Finding Jessie: A Mystery Romance (20 page)

There was nothing she could do or say to comfort him as much as that youthful faith, but as time went by, he reached for a higher power and found comfort there, even forgiveness of his huge lapses of judgment and his blunders. Or he believed that he did, which was the same thing, as far as he was concerned.

Chapter Twelve

A few months passed.

The kitchen smelled of fresh gingerbread and cooling pumpkin pies. Several gingerbread houses were in various stages of assembly. There was a ham with pineapple in the oven. It made Sam’s mouth water to go in the kitchen. Jessie had a fetching spot of flour on her cheek and he got it off with his thumb and kissed her. She giggled.

The week before, Sam had gone under the house with a contractor to whom he paid a pretty penny to reinforce the foundation, hoping against hope, that it would hold the house and all of the books in it.

Now that the house was shored up, Sam assembled more IKEA bookshelves in the house, and arranged all of the remaining rare books in library fashion. He got rid of the piles of books on the floors and cleaned and waxed the floorboards around her with Murphy’s Oil Soap and thought he would buy or make more banks of bookshelves and turn the bottom floor into a proper library with floor to ceiling shelving and even library organization and inventory of the books. In his head, it was already made manifest. In the real world, he was more of a procrastinator.

He polished the wooden furniture with lemon wax and swept up all the cats’ coughed-up hairballs from the floor. Jessie told Sam how beautiful the house looked. And it did. For a while.

Some of the books for the online auctions were now stored across the street in Mrs. Foster’s little cottage that they rented so cheaply, so there was no more clutter in the house. It was nothing short of miraculous. For a week or so.

And then, ridiculously, he bought more books and more bookshelves to try to replace all of the vintage children’s books that Jessie had lost in the motorhome in the river debacle.

Under the weight of hundreds of beautiful books that Sam purchased for Jessie, the floors creaked, and sagged a bit, but still held.

Jessie hung up the kitchen phone, on which she had been talking for some time, and announced, “Cindy’s coming over for a few days while Maeve Foster goes for emergency gallbladder surgery.”

“Oh, poor thing! On Christmas Eve? Does she need a ride?” Sam asked as he put the last of the tinsel on the tree and plugged in the joined strings of lights.

“No. Someone from her church took her to the emergency room and will stay with her in the hospital until she comes out of recovery. And then she’ll be in the hospital for at least a few days.”

“Do we take Cindy there to see her?”

“They won’t let her in to see her granny in the hospital since she’s got a bit of the sniffles.”

“Oh, no,” Sam replied. “I hope Cindy isn’t sick.”

“You know Cindy. She’s never really sick. I have the feeling that she’s been crying.”

“Bless her little heart,” Sam said. “Her parents aren’t home yet on Christmas leave from the military?”

“No,” Jessie said more quietly. “I have news of them, though. Cindy’s father is mustering out of the military and her mother got a long-term post in Germany. They can all be together now.”

It was a moment before he could speak. “That’s wonderful news. When do they come and take her?”

“After the holidays.”

“I will miss her, the sweet little girl.”

“Me, too.” She moved next to Sam. “She was never ours, Sam. Not even in a pretend way.”

“I know. I just grew to enjoy having her here and seeing her with you.”

Jessie nodded. “The Christmas tree is beautiful. I think she’ll like it.”

“I haven’t done this since I was a kid. Decorated.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve always wanted someone to share it with.”

She smiled. “This will be our only Christmas with our pretend child. Let’s really do it up big for Cindy!”

“How big?” he asked, his eyes widening.

She replied, “Let’s make it the antithesis of a Charlie Brown Christmas.”

“That’s crazy talk, Jessie.” He paused. “Let’s do it!”

Jessie laughed.

“What do you want to do when she gets here?”

“Bake cookies. Put
The Nutcracker Suite
on the stereo. Take her ice skating. Go Christmas caroling in the yuppie neighborhood.”

“That’s
this
neighborhood.”

She giggled. “That’s what I meant.”

“What else?”

“Read
The Cajun Night Before Christmas
.”

“Oh, that’s a cute book. And we should make Christmas cards for her parents,” he suggested.

“I’ll dress her up and curl her hair and we’ll email the photo to her parents. And we’ll put cookies out for Santa and let her camp out under the tree in a sleeping bag. I’ll stay downstairs here with her, too, so she won’t be scared and I can keep the fireplace going. And we can bundle up and make snowmen and snow angels.”

“Aw, you’re so sweet with her, Jessie.”

“I just know what I would have wanted at her age. That fairy tale Christmas.”

“I wish you would have had that. One fairy tale Christmas in childhood,” he said, fishing for details.

“I have a fairy tale Christmas with you, Sam. And with Cindy. It’ll be enough.”

Sam walked to her and took her in his arms and just smelled her hair and felt the warmth of her against him.

“You’re an amazing woman.”

“Only with you, Sam. Only with you.”

Chapter Thirteen

“It makes me sad to un-decorate from Christmas,” Sam said.

“Me, too. But maybe we can find a kid for next year,” she suggested. “Kind of like in the play,
Annie,
where Daddy Warbucks takes Orphan Annie into his home.”

“You are so sweet, Jessie.”

“I love that little girl,” she replied.

“Me, too.”

She kissed him and went next door to pack up Cindy’s little Barbie suitcase and bring her back to their house.

A week later, the engaging munchkin named Cindy had gone from their lives.

Sam and Jessie took down the Christmas tree and were packing away the decorations. Sam stood by the window, dusting off and packing the vintage glass ornaments into tissue paper and then carefully placing them into their packing boxes.

“Sam! Listen to this. I forgot to tell you that she told me, when we had the slumber party under the tree, that her parents told her that they named her after Cindy Lou Who in the Dr. Seuss book,
The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.

“You’ve got to be kidding. That’s hilarious!”

“She thought so, too. She was all hyped up on sugar cookies and we didn’t get a wink of sleep, waiting for Santa. She got sillier and sillier as the night wore on. She knows that book by heart! My face hurt from laughing.”

“Oh, that’s a good hurt,” Sam said.

The doorbell rang and Jessie answered it. She signed for a Fed-Ex envelope and handed it to Sam.

“What is it?” she asked.

He looked at the return address, tore open the envelope and pulled out a check and a letter. “I’ve been waiting for this for so long!” he exclaimed.

“What is it?”

“This is the final proceeds of the sale of Dad’s farm in Ohio. Half went to me and half to Nora.”

“That’s wonderful. I didn’t know it had finally sold.”

“I wanted to keep it a secret until it was a done deal. Now, we can go on a great vacation and fix up the house a little more, and maybe get you some things that you need.”

She averted her eyes. “I don’t need anything.”

“You most certainly do. You have just a few hand-me-down things besides the clothes on your back. You don’t even have a pair of jeans or sandals. And you’re wearing my old pea coat from high school. You need to replace your wallet and your driver’s license, all of that.”

“I don’t need much. I’m kind of a minimalist.”

“I know you are, but if you need something, you can ask me now. I couldn’t do it before, but now, if you need to see a dentist or need a new pair of glasses, you should be able to have those things.”

“I did lose my glasses and need to replace them. I’ve been squinting a lot.”

“Well, let’s get you some new glasses. Now we can afford it. Is there anything else?”

“Well, I do want something, besides reading glasses. It’s kind of big, though.”

“What is it, sweetheart?”

“I should start buying and selling books again, too, if you can bear for me to bring my own inventory into the house. Could I maybe have a five-hundred-dollar loan to buy inventory and I will pay you back out of the first proceeds?”

“Of course, Jessie, you know that would be okay with me.” He paused. “You definitely need some inventory. I don’t mind loaning you the money, but I’d rather just give it to you. As a gift to re-start your business again. Merry Christmas.”

“Thank you, Sam. I know we agreed that we weren’t going to do Christmas presents this year for each other. Now I have to get you something.”

“You’re welcome. And no, you don’t have to get me anything. I know you miss it, buying and selling vintage children’s books.”

“I do miss it. A lot.”

“As soon as this check clears, you’ll have the five big ones and we’ll go out on a special buying trip for you. Or you can go by yourself if you want.”

“Really?”

“Of course.” He rummaged in the top drawer of his roll-top desk and pulled out a key ring with keys on it. “Here’s a set of car keys to the Volvo station wagon and the house keys are on it, too.”

“Wow, thank you!”

“You’re welcome. I should have given you keys a long time ago. You live here.” He paused. “As a side note, there’s something I have been meaning to discuss with you. Not to pry into your personal affairs too much, but you ought to call that insurance company and see about your settlement check for the loss of the motorhome. It’s been a
really
long time since the accident.”

She sighed uncomfortably.

“Why aren’t you on top of this, Jessie? I’ve been wondering for weeks.”

She chewed her lip for a moment.

“Oh, no. It wasn’t insured, was it?” Sam asked.

“No,” she said hoarsely. “It wasn’t.”

“You should have told me! All this time has gone by and you let me think that you had some sort of reimbursement coming.”

“Well…I don’t.”