Читать книгу Someone To Watch Over Me - Teresa Hill, Teresa Hill - Страница 11

She said it with a sad, apologetic smile, as if that wouldn’t really count, losing herself. And he wondered if she meant it literally—if she’d nearly died—or if she was talking figuratively.

How out of line would he be to ask that question? Not that they seemed to be observing any of the boundaries of what ordinarily constituted polite conversation. He supposed having someone die did that to people.

“Gwen, just so you know, I’m going to be staying at my mother’s for a while. The lease on my apartment was up two months ago, and she really didn’t need to be alone then, so I moved back in. I haven’t even started to think about finding my own place again. So if you need someone to talk to or if anything happens, anytime at all, just give me a call or come knock on the door. Or you can always call the police department and ask for me. I’m off this week and maybe next week, but I’ll be back there soon.”

“Thank you,” she said. “It’s good to know there’s someone I can call. Especially someone around the corner.”

“Anything I should know about this situation?” he tried. “I mean, if I were keeping an eye on the place, watching out for trouble, it would help to know what to look for.”

“You don’t have to do that,” she offered.

“Sure I do. It’s my job.”

“Oh. Okay. It’s…It’s a man….” She turned pale and hugged her arms around her own waist. “But then, you probably guessed that much.”

Jax nodded. “What does the guy look like?”

“White. Five-ten, a hundred and eighty pounds, short brown hair, brown eyes, nineteen years old. I could get you a picture.”

“Okay.” Sounded like she’d given out that description more than once. “Is this guy on the loose or locked up?”

“Locked up. In Virginia.”

“Good. Is he going to stay that way?”

She looked truly frightened then. Her eyes got so big, and she looked like he’d just knocked the breath out of her. “He’s supposed to.”

“I mean, has he been convicted and sentenced already?”

She nodded.

“Okay. No reason to think he wouldn’t stay locked up. I know that’s easy for me to say, when I’m not the one he hurt or whatever it was that he did to you.” Jax really didn’t want to know exactly what the guy had done. “He’ll stay there, Gwen. Trust that. And I’ll keep an eye out for you.”

“Thank you,” she said.

Romeo came up to her and nudged her hand until it was resting against his head. He looked up at her with something that bore a remarkable resemblance to a smile and made silly dog noises at her that Romeo probably thought were both soothing and charming, and she just ate it up.

His mother swore Jax could do the same thing in a heartbeat with a skittish female crime victim and that his father could, too. Jax was highly skeptical of that notion, and offended, too. He didn’t flirt with women who’d just been traumatized by crime. That would be crass, and he tried never to be that. And he wasn’t nearly as shameless as Romeo.

Gwen rubbed the dog’s ears and hugged him to her side for a moment. Romeo gave her his poor-misunderstood-hound-dog look. He got a lot of affection out of that expression, too.

Shameless. The dog was absolutely shameless.

And women were never skittish around Romeo.

Not that Jax was jealous of a dog.

“Give it a break, Romeo,” he said finally.

Romeo made a face at him, then turned back to Gwen and most likely laid his poor-misunderstood-hound-dog look on her again.

“He really is the sweetest thing,” Gwen said.

“Oh, yeah. He’s a prince. He’ll help watch your house, too.”

“Thank you, sweet boy,” she said, fussing over him some more.

“I’ll get you the name and address of my mother’s cancer support group. And you bring me the photograph, Gwen.”

“I will.”

“Thanks for today.”

“You’re welcome.”

He took a long, slow breath and escaped, one more thing taken care of.

Fighting off an odd, restless energy, Gwen watched Jax and the dog leave. Hearing him talk about how he wished so much for just one more day with his mother made Gwen think she’d squandered the past year, like a woman who had all the time in the world to pull her life back together. Or a woman waiting for things to magically get better on their own.

How often did that happen?

Impatient with herself and her fears, she locked up the shop, marched off through the park, across Falls Creek and to her aunt’s house, suddenly impatient with everything.

It was an absolutely beautiful spring day, with plenty of sunshine and a perfect temperature, birds chirping, flowers blooming, the whole world seeming welcoming. And she was going to lock herself away inside her aunt’s dreary house again? Surely not.

Although her aunt had assured Gwen that she was free to make any changes she liked, Gwen hadn’t done anything, and the house was truly dark and dreary. No wonder Aunt Charlotte had wanted to get away.

In the meantime, she was happy to have Gwen here, so her house wouldn’t be empty.

That was how Gwen had come to run away to Magnolia Falls.

It had seemed like a smart move, an easy move, a furnished house just waiting for her, in a little town where she’d always felt safe, a chance to start over. Except she hadn’t started over. She hadn’t really done anything.

What if things weren’t going to get better unless she did something to make them better? What if she couldn’t afford to wallow in her own misery anymore?

Gwen went to the picture window at the back of the living room and pulled open the curtains she’d always left shut tight to keep anyone from seeing inside. Afternoon sunshine poured in, and bits of dust flew off the curtains and a nearby table, floating freely on a ray of light.

She went and found a feather duster and got rid of all the dust she could find in every room in the house. Then she pulled open all the curtains and shades, then the windows themselves. The spring breeze was strong and felt as if it was capable of stirring up all sorts of things, which surely wouldn’t be a bad thing.

She pulled open the big, solid wooden back door, leaving only the screen door, just to see if she could stand having nothing but a thin wire mesh between her and the outside world.

Her aunt’s house and every one else’s on the block backed up to the alley, including Jax’s mother’s. So she had at least eight little old ladies that she knew of and one really cute cop who could see her backyard and back door. It wasn’t exactly a prime spot for crime, and this did happen to be a bright, sunny, spring day.

Surely she could risk airing out the house.

The light changed the house so much, made it feel so much more alive. There were blinds hung at most of the windows, she saw now that she’d pulled the curtains aside, which meant she could put up pretty, light-colored sheers instead of the curtains and just close the blinds at night. That sounded like a good change and certainly not a dangerous one.

She could pack up some of her aunt’s things and unpack some of her own, but that could wait for another day. She wanted to be in the sunshine today.

Gwen ended up pulling weeds in her mess of a yard. She pulled until her hands ached, uncovering what must have once been a well-planned yard, with neat, tidy bushes and a multitude of flowers. Some of them had survived being smothered, and she decided she wanted more. Some color here and there. Something bright and decidedly cheery. A quick trip to the market down the street, and she had three flats of bedding plants, all of which she managed to install before dinnertime.

By then, she was pleasantly tired, even a little achy, but it felt good. The house looked so much better.

She’d brought some daffodils and crocuses inside with her. They were in a pretty, green vase in the kitchen. She liked them so much, she went out and picked a few more and set them on the mantel next to her angel.

Maybe she’d stumbled upon an answer to feeling better. Maybe she just had to plow ahead, back into life, stay as busy as possible. The yard could certainly use the work.

Some of the ladies on this street had beautiful gardens and so many flowers were in bloom now. Which made her think of Jax when he’d told her his mother didn’t want any flowers at her funeral. It seemed to make him so sad, and Gwen really didn’t want him to be. There were too many sad people in the world already, and he should not be one of them.

Then she had an idea, one little thing she could do to help. He’d made her feel better today, and she wanted to return the favor.

The first thing Jax and his sisters noticed when they walked into the visitation room was the huge spray of flowers draped across their mother’s casket. A bright, cheery, full-of-life bouquet of colors.

Jax was glad someone had ignored her wishes.

Sorry, Mother, he said to himself.

He’d developed a habit of talking to her in his head, and why shouldn’t he? He’d talked to her nearly every day of his life, and he feared it was going to be a hard habit to break. So he’d just keep doing it.

“She said no flowers!” Katie hovered in the doorway with the other two. None of them had wanted to walk into this room.

“But they’re so lively,” said Kim, who was hanging on to Jax’s arm, Kathie on his other one.

“It doesn’t matter. She said no flowers,” said Katie, who’d probably never broken a rule in her life.

“Let’s see who dared flout the no-flower rule.” Jax disentangled himself from his sisters and went just far enough into the room to grab the small card tucked into the arrangement. He pulled it out and read, Hope you don’t mind. They came from the gardens of her neighbors, who were very happy to give them up for her. Gwen.

Jax actually grinned.

How ’bout that, Mom? Nice, huh? He’d wanted her to have them. He didn’t care what she’d asked everyone to do. They hadn’t cost anything, and they’d distracted him in that first awful moment when he’d had to walk into the visitation room, something he’d been dreading all day.

Thank you, Gwen.

“Well?” Katie demanded, from her spot in the doorway.

“It’s all right.” Jax went back to where he’d left his sisters. “They’re from Gwen.”

“Who’s Gwen?”

“One of Mom’s neighbors,” Jax said. “Mrs. Moss’s niece. She moved in a few months ago, when Mrs. Moss left for Florida. She works at Joanie Graham’s flower shop.”

“The woman who came by the house with a quiche the day Mom died?” Katie frowned. “Do you know this woman?”

“Not really. I just met her that night. Well, no…Romeo and I met her earlier that day. We went running, and she was having lunch in the park.”

“You picked up a woman the day Mom died?” Katie asked.

“No,” he insisted. “It wasn’t like that.”

“Honestly, Jax. What is wrong with you?”

“I didn’t pick her up. I didn’t do anything with her. She’s a nice woman.”

“Oh.”

“What does that mean?” Jax asked.

“That you’re not interested? That she’s not your type? A nice woman?”

“Hey, that was mean,” Jax said. “And I never said I wasn’t interested because she’s nice. I’ve dated lots of nice women. I just mean, she’s a nice person. You’d like her if you got to know her.”

Katie looked chagrined, and then she looked like she might cry.

“Whoa,” he said. “Sorry. Bad day.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I just thought…”

“That I’d hit on somebody at my own mother’s funeral?” he asked.

“Maybe.”

Okay. If he was honest with himself, he’d admit that he might. It would beat crying in front of half the town or feeling so lousy he wished he could die, too, which seemed like his main options at the moment.

“I just don’t want to walk into that room,” Katie said. “That’s all.”

“That’s no reason to pick on Jax,” Kim said, leaning in closer to his side and taking his arm once again.

“I know,” Katie admitted.

“Okay,” he said. “If we needed to, we could critique my relationships with women, all the way from grade school to the present, if we really needed to. That would take some time.”

“All day,” Kim said.

“All week,” Kathie claimed.

“No,” Katie said. “At least a month.”

Jax glared at them, more than happy for a good sibling brawl to take his mind off everything else.

“I just don’t want to do this,” Kathie said, turning her face into his shoulder. She was the most tenderhearted one of them all. And one least likely to give him a hard time about anything.

He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close. “I know.”

“And I feel like such a baby.”

“Yeah,” he teased. “Almost twenty-four, and all grown up. You and Kim probably think you know everything.”

“I don’t think I know anything anymore,” Kim cried.

“Me neither,” Kathie said, snuggling closer to him.

Katie just stood there, stubbornly on her own and fighting back tears, looking worriedly at him and her sisters.

We’ll figure this out, all of us together, won’t we? her look said.

He nodded and hoped he wouldn’t make a liar of himself one day soon.