrown about the room like bits of confetti.

Caroline licked her finger and ran it over a cabinet door streaked with soot. Probably salvageable. Fighting back the tears, she reached for the bucket kept beneath the sink. That’s when she saw the cover of what had been Ida’s favorite cookbook. She bent to pick it up and the pages, little more than ash, fell apart.

Caroline dropped to her knees and began to sob. She cried not for the loss of things, but because those lost things had been rich with the smell and feel of the grandmother she’d come to love. Swallowed by the sorrow of such a loss, she was deaf to the sound of footsteps when Calvin came in carrying an armload of two-by-fours.

He laid the boards atop the counter and squatted next to Caroline. “I know this looks bad right now. But once it’s cleaned up—”

“It’s not just the mess.” Caroline sniffed. “These things belonged to Grandma. They were all I had left of her.”

“Oh, so you don’t remember her?”

Caroline turned to him with a puzzled expression. “Of course I remember her.”

“Well, then,” Calvin said with a smile, “these things weren’t all you had. You’ve still got memories.”

“True,” Caroline answered and gave a wistful smile. That’s when she first noticed how very handsome Calvin was.

He extended his hand and Caroline took it. She stood and brushed the soot from her jeans. “Thanks.”

“No problem. There’s a lot to be done, so I guess we’d better get busy.”

“We?”

He nodded. “I’m off today, so I figured I’d stop by and close up this hole for you.”

“Thanks,” Caroline repeated. This time her smile was considerably broader.

A short while later Rose came walking in. “Sara’s busy making cookies with Barbara Ann, but I figured I’d help with the cleanup.”

Harriet and Laricka showed up a half hour later; by then Louie had already arrived and was holding up the long end of a two-by-four Calvin hammered into place.

No one needed to be told what to do. They each moved ahead, instinctively wiping down the cupboards, scouring the stove, and emptying spoiled or soggy food from the pantry shelves. There was no job too dirty or too hard; each task was simply something that needed to be done.

Caroline broke down and cried twice that day. The first time was when she found the cookbook; the second time was when she found Ida’s African violet beneath a pile of broken glass.

“It’s ruined,” she sobbed, thinking back on how Ida had fussed over the plant, moving it from the windowsill to the counter and then back again to the windowsill so it would get just the right amount of sunshine and diffused light.

Harriet looked at the broken flowerpot with a pile of dirt lying atop the violet. She squatted down, brushed aside the dirt, and picked up the flower. “Why, this ain’t ruined at all. It just needs replanting.”

“I doubt that will help,” Caroline said. “Grandma said violets are very delicate.”

“They ain’t that delicate,” Harriet answered, “they’re just a bit moody.” She scooped a handful of dirt from the floor and said, “Hand me that jelly jar; I’ll get this fixed.”

Early in the afternoon, George, Calvin’s firefighting partner, showed up with three large pizzas and several big bottles of Coke. “Lunch time,” he called out, and everyone stopped what they were doing.

Until the smell of hot pizza floated through the air no one had thought of food, but in less than a half hour there was nothing but crumbs left in the bottom of the boxes. Afterward, everyone went back to work.

George not only brought the pizza, he also stayed to help. When Calvin shouted out things like, “Can you put a brace under—” George had it done before he’d finished the sentence.

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