“Save your breath, Jake. I am not booking Trace and Thomasina’s bedroom. And you can quit looking at me like that, it’s not my fault,” huffed Antoinette.

“She’s shell-shocked,” Jake said. “Jilted, canceled and I dropped the crane on her car.”

“You what?”

“Never mind. Guess I better drive her back to town.”

“I wish you would,” said Antoinette, rubbing her temples. “She’s making my head throb.”

“Mine, too,” Jake said. Though on closer accounting, it was more of a burn than a throb and it wasn’t confined to his head. He rubbed his chest again, reached into his pocket for an antacid tablet and left Antoinette muttering.

Chapter Two

Jake was gone so long, Shelby grew restless. She climbed out of the Jeep and was almost to the farmhouse screen door when she overheard his parting exchange with the desk clerk. He swung out onto the path before she could patch her expression.

Jake blinked finding her there and tipped his cap back, a gesture Shelby was beginning to recognize as habitual.

“No vacancies,” she filled the sudden caught-breath silence.

“Antoinette told me. I said I’d get that,” he said and reached for her suitcase on the walk where he had left it.

“I had a thought while I was waiting…perhaps a room in Liberty Flats,” said Shelby, following him toward the Jeep.

“There’s no motel. It’s a pretty small town,” he said.

Shelby raked her fingers through her curls. Anxious to find herself a place before he began to regard her as a pup he had orphaned and could not leave to fend for herself, she asked, “What about Bloomington?”

“Sure. There are plenty of rooms there if that’s what you want to do,” he said, and opened the Jeep door for her.

Shelby plucked her laptop off the seat and slid in. Jake circled to the driver’s side and put her suitcase behind the seat. He would have stowed her laptop there, too, except she had her arms around it again. “Wherever you want to go. Just name it,” he said, as he climbed behind the wheel.

“Somewhere quiet where I can work. Speaking of which, I’m keeping you from yours,” she said.

“I was due for a morning off.”

“Not like this,” said Shelby.

“We’ve had a nice ride so far,” said Jake.

“Thanks,” she said with a wan smile.

“For what?”

“Being such a gentleman.”

Her attitude caught Jake off guard. Feeling all the more responsible for her predicament, he said, “There’s plenty of room at my grandmother’s house. You’d be welcome to stay.”

“Oh, no. I couldn’t impose,” she said hastily.

“You wouldn’t be. Gram Kate likes having company.”

“That’s kind. But it’s too much to ask.”

“You didn’t ask. I offered.” Hoping she would accept and relieve his conscience, Jake stopped at the crossroads just shy of Liberty Flats. His turn was dependent upon her decision. “Would you like to have a look before you make up your mind?”

Shelby’s head was pounding. She anchored the laptop between her feet on the floor and reached into her shoulder bag. “Here,” she said, and uncapped a bottle of aspirin.

“What’s this?”

“For your headache. Mine’s splitting, too.”

Chagrined Jake rubbed the back of his neck. “You have good ears,” he said finally.

“So I’ve heard.” Shelby shook two tablets into her palm and offered them, saying, “My treat.”

She was a treat, dressed all in cream. All that kept Jake from telling her so was the pain in her doe-soft hazel eyes and a mouth that was too grave. That quick, she got to him. An almost-could-have-been-should-have-been-married woman. He thanked God she wasn’t, and gestured, saying, “You first.”

Shelby tossed the tablets back. They burned all the way down. She coughed and rubbed her eyes. Jake pushed a box of tissues her way. Hoping for the chance to know her better, he made the turn into Liberty Flats. “I’ll get you something to wash it down with.”

The shady streets spanned a time line of American housing, from Victorian to cheerful bungalows to ranch-style homes to imposing Cape Cods on manicured lawns. At the center of town, Jake circled the village green. It enfolded a bandstand, picnic tables, a memorial stone honoring war dead and a flag pole. Old Glory rippled in the breeze, a twin to the flag jutting from the brick front of Newt’s Market across the way. The remainder of the business district consisted of boarded-up buildings, a few of which leaned like stacked stove wood.

Jake turned the Jeep up the alley and parked in the driveway of his timber-framed shop. Shelby spotted the sign company logo above the overhead door. The Jackson name was also lettered on the side of the building. “You live here, too?” she asked.

“I have lately. Gram’s memory isn’t what it used to be,” said Jake. “My sisters have families to look after. All but the youngest, and she just got married. I was the logical choice. Come on, and I’ll get you that drink.”

His amiable smile tweezed the thorn that had cropped up at Shelby’s realization the house he referred to as his grandmother’s was his home, too. She climbed out and paused for a closer look at the house. It was a two-story arts-and-craft home with clean lines and deep verandas. The slate roof sloped away from a catwalk enclosed by a wrought iron railing.

Jake knocked the dust off his feet on the back veranda and waited for her to catch up. The back door opened into a eclectic kitchen that spanned a generation. Good bones, nice texture. In her head Shelby heard her mother accentuating the positive.

“Tea? Juice? Soda?” Jake offered, his footsteps ringing over vintage pine flooring.

“Water’s fine.” Shelby dropped her head back, admiring a high ceiling sectioned by hand-hewn oak beams. The room was long and wide and graced with deep windows. Fresh flowers adorned a table big enough for all the king’s horses and men. Handicrafts decorated the walls—a framed wood-burned copy of the Lord’s Prayer, a plaque inscribed Friends Are Special People. The napkin holder had rust spots, and child-size fingerprints glazed the cookie jar.

Jake drew her a glass of water, waited as she drained it and returned the empty glass to the sink.

“It’s a restful house. Don’t think I’m not tempted to accept your hospitality,” Shelby began. Then Jake’s beeper cut in. She gestured, saying, “Go ahead. Don’t let me keep you.”

Jake excused himself to make a phone call.

After the chaos of the morning, the quiet house was to Shelby what oil was to chafed skin. Her eye skipped from child-crafted refrigerator art to toast crumbs on the counter to the yellow energy efficiency rating sticker, the grease-splattered corners of which curled from the surface of a new stove. Ordinary folk, cutting corners rushing through ordinary days. It wasn’t like her to impose on the kindness of strangers. But then again, she hadn’t exactly been herself lately.

“Shall I bring in your things, or do you want a ride back to town?” asked Jake, returning.

“Are you sure I won’t be in the way?” Shelby asked.

“I’m sure,” he said.

“I can see you’re a busy man. I won’t be a pest,” she promised.

Jake smiled and excused himself and returned moments later with her belongings. “This way.”

Shelby let go the last vestiges of convention and trekked after him through the kitchen and dining room. Their footsteps fell to a whisper on the rose carpet that spanned the staircase. The woodwork was dark, the walls embossed, the decor turn-of-the-century elegant, though with a nice splash of modern graces.

The guest room at the top of the landing was spacious and homey with quilts and lace curtains and woven rugs. Shelby circled the room, absorbing it with an appreciative glance that didn’t escape Jake. “My mother would love this. She works with Harbor House, restoring old houses for low-income families,” she said.

“And your father?”

“He is a plastic surgeon.”

“I’ll bet even he couldn’t put a pretty face on this day,” said Jake in open sympathy.

“I should have seen it coming,” she murmured, then flushed at his confusion. “Oh! You mean the car.”

He nodded. “What’d you think?”

Patrick. She thought he meant Patrick. Embarrassed, Shelby averted her face.

“Can I get you anything?” asked Jake.

“I’m fine, thanks,” she said, gripping her pocketbook.

“Okay. I need to be going. But if you need anything, my sister Paula is out back in the shop,” Jake told her.

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Thank you, Mr. Jackson.”

“Glad to help,” he said, and stopped in the door to look back. “And make that Jake.”

“Jake,” Shelby amended, meeting his gaze. His smiling eyes begged descriptive notation: Pale tropical waters splashing at sun-browned banks.

No wastrel of words, Shelby filed the line away for literary use. She rubbed her throbbing temples, slipped out of her platform sandals and stretched out on the bed. It was plush and cozy and comforting. But she couldn’t relax. She hadn’t in days. Locking her hands behind her head, she invited a story line to wander in and make order of her muddled thoughts. But before she could conjure up any story characters a slim, attractive, auburn-haired woman in a cotton shirt and jeans knocked at the open door.

“You must be Shelby. Don’t get up. Just popped in to say hi.” A smiled warmed her face. “There’s ham and fruit in the refrigerator. Help yourself when you get hungry.”

“That’s kind of you, thank you, but I’ll get something out.”

“There is no ‘out.’ Except Newt’s Market, and you’ll soon tire of that. I’m Paula Blake, by the way. Jake’s sister.”

“He mentioned you,” Shelby said. She introduced herself.

“Jake says you write and edit and all sorts of interesting things,” Paula continued amiably. “Excuse me while I get that.”

Shelby swung her feet off the bed and into her shoes as Paula crossed to the nightstand and the ringing phone.

“I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical explanation, Joy,” Paula said. “Give Mr. Wiseman a break, would you? No, Dirk can’t come over. I’ll see you at four. I love you. Bye-bye.

“My daughter,” Paula explained, hanging up the phone. “She’s doing some field work over her summer vacation. Or supposed to be. Her boss didn’t pick her up this morning. His van is gone. She can’t reach him on the phone, now she’s conjuring wild scenarios. He’s sick. He’s lost. He’s fallen and can’t get up,” Paula ticked Joy fancies off on her fingers and rolled eyes as blue as Jake’s. “Kids! Now be sure and eat something,” she continued without stopping for breath, and backed out of the door, still talking.

The silence in Paula’s wake was nagging. Shelby found her way to the bathroom, tidied up and went downstairs. She made a sandwich, washed it down with a soda, then returned to her room and set up her laptop. Once upon a time…she told herself, fingers poised and waiting. The anticipated lights did not flash. No icons. No whirring. Just a black screen.

“Come on, come on,” murmured Shelby. “Give me a break. Please?” she muttered. But the screen remained dark and cold. At length, Shelby gave up. She fished pad and pen and dime-store reading glasses from her shoulder bag, took a seat and tried to recall the idea she had had before Patrick pushed the lead domino and brought her well-ordered future tumbling down around her. But her thought screen was as blank as her computer screen.

Shelby grumbled and wandered to the window and hiked it. She tapped folded glasses against the frame. Voilà! As if by design, a girl rode into the alley below, then flung her bicycle down. A skinny, sunburned, straw-haired preteen in cutoff jeans, she pinched off hollyhocks greens with bright-tipped fingernails and left a shredded trail of leaves into Jake’s shop. Moments later, she reappeared with Paula at her heels. Paula turned the girl toward a vegetable patch and gave her a nudge.

“But Mom! I don’t even like vegetables.” The girl’s voice carried through the open window. “Yikes! A bee! I think I’m allergic! Well, I could be. M-o-o-o-m!” she wailed, hands on skinny hips. “Oh, all right! How much are you paying me?”

“A nickel a weed,” Paula said.

“A nickel? Is that all?”

“Make it a penny,” Paula returned.

“Mom!”

“Keep whining, Joy, and you’ll be weeding for free.” Paula retreated into the shop.

Shelby pressed her nose to the window screen and watched Joy flounce over the garden. She plucked a weed here, a weed there, all hop-and-stop energy with no logical system. It was hard to picture a girl like that willingly weeding fields that ran on for acres and acres.

So what made Joy tick? What movements turned behind those eyes and turned-up nose and sullen brow? Shelby played what-if until a distant rumbling broke her concentration. Cool air rose from a vent on the floor below the window. Air-conditioning.

Shelby closed the window, took the chair again and balanced the pad on her knee. An opening sentence trickled across the page to be joined by more words, inserted here and there until it became a nice fat paragraph. She reached for her glasses.

Cranes, crushed cars, trapped book bags and blue-eyed men retreated as a Joy-like girl in frayed shorts and peeling freckles appeared on the lined yellow tablet. A Patrick-like guy took shape beside her. The resemblance startled Shelby from fiction to reality. She hadn’t deliberately chosen him for inspiration. It was automatic. Finger memory, like a pianist’s hands finding the right keys when the pages to a familiar song fluttered shut.

Shelby marked out the Patrick clone and reeled through male acquaintances, seeking hero inspiration elsewhere. None seemed to fit. Again, the Patrick-like character beckoned. Stubbornly resisting, she stirred from her chair and paced to the window. Sunshine glittered off the nearby building, lighting the lettering on the side of the building: Jackson Signs South.

Jake Jackson. He had been kind. Helpful. Patient. A gentleman. The heroics of everyday life. And he had those arresting eyes. Here, here! Her heart might be curled into the fetal position, but she still had her story world. A world with a voracious appetite, it fed indiscriminately on new situations, new people, fresh material to keep her upright and writing. That was the upside of this unsettling, upside down day. “This is the day the Lord has made.”

The snippet of verse ran through Shelby’s head. Not the day she had expected or long anticipated, rather a day marked by adversity. Yet in God’s hands, even shrapnel was a windfall, a deposit, a hedge against creative bankruptcy.

Shelby added Jake to her characters cast. She reshaped him into a seventeen-year-old in studious dark-rimmed glasses with a knack for mystery solving and a love for dirt-track racing.

A leggy raven-haired beauty barged onto the page. Tara. Before Shelby’s delighted eyes, Tara challenged her Joy-like character for the hero’s heart. Sparks flew better in triangles. No sparks. No conflict. No story. Not a problem today. The words flowed, the headache fled.

Thank you, Lord. Thank you. You always know just what I need.

Chapter Three

It had been a while since Jake had met a woman who interested him enough to make the day stretch long. He played catch-up all afternoon and fell several jobs short of completing his service calls. By the time he returned to the Bloomington shop, his crew had left for the day.

Two brothers-in-law worked with him in the erecting and servicing of signs. A third oversaw the computerized banners in the Liberty Flats shop while Paula shaped neon for custom-made signs. It was a skill both she and Jake had learned from their father, John Jackson.

A two-car automobile accident had claimed Jake’s parents’ lives when Jake was nineteen. Colton, Paula’s husband of just a few weeks, had been at the wheel of the second car, and had escaped with minor injuries. With his parents gone, and Paula’s marriage on the rocks as quickly as it had come together, it was only by the grace of God that Gram Kate had kept the family together, and the sign company, too. Now, a dozen years later, Jackson Signs was thriving.

Recently Paula had transferred all their records onto computer. She had taken some classes and was at ease with the new system. Jake wasn’t. But he did appreciate the options gained by linking the sign shops and their home offices. Now, he could go home and relax a while before entering the day’s business.

Jake locked up the shop, stopped for chicken and the fixings, then took the highway south. Once home, he put supper in the oven on low, set the table and climbed the stairs. The second-story landing circled past the guest room. Shelby’s door was closed. Jake grabbed clean clothes and closed himself into the upstairs bathroom to shower and change.

The whistled rendition of a catchy advertising jingle penetrated Shelby’s subconscious. By and by, the hum of an electric razor muted the cheery tune. Shelby sank back into to her story only to emerge again when the whistling ceased. The razor was quiet, too. Focus broken, she rose on cramped limbs and crossed to the door.

Jake was at the top of the stairs. A short-sleeved navy-blue shirt hugged the contours of muscles that flexed as he tucked his shirttail into his jeans. The denim, faded and softened by wash and wear, suited the lean, fit lines of his body as he turned and surprised her watching him from the open door.

“I heard you whistling.”

“Was I?” He smiled. “Hope I didn’t disturb you.”

“Not at all,” Shelby said.

His dimples deepened. There was a sheen to his clean-shaven jaw that caught the light. His hair was damp from the shower and bore the tracks of a comb. “Are you ready for dinner?” he asked.

“If you’ll let me help,” she offered.

“No need, it’s on the table.”

“Next time, call me and I’ll help,” said Shelby, flushing. “I guess I should have warned you—when I’m writing, everything fades away. Time. Good intentions, everything.”

“It’ll stand you in good stead in this house,” Jake replied. “Family tracking in and out at all hours. It can turn into a regular zoo if you don’t hold your mouth just right.”

Shelby noted his was nicely held. His eyes, too. The dark shirt heightened their striking hue. The observation was part of her craft, a writing thing, as natural as breathing. She smelled soap, and something else, too. Something tantalizing. Or was that dinner? Since the breakup, Shelby had almost forgotten what hunger felt like. Her stomach gave a sharp reminder. “I’ll be right down.” Quickly, she retreated to tidy up after herself.

Jake waited for her, watching from the open door as she gathered the paper wads strewn about her chair. In contrast to those carelessly scattered papers was the precision with which she aligned her notebook, pen and reading glasses on the dresser.

“You write in long hand?” Jake asked as she snapped off the reading lamp.

“Not as a rule. But my laptop is on the fritz.”

“Not another crane casualty,” he said and clucked his tongue.

“There’s not a scratch on it,” replied Shelby. “It may just be a glitch. I’m not much good at troubleshooting.”

“I’ll take a look if you like,” he offered.

“Would you mind? I’d really appreciate it,” Shelby said.

“After dinner, then. I hope you like chicken,” he added.

“I do,” she returned, closing the door behind her. “But you shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble.”

“I didn’t. It’s carryout. Except for the tomatoes.”

“I noticed the garden from the window,” Shelby told him.

“Green-thumb therapy,” Jake said. He held up his thumb and motioned for her to precede him down the stairs. “What about you? Do you garden?”

“I live in a third-floor apartment. But I planted blue lobelia and vincas in a window box this year.”

“Flowers, right?” he asked, and followed her down, momentarily distracted by the muted flame of red-gold curls against her slim white neck. He caught himself wondering if her skin was as soft to touch as it was to the eyes, and admitted, “Mostly what I know about flowers is that mowing them down gets you in trouble.”

Flowers. They had been Patrick’s passion. Shelby caught herself one foot down memory lane. She took her mind by the edges, gave it a shake and followed Jake into the kitchen where he introduced her to his grandmother, Kate Grisham.

Kate had hair like spun wool and a round face, powdered and wrinkled. Her lips were painted outside the lines. They tilted as she greeted Shelby, saying, “How lovely to meet you.”

“Shelby works with books,” Jake told her.

“You’re Jake’s bookkeeper!” Gram Kate set a pitcher of tea on the table and came to Shelby with hands outstretched.

“She doesn’t work for me, Gram. We met at the bank.” Jake went on to explain about the accident.

“Thank goodness you weren’t hurt,” Gram said, slow to release Shelby’s hands. “Jake, dear you must be more careful! Why, I hate to think what might have happened if that… Joy needs… Next time you mustn’t…”

The flow of Gram’s words stopped. She peered more closely at Shelby, dismissed her lost train of thought and patted her hair.

“Ready to eat, Gram?” Jake asked gently, and seated her. Declining Shelby’s help in transferring food from the oven to the table, he seated her, too, and when the food was in place, took his own chair.

Shelby spread her napkin over her lap. Gram Kate reached for her hand. “Would you ask the blessing for us, dear?” she asked, and patted Shelby’s fingers.

Shelby tucked her chin. “Heavenly Father…”

“Dear God,” rumbled Jake.

They both stopped and looked up.

“Don’t tease your sister. Take her hand, now Jake, and say grace before the ice me—me-malts,” said Gram Kate, her tone sweetly chiding.

It was no hardship for Jake. He took Shelby’s hand, and thought it a nice perk to accompany the dinner blessing.

Jake’s callused palm imprinted itself upon Shelby’s skin and her thoughts, too. This was to be her wedding dinner. Her wedding night. And here she sat with a sweet dotty old saint who thought she was family and a stranger with a foreign touch.

Jake began passing dishes her way, giving her hands something useful to do and her thoughts a safe place to light. The chicken was moist and tender, the potatoes delicious and the sliced tomatoes, wonderful.

“Did you remember crochet thread, Wendy?” asked Gram Kate, looking at Shelby.

Shelby paused, fork in hand and lifted her eyes to Jake.

He smiled reassuringly and said, “I’ll put it on the list, Gram.”

“Thank you, dear. Have another biscuit. It’s my special reci— Tea. More tea? You must have another piece of chicken, you’re a growing boy.”

Gram Kate passed everything Jake’s way. He set the tea pitcher and the serving dishes to the center of the table, but she kept returning them to him. At length, he transferred the dishes to the counter.

“I’ll wash,” offered Shelby, coming to her feet.

“No need. I’ll put them in the dishwasher later after we’ve had coffee,” Jake replied and waved her down again.

Shelby was nursing a second cup when Paula and Joy let themselves in the back door. Paula was carrying a chocolate cake. Joy bumped Jake’s chair and held out her hand.

“You owe me for fifty-seven weeds, Uncle Jake.”

“She has been paid. Don’t even think about it,” Paula warned, as Jake reached for his wallet.

“Fifty-seven cents. You call that pay?” complained Joy.

Jake fished a five from his wallet.

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