Someone to Watch Over Me (8 page)

Except now she wouldn’t be around to see it.

Jax pushed the thought aside and offered Alicia a chair. “Thanks for coming to the house.”

“No problem,” she said, settling into his mother’s favorite chair by the window.

Romeo, looking greatly offended, plopped down in his usual spot beside that chair and glared at Jax, as if it was all his fault that his mother was gone and this other woman was sitting in her chair.

Jax stood behind his sisters seated on the sofa, hands braced on its back for support.

“I’m so sorry about this.” Alicia opened her briefcase and pulled out a file. “She was an amazing woman.”

One of Jax’s sisters started sniffling, clutching a tissue and dabbing at her eyes, and then the next one started and then the next. It was as if they were all hooked up to the same faucet. Turn it on and the tears started flowing.

Jax grimaced, but didn’t say a thing. The waterworks had to stop eventually, and until it did, he’d handle their tears, the way he’d handled everything else.

“Is there anything I can do?” Alicia began.

“Let’s just get this over with,” Jax cut in, then worked to soften his tone. “Please?”

“Of course. It’s all very straightforward. I’ve brought copies for each of you that I’ll leave here, and I’ll read through the entire document word for word, if you like—”

“Not necessary,” Jax assured her.

Alicia looked at each of the girls in turn, to see if any of them objected, and they all shook their heads to indicate they agreed with Jax.

“All right. Well, I suspect parts of this will come as a surprise to the four of you. I was surprised myself when your mother made these changes, but I can assure you, she was absolutely lucid and clear about them.”

“We’re fine with whatever she wanted,” Jax said. No way they were going to squabble amongst themselves over their own mother’s possessions. They just weren’t that kind of people.

“Good, because I can assure you, there was no question in my mind about her competency.”

Jax had an odd feeling that he might want to sit down, which was silly. His mother had been perfectly comfortable with her life, but she was also a woman who’d raised four children on her own and a cop’s pension. There really wasn’t anything to her estate for anyone to fight over, nothing she had that he could imagine him and his sisters fighting over.

So why did he feel as if he really wasn’t going to like what he was about to hear? As long as she hadn’t left him the dog, he’d be fine.

“First,” Alicia said, “you should know that it was her intention that the bulk of her estate be divided into roughly five equal parts. One for each of you and—”

Jax held his breath, thinking for a moment his mother really had left the dog money. He missed the next part of what Alicia said and had to ask, “Wait. What?”

“Her favorite charities,” Alicia repeated.

“Nothing for the dog?” Jax asked.

Alicia frowned at him. So did all three of his sisters. Romeo lifted his head and whined, as if to ask what he’d missed.

“Nothing. Go back to sleep,” Jax said, then looked at the four women. “Sorry. Go ahead. Please.”

They all still looked annoyed.

“Bad joke,” he said, trying to make amends.

Alicia used to have a sense of humor, but that might have disappeared with her divorce, although the women he knew said it was more likely the part about raising four children alone that had done it. “Sorry. Really.”

Alicia took a breath and let it out slowly. “As I said, a guideline—five roughly equal parts. She didn’t specify charities, except to say to please remember her church. She also mentioned putting away money for the girls’ weddings or perhaps down payments on homes for each of you someday. Katie, I know you already have a home, but your mother said you’d discussed several ideas about renovations and she thought you might use the money for that. But, as I said, all of those are suggestions only.

“She wanted me to say one more time, for her, that she was as proud of you as she could possibly be and loved you all dearly. She asked that you try your best not to miss her too much and to know that she’ll be watching over you all, even now. She felt extremely blessed in the life she led.”

The girls’ tears started again. Jax stared at the ceiling and thought,
Just let it be over. Please.

“That’s really it. There’s not a lot of money to the estate. The house, a little life insurance, but those are all offset by medical bills and a few other expenses,” Alicia said. “Jax, she named you executor of the estate. There’ll be some paperwork, but I’ll do my best to make that as painless as possible for you. But really, she’s left everything in your hands.”

“All right,” Jax said warily, then waited for the rest of it.

The lawyer didn’t say anything.

Jax must have missed something again. “So,” he said, “do you have a list or something?”

“Yes. Her bank accounts, credit cards, household bills that will still be coming in. It’ll be months before the medical bills are settled, of course. She paid for her own funeral months ago, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

She handed Jax the lists.

“Okay,” Jax said blankly. “What about all of her stuff?”

Alicia took a breath and smiled a tad mischievously, a smile that showed that dimple and reminded him of all the trouble he’d gotten into with her ages ago. “As executor of the estate,” she said, “it’s yours to disperse as you wish.”

“Huh?” Jax said.

“She gave you complete discretion to dispose of all her possessions.”

Romeo chose that moment to start sniffing around Alicia’s briefcase and whining, as if Alicia might have hidden Jax’s mother inside. “Oh, and I almost forgot. That includes the dog, of course.”

“Okay, wait,” Jax said. “This isn’t funny. Not at all.”

“I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s not.” But the dimple in her cheek didn’t disappear, no matter how hard Alicia struggled to keep a straight face.

“She wanted me to divide up everything?”

“Everything,” Alicia repeated.

He stared blankly at her and waited. She didn’t squirm or start babbling, two things most people did when confronted with a prolonged silence. It was no fun at all, trying to intimidate her with cop tricks.

“Is this a joke?” Jax asked finally.

“No. Really. I wouldn’t do that. Not with a will.”

Jax scratched his head and tried to ignore the soft sniffling sounds his sisters were making. They were a morose-
looking group, and he could imagine his mother wanting them all to smile today and cooking up something with Alicia to do just that.

Except, he didn’t think this was funny at all.

The dog part, maybe.

He could see where his sisters would think it was funny, but the rest really wasn’t.

“Alicia, explain this to me. Now. Please.”

“I don’t know that there’s really any more I can tell you,” she claimed.

“So, she was tired and just didn’t have the strength to handle all this?” Jax could understand that, although he was surprised she’d waited that long to take care of everything. She was a very well-organized, responsible woman.

“No, I don’t think it was that,” Alicia said.

“What was it?”

“I don’t know.”

Which had Jax fantasizing about strangling Alicia.

“What do you mean, you don’t know? You were her lawyer.”

“Yes.
Hers.
I’ve told you everything she asked me to. The bottom line is, everything she had is yours, Jax. Even the bit about dividing the estate five ways isn’t binding. You can do whatever you like with everything she had.”

Jax gave up on getting anything else out of Alicia, who still seemed to be enjoying this too much. He looked back to his sisters, still sniffling and looking tragic, not making any move to help him. They didn’t seem inclined to do anything at all. Even Katie, Miss List-Maker-Maniac, Miss I-Can-Organize-Anything, just sat there, looking to him to make it all better.

This was a perfect job for Katie, so why hadn’t she gotten it?

“Well, if that’s everything, I should be going,” Alicia said, getting to her feet.

The girls sniffled some more and tried to smile and thank her.

What did she mean,
That’s everything?

That was definitely not everything.

Jax did not want to take care of anything else. He wanted his life back. He wanted back out on the streets, saving his little town from what little crime there was.

He followed Alicia to the front door, then went outside with her, closing the door behind them, not wanting his sisters to hear.

“Wait a minute,” he said when they were on the front porch together. “You can’t just leave it at that.”

“I didn’t,” Alicia said. “Your mother did. She trusted you, Jax. She said there’d never been a time in her life when she honestly needed you to take care of something for her that you’d refused. And she was sure you’d do this for her.”

Jax’s shoulders sagged, any other words of protest he might have stuck in his now too-tight throat.

Never refused her anything?

Surely he had.

But honestly, he couldn’t remember a single time. They’d always needed so much cooperation just to keep the family going, and he’d always thought she worked so hard and that everyone needed so much from her. He’d tried to take as much of the burden off her as he could.

“It’ll be fine,” Alicia said, taking him in her arms for a brief hug and giving him a little smile. “The house is paid for, so you won’t have to rush to get it on the market, right?”

Jax nodded.
No rush.

“That means you can take your time about going through her things and dispersing them. And I’ll be in touch about all the paperwork.”

Alicia turned and climbed into a sparkly, champagne-colored car, all sleek and fast-looking.

Maybe he could ask her for a ride, just to get away from here.

But Jax waited too long to ask, and before he knew it, Alicia had roared away. He was stuck outside in the cool of the porch, not wanting to go back inside, still feeling kind of shell-shocked.

What had just happened?

He glared up at the pale blue sky, which had the nerve to look as peaceful as could be and said,
Mother!
but felt nothing more than a calm, cool breeze in response.

His head hurt. His heart hurt. And he was so tired.

He went back inside, to find his sisters chattering away about the most inconsequential things. Their mother’s perfume. Her favorite flowers. The door to the basement that stuck, which used to make her so mad.

Jax didn’t say anything. He was trying not to shout, waiting for them to notice that while they might be perfectly fine with the details of their mother’s will, he was not.

But they didn’t notice, and he thought maybe he didn’t want to talk about this today after all. Memories were too close to the surface, too many frustrations threatening to erupt and overflow.

He let them chatter on, until they were talked out. Katie finally said she had to go—something about an appointment that was set weeks ago and couldn’t be changed. One by one, they hugged him and told him goodbye, and then they hugged the dog, as if he was a bereaved relative, too.

He couldn’t believe his mother had left him the dog to get rid of!

It would have been a perfect joke if she stuck her head in the door, grinning, right about now, and said,
Gotcha.

But she loved him and the dog, and she knew Romeo didn’t like Jax any more than Jax liked Romeo. So he couldn’t imagine why his mother would ever do this.

“I’m so glad that’s over,” his sister Katie said right before she walked out the door. “I was dreading it.”

Well, it wasn’t over for him, and he was dreading what was left.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll all help. We just need some time to be ready to take this on and to actually do something with all her things. Jax, are you all right?”

No, he was not all right.

What would she say if he told her that? He didn’t think he ever had, not in all the years they’d spent together, not in all the times she’d ever asked had Jax ever been anything but okay.

If he said it now? Katie would probably call Kim and Kathie back, and they’d cry, and talk about how hard this was and how bad they all felt, and he absolutely could not handle that. So he shrugged and said he was as good as could be expected.

He remembered Alicia saying he’d never failed his mother before, and he sure didn’t want to start now.

But he really didn’t know if he could do this.

O
nce they were alone, Romeo started grumbling and whining and pawing at the door, as if he was demanding,
Where is she?

“You’re going to be the first thing to go,” Jax threatened.

Romeo would normally have snarled at him and showed his teeth, but he must have been as confused as Jax, because there was no snarl. Not much of anything. Romeo looked all done-in, like he might pitch a fit if he had the energy, but he was too confused and too tired to do much more than fuss pitifully.

“No,” Jax said. “Don’t do that.”

It was like having a crying baby. There was no reasoning with the dog when one of these spells hit.

“I mean it, Romeo. Not tonight.”

Romeo stretched out on the floor, flat as a pancake, a big frown on his face.

“Go hide in her closet,” Jax said. “Come on. I’ll open up the door for you, and you can root around to your silly heart’s content in all that stuff that smells like her. You can sleep there tonight if you want.”

As opposed to sleeping in the middle of her bed, which was what Romeo had been doing.

But even the closet couldn’t tempt Romeo.

He stayed on the floor, doing his best imitation of crying, which was really quite good. Maybe the dog could do commercials. He knew a lot of tricks. Maybe Jax could pawn him off on a trainer who got dogs into the movies. Romeo would eat up all that attention.

How did Jax go about finding a dog trainer/agent? Did they have casting calls or something?

It sounded like a lot of work. More work than he felt capable of managing at the moment.

Okay, maybe the dog wouldn’t be the first to go.

But something had to.

He had to get started, just for the psychological boost alone. Taking action always made a man feel better, like he had some control, like he could change things, even really bad ones.

There.
Jax had a plan.

He’d get rid of all the stuff, get rid of the house and the dog. Pick up his old life, and he’d feel better. It was a great plan.

He took a slow turn around the living room. There were tons of framed photos. Couldn’t get rid of photos. The sofa was old and worn, but really, really comfortable. He’d fallen asleep on it so many nights, he should know.

He had a sofa of his own stored in the basement, but honestly, if he had a choice between comfort and how the thing looked, he’d much rather go for comfort. Maybe he’d keep this old sofa of his mother’s and get rid of his.

He turned to the beat-up old recliner. Again, a marvel of comfort, and a man needed to be comfortable. Maybe he’d keep that, too.

There was a really ugly clock on the wall that Jax had made in eighth-grade shop class. Cut it out of a block of wood, very ineptly, in a shape that somewhat resembled an old-fashioned cottage, the kind a cuckoo bird would normally fly out of to announce the hour. Jax’s didn’t have a cuckoo bird, and the clock was certainly no marvel of beauty, but it hung proudly on his mother’s wall, even to this day.

Why hadn’t he ever bought her a new one?

He grabbed the clock off the wall, frowning at the mark it left on the wallpaper. It had faded all around the clock, leaving an outline where it had been. So, if he got rid of the stupid clock, he’d have to paint or put up new wallpaper, and more work was the last thing he needed now.

Maybe the clock wasn’t the right place to start.

Jax opened the back door and walked out onto the porch. Mrs. Altman was next door in her backyard shooing a stray cat away from her garbage can. He remembered his mother saying that she worried about Mrs. Altman getting by financially. Apparently, her social security wasn’t much, and she really struggled to make ends meet.

“Hello, Mrs. Altman,” he called out.

She straightened up and squinted into the light of the setting sun, which was behind Jax. “Oh, hello, young man. How are you and your sisters holding up?”

“We’ll manage. Somehow,” he said, unable to mumble something as simple and as much a lie as
Fine, thanks.

“If there’s anything I can do, you just let me know. Your mother was one of the kindest women I’ve ever known.”

Perfect. There it was. That so-often-repeated phrase,
If there’s anything I can do…
“Actually, there is.”

“What would that be, dear?”

“I have to get started cleaning out the house, and…Well…” His mother said the old lady lived at the pawnshop
in winter, when her gas payments were high, getting rid of her things one by one, to try to cover the bills. What did his mother have that Mrs. Altman could pawn? He didn’t want to hurt the woman’s feelings, but if she needed it, his mother would have been happy to have her take whatever would pay her bills.

“Is there anything you need?” he finally said.

“Oh, dear. Those are your mother’s things.”

“I know, but—”

“You need to talk with your sisters first, and you’ll want to keep some of her things yourself, of course. If you’re not ready to do that now, it’s okay. Why, I didn’t get rid of any of Mr. Altman’s things until he’d been gone for four years. So don’t you feel like you have to hurry, dear. No need to rush.”

But he wanted to rush. He wanted his life back.

“Isn’t there something you’d like?” he tried again.

“I’m sure there are some little things that I could see and be instantly reminded of your mother—”

“Like what?” he asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. But I’ll give it some thought. And bless you for thinking of me, dear. You wait until your sisters are ready, and all of you go through the house together, and when you’ve done that, if you still want me to have something of hers, I will.”

Something?

Not what he had in mind.

“Has that silly cat been in your mother’s garbage, too?” Mrs. Altman asked, shooing the thing away one more time. “It makes the worst messes, and for some reason, it just loves my garbage. It makes such a racket at night trying to get in there.”

Jax frowned. Mrs. Altman still had metal garbage cans, the 1950s variety, if he was any judge. Maybe he could give
her his mother’s nice, wheeled, plastic garbage cans. The old lady shouldn’t be trying to drag those heavy metal cans to the curb, anyway.

Of course, he’d never be able to convince Mrs. Altman that they didn’t need garbage cans at his mother’s house, especially now that they had so much stuff to get rid of.

Okay. He’d thought of four different things he could begin to clear out of his mother’s house, and had failed miserably to dispose of even one.

At this rate, he’d grow old and die here himself, surrounded by his mother’s things.

Mrs. Altman kept fussing at the cat for another moment, then went inside and shut the door behind her. Jax stood there on the back porch, thinking just one, little thing.
One.

He walked into the garage, which was probably the worst spot in the house. Stuff practically multiplied overnight in here. His mother cleaned out the house and put everything here, but it never made it any farther.

He peered into dark, dusty corners, thought of actually climbing the makeshift ladder and going into the attic above the garage. But right before he resorted to climbing, his gaze landed on the golf clubs shoved into a corner.

His mother had taken up golf five years ago, a phase that hadn’t lasted much longer than six months. She loved being outside on the course, but she was a lousy golfer. After that, when a friend wanted to go play, his mother packed a picnic lunch, and she went along purely for the ride and the company. She and her friends had a grand time.

There was Jax’s answer. Golf clubs.

His sister Katie played with the grim determination found only in people who took up the game purely for the
networking opportunities it provided. She made nice to real estate guys, trying to get referrals to her fledgling mortgage company, and she did it wearing beautiful designer golf togs and playing with a really nice set of clubs that he and his sisters had bought her last year for her birthday. So she didn’t need their mother’s clubs. Neither of his other sisters played. He couldn’t imagine them developing a sudden passion for the game.

Surely giving away the clubs wouldn’t be a problem.

He just needed to find the right person for them.

Come on. There had to be someone.

Then he thought of Mrs. Baker, who went to his mother’s church. Hadn’t his mother told him that the last time she’d golfed with Geraldine Baker, Mrs. Baker had thrown one of her clubs into a tree in frustration, and they hadn’t been able to get it down?

Yeah. He remembered that.

He went inside for the phone, found her number and called, accepting her condolences once again and then moving as quickly as he could to the real reason he’d called.

“I heard you had some trouble on that little par 3 on the Magnolia Valley course recently,” he said.

“Oh, dear. Did your mother tell you about that?”

“Yes, she did, Mrs. Baker. And please don’t be embarrassed. I don’t think anyone plays the game for any length of time without giving a club a toss every now and then. It’s a really frustrating game.”

“It’s horrible,” she said. “I was mortified. Your mother and I made up a foursome with two old goats from that nice Methodist church across town, and they laughed so hard they nearly fell over. And then they wanted to try to climb that tree and get my club down.”

“But they didn’t, did they?”

“No. They’re seventy, if they’re a day. I was afraid one of them would have a heart attack and the other would break his neck. The silly club was still up there when your mother and I gave up and left. I suppose someone who works on that course got it down eventually, but I’ve been too embarrassed to go back and get it. Honestly, a woman of my age losing her temper that way. My little granddaughter even heard the story. I’ll never live this down.”

Jax plastered his palm over the receiver so she wouldn’t hear him laughing at her. He just couldn’t help it. Mrs. Baker was the last person on earth he’d have ever believed would have a smidgen of a temper.

“Ma’am, I was just starting to go through my mother’s things, and I found her set of clubs and thought you might like to have them. She hardly used them at all, but she did enjoy the time she spent on the course with you and some of her other friends. I know she’d be happy to have you use them.”

“Darling, I’m not ever hitting one of those ridiculous little balls again, thank you very much. I think I’ll limit my golf days to riding around in the cart, like your mother did. She had the right idea about the game.”

“Oh. Okay. You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. It’s the most frustration I’ve ever had, and to think we pay them to do that to us. It just doesn’t make any sense at all.”

Jax closed his eyes and bit back a groan. He was striking out again. He got off the phone with Mrs. Baker, defeated once more.

No clock.

No garbage can.

No golf clubs.

Surely there was something he could get rid of.

Maybe he could find a nice burglar to haul some stuff away. He knew quite a few, and they never stayed in jail for long. Surely one of them was out roaming the streets, casing a house or something.

But that would scare the neighbors, and most of them were little old ladies living alone. He couldn’t scare little old ladies just to help get rid of his mother’s stuff.

He wandered through the house a bit more and then found himself out on the back porch again. He looked up the alley, seeing no one, but glancing down the street, he saw Gwen working in her backyard.

She looked up and waved at him.

“Hi,” he yelled back. “Got a minute?”

“Sure.”

“Then come see me. I need some help.”

“Okay.” She started dusting off her jeans at the knees from where she’d been kneeling in the dirt. “Be right there.”

Gwen showed up at the back door a few minutes later, her cheeks tinted a happy pink from the sun.

“You look good,” he said, grinning at her.

She stopped right where she was and stared at him. “What?”

“You. You’ve got some sun on your cheeks. And your nose. Some color in your face.” Some life in her pretty, brown eyes. “It looks good on you.”

“O-oh.” She stammered and left her mouth hanging open.

Was it so unusual for a man to pay her the slightest compliment? “Come on in. The lawyer who handled my mother’s will just left, and my sisters did, too. You’re completely safe. No one’s going to come looking for me and yelling.”

“Oh…That.” She still looked uneasy.

“Everything okay?” he asked Gwen, just in case.

“Yes. Are you okay?”

He tried to shrug like a man who didn’t feel as if he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. “I’ve been better. You really want to help?”

“Sure. What can I do?”

“Walk through this house until you find one thing—any one thing—that you like or you think might be useful and take it home with you.”

“Jax, these are your mother’s things…”

“And she’s gone.”

“I know, but surely you don’t have to do this right this minute.”

“Yes. Right now,” he insisted. “This is what I need.”

“Why?” Gwen asked.

Leave it to her to find the one question he didn’t want to answer.

“I have to get started. I have to think that I can do this—that I can get rid of all her things and pack up this house and sell it and then…”

“Forget her?” Gwen asked softly.

“I’ll never do that. But having this house and all these things sitting here waiting for her won’t bring her back.”

“No. But I’m afraid getting rid of all her things won’t make it hurt any less that she’s gone, either.”

Which made Jax want to throw something.

Of course, if he broke it, he could sweep up the pieces and put them in the nice wheeled plastic garbage can, and at least one thing would be gone.

“I just have to take one step toward getting this done,” he said. “Can you understand that?”

“Yes.” She gave him a sad smile. “
That
I understand perfectly.”

Relief washed over him. He didn’t think he’d ever been so grateful to another human being in his entire life. He very nearly picked her up and swung her around the living room. If he thought she’d laugh and like it, he would have. But a part of him was scared to touch her and bring back bad memories for her.