“Okay, then,” she said, “You two can watch, but if you get out of the truck, Jack will send you into the house, and that will be that. Understood?”
Both children nodded solemnly. “Yes, Mama.”
After one more warning to be good, Beth left the three of them and headed for the house. Telling the children to wait, Jack went into the barn and found the chain saw. Then he and the children walked back to the truck. After getting them settled in the flatbed, Jack attacked the fallen tree.
He worked steadily for the next hour or so, and just as the kids began to get restless, Beth walked out onto the porch. Jack saw that she’d cleaned herself up and now wore fresh jeans and a light brown T-shirt.
“Time for lunch,” she said. “I made hot dogs.”
“Oh, boy,” Matthew said. “Hot dogs are my favorite.”
“They’re my favorite, too.” Amy said.
Jack smothered a smile. It was obvious Amy had a bad case of hero worship where her older brother was concerned. The way she acted reminded him of how Kate used to follow him around all the time when they were young. The twins had had each other, but Jack had always had Kate, and no matter how much their father had tried to discourage her from tagging after Jack, she had paid no attention.
“I thought we’d eat on the side porch,” Beth said as she helped the children out of the truck.
“Cool! A picnic!” Matthew raced around to the side porch, closely followed by Amy.
Beth shook her head. “Those two are a mess.” But despite her words, it was clear she adored her children.
“They’re nice kids.”
“Thanks.”
“Matthew’s in school?”
“Yes. Second grade. And Amy’s in kindergarten.”
“So they didn’t have school today?”
“No. It was canceled because of storm damage. I do hope they’ll go back tomorrow, though. It’s hard to get anything done when they’re home.” Her expression became rueful. “You see what very nearly happened today. What would have happened if you hadn’t been here.” Her eyes clouded.
Jack had an idiotic urge to put his arm around her and tell her to quit thinking about it, everything was okay now. The unexpected feeling shook him, because he wasn’t normally given to emotional reactions to people. He couldn’t afford them, not in his line of work.
Leaving him on the porch with the kids, she went inside. A few moments later, she returned with a laden tray containing plates and silverware, hot dogs in buns, jars of mustard and relish, a plastic squeeze bottle of ketchup, and a bowl of something that looked like macaroni salad. She set the tray down on a small metal table in the corner. The kids immediately began to help themselves.
“Wait, Amy,” Beth said as Amy picked up the bottle of ketchup. “Let me help you.”
“I can do it myself,” Amy said. To prove her point, she turned the bottle upside down and proceeded to squirt ketchup on her hot dog. Although the amount of ketchup that ended up on the sandwich was probably twice what should have been there, Amy gave them a triumphant smile. “See?”
“You did a good job,” Beth said. “Now try not to get any of that ketchup on you, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Help yourself,” Beth said, turning to Jack.
“I need to wash up first.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. You can wash up in the barn. I don’t know if you saw it or not, but in the far corner there’s a little bathroom that the help—when we had help—used to use.” For a moment, her voice held a trace of bitterness. Then she seemed to shake it away. “There’s even a shower.”
He found soap and an old but clean towel hanging from a hook next to the sink and cleaned himself up. There was a mirror over the sink, too, so he combed his hair. While standing there, he felt something against his legs and looked down. A large black cat was rubbing against his legs. “Hey, where’d you come from?”
The cat meowed, yellowish-green eyes glowing in the semidarkness of the building.
Jack leaned down and petted the cat, who arched her back and purred. He had never especially liked cats; his father had tended toward dogs—big dogs—but this cat seemed okay. Besides, it was obvious she’d taken a liking to him. It was hard to dislike an animal that liked you, he thought ruefully. She even followed him when he set off toward the house.
“I see you discovered Char,” Beth said when he rejoined her and the children.
“Char?”
She grinned. “Short for Charcoal.”
“She discovered me.”
“Usually when strangers are here, she hides until they leave, plus she’s been really spooked since the storm. She must like you.”
Again he thought how much he liked Beth Johnson’s smile. So far his impression of her and her children was favorable. Whether that would make a difference to his investigation, he didn’t know, but he thought it probably would, because he was a pretty damn good judge of people, and Beth struck him as completely honest.
Returning her smile, he filled his plate, accepted a glass of lemonade, then sat on the top porch step and began to eat.
Beth settled the kids on the old glider that was a holdover from her grandmother’s days, then decided it would be friendlier to join Jack on the steps, even though there were a couple of wooden chairs on the porch that she’d intended for them to use.
“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
