Finding Jessie: A Mystery Romance (14 page)

“Gangway!” Jessie exclaimed and rushed past Sam to show the little girl the half-bath off the kitchen. “And there’s a bathroom upstairs, too, if you want to take a bath in the big tub.”

He gave a groan. Now there were two girls to hog the bathrooms in his house! “I’m going out, Jessie. For ice cream. I’ll be back soon.”

As he pulled on his jacket, he said under his breath, “First cats invade me, then a woman, and now a child. What next, a pony in the back yard?”

He felt her arms slip around his waist. “Oh, yes, a pony, please! That’s the ticket.” Jessie giggled. “Don’t be mad at me. I was only teasing you about getting a child of your own.”

“Yeah, sure. Don’t forget about her in the bathroom.”

“She’s seven, Sam. What can she do in there?”

There was a crash from the bath and the tinkle of glass and a little cry of alarm, quickly followed by Cindy calling, “It’s okay. I’m all right!”

“Oops, may I recant what I just said?” Jessie said sheepishly and went to go clean up the mess.

When Sam returned from the local Baskin-Robbins around the corner, he was carrying a quart of walnut ice cream and one of rocky road, as well as old-fashioned sugar cones and a new heated ice cream scooper. He had also bought a paperback copy of
The Velveteen Rabbit
in the grocery store, off the clearance rack.

After dinner and ice cream with Jessie’s cupcakes, the three of them took turns reading the story aloud, Sam expressive in doing different voices, Jessie pantomiming some of the actions in the scenes as she read, and even Cindy, reading quite beautifully for her age. When they were finished reading the book, Jessie helped Cindy wash her hair in the big bathtub upstairs and combed out the tangles for her.

Sam sat in the bedroom, watching a hockey game without the sound on, so he could listen to his “girls.”

Jessie braided Cindy’s hair and told her, “And when you wake up, your hair will be dry and it will have lots of waves in it.”

“Will it be pretty, like yours?”

“Yes. Thank you, sweetie.”

“My mom is pretty in her Army dress uniform,” Cindy said.

“I bet she is,” Jessie said. “And brave, too.”

“Yeah!”

When the little girl was fresh-scrubbed and dressed in a forest-green velour nightgown, with long sleeves and lace on the neck, Sam surprised them by bringing out an old guitar from the hall closet, tuning it carefully, and singing all the verses to
Greensleeves
, as a more grown-up lullaby that befitted a seven-year-old girl of Cindy’s intellect. She said she liked it and then asked if he knew
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.
He did and played it while she sang. She was so freaking adorable that he did almost want a kid of his own.
Almost.
Maybe if he wasn’t almost pushing sixty.

Cindy insisted they all each kiss her goodnight, like her mother and father did, back when they’d lived together in the cottage across the street.

She could become your child,
the angel said in his ear.

She has fine parents!
Sam replied to the angel.
Please don’t let anything happen to them! I mean it!

Jessie kissed Cindy once on each cheek and wished her pleasant dreams. Sam, much shyer, knelt by the sofa and kissed the little girl tenderly on the forehead, blushing as he stood up again.

“Wait! I have to say my ‘Now I lay me down to sleep!’”

Jessie nodded and they listened to her prayers.

When Cindy was finally asleep on the couch under a big comforter, Jessie led Sam up the stairs to the bedroom. Because there was a little girl in the house with them, she shut the door after them and turned the key in it to ensure their privacy.

“Sam, where did that beautiful song come from? I mean, I know it is an English folk tune, but I had no idea that something like that, was, well, inside of you. You have been pretending all of this time that you were a bad singer. I think you had said that my ears would bleed if I ever heard you sing!”

“How about that.” He smiled and kissed her hair and held her against his chest lightly. “Years ago, I used to occasionally perform at Renaissance festivals, by way of picking up extra money to get through law school. I saw Cindy in that green nightgown and thought I would make her feel special and wanted. I know she must be scared to pieces, with her mother and father off fighting wars in different countries, and nobody in her world now but Maeve, her grandmother, who is now recovering from dental surgery. That little girl is tugging on my heartstrings.
Big time
.”

“Oh my gosh. You
adore
her! I’ve never seen this side of you before, Sam. I think I like it.”

“Don’t get any ideas. Back she goes to her grandmother’s house when Maeve Foster is up to it.”

“I like this new facet of you, Sam. It makes me feel quite romantic. Maybe it was the song, or the way you kissed her goodnight on the forehead. You are silly sweet with her.”

“That
was
a softer me you just saw. I haven’t felt like singing a song like that for a long time, Jessie. Until there was you. I have felt like singing in your presence upon occasion, but didn’t have the courage. Until I saw you with that child and something inside me just went so warm and tingly, like everything suddenly had balance in the universe. Like an equilateral triangle. I can see why people have children. Especially delightful ones. Like Cindy.”

“Oh, Sam. It’s like an epiphany.”

“Probably,” he agreed. “But this old man is not having any kids.”

“Not that I am able to have any,” she said.

“We need sleep,” he said. “She’s still going to be here in the morning and I think she gets up with the lark.”

“That’s what I expect, too.”

When he climbed into bed with her, she turned her back to him and they rested together, listening to the waves and the breakers and the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall.

“Turn off the light, Sam,” she whispered. He did so and then snuggled up behind her again, wrapping his arms around her, one under her body, one over, so he could kiss the back of her neck and hold her. Her shuddering sighs told him that she was feeling good.

After long minutes of his caressing, she said, “I feel like I am floating on a cloud. Take me like this, Sam. I want to feel you behind me, inside me. While we lay on our sides. It’s so restful.”

“I don’t think so. There’s a child in the house.”

“She’s downstairs and there is a locked door between us and her.”

“Nope.”

“You think it’s improper?”

“No, I’m just not that comfortable with another person in the house, big or small. But she’s our responsibility. We need to listen for her in case she has a bad dream or something.”

“Okay. That makes sense.”

They rested together for a long time, on their sides, breathing together. And that was the way they fell asleep.

The angel on his shoulder was completely silent and brought him no dreams.

In the morning, Jessie told him, “I am yours, forever. You know that, don’t you, Sam?”

“I hope so! Please let me reassure you that we will make love again, after Princess Cindy goes home.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I know that last night you needed some sort of validation that I still love you. Right?”

“Yes,” she said carefully.

“I know you have some serious sexual issues.”

“I do.”

“I thought so. I don’t wish to discuss them with that little girl in the house. But I do want to know all the things that make you tick. Dark and light, I want to know you to the core, Jessie. So I can make sure that you always feel safe with me.”

“You’re amazing, Sam.”

“Nope. I just sense a lot of things, like you said, haunting you just under the surface.”

“I wish I wouldn’t have told you that.”

“Even if you hadn’t, I already knew it. For you to acknowledge that something is wrong is showing your trust in me, Jessie.”

He was sitting on the edge of the bed, getting ready to put on his socks when she slipped out of bed and knelt to put her head in his lap.

“What is it, Jessie?” He stroked her hair and helped her up. “You don’t have to kneel in front of me to tell me something. Just say it.” He squeezed her hand gently. “Don’t be afraid to tell me something.”

“Okay, Sam. We have each other now and it is all that matters. The past is all washed away by our love. Don’t you see? Every dark secret of my life has been a step that brought me closer to you.”

 “A lot of things that aren’t pretty make us who we are inside. You aren’t the only one with dark secrets.” But he thought of the terrible scars on her back. He really wanted to hurt whoever had done that to her.

Their eyes met for a moment, and both of their faces were hot with unshed tears.

“You have a secret, too. Tell me, Sam!” she said fervently.

“Not today, Jessie. I will sometime. I promise.”

He held her tight to his chest then, wishing never to let her go, praying, yes inexplicably praying to God, or the Fates, or to whoever was listening, from a hidden part of his heart, that no one would ever hurt his Jessie again. Especially not him.

The child stirred in the early morning light in the living room downstairs. “I’m awake. Where is everybody? It’s morning!”

They quickly dressed and unlocked the bedroom door and walked down into her world, the world of the innocent little Cindy.

“Do you know how to make pancakes, Miss Jessie?” asked Cindy.

“You bet I do, Lady Greensleeves!” she replied, for Cindy was still in her green nightgown. She looked chipper for such an early riser. Her hair was standing on end, the static electricity from the pillows and blankets making her head look like the head of a little chrysanthemum with corkscrew curls. She was ridiculously adorable.

“I liked that song that Mr. Sam sang last night,” Cindy told her.

“Me, too,” Jessie replied, as Sam went rummaging for the pancake mix in the cupboard and Jessie got the tin log house of maple syrup from the pantry. She wiped a tear from her eye at the thought of this sweet little girl whose parents were away from her, in a peacekeeping effort. Jessie whipped up pancakes with happy faces drawn on them in maple syrup.

They spent two more days in the company of that delightful child—when Cindy had finally gone home to her grandmother, Sam and Jessie sat on the couch reading together in the quiet of the afternoon, she on one end, he on the other, with their feet entwined in the middle of the couch. Sam was catching up on his stack of
Harvard Law Review
. Jessie was immersed in one of the reading copy books he had up for auction, a paperback of D.H. Lawrence’s
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
. She wanted to read it before he sold it online.

Sam broke the silence, asking her if she wanted to adopt a child on her own, remembering that she’d told him that her tubes were tied.

“No, Sam. I loved having Cindy here, too, but I don’t want any children.”

He asked her, “Why not? You were great with her!”

“Because you complete me, Sam.”

“Are you telling me that this is all you want, to be with me in this book-filled house, from here to eternity, without anyone else but me?”