A Justified Murder (Medlar Mystery #2)(46)

Jack pulled into the driveway of their house and let the women out in front, but he stayed there for a moment. He wanted to see if Kate was going to start asking Sara questions.

When the women were inside, he pulled the truck into the garage and sat there. Living with two women was heaven and hell together. The guys at work teased him about his “harem.”

“You planning to add any more women?” his trim carpenter asked. “I have a sister. Divorced, two kids. You have room in that big house for them?”

The electricians were there and they laughed. One said, “I think Jack wants Kate and just her.”

Jack had an urge to start the chain saw and go after them, but he just smiled. He tried to act like it didn’t matter.

Was it obvious to the entire world? Did everyone see how he felt about Kate by the way he looked at her? There wasn’t one thing he didn’t like about her. Even the way she sometimes dismissed him as though he were an annoying mosquito buzzing around made him like her even more. Too many women...well, made themselves too available to him. Made everything too easy. But Kate...

Right now the problem wasn’t Kate, it was his “other” woman, Sara. Something had deeply upset her.

Sara Medlar had come into his life at a time when he desperately needed help. Jack was eighteen years old when his beloved stepfather died, and he’d left behind a grieving widow and a young daughter. Jack saw his greedy father, Roy, circling the bereaved family like the vulture he was. Jack could see dollar signs in his eyes. No doubt he thought that if he could entice his ex-wife to remarry him, he’d get his hands on her widow’s fortune. No matter how many times he was told, Roy wouldn’t believe that there was no fortune.

At his stepfather’s funeral, Jack had been sick with worry. His stomach was eating itself. His hands were in fists as he tried to figure out what to do. If only there was some way he could support his mother and his half sister, maybe he could keep them out of the clutches of Roy Wyatt.

Jack was standing by the coffin, feeling like he might explode, when from behind a little utility building came salvation. An older woman came into view. He knew who she was and to him she looked like an angel sent down to grant his every wish.

She was his grandfather Cal’s Great Love. The one who got away. The one Cal should have been with but wasn’t. The girl who left town and became a famous writer. Cal had always said, “If you need help, go to Sara Medlar. She’ll give you whatever you need.”

Jack hadn’t really considered the words before, but on that day, he knew he had to find out if they were true.

When the others left the cemetery—Roy clinging tightly to his ex-wife—Jack stayed behind. He needed to plan what he was going to say to Sara and what he was going to ask for. He had one chance and he damned well better not screw it up.

She came to stand beside him. When she slipped her small hand into his, he knew that things were going to be all right.

And they were. Sara became his silent partner in a remodeling business. She kept her part secret because she wanted Jack to get all the credit. She said she didn’t want people saying that of course Jack would succeed since he had a rich old woman backing him.

Jack felt guilty at not revealing her part in his business, but she was right. At eighteen his ego needed to feel that he could succeed on his own.

Sara had helped him through it all. She lived in New York and he often went to visit her. They went over business, then they played. Restaurants, Broadway shows, miles of walking through New York streets. Sara’s love of photography became part of their lives. She said she had GAS—Gear Acquisition Syndrome. Trips to B&H photo store were often on their list of what to do.

Things changed when Jack had shown up with a Realtor handout from Lachlan. There were half a dozen houses for sale in Lachlan and he was trying to decide which two to buy to remodel then sell. He had casually mentioned that he’d heard that the big house called the Stewart Mansion was going to be put up for sale.

One of the things he most admired about Sara was her ability to make up her mind quickly. But on that day he saw the professional Sara, the one who negotiated multimillion-dollar contracts in just minutes.

He heard her gasp, saw her eyes widen. “What is it?” he asked.

“The Stewart house is for sale?”

“It will be. At least that’s what I heard. If you ask me, it’s a white elephant. It’s too big and in bad shape. Hasn’t been touched in years. Anyway, who wants a house like that in Lachlan? They—”

“Me,” Sara said and picked up her phone. Thirty minutes later, she was wire transferring the money directly to the owner, a woman she’d gone to high school with.

After Sara bought the house, Jack and his crew, along with several subcontracting firms, repaired and remodeled the big old house.

There had never been a plan for Jack to live in it, but then there’d been the wreck, his half brother was killed, Jack broke his leg, and... It just worked out.

Then Kate arrived—and she changed everything.

Jack had never met anyone like her. At first he’d been disdainful of her—and maybe a little jealous. Over the years he’d become a bit possessive/protective of Sara. What would happen when this pampered, adored young woman came into their lives?

But Kate wasn’t as he’d thought she’d be. She was far from being pampered. She’d had a rough childhood and a mother who was given to debilitating fits of depression. Since she was very young, Kate had had to take care of her mother. In a way, Ava Medlar was as bad as Jack’s father had been. But unlike Jack, Kate didn’t allow herself to suffer from it. Or, as she said Jack did, “brood” about it. No, Kate didn’t brood about things.