Mistaken Identity Page 2

  Adam shrugged. “It rarely gets nasty, but when people gossip it’s bound to happen. I just haven’t heard anything like that.”

  “Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll be sure to behave myself.”

  He laughed. “Always wise, don’t you think?”

  He rose then, and took his cup to the sink and rinsed it. “I’ve kept you long enough and I need to get ready for a meeting. If you want anything, I’m right across the street. Or Iris can show you.”

  Jazz rose, too. “You’re fond of Iris.”

  “Hard not to be. I could say the same for Lily. You got a nice sister. But you got the better name.”

  He called Sheba when he reached the front door and clipped a leash on her. “Time for a short walk before my meeting. Nice to meet you.”

  It had been nice to meet him, too. But then Jazz faced the conundrum of dinner again. Maybe she ought to get some cookbooks. No help now, though, when the larder and fridge looked as if a horde of locusts had passed through.

  “Hey, Iris,” she said, sticking her head into the dining room.

  Iris looked up from her laptop. “Writing a term paper,” she said. “For physics, if you can imagine.” She looked disgusted. “I can see it for English or history, but this?”

  “I’d have no idea where to begin.”

  Iris asked, “What did you need?”

  “A grocery list. Or better yet, for you to come shopping with me. I have almost no idea of what your training diet involves, or how much. Man, a quart of orange juice would have lasted me over a week.”

  Iris looked impish. “You need to walk more. Okay, let’s go now.”

  “But your paper...”

  “Can wait. It’s not going to get any harder if I come back to it in an hour. Besides, I noticed we’re pretty much down to peanut butter sandwiches.”

  “And I can’t even figure out something for dinner.”

  “The horror! Okay, let’s get going.”

  * * *

  JAZZ PULLED ON a sweater because she was acclimated to a much warmer client. Iris teased her about it. “This is wonderful weather.”

  “For those who haven’t lived in Florida most of their lives. You’re just going to have to deal with me being chilly.”

  Iris suggested they drive to the store, which gave Jazz an idea of the size of the coming shopping trip. The grocery was fairly busy with people looking for last-minute meal needs, but Iris kept them moving, filling the cart with enough groceries for a football team. As they worked their way along the aisles, greetings were exchanged but there was no time for introductions. Everyone was busy, and Iris didn’t slow down enough to talk.

  Jazz was astonished by the heap in the cart, but a little more concerned about knowing how to cook everything. Frozen vegetables fine, but some of the fresh ones were unfamiliar to her. A mound of protein bars. Then there was fish, all of it frozen, but it was still a lot.

  “I guess I’m going to have to learn to cook fish,” Jazz remarked.

  “Look it up online. Don’t you cook at home?”

  “For one? Not often.”

  Iris just shook her head. “Not healthy, Aunt Jazz.”

  “So I should crawl under a rock?”

  “No,” Iris answered pertly. “Just learn. Are you sure I can’t get a dog?”

  Jazz gave her a humorous frown. “Talk to your mother.”

  Multiple loaves of whole grain breads, two dozen eggs. Three gallons of milk. Instant grits. How was Iris going to eat all of that?

  Well, she must be able to, and she had a perfect figure.

  Jazz could have sighed. Her sedentary job made it so much more difficult.

  At home, putting everything away proved to be a bit of a challenge. Iris, at least, had a good idea of where things could go. A bit of rearranging in the fridge was necessary, but after a half hour or so everything was put away.

  “Now that looks better,” Iris announced approvingly with her hands on her hips.

  “At least you won’t starve to death.”

  Iris giggled. “The benefit of athletics.”

  “So...dinner tonight.”

  “I’ll take pity on you.”

  Jazz cocked an eyebrow. “How?”

  “Red beans and rice.” She waved a box. “The only hard part is lightly browning the andouille sausage.”

  “What about your paper?”

  Iris shrugged. “It’s not due tomorrow, and anyway this doesn’t take long.”

  Nor did it, especially with the rice cooker.

  “Now you know how to cook this,” Iris said.

  “Yeah, and I can buy a dozen boxes now.”

  Iris laughed. “Check online. Loads of recipes.”

  “But I get to cook.”

  Iris laughed again. “Thirty minutes. I’ll be back for dinner.”

  Jazz didn’t doubt it as she watched Iris head back to her studying.

  * * *

  AFTER THE MEETING with other vets that Adam helped counsel, he took Sheba for her late-night walk. The streets were peaceful, quiet. His favorite time of the day.

  He also thought a lot about Jazz. She was definitely Lily’s twin, so alike in appearance that it was hard to tell them apart. But Lily had never appealed to him the way Jazz had managed to in just a few minutes. An interesting reaction.

  Both sisters were striking, with long inky hair and bright blue eyes. Black Irish, Lily had once told him. Iris had the same brilliant blue eyes, but with that tightly curly red hair. Red Irish, he supposed, although the family tree probably wasn’t purely Irish. Maybe he’d ask Jazz a bit about that.

  Any reason to have another conversation.

  He also had plenty to consider after the night’s support group. Together, vets talked a lot more than they could with people who’d never walked in their boots. Stories they never could have shared because they were raw, open wounds that others wouldn’t understand. Tonight had been especially hard for Winston, a man who’d led his platoon into dangerous places, places where death had stared them in the eyes. They’d done what was demanded of them, but had to live forever after with appalling images, horrifying memories and grief that plagued them almost constantly. Some even hated themselves.

  War was an atrocity-making situation, a situation soldiers had to harden themselves against in any way they could. Then they came home. In a couple of days they transferred from war to peace. To a life with different rules and different expectations, and the transition rarely felt like slipping into an old, comfortable shoe. They’d been indelibly changed. Hardly to be wondered that they often had difficulty coping.

  Winston had come home to a wife and two young children. Video calls couldn’t make up for the loss of shared experiences. He might have taken the family with him to Germany before his deployments but he and Sherri had decided not to uproot the kids that way. In the end it wouldn’t have made much difference.

  He had come home to a family, especially children, who were virtually strangers to him. The man he had become was a stranger to them.

  To top it off, Winston had a truly severe case of PTSD. He’d put up a steel shed in his backyard, then had used it as a bolt hole. For days at a time he wouldn’t emerge while he hunkered inside, possessed by his demons. Sherri had left food and drink outside the locked door of the shed, but sometimes he didn’t come out long enough to even grab bottled water.

  Then Sherri had left him. Now she couldn’t handle any more and she believed it wasn’t good for the kids. In that Winston had agreed with her.

  He’d come to this town alone, wandering the back roads, finding secluded places in which to hide when he needed to.

  Then he’d parked here, but no one knew for how long. Adam wished for some way to ease the guy’s suffering but so far even the meds the VA had prescribed for him made no noticeable difference. Wins
ton was a broken man.

  Tonight for the first time, Winston had cut through his reserve and dumped some of his ugly backstory to a group that understood. Winston had wept and raged while he talked, and some of the others had, too, recognizing themselves in Winston’s story.

  God! Each one of these gatherings evoked a lot in Adam as well. Memories and emotions he kept under steely control but were nevertheless part of him.

  Which made him a lousy candidate for feeling an attraction to Jazz. To any woman. Nope, no innocent deserved to be exposed to his backpack of sorrows, hatred, ugliness. Winston was proof of that.

  Firm in his decision, he led a happy Sheba back to the house. That dog was a comfort to him. The only real comfort he allowed himself.

  Chapter Two

  Morning brought bright sunlight and cool temperatures. Before starting her work, after Iris had left for her Saturday training, Jazz set out for that small bakery she’d seen near the sheriff’s office. The time shift from Florida had changed her best writing hours, which left her some more time in the morning. She couldn’t understand it, but since coming here she didn’t at all feel like writing until midafternoon. It should have been the opposite because the time here was two hours earlier.

  She figured Iris would be delighted with a bag full of delicious sins and would probably dive into them. As for dinner tonight...well, she was going to have to take stock of the larder and figure out something. Iris had been right about searching recipes online, but it now occurred to her that a list of menus for a week would help her organize the shopping better, with necessary ingredients. At this point she didn’t know which items would fit into what recipes and thus she didn’t know what to look for. Maybe she ought to try to lay out menus for this week and find out what she still needed.

  God, she had a lot to learn. She wondered if Lily had done much cooking, or if Iris’s rapacious run through the grocery had simply met her desires.

  Sheesh.

  Well, there was the fish. Lots of it. She should start with that.

  What mundane thoughts, a far cry from the adventures she wrote. Did any of her characters cook? Hah. Not beyond the requisite pot of something hot, or something easy like beans—her own version of course.

  She smiled and nodded at people she passed, all of whom called her Lily. She didn’t mind in the least. No point in stopping every time to try to straighten it out or, worse, humiliate people for an understandable mistake.

  She just wished she could slip into Lily’s shoes in other, more important, ways. Well, she’d only be here for a month or so and developing an inferiority complex wouldn’t help much.

  At the bakery she met Melinda, a lovely middle-aged woman wearing a white apron and only too ready to show her the contents of her case.

  “For Iris?” she asked. “I know what she likes.”

  “For Iris,” Jazz answered with a smile. Last thing she wanted to do was mess this up. She’d have plenty of opportunities to mess up other things.

  Ten minutes later she left the bakery with a box full of treats. A breeze had kicked up and she buttoned her sweater. She just hoped she didn’t get used to these cooler temps before she headed back to swelter in Miami.

  She left the box of pastries on the kitchen island for Iris, then headed to her computer. The nice thing about this change in time zones was that when her best writing hours rolled around, she’d already had time to do quite a bit of other stuff, like going to the bakery. Except the writing defied her.

  Man, this was a whole new way of thinking, not just a new lifestyle. The mundane thoughts that were running around in her brain were unusual for her.

  And they’d become boring even to her if she let herself ramble in those weeds for too long.

  She put in her earbuds and turned on some moody music that would fit her writing. Music always made it easier for her to write.

  * * *

  JAZZ WAS DEEPLY absorbed in her work when Iris interrupted. “I’m home, Aunt Jazz. Need more time to work?”

  Jazz scanned her page and word counts. “I’m almost done for the day. How about I just stop?”

  Iris grinned. “What about that pastry box?”

  “Oh, that? Some woman wrestled me to the sidewalk this morning and told me to take them for you.”

  Iris giggled. “Right. Say, can we invite Adam over?”

  Jazz blinked. “Sure. I guess. Why?”

  “Because he’s sitting on his front steps with Sheba and he’s not looking very happy. Maybe gloomy.”

  “You just want Sheba to come over,” Jazz teased her. “Okay, round him up. I have enough pastries for an army.”

  “Better make coffee,” Iris said over her shoulder as she hurried away. “From what I’ve seen, it’s essential to life for him.”

  Jazz closed her document, turned off her music and went to the kitchen to make coffee as ordered.

  It must have taken a little effort on Iris’s part to persuade Adam to come over because the coffee had finished brewing before she heard Iris return, the click of Sheba’s claws on the wood floor and Adam’s heavier tread.

  One after the other they entered the kitchen, Iris in the lead. “I dangled pastries under Adam’s nose,” she said. “I think it was Sheba who made up his mind for him, though.”

  Adam spoke. “I told you that dog would follow you anywhere.”

  “Only because she has good taste,” Iris retorted.

  “Hi, Adam,” Jazz said when she could get a word in. “Have a seat, and I’m just putting the box of pastry on the table with napkins. Finger food time and no plates for Iris to wash.”

  “Fine with me,” he answered.

  Jazz noticed the heaviness in his voice, nothing like yesterday. Iris was right, he was looking gloomy.

  Iris brightened the moment. “You hear Aunt Jazz, Adam? She assumes I’ll do dishes.”

  Adam half smiled. “I’m surprised she doesn’t assume more.”

  Iris feigned a sigh as she helped ferry coffee and napkins to the table. She even poured coffee for herself. “Better with pastry,” she remarked. “Orange juice with this? Blech.”

  Jazz chuckled. The girl was irrepressible.

  “You know,” Iris said as she chewed a mouthful of jelly-filled doughnut, “Aunt Jazz isn’t correcting anybody when they call her Lily.”

  Adam looked at Jazz. “Why not?”

  “Because it doesn’t matter. I’ll only be here a few weeks. Anyway, Iris’s mom can come home and apologize for my mistakes.”

  That drew giggles from Iris. “I like that.” Then she turned her attention to Adam. “Aunt Jazz has the best name of all the girls Grandma named. I mean, think about it. At least Jasmine can be shortened to Jazz. Very cool.”

  One side of Adam’s mouth remained lifted, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I agree. Very cool.”

  What was going on, Jazz wondered. Adam seemed like a very different man than the one she’d originally met. Withdrawn. Iris had been right about him looking moody. His heart wasn’t in this little coffee klatch. Sheba sat right beside him, and she looked a bit down, too. God, dogs seemed to have expressions. Maybe more importantly, her tail wasn’t happily swishing the floor.

  Iris was doing all the bright and cheerful for them, and Jazz felt uncomfortable because she couldn’t think of much to say that might lift Adam a bit. But Iris had picked up his mood and dragged him over here. Maybe this would help.

  He finished his coffee, without touching the pastries, and looked about ready to leave. Iris forestalled him, jumping up to refill his mug.

  She spoke pertly. “You can’t leave until you drink that. Anyway, you need to eat a donut or something. Sugar will perk you up and if I eat all of that, I’ll get fat.”

  “Small chance of that,” Adam remarked. “How many miles a week do you swim?”

  “I don’t cou
nt the miles, only pool lengths.” Iris resumed her seat and reached for a cruller. “These are the best.”

  Jazz spoke. “Well, that explains why Melinda gave me six of them. She said she knew what you liked.”

  “She knows me all right.”

  “And just how, pray tell, do these pastries fit into your healthful diet plan?”

  Iris grinned. “Pure ugly calories. Sometimes I need a bunch of them. Just not too often.”

  A smile finally creased Adam’s face. “You mean you need to indulge once in a while.”

  “Well, that too.” She pushed the pastry box toward him. “So do you.”

  At last he took a cruller. “Saving you from yourself.”

  Jazz, who’d been picking on her own bit of muffin, was glad to see the interaction between the two of them. She suspected that Iris got further with him than most people.

  Jazz decided to stick her toe in the water. “Adam, you said you’re a handyman. Does that mean you do everything, or do you limit your skills?”

  “I do pretty much everything household. I stay away from cars, though. Not because I can’t do them but because I don’t want to take any business from Roger’s garage. I have enough work anyway. A lot of people are pretty handy themselves, but there are jobs they don’t want to do. Like squeeze under a sink to fix the pipe fitting on a dishwasher. Or to actually repair one.” He tilted his head. “Dishwasher pumps always get them to call. Washers, dryers, stoves, refrigerators. A little of everything, which I guess was a long answer to your question.”

  At least he was talking, Jazz thought. “That’s a pretty useful skill set. So plumbing? Carpentry?”

  “Depends on the job. I install water heaters, faucets. As for carpentry, small jobs.”

  “He’s done some work for Mom,” Iris announced.

  “But I couldn’t fix the washer,” Adam reminded her. “When those tubs go out of balance permanently, that’s pretty much all she wrote.”

  “Noisy, too.” Iris wrinkled her nose. “I was surprised it didn’t fall apart.”

  “Might as well have.”