He Loves Lucy by Ann Yost

Author:Ann Yost [Yost, Ann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Contemporary, Suspense
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Published: 2013-09-24T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Lucy stared into the Langley’s side yard. The apple tree no longer looked like something out of an Edward Gorey print. Green buds softened the twisted branches and, in a matter of days, pink blossoms would dress the tree in its yearly finery. Finally, spring had sprung.

Jake hadn’t come home for supper and, she suspected, he wouldn’t come home until everyone, including Lucy, was safely in bed. She rested her forearms on the porch railing and watched the children playing in the yard.

She thought she’d done a pretty good job during her second tour of duty as temporary nanny. She’d enjoyed taking care of the kids and, if she hadn’t gotten over her feelings for Jake, she’d kept them hidden. No more mooning around. No more trying to set up an “accidental” meeting in the narrow hallway. No more night-time visits to the porch in the hope that he’d follow. She no longer pretended to herself that she was Jake’s wife or the twins’ mother. She kept her fantasies under wraps until she was alone in her own bed.

Lucy had thought she had the obsession under control but it wasn’t true. One look at Hallie’s head on his broad shoulder and Hallie’s baby in his arms had sent an arrow through her heart. They’d looked so Norman Rockwell. So perfect. So exactly what Jake wanted. He couldn’t have it, of course. Not with Hallie. But he couldn’t have it with Lucy, either. She simply couldn’t be his consolation prize.

Out in the yard Sam waved from his seat in the rope swing Jake had mounted in the apple tree. Lucy grinned and waved back, her heart in her throat. She’d miss the little boy so much. She’d miss Lillie, too. She knew they needed a mom and she prayed that they’d get one soon. Someone just like Hallie. In the meantime, Lucy intended to end the estrangement between Jake and his in-laws.

Sam and Lillie needed their grandparents. And Jake, well, Jake needed them, too.

Lucy gazed up at the darkening sky. The spear of pain she’d felt this afternoon had subsided into a dull but persistent ache in her chest. Jealousy was as strong a force as love or hate or loyalty. Maybe stronger. Was it possible that Shirley Packer had felt this way when she’d seen her husband of thirty years with the younger woman? Was it possible that Paula had happened upon a similarly tender scene between the two who had spent most of a lifetime together? Had one or the other of the two wives killed their mutual husband?

It was possible. Likely, even. What, after all, was an alibi in the face of the green-eyed monster that had the power to turn a person inside out?

After she put the children in bed, Lucy phoned Shirley Packer and asked for another meeting.

“Why?”

An excellent question.

“I’d like to talk with you about your experiences on safari.”

“Ah. Because the great white hunter was killed with the same weapon he used to bring home all those trophies, right?”

“I think my readers will be interested in the irony.

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