Finding Jessie: A Mystery Romance (7 page)

“No. Next week, I’ll find a phone and call you from the road when I’m starting back to Port Sapphire. I can cook for you or something.” She lifted hopeful eyes to him.

“I’d like that very much. I’ll kiss you. I promise.”

“You will?”

“Yes. I have been known to kiss on the second date. Or the third.”

“Okay. Will next time be counted as the second date?”

“Absolutely.” He stroked her hair. “Do you need gas money to get to Albany and back?”

“Oh my goodness, no. I’m fine. But thank you.”

“Good. I’m worried about you, all by yourself on the road.”

“I’ll be fine. I’m used to it. I’ll read the Kerouac to keep me company until I see you again.”

The way she touched his books and looked like she belonged in the book-filled living room made him want her to stay. But how could he ask her to stay if he wouldn’t kiss her? Oh, he had bungled things so badly. He didn’t know how to back up and start again. At least, not tonight he didn’t.

So, she was getting ready to leave. His heart gave a little twist as she handed back the couch blanket and slid on her big coat sweater.

“Hugs are free to my friends, Jessie. I have no qualms about hugging my friends at all.”

“Yes, you do,” she said. “You don’t like touching people. I can tell.”

“Okay, so I do have issues with touching people, but
you
don’t skeeve me out. Truly. I want to hug you now.”

“Because you feel sorry for me?”

“No. Because I’m attracted to you. You’re pretty, of course, but your mind is so intriguing. And you’re so incredibly sweet. I’m very moved by who you are.”

She sighed like the sea.

She trusts you
, said the angel on his shoulder.

“I feel like I’m never going to see you again, Sam.”

“Come here.” He opened his arms. “I’ll be right here, waiting for you to come back to Port Sapphire.”

“I’m glad.” She hesitated.

“Jessie...it’s all right. My hugs are safe.”

She went into his arms and they hugged tightly without speaking—not for just a second, but for a full minute. He could feel the beat of her heart against his chest through her clothes and his. She smelled good and her hair was like slippery silk against his cheek, the softest hair he had ever felt. He closed his eyes and impulsively dropped a kiss on the top of her red hair.

“Even though it started out badly, I had a wonderful day,” she said, nestling her cheek against his chest.

“So did I, Jessie. So did I.” He let her go.

She took the mended book out of her bag. “I’m decided that I’m going to leave my Jessie Willcox Smith book here on your own to-be-read pile, so you will know that when I say I will be back, I really and truly mean it. I’ll be back and bring back your Kerouac and exchange it for
The Princess and the Goblin
.”

“It’s a deal.”

She raised a slender hand and touched his face in a tender way, as if they had already been lovers. “Wait a minute. Now I know what’s different. Did you shave since we came back after lunch?”

He nodded. “I confess. I shaved.”

“When did you do that? I know you had a two-day beard shadow when we met at the estate sale.”

“I did it while you were parking your motorhome at the train station and jogging here.”

“So, you shaved because you
were
thinking about kissing me,” she accused.

“It crossed my mind at least once,” he admitted. “Okay, maybe ten times. But I don’t do something until I have thought about it hundreds of times. I’m a plodder at romance. I’m about as slow to act as a man can get and still be genuinely interested in the opposite sex.”

“Maybe that’s called wisdom.”

He laughed. “More like covering my butt to see where this goes. But you’re nice to cover up my insecurities with a compliment.”

“I noticed that you do it for me.” She laughed, too, and kissed him on the cheek before he could stop her. She moved toward the door with her book and handbag.

“So long, Sam. I hope to see you soon.”

“I’ll drive you to the parking lot in the train station,” he called after her.

“You don’t need to.” She opened the door and went out.

She walked backward down the street and he followed her, still talking. Something was stretching between them, like an invisible golden thread that got thinner with every step she walked further from him.

“Really. I’ll drive you.”

“I don’t want a ride. I just ate six thousand calories at the coffee shop! I want to walk it off.”

“I’ll walk you to the station. It’ll be dark soon. Let me escort you.”

“No. I want to think about your kiss on the top of my head while I walk there and grin like an idiot.”

He laughed again. “Okay, Jessie,” he called.

“I want to think about how the reading lamp light in your living room lit your face from below. Like a Rembrandt painting. I love the shape of your face and your silver and black hair and your soft brown eyes. I love your jawline.”

“Wow,” he said, startled. “Thank you. See you soon.” Hurriedly, he added, “You’re incredibly pretty, Jessie.”

“I know I am,” she said and grinned. “I try not to use my powers for evil. You have a lot of self-control, Sam.”

He got a kick out of that. “The reason is simple: I’m kind of old for you. That’s mostly what I am thinking about before I kiss you. I have to extrapolate it all in my mind, what happens after the kiss. And by extrapolate, I mean, for years. Someday, I’ll be seventy-five and you’ll only be around fifty.”

“Oh! I don’t care about that.”

“I worry that you would. It’s not so much indecision on my part as it is caution.”

She nodded. “I’m an old soul for a lot of reasons. Don’t let my young human shell fool you. If I was a cat, I would have already used up about seven of my nine lives.”

That gave him a chill down his spine. “Do you want to talk about that?”

“I doubt it,” she said, so softly that he almost didn’t hear her.

He was still watching her when she got to the end of the block and turned back to see if he was still there.

He waved and she waved back. He was scared. He felt almost sick that she was about to leave his sight.

She said something, but he couldn’t tell what. Sam cupped a hand to his ear.

She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted down the block, “I like you!”

“I like you, too!” he shouted back, contrary to his usual quiet demeanor. A neighbor opened a screenless window and stuck out her pink curler-studded head.

“Jesus-Mary-n-Joseph, get a room, would ya? Better yet, get married. We’re tired of smelling your stinkin’ bad cooking all the way over here!”

“Hi, Maeve Foster!” he called cheerfully. “Sorry about the garlic soup last week. Something went wrong with the recipe. Too much garlic.”

“I’ll say,” she grumbled. “Next time you make up a vat of garlic soup, let me know it, so I can be sure to go on vacation!”

He laughed. “Guess what? I met someone!”

“I saw her. She’s too young. Saints preserve us. I’ll alert the media with a headline: Attorney Sam Gold Dates Teenager.”

“I’m sure she’s at least thirty,” he said. “And I’m mostly a bookseller.”

“Good to know.” She paused. “I made cabbage rolls. You like those. Come on over and hang out with Cindy and me.”

He pantomimed rubbing his belly. “I do like your cabbage rolls, but I had a huge lunch. Thanks, though. I’ll take a rain check.”

“All right! Don’t be a stranger!” She smiled at him and waved, before she slammed the window closed again. He waved back at the neighborhood window shouter. She was a little bit of a curmudgeon, but she did make a lovely corned beef and cabbage every St. Patrick’s Day and always brought him some of it. He adored Cindy, her little granddaughter who played in the garden next to his and peeped through the wrought iron fence to tell him what books she liked best.

Momentarily distracted by his neighbor, when Sam looked after Jessie again, she was already gone from his sight. He felt bereft at the way she had left: without a kiss.

You should have offered her the couch
, said the angel on his shoulder.

A spear of cold fear and regret stabbed through him. “Why?” he asked out loud, but the angel didn’t reply.

Sam went into his house and put his hand on Jessie’s mended book. He put
The
Princess and the Goblin
in the roll-top desk and told the Twins, “Not only does she like me, but she really is coming back. Guaranteed. She loves this book. And she likes me. A lot. I noticed you guys like her, too.”

The cats wound their sinuous bodies around his legs and meowed plaintively.

“Let’s eat!”

Sam tried not to trip over them, or over the sliding piles of books, on his way to the kitchen cabinet for their canned food, several hours later than usual. They tried to trip him as he popped open the cans and doled out their cat food. Cats were vindictive like that. They knew what time they were supposed to eat, and this wasn’t it.

The angel said in his ear,
She’ll be back in a few hours.

Sam was stunned. “What do you mean she’ll be back in a few hours?” he blurted aloud.

Just what I said. She’ll be back tonight!
The angel added,
You’d better clean your room, do laundry, and take out the garbage. And clean the cat boxes, for goodness’ sake.

Because his angel never lied, he did all of those chores and finally fell into bed after midnight, exhausted and puzzled.

Chapter Three

It was about three-thirty in the morning when Sam heard a bell of some type—it was ringing and ringing. He was having a fretful dream about Jessie—that she was in terrible trouble. At first, he thought she was ringing the doorbell downstairs.

The angel on his pillow whispered in his ear,
Wake up, Sam!

He sat bolt upright in bed and turned on the bedside lamp, one with a real Tiffany shade. It was the dusty landline phone jangling in his mixed-up dream about the mysterious Jessie.

Three-thirty a.m. calls were never good news. He picked up the phone, expecting to hear that his father had died, or some news that was equally horrific. He put on his eyeglasses, so that he could hear better, a sure sign of being in his fifties.

“Hello!” he said into the receiver of the old telephone.

The cats on the bed stretched in protest at being awakened in the middle of the night. They flicked their tails and rearranged themselves in his lap.

“Is this Sam Gold of Sam Gold’s Rare Books?” asked a mature woman’s voice. It was nobody he knew. He knew that right off.

“Yes, this is Sam Gold. It’s the middle of the night. Who’s this? What’s happened?”