Man With A Mission

Yeah, you would, Hank thought. Cussedness and arbitrary last-minute changes of her mind aside. He led the way out the back door to the parking area where he’d left his van.

“Nice rig,” Cameron said. “I used to have one like it, but sold it to help pay my tuition.” He pointed across the lot to a decrepit blue camper with a canopy. “That’s mine.”

“Whatever gets you there and back.” Hank opened the rear door of the van. “Give me a minute to get around the side of this thing and push it out to you.”

“Right.”

They carried the table in without incident, Adeline directing them through the office door to a spot against the wall where she’d hung a map of the city. Hank introduced her to Cameron.

She shook his hand, studying him appraisingly. “Hank, if you’re no longer interested in Jackie, maybe we can fix her up with Cameron.”

Cameron smiled politely, but Hank saw the panicked glance he turned his way. “Thanks, but I’m a happy bachelor,” he said.

“Nonsense,” Adeline said. “How can a bachelor be happy?”

“No woman in his life,” Hank replied intrepidly, knowing it would earn him retribution. “Yourself excluded, of course, but women just complicate a man’s existence.”

“Without a woman in your life, it is just that,” she argued. “Existence, not life. Though some men never come to appreciate us.”

“I like my simple life,” Cameron insisted.

And Hank decided he really liked the man.

The telephone rang as Hank placed it on the desk.

“Hey!” he said, reaching for it. “They connected it while I was gone. Whitcomb’s Wonders.”

“This is the Old Post Road Inn,” a panicked female voice said. “The top off one of the kitchen faucets just shot off and I’ve got water spewing everywhere. Please tell me that one of your wonders is a plumber!” Then she shouted to someone at her end of the line, “The cutoff valve! Under the stairs in the basement! The hot water one!”

Hank held the phone to his chest and raised an eyebrow at Cameron. “Do I have a plumber? You weren’t supposed to start until Tuesday.”

“An emergency?” Cameron asked, coming toward him.

“Sure sounds like it. At the Old Post Road Inn. In the kitchen. Top off a faucet, water everywhere.”

Cameron headed for the door. “I’m on it.”

“We’ve got a man on the way,” Hank said into the phone.

The woman groaned. “I love you,” she said, and hung up.

“All right.” Hank turned off the phone and reached for the daily log hanging on a hook beside the map. “Business is picking up and we’re not even completely moved in.” He noted Cam’s destination and checked his watch for the time. “Any other calls?” He hung the log back on its hook and turned to his mother.

She pushed a cup of coffee into his hand. “You should have gotten one,” she said with an air of disgust. “But you didn’t.”

He knew the disappointed look meant he’d failed morally, somehow. But she was making some maternal point he wasn’t quite getting. He knew he played right into her hands when he asked, “What call?”

“Your wake-up call!” she said emphatically. “What is wrong with you? How can you shout at a poor pregnant woman? And the mayor to boot! And the woman you once told me you loved more than your own life?”

He went across the room for his office chair and carried it one-handed to the desk. “She shouted first,” he objected, realizing how absurd that sounded even as he said it. “And our love for each other died long ago. She married someone else, had his children…”

“And was miserable every moment.”

“I can’t help that.” He didn’t like to think about it, but it wasn’t his fault. “She chose to stay.”

“Maybe at the time,” his mother said more quietly, “she thought she was being wise.”

“She had an unhappy marriage.” He rummaged through a box for his blotter and the family photos he kept on his desk. “And I had a successful career. Which one of us was right?”

“You can’t always judge that by how things come out,” she answered.

He looked up from the box to meet her gaze in disbelief. “How do you judge the right or wrong of an action if not by its result?”

“Maybe by the number of people hurt.”

“Then her staying should go down as a disaster.” The items located, he rose and carried them to the desk.

“Her parents were happy she stayed.”

“How could they have been? She went to Boston for two years.”

“Well, that wasn’t California, where the two of you had planned to go. They had a hope of seeing her once in a while.” She came to stand beside him while he centered the blotter on the desktop and placed the photos behind it. There was one of him and Haley and their parents on a trip to Disney World, all of them in Mickey Mouse ears. His father looked grim. He’d never had much of a sense of humor. Then there was Haley’s graduation photo, and one of her and Bart on their wedding day. He was supposed to have moved home the day before, but he was still in Florida when the wedding took place, sick as a dog with the flu in an empty apartment. He’d insisted they not hold up the wedding.

“I just think you need to make peace with this,” his mother said in the same voice she’d used to talk him out of his sulks when his father had been on him. “It happened. You both made your choices, and for better or worse, you’ve lived with them. Now you’re going to be running into each other on a regular basis and it’ll be easier in the long run if you just come to terms with it. And you could be a little nicer.”

He remembered clearly how he’d felt that night when he’d had to leave without her. He’d been only eighteen, but there’d been nothing young about his love for her. It had been full and mature with roots she’d ripped right out of him.

“She cut my heart out with a trowel, Mom,” he said, hating how theatrical the words sounded. But they did convey the feeling.

Adeline shook her head at him and reached for her coat. “Well, she must have, because you certainly don’t seem to have one at the moment. I’m going out for scones.”

“Thanks.” He handed her a bill from a drawer on the coffee bar. It served as the petty cash safe. “Get one for Cameron in case he checks back in before going home.”

She glowered at him and he added as an afterthought, “Please.” When that didn’t seem to appease her, he tried, “Thank you.”

She sighed and walked to the door, turning to say grimly, “Well, at least you learned ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ I’ll be right back.”

If she were kidnapped by aliens, Lord, he prayed, falling into his chair to soak up the moment’s respite, friendly ones, you know, that play Bingo and have Ibuprofen and mentholated rubs readily available, I could deal with it. She’d be happy. I’d be happy. No, I know. No such luck. I have to learn to cope with her. And with seeing Jackie regularly, too, I suppose. Fine. But just wait until St. Anthony’s needs a microphone for the Blessings Blow-Out auction. See what happens then.

Hank opened the single drawer in the table to retrieve his Palm Pilot when the room fell into complete darkness.

He sat still, experiencing a sense of foreboding. Faulty ancient wiring, he wondered, or God responding to being threatened?

CHAPTER THREE

JACKIE INSERTED HER KEY in the lock on the front door of her home two blocks from downtown, grateful that her assistant manager had all the night shifts at the inn this week. She anticipated a cozy dinner with the girls and a peaceful evening. That did happen more often than not—at least, it used to—but she knew the moment she opened the door and heard screeching voices that it wasn’t going to happen tonight.

She heard the baby-sitter’s quiet efforts to calm the girls. They seemed to be having no effect.