1022 Evergreen Place (9 page)

Trying to salvage the evening, Rachel went to work; she seasoned the chicken with taco seasoning, grated the cheese, diced fresh tomatoes and shredded lettuce. Then she put the meal on the table, which, to her pleasure, Bruce had set without being reminded. He summoned Jolene and the three of them sat down.

“How was school?” Bruce asked his daughter.

“Great. I got an A on my history test.”

“Congratulations,” Rachel said.

Jolene glanced away as if to discount any praise from Rachel. “Misty asked me to spend the night on Friday. I can, can't I, Dad?”

Bruce looked at Rachel. “I don't have any objection if you don't.”

“I thought Misty's parents worked swing shift.”

“So?” he asked.

“So, who else will be there until her parents get home?”

“No one,” Jolene said irritably. “Her parents let her take care of herself. We're not babies, you know.”

“Jolene's spent the night at Misty's before,” Bruce added, siding with his daughter.

“But that was a Saturday and her parents
were
home,” Rachel pointed out.

“Oh, right.”

“Why don't you have Misty spend the night at our place?” Rachel suggested.

Jolene glared across the table at her. “Not with you here.”

“Jolene,” Bruce snapped, reprimanding her.

“I wish you'd never married Rachel,” she shouted at her father. “I hate having her in our house. I want it to be like it was before.”

“Jolene, please…” Rachel began but her stepdaughter wasn't willing to listen. Instead, she jumped up from the table and ran down the hallway to her room. Rachel flinched as the door slammed shut.

After a moment of silence, she met her husband's eyes across the table. Bruce released a pent-up sigh. “I'm sorry. That was…unfortunate.”

“I shouldn't have said anything.” Hard as Rachel tried, it never seemed to do any good.

“No, you brought up a valid point. If Jolene spends the night with one of her girlfriends, I want there to be adult supervision. I know Misty's grandmother stays with her some of the nights her parents are gone, but apparently she's alone the rest of the time. Those two girls together, without any supervision, could get into trouble.”

Rachel stood and started to clear the table. She considered bringing up the possibility of counseling, then decided to wait until she didn't feel quite so tired.

“Do you want me to get Jolene to help with the dishes?” he asked.

If he did, Jolene would sulk and argue, and that would only increase Rachel's stress. “No, thanks. I'll do them.”

Bruce frowned. “She should be doing chores.”

“Yes, but…not tonight. She's upset with us both. She can do the dishes tomorrow.”

“You're sure?” he asked.

Rachel nodded wearily. A few minutes later, as she stood at the sink, rinsing off the plates and setting them in the bottom rack of the dishwasher, Bruce moved in behind her. He'd finished clearing the table and had put the leftovers in the refrigerator. Now he slipped his arms around her waist and nuzzled her neck, dropping warm, moist kisses beside her ear. Shivers of awareness raced down her spine.

“Bruce…” she whispered, but then she let him continue. She closed her eyes and leaned back, her weight resting against his strength. She was vaguely aware of a noise behind her, but it didn't register at first. When she realized Jolene had come into the room, she instantly stiffened.

“You two are
disgusting!
” the girl screamed. “I can't have friends over because you embarrass me. It would help if you could keep your hands off each other for five minutes, you know.” With that, she stormed down the hallway and banged her bedroom door shut for the second time that night.

Bruce released Rachel and sighed. “I guess that means Misty won't be spending Friday night with us.”

Rachel didn't know if he was joking or simply unobservant. Either way, the only response she could manage was to roll her eyes.

M
ary Jo Wyse woke, startled out of a deep sleep. She wasn't sure if that was because of a dream she'd been having or because Noelle had made some small noise as she slept. At almost five months, the baby was sleeping through the night—well,
practically
every night. Mary Jo was grateful for that. Noelle slept in a crib in her room; Mary Jo wasn't ready to move her to the nursery yet.

As she lay in bed, staring up at the dark ceiling, Mary Jo mulled over what she'd discovered the previous weekend. Mack owned the duplex. He'd wanted her living close by and, in order to make that happen, he'd misled her into thinking a distant friend of his was the owner.

His lie disappointed her deeply. She liked Mack; in fact, she liked him a great deal. Nevertheless, she was wary of embarking on another relationship. David Rhodes had taught her several painful lessons and she'd be a fool if she didn't take those lessons to heart.

The problem was that she
wanted
to trust Mack. But she'd yearned to believe in David, too. She'd clung for much too long to the fiction that her baby's father loved her and welcomed their child, refusing to accept what was obvious to everyone else…and should've been to her.

Even her brothers knew what kind of man David was without ever meeting him. When she'd finally recognized the truth, Mary Jo had been devastated. Yet, despite everything, she'd never regret having Noelle. The baby gave her life purpose. And hope.

Because of Noelle, there was more to think about than herself. Any decision she made, any action she took, would have an impact on her daughter, too.

To his credit Mack had tried to make amends. Monday afternoon Mary Jo arrived home from her job at Allan Harris's law firm to find a large bouquet of flowers on her doorstep. The card that accompanied it said simply, “I'm sorry,” and was signed by Mack.

Tuesday and Wednesday nights he was at the fire station, but on Thursday there was another gift. A set of cake pans.

Cake pans! Of all the silly things to remember she needed. She wanted to bake a coconut cake using a recipe Charlotte Rhodes had generously shared. Mary Jo had purchased the ingredients, but when she reached home, she realized she didn't have circular cake pans. By then she didn't feel like returning to the store. She'd bake it another time.

Mack was working so hard to convince her to forgive him. Again, every instinct told her she should. She'd always be grateful for his help in finding a home for her and Noelle—even though she firmly disagreed with his deception, regardless of how well-intentioned it was. Without him, she might still be living with her three overbearing brothers. She loved them—they were her family—but they were suffocating her.

When she'd lost her job with the insurance company, she'd flown into a panic, although it was a blessing in disguise if ever there was one. Her fear was that once she returned from maternity leave she'd be forced to see
David Rhodes again, since he worked for the same company. But her employer had taken that worry off her hands and presented her with another—no job at all. A friend had recently told her that David was no longer employed by the company, either.

The opportunity to move to Cedar Cove had come at the perfect time. Mack had been instrumental in that decision. Grace Harding and Olivia Griffin, who'd also befriended her, had made the transition as effortless as possible. The two women had helped her find a new job, and Grace's younger daughter, Kelly, provided day care for Noelle.

Once she'd secured employment and child care, all Mary Jo needed was an affordable place to live. She knew housing costs would be significantly lower than Seattle prices, and she'd been delighted that rent on a refurbished duplex was so reasonable. No wonder. Mack could've rented it for twice what he charged her. Well, she'd taken care of that, although it put a serious strain on her budget. She'd checked with a real-estate agent Grace recommended and come up with an appropriate amount. Mack obviously saw that she wasn't changing her mind on this, since he hadn't argued when she'd insisted on paying full rent. She also planned to repay him the balance for the months she'd already lived there.

At one point after she'd been confronted by David, Mack had offered to marry her, which had felt…weird, but she'd said yes, anyway. Fortunately, they'd both recognized what a mistake that was and called it off before they'd made any family announcements. She could only imagine how Linc would react if he'd learned about
that.

Linc.

Thinking about her brother, Mary Jo smiled as she rolled onto her side and punched her feather pillow to
reshape it. She couldn't remember ever seeing her brother this happy. She wouldn't have guessed it, but marriage suited him. He and Lori hadn't known each other long—a shorter time, even, than she'd known Mack—but they seemed to complement each other well.

Linc wasn't an impulsive man, but in the past couple of months he'd made two drastic changes to his life. The first was marrying Lori Bellamy. The second was moving to Cedar Cove and starting a branch of the auto body and repair business their father had established more than forty years earlier. Mel and Ned, the two younger brothers, were now in charge of the Seattle shop.

The fact that Linc had handed over the business to his siblings said he believed they were capable of handling it without him. Apparently he, too, had felt the restraints imposed by family and was ready to move ahead with his life. Good for him!

At first Mary Jo had suspected that Linc's reason for coming to Cedar Cove was to stand guard over her. That, however, didn't appear to be the case. The truth was, she rarely saw him. He was busy setting up his business, equipping and renovating the commercial garage he'd purchased, and enjoying married life.

Mary Jo must have fallen asleep again because the alarm woke her abruptly at seven. Immediately Noelle woke up, too, hungry and badly in need of a diaper change. Mary Jo gave her a bath, fed and dressed her and took her to Kelly's house on her way to the office.

Mary Jo was tired all day, no doubt because of the hours she'd lain awake, thinking about Mack and David Rhodes and Linc…. “Well, at least it's Friday,” she muttered to herself as she corrected a document for the third time.

When she finally got home that afternoon, she saw Mack's truck in their shared driveway. He must've been
waiting for her because he came onto the porch as soon as she climbed out of the car. She gave him a cursory wave, then lifted Noelle from her carrier in the backseat.

“Hi,” he said, looking unsettled and yet eager to talk. He'd slid his hands in his hip pockets, a habit that signaled he was ill at ease.

“Hello, Mack.”

“Are you still angry?” he asked.

“I don't think
angry
is the right word. I think
disappointed
says it better.”

He took a moment to consider her reply. “I really am sorry.”

“I know.” Mary Jo had sensed his guilt and regret the minute he'd confessed. “I just wish you'd been honest with me from the beginning.”

“I will from now on.”

Mary Jo nodded. She really didn't have anything more to say. She figured everyone was entitled to one mistake; if anything else happened, she'd know it was time to move on.

“Can we let bygones be bygones, then?”

She nodded again. “Yes, let's do that.”

“Thank you.” His relief was obvious. He stepped down from the porch and started toward her. “I wanted to tell you—I went to the library this afternoon.”

“Oh?”

“I don't remember that much about World War II from my high school history class, so I took out a couple of books on the war. I'd like to familiarize myself with some of the details.”

Mary Jo smiled. “I talked to Charlotte this Wednesday and also last week, when I took Noelle over there,” she told him. “And I did an online search of every high school in the area, but I didn't find a single Jacob Dennison in the 1930s or early forties. I'll expand my search
the next chance I get.” She shifted Noelle from her right arm to her left.

“Did Charlotte have any information?” Mack asked, reaching inside her car for the baby seat and diaper bag.

“Oh, yeah. She thought Joan Manry might have attended Cedar Cove High School, so I went online and checked out the names of everyone who graduated during the war years. She wasn't there.”

“That's too bad.”

“I want to look online for telephone directories from that era, too, but I haven't had time.”

“Is that even possible?”

“We won't know until we try.”

Mack's face broke into a bright smile.

Mary Jo frowned, wondering what he found so amusing.

“I love that you said ‘we,'” Mack explained, clearly understanding her question. “I want us to work together to track down those two. I don't understand why Joan would hide the letters. I'm grateful she did, but it makes me wonder.”

“All I can think is that her family objected to her soldier boy and this was the only way to keep his letters to herself.”

“Hmm. Jacob did say something about her sister not liking him, didn't he?”

“Yes, and I have no idea why. Although I gather the two of them—Joan and Elaine—didn't get along that well.”

“You said she lived with her sister here in Cedar Cove? What about their parents?”

“Not sure. What I've picked up from the letters is that she and Elaine did live here, but I haven't seen anything about their parents. It's difficult to follow everything just
reading his half of the correspondence.” Mary Jo held her door open for Mack. “Do you want to come in? Stay for dinner?” She could tell right away that the invitation pleased him.

“How about if I order pizza? That way we can look at the letters and check the dates against the books I got from the library.”

“Pizza sounds fabulous.” Mary Jo had planned to make clam chowder, but she was exhausted at even the prospect of cooking. A broken night and a long week took their toll, and the strain between her and Mack hadn't helped. “Just make sure none of those anchovies you like so much end up on my half of the pizza,” she warned laughingly.

“I'll try,” Mack said with a grin.

An hour later, they sat at her kitchen table, the pizza box open on the counter. Noelle lay on her stomach in the playpen nearby, gurgling and chewing on her toys. Both history books were on the table, along with the cigar box of letters. Mack and Mary Jo had finished eating and were prepared to start their research.

“Okay, check this date,” Mary Jo said, unfolding a letter. “June 3, 1944. That's the last one in the box. Listen to what he has to say.” She began to read.

Mary Jo's voice broke as she read the last few lines.

Mack couldn't help responding to her emotion. Focusing on his task, he reached for one of the library books, flipping through it. “Oh, my goodness,” he whispered.

“What?” Mary Jo set aside the letter and walked over to his side of the table, looking over his shoulder.

“June 6 of that year was D-day. When the Allies invaded Europe on the beaches of Normandy.”

“That was his last letter,” Mary Jo repeated. She returned to her chair and slumped down. She realized what must have happened.

“Remind me what some of the previous letters say.”

“Well, he said the men were in constant drills. I know Jacob was a paratrooper with the 101st. He talked about what it was like when he made his first jump. He was
scared out of his wits, but he said it got easier the more often he did it.”

“He must've been practicing for the landing,” Mack said. “That makes sense.”

“At the end of the letter, when he said that if anything happened to him—” Mary Jo couldn't continue.

“What?” Mack asked, glancing up.

Mary Jo blinked back tears. “He was killed, wasn't he? He didn't survive the invasion.”

“We don't know that. He might have been wounded.”

“Maybe,” she agreed with some hesitation. “But don't you think she would've kept the letter notifying her of that?”

“They weren't married, right?”

“No.” They were engaged; Jacob had left for Europe with the promise that if he made it back they'd be married.

“But if they weren't husband and wife, the army wouldn't have notified Joan that Jacob had been wounded,” Mack explained. “The only way she'd learn that was if someone in Jacob's family told her.”

“There's nothing here from his family.”