The Millionaire and the Mum

“I’ve been looking at your roof,” he said when she was seated. “Did you know you’ve lost some shingles?”

Beth shrugged. “No. There are so many more immediate serious things wrong around here that I hadn’t looked at the roof yet.”

He nodded. “I can probably replace those shingles for you, and maybe later you can show me what else needs doing.”

“Why don’t we wait until tomorrow? It’s probably going to take you the rest of the afternoon to dispose of that tree, don’t you think?”

“Probably.”

“Okay, then. Tomorrow morning we’ll look at everything else.”

For a while, they ate in silence, but Beth was acutely aware of his presence beside her. She was very curious about him, yet strangely reluctant to ask questions lest he think her interest something more than normal curiosity.

When they had finished their meal, she got up and went into the kitchen where she fixed a plate of cookies from a batch she’d baked a couple of days before.

“They’re peanut butter,” she said apologetically when she offered the plate to Jack.

“Peanut butter cookies are my favorite.”

“Really? Did your mother used to bake them when you were young?”

For just a moment, something resembling pain flashed in his eyes, but it was quickly masked. “My mother left home when I was six,” he said offhandedly.

Beth wasn’t fooled by his attempt to be casual. Tenderhearted, she was immediately sympathetic. How awful to lose your mother when you were little more than Amy’s age! And he hadn’t said she’d died, he’d said she’d left home. Had she willfully abandoned him? Is that what he was saying? She was tempted to put voice to her questions, but thought better of it. Jack Stokes didn’t seem like the kind of man who would share confidences easily, and certainly not with someone he barely knew. Mind your own business, she told herself.

But she was still wondering about him later that afternoon as she prepared supper. He was back working at the sweet gum tree. She could hear the intermittent whine of the chain saw as he cut the trunk and branches into pieces small enough to easily move.

Walking to the sink, she peered out the window. He sure didn’t look like a man down on his luck, she thought again, yet what other reason could he have for offering to work for room and board? It wasn’t as if Beth had anything else he might want.

She took an onion out of the wire bin hanging over the sink and, laying it on her cutting board, peeled it, then cut it into hunks. Using the food chopper her best friend Dee Ann had given her, she minced the onion, then added it to the ground meat mixture she was preparing to turn into meat loaf.

Still thinking about Jack, she rooted around in her spice cupboard for the bottle of Worcestershire sauce she was sure she had. Finding it, she sprinkled some over the meat mixture.

Could he be running from the law? Somehow he just didn’t seem like the type. Besides, if he was, Rose Hill wasn’t the kind of place he’d go. People running from the law usually tried to lose themselves in big cities where you could be anonymous. In little towns like Rose Hill, everybody knew everybody else’s business. Beth would be willing to bet just about every one of the nearly three hundred souls who called Rose Hill home knew that a man in a red pickup truck had been hired to work out on the Johnson place. And in a day or two, they’d probably know the terms of his hiring, too. There were no secrets here.

Maybe she’d been crazy to hire him. And yet, there was something so solid and reassuring about him.

She added two eggs and bread crumbs to the meat, then washed her hands and dried them carefully. Once she was sure they were clean, she stuck them into the bowl and mixed everything by hand until all the ingredients were well blended. There was something very satisfying about mixing meat loaf by hand, she thought, remembering how her grandmother had done it the same way.

“Mama, I’m hungry.”

Glancing around, Beth smiled at Amy, who had walked into the kitchen. “Supper won’t be ready for a while, but you can have a banana or an apple if you want.”

“Okay.” Amy walked over to the table and reached into the bowl sitting in the center. Inside were two bananas and one apple. She took a banana out and began to peel it.

Beth shaped the meat mixture into a loaf. Once it was a neat oval, she placed it in the pan she’d prepared earlier. The oven was already preheated, so she stuck the meat loaf inside and turned her attention to the potatoes that needed to be peeled.

While the meat loaf baked and she prepared the mashed potatoes, green beans, and butterscotch pudding that would round out the meal, her thoughts returned to the man outside.

Maybe she was crazy for hiring him, but right now she really didn’t care. It was comforting to have a strong, masculine body on the property, someone who could do the things she couldn’t do herself, so no matter what he might be hiding, she wasn’t going to look this gift horse in the mouth.

Chapter Three

“S upper’s ready!

Jack looked up and saw Beth standing on the porch. The late afternoon sun had turned her hair into a fiery crown of red and gold. “Be there in a minute.” He glanced down at his watch and saw it was almost six. He couldn’t believe how fast the afternoon had flown by. He still wasn’t finished hauling off the remains of the sweet gum tree, but he only had about an hour of work left. He should be able to finish after supper, though, if there was enough light. If not, he would come early in the morning and get it done.

Since he was finished cutting the wood, he picked up the chain saw and carried it over to the barn, replacing it where he’d found it. Then he washed up and headed for the house.

The kitchen was unlike any he’d seen before. Certainly it bore no resemblance to the massive kitchen in the Stockwell mansion, which contained the very latest stainless steel appliances and every modern kitchen contraption known to man.

This kitchen was big and square, with lots of light, but, with the exception of a fairly new looking stove, there was nothing modern about it. The top cupboards had glass-paned doors and the wood, chipped in places, was painted white. An ancient refrigerator—so old that it did not have a separate freezer compartment—stood in one corner. A quick glance revealed no dishwasher, and Jack would be willing to bet there was probably no disposal, either. The floor tile, worn and weary looking, had obviously seen better days. In the center of the room was an oval maple table surrounded by six chairs. It, too, looked ancient, its top scarred and deeply grooved from use.

Despite all this, the room was cheerful. Yellow-and-white-checked curtains on the windows, yellow paint on the walls, bright red cushions on the chairs and a red-and-yellow-flowered pillow on the maple rocking chair in the corner, along with several vases of roses and a couple of healthy-looking ferns in pots, combined to make the kitchen homey and welcoming.

The place smelled great, too, and made Jack’s mouth water.

“Have a seat,” Beth said with a friendly smile. Her face was flushed from cooking, which made her look even prettier than she had before. She placed a jug of iced tea on the table. The windows were open and, although there was a breeze, the room was warm. Jack wondered if the place was air-conditioned. He couldn’t imagine how Beth and her kids could survive the area’s sizzling hot summers if it wasn’t.

“I’m sorry it’s so warm in here,” she said, almost as if she’d read his mind. “I’m not running the air conditioner because the compressor is making a funny noise.” She made a face.

Damn, he thought. How many things could go wrong at once? “If you want me to, I can take a look at it after supper.”

Her eyes brightened. “Would you?”

“Sure.” Maybe the unit just needed cleaning.

Matthew and Amy were already seated on opposite sides of the table, an empty chair between them. Jack sat next to Matthew, who beamed. Beth took the chair between the two children.

“Amy, it’s your turn to say grace,” Beth said.

Startled, Jack bowed his head along with the other three.

“Thank you, Lord, for our food,” Amy said in her sweet, little-girl voice. “And for all the blessings you give us every day.”

“And thank you, Lord, for keeping Amy safe today,” Beth added. “And for sending us some much-needed help.”

“Amen,” said Amy.

“Amen,” said Beth and Matthew.

An unfamiliar emotion swept Jack. He couldn’t have put a name to it. He only knew something in the simple words and their obvious sincerity had touched him deeply. He thought back, trying to remember if grace had ever been said in his home. He couldn’t think of a single instance, not even on Thanksgiving. Of course, he hadn’t had that many meals with his family, since his father had shipped him off to boarding school the year after his mother had supposedly drowned, and then to military school. Even during the summers, he was often away at camp or anywhere else Caine could think to send him. But even so, the times he had been home had been enough to show him his father cared nothing for religion, unless you counted the worship of money and power.

“Jack, do you want to start the meat loaf?”

Beth’s question drew his attention back to the meal, and Jack shook off the remembrance of his lonely boyhood. He picked up the platter of meat loaf, helped himself, then passed it on.

As they ate, several things struck him. Although Jack hadn’t been around many children and so didn’t have much with which to compare them, he felt the Johnson kids were remarkably well behaved. They didn’t argue and they didn’t complain about the food. They ate enthusiastically, and when their mother spoke to them, they answered politely.

The other thing that amazed him was how comfortable he felt. These three were virtual strangers, and Jack wasn’t exactly sociable, yet he felt at home. As he ate the plain but tasty food, he tried to figure out why he was at ease, finally deciding it was because Beth and her children were different from most of the people he knew. Despite their troubles, they counted their blessings, a concept unknown to most of the people Jack knew.

“Would you like more mashed potatoes?”

Jack accepted the bowl from Beth and helped himself to seconds. “The food’s great.”

She shrugged. “It’s nothing much. Just simple country food.” The pleased expression on her face belied her offhand comment.

“Well, I like it.”

Now she smiled. “Good. Because it’s what you’re going to get from now on. Although I do promise not to serve you meat loaf more than once a week. That is,” she added quickly, “if you stay.”

Jack thought about their agreement of a week’s trial. When he’d suggested it, he’d hoped to have his answer about the supposed swindle perpetrated by his great-grandfather before the week was up, after which he’d be on his way, but now he found himself saying, “I’ll stay as long as you want me to.”

After a moment, she nodded. Then, in an obvious attempt to change the subject, she turned to Matthew and said brightly, “Matthew, honey, did Mrs. Ford give you any homework?”

“Only spelling words.”

“After supper we’ll work on them, okay?”

“Okay.”

“We didn’t even think about homework last night, the storm was so bad,” she explained to Jack.

“Where were you when the tornado hit? Here in the house?”

Beth grimaced. “Yes. There wasn’t anywhere safer to go. We just huddled inside the hall closet and prayed.”

“It was scary!” Amy said, eyes big as silver dollars.

“Yeah,” said Matthew. “It made this big roaring sound, just like a train.”

“I know. I saw a tornado once,” Jack said. Then he immediately wished he hadn’t, because where he’d seen it had been a small African country in the middle of a rebellion.

“You did?” Matthew asked.

“Yes, and you’re right, Amy, they are scary.”

“We were very lucky,” Beth said, “even though, this morning, when I saw all the damage to the greenhouses and equipment, I wasn’t thinking about being lucky. Now I’m ashamed of myself. Things can be replaced. People can’t.” Reaching out, she squeezed a hand of each of her children.

Although her eyes were downcast, Jack could swear he’d seen the glint of tears.

After a moment, she sighed deeply. “Well now, that’s enough emotion for one day. Who wants dessert?”

“Me!” shouted Matthew.

“Me!” squealed Amy.

“Me,” said Jack.

Beth grinned. “Butterscotch pudding coming right up.”

The kids downed their pudding faster than Jack would have believed possible, then they politely asked if they could be excused.

“Yes, you may, but don’t forget your spelling words, Matthew,” Beth said. “In fact, why don’t you go study them while I clean up the kitchen, then I’ll go over them with you?”

“Okay.”

The kids took off, and by the time Jack finished his pudding, Beth was already clearing the table. He began to help her.

“No, no,” she protested, “that’s not necessary. I’ll do it.”

“No big deal.” He was used to cleaning up after himself. The way he lived, he either cleaned up after himself or it didn’t get done. “If I help, the work will be finished twice as fast.”

Without further discussion, they finished clearing the table together.

Beth was all too aware of him as she washed the dishes and Jack dried them. Unlike most of the men she’d known throughout her life, Jack didn’t seem to feel awkward doing women’s work, as Eben had disdainfully called it.

She and Eben had never shared household chores. Eben considered cooking and cleaning and doing the dishes beneath him. Not manly. Yet Beth couldn’t imagine a man more masculine than Jack Stokes, and here he was, cheerfully helping her and not thinking a thing of it.

It was very pleasant working side by side. And just as Jack had promised, the work went a lot faster. Before she knew it, all the dishes had been dried and neatly stacked.

“Just show me where they go,” Jack said, “and I’ll put them away.”

“That’s okay. You’ve done enough.” Beth removed her apron and hung it on the hook at the side of the cupboard nearest the back door, where it joined several others.

“Well, I really do want to get back outside and finish up with the tree. Plus I’ll take a look at that compressor.”

“The compressor can wait until morning. It’s supposed to go down into the sixties tonight, so we’ll be comfortable. In fact, you can finish up with the tree tomorrow, too.”

“I only have about an hour’s worth of work left on that tree. I’d rather get it done tonight.”

“You know, as hard as you’re working, you’d think I was paying you top dollar.”

For a moment, his eyes met hers. Lordy, his eyes were sure blue. They reminded her of the color of the bluebonnets that covered the fields and roadsides in the spring.

“You are,” he answered quietly. “You’re giving me an opportunity to learn about growing roses.”

For the briefest moment, his statement caused a frisson of alarm to snake through her. Was that his angle? He wanted to learn about growing roses so he could go into competition with her? But as quickly as the thought had come, it disappeared. So what if he did have some idea like that? He’d soon find out how hard this life was. Lots of people like him, who knew nothing about roses, only saw the romance of the end product. But it didn’t take them long to get educated. Growing roses was just like growing corn or growing wheat or growing anything else. It was hard work. It was so hard, in fact, it would suck the life out of you if you weren’t careful. A person could work seven days a week, twelve and sixteen hours at a stretch, and there would still be mountains of work left to be done. Not to mention the fact that you were constantly battling something: too much rain, too little rain, grasshoppers, a downturn in the economy. “Well, if that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll get,” she said lightly. “’Cause if I know anything, I know about growing roses.”

He nodded. “Guess I’ll get on out there, then.”

“All right.”

“When I’m done, I’ll head back to the motel, but I’ll be here early in the morning.”

“Okay. Plan to have breakfast with us.”

“You don’t—”

She cut him off. “I insist. We eat at seven, because Matthew’s bus comes at seven forty-five.”

He reached for the handle of the screen door. “Okay. Thanks again for supper.”

“You’re welcome.”

Almost exactly an hour later, as she sat at the kitchen table going over Matthew’s spelling words with him while Amy carefully colored a picture of kittens playing with a ball of yarn, Beth heard the sound of Jack’s truck starting, followed by the crunch of gravel as he turned the vehicle around and drove away down the driveway.

“Jack’s leaving,” Matthew said.

“Yes.”

“I like him.”

“I like him, too,” Amy said. “He’s nice.”

“I wish I didn’t have to go to school tomorrow,” Matthew added. “Then I could help him. Can I stay home, Mama?”

“No, Matthew. It’s your job to go to school and learn a lot so when you grow up you’ll be able to take care of yourself.”

“But you said when I grow up I’m gonna grow roses. I can’t learn about that in school.” This last was said triumphantly.

“Yes, that’s true, but in order to run a farm like this, you also have to know how to read and write. You have to know math and computers and all kinds of things.”

“Are we gonna get a computer?” Matthew asked excitedly, zeroing in on the most important point just the way kids always seemed to.

“A ’puter!” Amy exclaimed. “Brittany has a ’puter, and they have the Rugrats game. When I go to her house, I gets to play it.” Brittany was her best friend Dee Ann’s daughter—three years older and Amy’s idol.

Beth tried to make her voice upbeat, even though it broke her heart to constantly disappoint her children. “We can’t get a computer right away, but I promise, we will get one.” She’d been wanting a computer for the business, too, but it was way down on her list of priorities, because you had to have something to sell before you needed to keep records, and the way things had been going the past couple of years, all her financial resources were needed just to keep her head above water. Still…she could buy a secondhand computer for the kids. Oh, yeah, sure. If she could find a secondhand computer for sale for ten dollars, then maybe she could afford it. Fat chance.

“It’s okay, Mama,” Matthew said, reaching out to touch her hand. “I don’t need a computer.”

“Yeah,” Amy said loyally. “We don’t need one.”

Beth swallowed against the lump in her throat. Getting up, she kissed them both in turn, saying softly, “What did I ever do to deserve two kids as wonderful as you?”

Jack got back to the motel after nine. As he drove past the office, he saw a woman inside. Mr. Temple was obviously gone for the day. Jack parked outside Unit Seven, noticing as he did that there were only two other cars in the parking lot. If that’s all the business they did, he wondered how they stayed afloat. Of course, this was a weeknight. Maybe they did better on weekends, although it wasn’t like this place was on a major highway. He couldn’t imagine that anyone coming through Rose Hill would go anywhere else. Rose Hill would pretty much have to be your destination.

He locked his truck and walked over to his room. Just as he inserted his key into his door, a voice said, “You been gone a long time. You must have got to see some farms today.”

Jack whirled around, automatically falling into a crouch and reaching for his gun. It took a moment before he realized where he was and that he had no gun. All his guns were safely locked up back at the mansion. Alarmed by his lapse, he hoped the old man—whom he belatedly realized was sitting in the shadows outside Unit Five—hadn’t noticed his odd reaction.

“I didn’t see you sitting there,” Jack said, walking over to where the motel owner sat.

“Not many people do. That’s why I like settin’ here. I can see ever’thing goin’ on, but nobody can see me. It’s in’erestin’.”

From what Jack could tell, there wasn’t anything going on. Unless you count the fact you tried to shoot Mr. Temple when he spoke to you.

“So did you get to see some farms?” the old man repeated curiously.

“Yes, I’ve been out at the Johnson place.” And then, because he knew the motel owner would find out about him working for Beth, anyway, Jack decided he might as well tell him. “I’m going to be working there for a while.”

“Is that a fact? I guess Bethie must have scrounged up some money from somewhere, then, ’cause she was sayin’ just last week how she didn’t know what she was gonna do this season. I told her she could try and get a loan from the First National, but she said her granny would roll over in her grave if she mortgaged the farm. Her granny didn’t believe in bein’ beholden to anyone. Course, most folks in these parts feel that way, leastwise the older folks, like me. We was growin’ up durin’ the Depression, and we remember how so many folks lost ever’thin’ to those banks, many of our parents included.”

He kept on in this vein for a good ten minutes. When he wound down, Jack used the opportunity to change the subject a bit, because something had him curious. “How long has Mrs. Johnson been on her own out there? You mentioned her cousin who quit, but what about her husband?”

“That good-for-nothin’! He’s long gone, and good riddance, I say. Eben died a year ago June when he had a losin’ argument with an eighteen-wheeler. Drunk as a skunk, he was. Course that wasn’t nothin’ new. Eben, he liked the bottle more ’n just about anything.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Yeah, folks around here, we were sure sorry for Bethie. Her granny, one of the most sensible women you’d ever meet, tried to warn her about him, but you know how young folks are. They gotta learn ever’thin’ the hard way.”

Now Mr. Temple was off on another tangent, which kept him going five more minutes. Jack finally managed to find a way to say good-night without seeming impolite.

“Guess I’ll turn in now, too,” Mr. Temple said. “It’s been kinda borin’ out here tonight.” He got up slowly and opened the door to Unit Five.

“You live here?” Jack said.

“Yep. Ever since my wife, God rest her soul, died, I been livin’ right here on the property. When Alma, that’s my sister, two years older ’n me and thinks she’s my keeper, asked why was I sellin’ the house, I told her ’cause I wanted to, that’s why, and I didn’t need no other reason. That shut her up. First time in memory!” He laughed, delighted with his own wit. Then, maybe feeling guilty about bad-mouthing his sister, he added, “Alma, she’s okay. She’s got a big mouth, but she’s also got a big heart.”

Later, as Jack lay in the unfamiliar, faintly uncomfortable bed and listened to the chorus of cicadas outside his window, he thought about Beth and her kids and wondered about what old man Temple had told him. Could he have exaggerated? Maybe Eben Johnson hadn’t been as bad as Mr. Temple had painted him, because Beth sure didn’t seem like the type of woman who would put up with that kind of behavior for very long. And she’d obviously been married to Eben awhile if Matthew was seven years old and Eben had only been dead a little over a year. Usually, if a woman stayed with a man like that, she did so because she was scared to be on her own. Weak, in other words.

Beth was not weak. Just the opposite, in fact. She was strong—a fighter, just like Jack. But fighter or not, right now she needed help. Suddenly he was very glad circumstances had sent him her way, because he was going to enjoy helping her.

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