Finding Jessie: A Mystery Romance (17 page)

“Stop that tickling tomfoolery right now!”

“Tomfoolery? Is that a word that people use in the twenty-first century?” she jibed and tickled him again.

“Miss Jessie Willcox Smith, I’m getting angry now. When I say stop touching me a certain way, I
mean
it. You, of all people, should respect that sort of request.”

“That was cruel.”

After he blurted out the last part, he smacked his forehead. “Oh, Jessie, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

She looked at him, startled and hurt. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m just playing with you with my feet.”

“I didn’t mean to dredge up anything painful for you. Just…stop the tickling game.”

“All right. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything wrong by it.” She kissed him apologetically.

“I know you didn’t.”

She looked like she was going to cry. She got out of the tub and dried off.

“Are you okay?”

“No.”

Sam got out, too, and turned off the bubbles.

Jessie pulled him to her chest with tears in her eyes. “I don’t understand what I did that was so wrong. You were so angry over being tickled.”

“Don’t worry about it. And please, I am sorry that I even said anything, Jessie. It just hit me wrong, maybe because my dad just died.”

“Okay. That is the only thing that makes sense.”

He felt a little sick. What had he done to her? To them? Suddenly, their love was…out of kilter. He held her close, feeling her tremble against him.

“Please be okay, Jessie.”

She swallowed hard. “I’m trying to be okay. I try every day to be okay.”

“Do you want to talk about what’s not okay with you?”

“I might ask you the same question. Do you want to talk about your freak out over me tickling you with my toes?”

“Not particularly,” he admitted.

“We’re both tired. We should go to bed,” Jessie suggested.

“I concur. Things always look brighter in the morning,” he said.

“We have a funeral in the morning,” she reminded him.

“This conversation is over for tonight,” he said. “But bears revisiting, on both our parts, in the near future.”

Her chin trembled.

“Always, always, remember that I love you, Jessie.”

“It’s practically my mantra,” she said. She wrung out her hair over the sink and wrapped a towel around her head. “I don’t like it when we argue, Sam. It makes my heart hurt so much.”

He thought for a moment. “Your tickling was a trigger for an experience that I would like to forget. It was that long-ago experience that brought up the emotions of feeling…depraved.”

She giggled wickedly. “Depraved? You? Ordinarily, I suppose that a gentleman of your caliber would have to go to Canal Street for that type of entertainment.”

“I never, Jessie!” he replied, extremely shocked.

“I’m glad you never,” she murmured. “Do you still love me, Sam?”

“Jessie,
how
can you even ask me if I love you? I had to give up a very private part of myself to explain my reaction to you.”

“You didn’t explain it much. Not with details.”

“That’s because they are sordid and painful.”

Tears sprang to her lashes.

“Why are you crying?” he asked.

“Because if you ever stop loving me, I think I might curl up and die.”

“Jessie. The answer is yes, I love you, more than ever! I don’t know what else to say,” he said hotly.

“You have a secret from me. I never would have guessed it. You. A
bad
secret,” she said meekly.

“Ah, here it comes, my fall from grace. Both of us have emotional baggage, Jessie. Is there
any
possible time when you would trust me enough to tell me about who laid all those stripes on your back, many years ago?”

She flinched. “No. Please. It’s not about trust. I can’t talk about it with anyone. If I do, we will not recover from it.”

“We?” he replied.

Careful, Sam!
said the angel on his shoulder.

He took a deep breath and let it out. “I love you, Jessie. I love you more than I have ever loved anyone. Even above my selfish self. I put your needs, wants and desires above mine, Jessie, because nobody has ever made me feel as alive as you make me feel.”

Good save!
said the angel on his shoulder.

 “I love you, too, Sam. And I appreciate you. More than you will ever know.”

They kissed each other goodnight and went to sleep.

Chapter Eleven

“Hello, Nora,” Sam greeted his father’s wife when they arrived at her doorstep in rural Ohio.

“Sam!” exclaimed the pretty woman in her mid-fifties, her short gray hair in a spiky hairdo, almost a pixie cut. Jessie thought she looked like a very sexy Jamie Lee Curtis.

Nora looked happy and relaxed as she gave him smacking kisses on both of his cheeks. She did not look like she had been crying much. Of course, Sam’s dad had been sick for a long time in the nursing home.

“Oh, you look so much like your father when he was that age!”

“Thank you,” he said softly, feeling grief-stricken and looking like hell.

“You must be Jessie!” Nora said, taking Jessie’s hands. “I wanted to thank you so much for everything you said to me the day that Sam, Senior, died. You were such a comfort to me, and I see by looking at the two of you together that Sam Junior is completely taken with you.”

“That’s right. I am,” Sam said firmly. He made no move to hug her, but Jessie hugged Nora and the awkward moment passed.

“It’s so wonderful that you came. Please come in and make yourself at home.”

Nora ushered them inside to the warmth of the big farmhouse where she had laid out table after table of nonperishable foodstuffs that she had prepared and also some things from friends and neighbors.

“What a spread!” Jessie said.

“My neighbors are wonderful. I tell you, nothing brings out the recipe books like the death of a beloved farmer.”

Jessie squeezed her hand. “I’m glad you are not all alone, dealing with this.”

“I’m glad you two made it. The funeral is in two hours! Why don’t you two make a quick pit stop and get changed and we’ll go in my car? Then after the service, all of our friends and family are coming back here for some eats.”

Sam nodded. “It’ll be strange to see everyone.”

“It’ll be fine. You are Sam’s son, and so that goes a long way with people you haven’t seen in a long time.”

Sam nodded.

“I’m sure you are sick of driving,” Nora added.

“We are,” Jessie and Sam said, both at the same time.

“My old room at the top of the stairs and to the right?” Sam asked, picking up their two suitcases.

“That’s the one,” Nora called after Sam, as he thundered up the wooden stairs with their luggage.

Jessie squeezed Nora’s hands in her own. “Is there anything Sam or I can do to help?”

Nora kissed her on the cheek. “Just be here with me for a day or two. That’s all I ask.”

“Let me know, whatever you need, Nora.”

“I will, dear,” she told Jessie. “You’re so sweet. I am happy that you and Sam found each other.”

“Me, too,” Jessie replied. “You can’t imagine.”

Nora went back into the kitchen and Jessie went up the stairs. She found Sam unpacking their things and hanging them in the closet of the bedroom with childish wallpaper.

He saw her start to say something about the décor of the room as she pointed at the cowboy-on-a-rocking-horse wallpaper and held a hand over her mouth to muffle her laughter.

“Are you making fun of the wallpaper in my old room?”

Jessie gave him a wry grin. “I wouldn’t dream of it. It’s adorable and so you.” She laughed and gave him a kiss.

“Is it painful to be here in your old room?” she asked.

“Yes, how did you know?”

“I had a feeling from the moment we walked in this house that you were out of your comfort zone.” She hesitated. “Just tell me what I can do for you, Sam. I’ll do whatever you wish. Well, not
that
, here, not with Nora here.”

“I know you would do anything for me, Jessie,” he replied and held her close. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you, what you do for me every day. I feel so—completely loved, and completely satisfied, that nothing, and I mean nothing, that I want, seems impossible, if you are beside me. Despite the underlying and unknown demons of our pasts, you are the love of my life. That is a constant. Everything around us may change, but our love is a powerful force.”

“Oh, Sam!” she cried softly and put her hands under his sweater so she could feel his bare flesh while they kissed.

“Get your black dress on, sweetheart. We gotta get going. Dad’s waiting on us.”

She nodded.

Nora drove like a bat out of hell on the icy roads. Jessie was scared to death and clung to the armrest and tried not to cry out her alarm. The made it to the chapel on time.
Just.

After some introductory music, the memorial service began. The sentiments from the minister were heartfelt. His father would be missed by family and friends and community. The songs were lovely, though Sam was a professed atheist and did not believe in life after death. Not yet, anyway. But if the songs made everyone feel better about his father’s passing, who was Sam to tell them that there was no God, no Heaven, and no Hell? Since Jessie had come into his life, his perspective had changed from how did he know there was a heaven to how did he know that there
wasn’t
a heaven?

When Sam stepped up to the altar to read the eulogy he had written that morning while Jessie drove, Nora finally lost it and began to cry. Jessie moved next to her in the pew, and the two women held each other’s hands and sat, head touching head, while they listened to Sam’s words.

He looked out at the familiar faces, much older now, and some new ones he didn’t recognize.

“For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Sam Gold, son of Sam Gold. As I walked into this church today, and saw the pews filled with all of my father’s friends, I was moved. The feeling that is the strongest in my mind on this sad day is that I am grateful. I am grateful that my father lived the life of a good man. He worked hard and had something to show for it afterwards. He was loved, not just by my lovely stepmother, Nora, but by all of the people in this town.”

A tear escaped his eye. Sam paused and blew his nose into a tissue, then continued.

“When I was a little boy,” Sam said, “my dad was my hero. He was the tallest, the strongest, the smartest, the most generous, and the kindest man in the world. I respected him, but I was never afraid of him. He was always a fair man who never abused me. He reveled in long conversations with me, and to this day, probably talked to me more than anyone else on Earth. We always talked to each other about everything. Saving money, higher education, farming methods, books—always the books—politics, poker, hunting dogs, the proper way to shave one’s face, weather and science, but especially, he loved to talk about women.” There was polite laughter from the pews. Sam continued and felt a bit of confidence.